You need to understand the difference between the game of chinese whispers and reports of a one to one non whispered conversation.
Jon Corner reporting what Kate told him;
“She said, 'They’ve broken the shutter on the window and taken my little girl'.
Trish Cameron;
Gerry said the window was open, the shutters broken
Chinese whispers is a game devised to show how inaccuracies can occur because of different people's different interpretations of what they have heard. It happens all the time in real life.
How can you guarantee those are the exact words used by Gerry and Kate? People do not necessarily correctly repeat what they have been told by near hysterical, barely coherent people - they repeat what they genuinely believe was
the essence of what they have been told. They were not even there - and so having to try to picture a scene that they had no previous knowledge of would increase the possibilities of getting the wrong impression.
IMO It's ridiculous to claim that no misunderstandings, misinterpretations or wrong assumptions could possibly have occurred in conversations taking place in such horrendous circumstances - with all parties in varying degrees of extreme fear and shock.
Where is the common sense?
(must go out now)