Amaral and the dogs

[Carana]

Why can no-one else see the complete injustice in this example of accusing a person based on a clothing alert?
Here is a fact - clothing spends most of its time NOT being worn. Probably 98% of its time. Just laying around in your house or flat. Have a look around your place and it proves it.
So before you even think of suspecting a person based on clothing alert you have to look at all the many possible scenarios that fit in that 98% where even if the alert were valid the person is completely innocent.

Kate's 6 Sept pre-arguida interview:

After David left, Kate dressed and sat with the children, Madeleine on her lap. She was wearing a top, she doesn't remember what colour it was, a green long-sleeved t-shirt, blue denim pants. Trainers (tennis shoes) and white socks.

(...)
They left by the veranda door, which they left closed but not locked. Main door was closed but not locked. She thinks it could be opened from the inside but not from the outside. She thinks she was wearing a cream coloured polar fleece with a zip, and on top a blue raincoat also with a zip. As regards Gerry, she doesn't know if he was wearing other items of clothing.

[Eleanor]

I think the sequence might have been a bit different. In the interview with Phil, she's just speculating about a potential explanation. That then gets picked up and mangled by CdM, which then gets picked up by UK media.

Cristovão did say he got some of his "info" from the media...

Same difference in the end.

[pegasus]

Kate's 6 Sept pre-arguida interview:

After David left, Kate dressed and sat with the children, Madeleine on her lap. She was wearing a top, she doesn't remember what colour it was, a green long-sleeved t-shirt, blue denim pants. Trainers (tennis shoes) and white socks.

(...)
They left by the veranda door, which they left closed but not locked. Main door was closed but not locked. She thinks it could be opened from the inside but not from the outside. She thinks she was wearing a cream coloured polar fleece with a zip, and on top a blue raincoat also with a zip. As regards Gerry, she doesn't know if he was wearing other items of clothing.

Yes that is what the witness was wearing.
Green long-sleeved t-shirt, blue denim pants, trainers, white socks, cream fleece, blue raincoat.
And before that - jogging clothes.
All theories which invent otherwise are utterly unjust and go straight in my bin.

[Carana]

Why can no-one else see the complete injustice in this example of accusing a person based on a clothing alert?
Here is a fact - clothing spends most of its time NOT being worn. Probably 98% of its time. Just laying around in your house or flat. Have a look around your place and it proves it.
So before you even think of suspecting a person based on clothing alert you have to look at all the many possible scenarios that fit in that 98% where even if the alert were valid the person is completely innocent.

I can understand the pont of searching for alerts on clothing in certain cases, e.g., if a witness had seen a potential suspect wearing x,y, z on the night of a crime but who had denied ever having met the victim and who had stuffed blood-stained clothing with the victim's DNA in a garage or cellar, then that person would have some explaining to do.

In this instance, the exercise seems pointless.

It's possible that at some point the PJ thought that Kate had spent time cradling her dead child's body in her arms, wearing those clothes, along with CC, at some point between the end of tennis and going out for dinner and behaving totally normally.

Grime had presented the dogs' clothes sniffing capabilities as an option and the rest is history. The PJ may well have thought that that they'd hit the jackpot...

[Carana]

Yes that is what the witness was wearing.
Green long-sleeved t-shirt, blue denim pants, trainers, white socks, cream fleece, blue raincoat.
And before that - jogging clothes.
All theories which invent otherwise are utterly unjust and go straight in my bin.

It's not even clear if she took those trousers with her on holiday: they could have been brought out as extra clothing by family members.

And none of that explains the dog's reaction to the little blue shorts, little red t-shirt, etc., nor why Grime didn't keep a record of the items alerted to, nor even why some items were thrown in the air and others just nuzzled.

It just seems totally bizarre to me, but I suppose it might have impressed a jury suddenly faced with such "evidence" in a courtroom in the absence of an adversarial approach.

[Mr Gray]

It's not even clear if she took those trousers with her on holiday: they could have been brought out as extra clothing by family members.

And none of that explains the dog's reaction to the little blue shorts, little red t-shirt, etc., nor why Grime didn't keep a record of the items alerted to, nor even why some items were thrown in the air and others just nuzzled.

