Deleted calls/texts and use of mobiles

[C.Edwards]

Just as something else to debate, here's a post I made on another forum with some research and info on the call logs.

I'm doing some research into deleted calls from the phones of the McCanns.  If anyone has any knowledge of the exact make and model phone that either McCann was using, please let me know and then I can do some research into the call log memory and manipulation capabilities of those phones.  I can't find record of the types of phone anywhere and it seems impossible that the PJ didn't record this.

As you know by now, I prefer to rummage through the files where possible instead of relying on the "generally accepted truth" as we know that leads to all sorts of unsubstantiated misinformation.  There's a piece on mccannpjfiles.co.uk (deleted calls) which, at first glance looks like it might be quite factual but then when you read through it, it soon becomes fairly obvious it has a distinct "anti" slant on it (a reference to "whoosh clunked" gives that away).  I'm not saying it's wholly inaccurate but I have seen references to this piece elsewhere as though it is entirely factual and there's one, fairly crucial, bit of it that I can't find supporting evidence for and I don't know if I'm missing something or whether it's genuinely wrong.

My starting point was the belief I had that call records and/or text messages had been deleted but not entirely cleanly, thus leading to suspicion by the PJ that something was not quite right. Something along the lines of Amaral's book where he says:

The PJ check Kate and Gerry's phone records. Kate did not make any phone calls between the 27th April and the 4th of May which arouses suspicions. And hasn't received any between 11:22 on the 2nd of May and 23:17 of the 3rd. Gerry's phone has no record of calls before the 4th at 00:15. But there is a record on Kate's phone of a phone call from her husband on the 3rd May at 23:17. The same record doesn't exist on Gerry's phone. So the records were deleted. Why?

So, what do we know...  In the files, we have the call log from Gerry's Phone as entered by the PJ:

Gerry's calls - As mentioned by Amaral, no calls made/received before 4th May.
Calls made by him on the left, calls received on the right.

For Kate, this is the call record:
Kate's calls - The calls of interest are bottom right two.  A received call from Gerry and the "wrong number" from the UK on the 2nd.

Vodafone records
Gerry SMS in
Gerry Voice in
Gerry Voice out

I can't find in the files the same records as above for Kate. The only details available are on antenna activations which don't differentiate between calls or texts in or out.
Kate antenna activations

Where's the mistake?
My belief was (don't know where I got it from now) that Gerry had made 4 calls to Kate on the night of the 3rd.  He deleted all records, she deleted all but one (shows in log above). I think it all stems from the "deleted calls" article I linked to at the top of the page in which it states:

It appears that he had deleted details of the four calls he made to her that night and she deleted just three

when referring to Kate & Gerry's phone records.  I cannot see anything other than the two calls made at 23:14 and 23:17 so why does that article refer to four calls?  It appears to be blatantly wrong to me.  If anyone can point out something I'm missing, that'd help in trying to sort out this anomaly.

I'm not aware of the official interviews making many references to phone usage, so all there is to go on (unfortunately, as they're hardly reliable) is press reports... there's an article in the Mirror (link below) from May 2008 in which the following is reported:

They claim Gerry was sent 10 texts from an unknown number 24 hours before Madeleine disappeared.

And detectives say four messages arrived from the same mystery number the day after she went missing, according to court documents.

But Gerry and wife Kate have dismissed the claims as "utter rubbish".

A source close to them said: "They have had their phone records available for inspection for months. But the police never asked for them. And now they have formally asked, they have been refused.

"Any suggestion of Gerry receiving 10 texts the day before Madeleine disappeared are utter rubbish.

"He hardly used his phone during the holiday and most of the friends with them didn't even have mobiles.

"The only time his phone rang was when work called and he explained he was on holiday. There are no mystery texts. Gerry has nothing to hide. It's yet more nonsense coming from Portugal."

Gerry "furious" about story (Mirror, 29th May 2008)
Gerry's Fury

Utter rubbish?  Well he wasn't sent 10 texts on the 2nd, it was 14.  Hardly makes it utter rubbish.  The texts were, however, all from the messaging service of vodafone telling him there was a voicemail.  Seems a lot of voicemails.  Maybe a work problem?  It is, however, fairly accurate to say he hardly used his phone - the records show only a handful of calls, so can't argue with that.  There is, however, the question of the call that Graham McKenzie overheard (see below) that was obviously not made on his phone.  Did he have another phone?  Did he borrow one from another member of the T9?  No idea as yet.

