Deleted calls/texts and use of mobiles

[Eleanor]

Some people, like me, delete automatically.  It saves so much time later.

Really?  You delete your call log after every call?  Amazing.

Even if you do, I don't. How do you know your habits are any more usual than mine? How do you know what the McCanns do/don't do?  You don't, do you?

I don't have to know what The McCanns did.  I only have to know that some normal people do it.

[C.Edwards]

Some people, like me, delete automatically.  It saves so much time later.

Really?  You delete your call log after every call?  Amazing.

Even if you do, I don't. How do you know your habits are any more usual than mine? How do you know what the McCanns do/don't do?  You don't, do you?

I don't have to know what The McCanns did.  I only have to know that some normal people do it.

And some normal people don't.  I don't believe you delete your call log history anyway. I bet you'd struggle to even find the feature, personally.  It's my belief that you're saying this in the mistaken belief it enhances your argument about it being a natural thing for the McCanns to do.

As I said on the other thread, done with you now.

[C.Edwards]

Look at the first link now. When do Gerry's call logs start? Three minutes past midnight of the 4th.  Where are the calls to Kate in the hour before that? Gone, disappeared, abducted, whoosh-clunked, call it what you will. They ain't there. 

OK, but then but what of the print-out I linked to which shows those calls to Kate on the 3rd May, in the evening?  What is that?  How do we know that the Vodaphone print out isn't just for calls made on the 4th May and that there isn't another page for calls made on the 3rd May?   Maybe this is a stupid question and you've already explained it and I've missed it.

The vodafone printout shows calls from the 2nd May onwards.  His call log is all that was retrieved from the phone by the PJ on the 4th May when inspecting his phone.  Kate's call log record has calls from before the 4th May.

Are we there yet?

[Eleanor]

Some people, like me, delete automatically.  It saves so much time later.

Really?  You delete your call log after every call?  Amazing.

Even if you do, I don't. How do you know your habits are any more usual than mine? How do you know what the McCanns do/don't do?  You don't, do you?

I don't have to know what The McCanns did.  I only have to know that some normal people do it.

And some normal people don't.  I don't believe you delete your call log history anyway. I bet you'd struggle to even find the feature, personally.  It's my belief that you're saying this in the mistaken belief it enhances your argument about it being a natural thing for the McCanns to do.

As I said on the other thread, done with you now.

A typical Hate Fest Trick.  Abuse someone when you can't give a sensible argument.  I am really surprise by the fact that you were banned from Not Bennett's Forum.  Give it another go.  They will probably let you back in.  Anything as long as it gets you off here.

[Angelo222]

I delete all my e-mails and texts from my phone as soon as I read them so does that make me suspicious??  Course not silly.

It makes your post irrelevant.  Why are you lot unable to differentiate between call logs and texts? It's like trying to discuss technology with my mother in law!

Us people?  Who are you then?

The same applies to call logs but they are usually deleted every few days or weekly by anyone who likes to keep their phone records to a minimum.  Everyone is different and each to their own habits.

Regardless of this,  phone call logs can be provided by the mobile phone and terrestrial telephone providers.   They can even determine roughly where the caller was when he or she made the call.

Sorry to hear about your mother in law,  she sounds like a tolerant soul.

[Carana]

I'll have a look later... I'm sure I did years ago, but I can't remember now.


I started, but haven't got much further.

NB: Did Paulo Reis and associates ever publish the results of the independent forensic ink analysis of the creche records?

That was four years ago. Surely it would have been completed by now?

[gilet]

It's not that good a post that Gilet has made - in fact it's close to propaganda.  Gilet's example phone - the Samsung A300 was released in 2001... is that representative of the sort of phone two doctors would have in 2007?  Hardly. Was it even on sale 4 years later as Gilet claims to have bought it in 2005?  I very much doubt it, but that's not the point here.

There is no aspect of my post which even remotely resembles propaganda. It is simply a record of fact. Your implication that I am lying is abusive and utterly wrong. Why you are so offensive I can only guess. But it is an objectionable aspect of your posting.

The clear implication is that mobile phones today are super great and snazzy and have loads of memory whilst back in 2006/2007 we were struggling along with bricks connected with pieces of string.  This is inaccurate at best and downright misleading at worst. It's certainly disingenuous.

What I posted was simple fact. Neither disingenuous nor misleading.

Firstly, just to state for the record and not be as presumptious as Gilet... I have no idea what make/model of phone each of the McCanns had.  If we knew, we could knock this on the head once and for all.  If the PJ recorded this information, they do not appear to have released it anywhere.  I am only attempting to make reasonable assumptions and inferences.

Again you are being downright offensive and are again wholly incorrect in your claims. I did not make any presumptions or suggest that I knew what phones the McCanns had. Your implication otherwise is simply untrue.  If you had actually bothered to read properly you would have noticed I did in fact write, "I have no idea if this was the make of phone that the McCanns were using".

I agree that it is possible the McCanns each may have been nearing the end of a two year contract on their mobile phones. It would, again, be a huge coincidence but it's possible.  It's equally possible, wouldn't you agree, that they had both just started new mobile phone contracts and had up-to-date phones?  Therefore let's pitch our technology milestone in the middle in 2006 as a reasonable halfway house.