It just seems totally bizarre to me, but I suppose it might have impressed a jury suddenly faced with such "evidence" in a courtroom in the absence of an adversarial approach.

dog's alerts.....meaningless...for lots of reasons as confirmed by Grime

[Anna]

It's not even clear if she took those trousers with her on holiday: they could have been brought out as extra clothing by family members.

And none of that explains the dog's reaction to the little blue shorts, little red t-shirt, etc., nor why Grime didn't keep a record of the items alerted to, nor even why some items were thrown in the air and others just nuzzled.

It just seems totally bizarre to me, but I suppose it might have impressed a jury suddenly faced with such "evidence" in a courtroom in the absence of an adversarial approach.

Possibly, but she was wearing them on the 6th May

http://www.mccannfiles.com/id170.html

[pegasus]

It's not even clear if she took those trousers with her on holiday: they could have been brought out as extra clothing by family members.
(snip)

IMO this clothing was in the apartment throughout dinner.

Flown in by family members doesn't work - which family member? - what date? -how many extra hundred miles did they drive?

[Brietta]

dog's alerts.....meaningless...for lots of reasons as confirmed by Grime

It seems obvious that Mr Amaral and the PJ quite simply had no understanding of that.  Is there perhaps an element of culpability that no-one in authority from the British side took them aside and explained in the simplest language possible exactly where the dogs were in the food chain of an investigation.

Or was it the 'perfect storm' of misunderstanding all round.  Quite frankly I don't think Mr Amaral was qualified to be the lead investigator in a missing child case.  That there were a few indications of concern about that can be read between the lines ... but given the PJ reputation for excellence could anyone in authority on the British side be expected to have foreseen that not only would the function of the dogs be misunderstood but that there would be misunderstanding of forensics into the bargain and an apparent failing to seek help from experts on that ... and don't tell me there are no DNA experts in Portugal.

[pegasus]

Even if the alert was relevant, that in no way means the witness is anything but completely innocent.
It is obvious IMO this clothing was in the apartment throughout the whole dinner.
How can people accuse someone because some of their clothes were at a crime scene?
What if someone breaks a window and burgles my flat and police find glass fragments on my grey trousers?

[ferryman]

It seems obvious that Mr Amaral and the PJ quite simply had no understanding of that.  Is there perhaps an element of culpability that no-one in authority from the British side took them aside and explained in the simplest language possible exactly where the dogs were in the food chain of an investigation.

Or was it the 'perfect storm' of misunderstanding all round.  Quite frankly I don't think Mr Amaral was qualified to be the lead investigator in a missing child case.  That there were a few indications of concern about that can be read between the lines ... but given the PJ reputation for excellence could anyone in authority on the British side be expected to have foreseen that not only would the function of the dogs be misunderstood but that there would be misunderstanding of forensics into the bargain and an apparent failing to seek help from experts on that ... and don't tell me there are no DNA experts in Portugal.

Someone (on the Portuguese side) Carana has mentioned often but whose reports (I confess) I have never come across is Court-Real (not sure if that's the right spelling) who seems to have been from the Portuguese forensic lab?

Perhaps I should read the reports of the Portuguese forensic lab more closely.

But certainly the Portuguese forensic laboratory seems to have been highly competent, but limited in their ability to shed clues on the mystery of what happened to Madeleine because of the paucity of raw data they were fed to work with by the PJ.

[ferryman]

Possibly, but she was wearing them on the 6th May

http://www.mccannfiles.com/id170.html

I should stress, I am crap at reading body-language, but even I can see (in that photograph) the communication of abject misery and despair in that photograph of Kate and Gerry ....

[Mr Gray]

it is very telling that some poeple on this forum do not understand what "no evidential reliability" means...it really is quite simple

[Anna]

I should stress, I am crap at reading body-language, but even I can see (in that photograph) the communication of abject misery and despair in that photograph of Kate and Gerry ....

That photo could bring a tear to most peoples eyes. Its so, so, Sad. And tells all, about the pain that they were suffering.


ETA Correction

[Anna]

it is very telling that some poeple on this forum do not understand what "no evidential reliability" means...it really is quite simple

 Nothing that could be used as stand alone evidence in other words.