As to the "most of the friends with them didn't even have mobiles" statement. That's baloney. They all did. Mobile antenna activations for the group

A missing call with no record?
After reading an article in the Express on 16th September 2007, Graham McKenzie comes forward: Graham McKenzie
He reports being around the McCann apartment at approx 23:00 on 3rd May and hearing a distraught Gerry talking on a mobile phone to someone.  There is no record of this call - not on Gerry's phone (unsurprisingly if the call log has been deleted) and more tellingly, not on the Vodafone records.  As we know Gerry's mobile was fine at around 23:17 when he definitively called Kate, it seems odd that he apparently wasn't using his mobile at the time Graham McKenzie heard him talking.  Maybe it was "on charge" until he used it that little bit later?  Who knows.  Whose phone did he use instead?  Not Kate's as there's no call record on her phone either.

What's the problem with deleted calls/texts anyway?
There's the million dollar question. According to those that support the McCanns, there is NOTHING suspicious in deleting SMS messages and call log records.  In fact some question if it's even possible to delete call log records. (As Kate McCann has illustrated, quite obviously it is possible to do so - and selectively - on her phone model at least).  Many McCann supporters will state, as corroborating evidence, that their own phone often has to be cleared down or deleted as otherwise they are unable to receive texts or calls.

Firstly what mobile phone on the planet would stop incoming or outgoing calls even if the call log was "full"?  Can you imagine the lawsuits if someone couldn't make or take a call because they hadn't got the memory available?  The phone would still work, it just wouldn't record the details!  I've had dozens of mobile phones and my recollection of all call logs was that, when full, it would overwrite the memory starting with the oldest.  Text messages, I agree, can get a full inbox and require deleting.  Still shows, to me, remarkable poise at a moment of extreme stress for people to stop and think of deleting records on their mobile phones just in case the memory was nearly full.  As with other things McCann, it all seems to come down to what agenda you have personally as to whether you recognise these actions as entirely innocent or somewhat suspicious.

Finally, what does it prove?  Nothing much. As with most things surrounding the case it's all just more indications of strange behaviour and slightly intangible evidence (no direct quotes) of lies about mobile usage. Raises plenty of questions, for sure, and I don't subscribe to the point of view of those who support the McCanns when they claim the deleting of call records is an entirely normal thing to be doing when your daughter has just gone missing.

[C.Edwards]

The police scrutinised the phone records did they not?  What was their view?

That there was cause to question the McCanns' actions in tampering with their phones, according to Amaral's book. Do you find it perfectly normal behaviour for a couple in their position to spend time altering the records on their phones?

[C.Edwards]

The police scrutinised the phone records did they not?  What was their view?

That there was cause to question the McCanns' actions in tampering with their phones, according to Amaral's book. Do you find it perfectly normal behaviour for a couple in their position to spend time altering the records on their phones?

So did the police question the McCanns' actions re: their phones or not?  What were their conclusions?  Anything in the Files about it?

Do you find it perfectly normal behaviour for a couple in their position to spend time altering the records on their phones?

[gilet]

The police scrutinised the phone records did they not?  What was their view?

That there was cause to question the McCanns' actions in tampering with their phones, according to Amaral's book. Do you find it perfectly normal behaviour for a couple in their position to spend time altering the records on their phones?

Amaral's book is simply a thesis according to Amaral himself. It is not a record of the work of the police most of which was carried out after Amaral disgraced himself and was booted off the case.

What was the actual view as recorded in the official police files.

For a response to the second part of your question see my next post.

[C.Edwards]

The police scrutinised the phone records did they not?  What was their view?

That there was cause to question the McCanns' actions in tampering with their phones, according to Amaral's book. Do you find it perfectly normal behaviour for a couple in their position to spend time altering the records on their phones?

So did the police question the McCanns' actions re: their phones or not?  What were their conclusions?  Anything in the Files about it?

Do you find it perfectly normal behaviour for a couple in their position to spend time altering the records on their phones?

I see.  Reluctant to answer another of my questions CEdwards.  I wonder why?

I find the McCanns behaviour well within the bounds of normal behaviour considering the circumstances. I don't consider deleting text messages to make space for new messages to be "altering records".  However, perhaps you can point me at the police conclusions concerning this, as I'm pretty sure they spent a very long time analysing the McCanns phone records.

Martha... you've asked a question I cannot answer as I am not privy, surprisingly enough, to the innermost workings of the police investigation.  Amaral is on record in an interview as saying "what is significant is that the messages were deleted".  It's quite clear; he thought it significant.