Unlike you I have not attempted to guess anything. All I have done is state facts. It is a fact that during that period I had a Samsung A300. You are making assumptions not me.

So in contrast to the "Gilet way" (my way being the posting of facts and yours being the posting of speculation) I'll not refer to the type of mobile I had, rather refer to the list of top-selling phones around the middle of the year: http://www.mobilephones.org.uk/the-top-selling-mobile-handsets-in-august-2006/.  What can we reasonably expect medical professionals to have?  Hard to say. Some may be luddites and have the lowest spec phone out there. Others may be gadget freaks and have the top of the range model.  With Kate's mentioning of labels and clothing brands, she appears to be brand aware and I think it's reasonable to assume she'd have a relatively decent phone.  Not top of the range, not bottom of the range.  Gerry strikes me as the sort of person who'd like technology and would have a higher-spec phone, but that's pure supposition on my behalf, so we'll put him in mid-range too.

Here's the list:

    1. Sony Ericsson K790i/K800i
    2. Sony Ericsson W810i
    3. Sony Ericsson K750i/D750i/W800i
    4. Nokia 6230/6230i
    5. Nokia 6280/6282
    6. Motorola RaZr V3/ V3i /V3c
    7. Nokia N70
    8. HP Ipaq 2100/2400/2700
    9. Nokia N73
    10. Nokia 5140/5140i

Now some specs (all taken from http://www.gsmarena.com)

1. Sony K790
Memory    Card slot    Memory Stick Micro (M2), up to 2 GB
Phonebook    1000 x 20 fields, Photo call
Call records    30 received, dialed and missed calls
Internal    64 MB

2. Sony w810
Memory    Card slot    Memory Stick Duo Pro, up to 4 GB, 512 MB included
Phonebook    1000 x 24 fields, Photo call
Call records    30 received, dialed and missed calls
Internal    20 MB

3. Sony k750
Memory    Card slot    Memory Stick Duo Pro, up to 2 GB, 64 MB included
Phonebook    500 x 20 fields, Photo call
Call records    30 received, dialed and missed calls
Internal    38 MB

4. Nokia 6230
Memory    Card slot    MMC, 32 MB included
Phonebook    1000 entries, Photo call
Call records    20 dialed, 20 received, 20 missed calls
Internal    6 MB
    - 150 short messages
- 16 voice commands, 25 voice dial slots
- 3 min voice memo

5. Nokia 6280
Memory    Card slot    miniSD, 64 MB included
Phonebook    500 x 16 fields, Photocall
Call records    20 dialed, 20 received, 20 missed calls
Internal    6 MB

6. Motorola Razr v3
Memory    Card slot    No
Phonebook    1000 entries, Photo call
Call records    10 dialed, 10 received, 10 missed calls
Internal    5.5 MB

7. Nokia N70
Memory    Card slot    RS-DV-MMC, 64 MB included
Internal    22 MB

8. HP Ipaq - no data shown

9. Nokia N73
Memory    Card slot    miniSD
Internal    42 MB storage, 64 MB RAM

10. Nokia 5140
Memory    Card slot    No
Phonebook    500
Call records    20 dialed, 10 received, 10 missed calls
    - Editable message templates
- Up to 150 SMS messages
- Up to 50 MMS messages
- Max 64 kB Java apps.

Fortunately due to the way the phones are described at GSMarena we can see that even the low-end budget phone (the 5140) has copious memory. 500 number phonebook, 20 dialled, 10 received, 10 missed number storage on the call log and up to 150 SMS messages storable on the internal memory.

Starting to make Gilet's post look at bit questionable now?  (Hardly, no matter what the list contains the facts in my post remain!)I'll go on.  We *KNOW* from the document in my initial post that Gerry's phone, at least, can store 17 calls as that many were retrieved, so he has a reasonably capable phone even by 2006 standards.  Many of you on here are treating it as perfectly normal that he's deleted text messages - we'll get on to that in a minute.  He deleted call log records.  Who here, be honest, has ever deleted call log records from their phone?  I haven't.  Who here can conceive of having the mental faculties to delete call log records at a time when your daughter has gone missing?  I can't.  How do we know this has happened?  Gerry's network call records show two calls to kate on the night of the 3rd May.  Those call logs have been deleted from his phone by the next day.  Why would Gerry even have time to think of doing such a thing?

I certainly delete call records. I find the call records is a very useful mini phonebook of recent contacts but only when it isn't clogged with duplicates. I delete duplicates there. I also tend to delete all missed calls and all calls which though answered came from numbers which are not identified.

As for what I would do in a situation of panic, I really do not know. If I knew that my phone had a restrictive memory and I was expecting to receive lots of calls which could lead to the discovery of my missing daughter, then I might well do some deleting. I guess Gerry might have done so as well. But I am pretty sure thats as far as we will get. You guess he wouldn't delete for that reason. I guess he may have deleted for that reason. What more can be said really? Your implication just as with my earlier post is that he had some ulterior motive. It is your right of course to think that but there is no proof, only your opinion.

By the way, a full call log doesn't exist. It's a "last x numbers stored" situation with an overwritten list of the most recent calls.  Nothing in the phone operation would be impeded by Gerry leaving his call log untouched.  What reason can there be to delete call log records but to try and hide something?

I have just given a genuine reason above.

Kate's phone record shows one of the calls from Gerry but not the other.  She has selectively deleted call records, not even done a full "memory wipe".  Again, why would you do this in the middle of a crisis?

Again it may have been to ensure that only one copy of the name was in that list as duplicates would have reduced the number of potential names held there.

On to text messages.  Again, the low end phones have enough capacity for 150 SMS messages. Gerry was allegedly "sources close to the McCanns say..." a heavy user and yet you think it's reasonable to stop in the middle of a crisis and delete text messages "just in case" the memory is full?  This was not a "bored sitting by the side of the pool" exercise, it was done within a day (hours?) of their child going missing.  Remarkable, amazing coolness to stop and consider that the phone memory may be full - even though you don't use the phone much - and also that it's high time for a spring-clean of those pesky old call log records from, ooh, the day before perhaps?

Only two of the phones  you listed have sms numbers attached. How do you know that others had the facility for more than 150 messages?  And if you look carefully, one has the detail listed as "up to 150" suggesting that the number possible was related to memory available. As to your loaded questions about Gerry's behaviour we clearly disagree because I think that it is a perfectly natural thing to do when you anticipate a flood of messages about something desperately important not one of which you wish to be delayed or to be missed.You are constantly making assumptions as to what Gerry or Kate would have thought and should have done. I am merely stating that it is perfectly possible that they did and there are reasons why they may have done these things. Again, I doubt you or I will never know the reason no matter how many call records you look at. Motive can only be guessed at.

The Samsung D900 was a top seller around that time.  It had a pretty good memory.  As all of these phones have a "memory full" alert and as you're assuming the McCanns would have to be aware of the memory limitation IF they were "making space" for the deluge of text messages about to arrive then they would also have had to have been aware of the "memory full" indicator that would have alerted them to this condition.  They don't then lose the text message, it simply queues on the mobile system until it can be delivered.

I am assuming nothing. You are. I have simply stated what my position is and was. Just because there is a memory full alert does not preclude them dealing with the situation before that alert is reached. You are merely assuming that they would not do so.

This all makes something of a mockery of the series of excuses you have come out with. 


I do not agree with that conclusion of yours and having read other posts I know others do not do so either.

EVEN IF the McCanns were "deleting to make space" then who, in a month of blue moons, has the presence of mind to do such a thing when they can't even remember which side of the road they were standing on and which door they came into the apartment through in the middle of a crisis?  I can make a suggestion... people who want to hide information from the authorities would do such a thing.

Your connecting the phone situation to the road comment is ridiculous. And your suggestion is simply a wild guess.

[Redblossom]

Must admit this topic confuses me. I wonder why there were no calls on G and Ks phones when they spent half the night ringing relatives and friends.  Kate Mccanns mum says they rang her about 11 30, John Mccann says he was rung at 11.40 and was texted beforehand asking him to pray. Maybe Dave Payne was eight when he said they had no chargers so they used others phones. Did they know all those numbers off hand? Oh well, quiet here tonight, tara.

[icabodcrane]

I am bumping this old thread because I am wondering if it has a new significance in light of recent developments

All the papers are currently running the story that Scotland Yard are carrying out a forensic examination of all moblile phone details on the day/night Madeleine disappeared

Does that mean that the question of the deleted texts on the McCann phones will finally be answered  ? 

[Carana]

I am bumping this old thread because I am wondering if it has a new significance in light of recent developments

All the papers are currently running the story that Scotland Yard are carrying out a forensic examination of all moblile phone details on the day/night Madeleine disappeared

Does that mean that the question of the deleted texts on the McCann phones will finally be answered  ?

Not the Vodafone voicemail reminders again...

[icabodcrane]

Not the Vodafone voicemail reminders again...

You must acknowledge that a question mark has always hung over the phone/text messages the McCanns sent that night   ...  especially the deleted ones

Will the forensic investigation of mobile phone data currently underway finally answer the questions  ? 

That will be a good thing for the McCanns if the deleted texts were entirely innocent

[Sherlock Holmes]

BUMP

With thanks to Wonderfulspam for the link

[Mr Gray]

Sometimes when you are waiting anxiously for some news and you want to kill time....you might just decide to clear all those unwanted messages from your phone...could be a simple as that

[Silkywhiskers]

Sometimes when you are waiting anxiously for some news and you want to kill time....you might just decide to clear all those unwanted messages from your phone...could be a simple as that

Oh yes while he was waiting for someone someone else to find his daughter....

[Cariad]

Oh yes while he was waiting for someone someone else to find his daughter....

It is definitely the kind of thing one does in an idle moment, not in the grip of panic.

Anyway, I stand by my statement that phones could hold at least a hundred messages back in the day.