Do you not see the irony in your snide comment about me not answering your question when I had to ask you twice after you ignored me the first time?  Those who live in glass houses...

You make a supposition: that the McCanns were deleting texts to make room for new messages.  You don't know that's what they were doing. Indeed as Kate herself has referred to Gerry hardly ever sending text messages, how plausible is it that his inbox was full?  Why delete call log records?  Do you think that this affects how the phone works?  Let me tell you - it doesn't.  People delete call log records when they want to stop someone finding out who they've been calling/receiving calls from. 

If you actually take the time to read the post I made, you can see all the analysis you care to read about the McCanns and their phone calls. 

It is entirely reasonable to believe that the McCanns, as affluent professionals, had up to date mobile phones.  inbox issues, particularly for self-confessed light users, are not a problem in up to date phones, no matter how many times you chant the relevant passage from the instruction manual.

[C.Edwards]

The police scrutinised the phone records did they not?  What was their view?

That there was cause to question the McCanns' actions in tampering with their phones, according to Amaral's book. Do you find it perfectly normal behaviour for a couple in their position to spend time altering the records on their phones?

Amaral's book is simply a thesis according to Amaral himself. It is not a record of the work of the police most of which was carried out after Amaral disgraced himself and was booted off the case.

What was the actual view as recorded in the official police files.

For a response to the second part of your question see my next post.

So what? Kate McCann's book is just a thesis according to Kate McCann herself.  It's not necessarily a record of the truth and it comes after the parents disgraced themselves with their (lack of) parenting skills.  It's hardly a record of her supposedly precious daughter as she spends less time talking about Madeleine (and the less said about p. 129 the better) and more about her sex issues with Gerry and me me me me me.

As I pointed out to your colleague Martha, the links are all in my initial post. Feel free to educate yourself by actually reading a few of them.

[gilet]

Do you find it perfectly normal behaviour for a couple in their position to spend time altering the records on their phones?

The simple answer to your question is YES, I find it perfectly normal.

To explain.

Those looking at this issue do so with clouded eyes.

They are used to telephones which hold thousands of numbers, thousands of call records and thousands of messages.

Things were simply not the same back in 2007.

For a start, unless you were a geek you tended to keep your phone at least two years and secondly unless you were a geek your phone had nothing like the memory that we see on the most basic non smart phones today.


I still have the phone which I bought in October 2005 and which I was still using till late 2007.

It is a Samsung A300. While it was by no means state of the art at the time, it was a very well respected phone and I know that at least two other colleagues (all of us at senior managerial level) had the same phone around that time).

I have charged it up to refresh my memory.

The memory capacity was/is as follows:

It will accept 100 phone numbers.

It stores

the 10 latest dialled calls,

the 10 latest received calls,

the ten latest missed calls and

the ten latest messages. 

With regard to the messages, you cannot read a new message if you already have 10 in memory, therefore you have to delete messages to receive new ones.


I have no idea if this was the make of phone that the McCanns were using but I do know it was an extremely popular model and was similar in specification to a large number of phones around at the time.


Now with those figures in mind, I suggest people think seriously about the anti-McCann claims that it is somehow bizarre that the McCanns were deleting messages and phone calls.

I suggest people think seriously about how many people they would be phoning and even more importantly how many people would be phoning them.

Ten messages could be received in a matter of minutes or even less. Even if the limit was 15 or 20 as it was on many other phones how could they keep themselves informed without constant deleting of old messages? 

I can recall how often I used to delete old messages and numbers and I did not have a major world news story to deal with.

100 numbers is nothing when you are dealing with dozens of relatives contacting you, media, police, taxis, Mark Warner people, travel agents, etc, etc. I have just looked at my phone and in my relatively calm circumstances I have 176 entries in the phone book. I think at least half of those have two numbers and many have three separate numbers (home, mobile and business).  That makes at least 250 in total, possibly a good few more. And as I say. I live a quiet life.

If anyone really cannot see that it was absolutely necessary using mobiles of that vintage (whichever phone they actually had) to delete calls and messages and numbers as the tragedy took over their lives then you really are burying your head in the sand.



 

Just to add I changed provider in November 2007 and got hold of another Samsung, this time the D900. It was probably in its way the best phone I have ever had. It did everything I needed at the time, it was best phone in almost all reviews for 2006 and many colleagues recommended it.

That pretty much state of the art phone in early 2007 held just 30 dialled numbers, 30 received numbers and 30 missed calls and  just 200 messages before you had to delete some from memory to get new ones to load.

So yes I really can see why they would be deleting on a regular basis.

[icabodcrane]

I won't quote your entire thread gilet  (  for sake of space ) 

It's makes sense to me though

...  added to which, I cannot imagine that if the McCanns were 'guilty'  in any way,  they would be stupid enough to have incriminating  messages on their phones at any time  ...  at all

[Admin]

A good post Gilet.  Lots of people used to delete texts after they read them back in those days and as a habit formed they still do so even today with phones with much larger memory capacity.  I don't see any suspicion in what he did, he probably wanted to ensure the memory wasn't clogged up.   Regardless, deleted texts can be recovered by the service provider in most cases.

[C.Edwards]

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.

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.

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.

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.

So in contrast to the "Gilet way" 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?  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?

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?

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?

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?

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.

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

[C.Edwards]

The expectation of receiving loads of text messages is a complete red herring. Technically the phone does not stop working even if the memory is full, it alerts you, you delete messages, the waiting message come in. Your whole scenario for excusing their actions is based on a logical misunderstanding of how phones and messaging centres work. I hardly ever delete messages, have a phone that is > 3 years old and I have thousands and thousands of text messages on it. It would never occur to me to delete messages "just in case" lots were about to arrive and I would think that is the same for pretty much ANYONE except, of course, those who have a vested interest in making such actions (at any time) understandable, let alone at a time of emergency.

"Oh my god, our daughter's been abducted! Let's get out there and look for her!"  "No, no... just hold on, need to just free up some memory here in case the phone gets busy."

You're being deliberately provocative about the police records and my knowledge thereof.  You've also demonstrated once again that you've not bothered looking at the information in the first post as it shows all the details on the calls you're asking about.  How do I *KNOW* from pure evidence what line of questioning the police intended to take given half a chance? Amaral referred to the deletion being "significant" so, yes, I fully believe they intended to ask more questions given half a chance.  For all I know then maybe they have got more information that hasn't been released.  You know no better than I, so to attempt to ridicule that possibility is making you look a bit desperate.

I'm not even wasting breath on the bit about irony of question answering!  You have a strange way of looking at things is all I'll say!

[Eleanor]

This is ridiculous.  I have never heard such a song and dance about absolutely nothing.  I delete almost everything in my mail box as it happens, after I have read it, because there is nothing more boring than having to wade through and delete a pile of pointless messages later. 
I don't have a mobile phone but will be getting one soon, and will do exactly the same on that.

And all of these messages can be recovered if Law Enforcement want to.  Even I know that.

[Joanne]

I think mobile phones are probably the same as computers, just because you can't see something and think it's deleted it's probably still there, thats why a lot of criminal get caught out because all they've done is put their activity somewhere else and the powers that be have the programmes to retrieve the information. The police (and the mobile phone companies) will know whats occuring because they have to charge the sender for whats being sent ie message, picture and/or phone call.

[muratfan]

I delete my texts and calling history every day, unless it is an important text, usually just random nonsense from people.

[Carana]

The expectation of receiving loads of text messages is a complete red herring. Technically the phone does not stop working even if the memory is full, it alerts you, you delete messages, the waiting message come in. Your whole scenario for excusing their actions is based on a logical misunderstanding of how phones and messaging centres work. I hardly ever delete messages, have a phone that is > 3 years old and I have thousands and thousands of text messages on it. It would never occur to me to delete messages "just in case" lots were about to arrive and I would think that is the same for pretty much ANYONE except, of course, those who have a vested interest in making such actions (at any time) understandable, let alone at a time of emergency.

"Oh my god, our daughter's been abducted! Let's get out there and look for her!"  "No, no... just hold on, need to just free up some memory here in case the phone gets busy."

You're being deliberately provocative about the police records and my knowledge thereof.  You've also demonstrated once again that you've not bothered looking at the information in the first post as it shows all the details on the calls you're asking about.  How do I *KNOW* from pure evidence what line of questioning the police intended to take given half a chance? Amaral referred to the deletion being "significant" so, yes, I fully believe they intended to ask more questions given half a chance.  For all I know then maybe they have got more information that hasn't been released.  You know no better than I, so to attempt to ridicule that possibility is making you look a bit desperate.

I'm not even wasting breath on the bit about irony of question answering!  You have a strange way of looking at things is all I'll say!

I'm not sure that I follow your argument.

My old phone (different make, but similar to what Gilet described, and same era) only held 10 SMS messages. It was a pain as I was travelling quite a lot and my SMS allotment would be constantly clogged by roaming notifications and frequent reminders that I hadn't listened to a voice message.