At what time were the police called after Madeleine's disappearance?

[John]

Question is why didn't the receptionist alert the police as Matthew Oldfield wanted him to do at 10.15pm?  He never even telephoned the manager to ask for permission.  Obviously he didn't take the situation too seriously.

Mark Warner's child search plan might work very well in daylight with all staff on duty but it was severely lacking at 10pm at night.  A 40 minute delay in telephoning police was inexcusable.

[AnneGuedes]

By then any would-be abductors could have been over 160 miles away quite easily.  Remember too that the Spanish border was only 80 miles or 80 minutes away.

Not any would-be abductor, John but a motorized one. This one was the walking kind : 40/45 minutes for 400/450m, this is not even 1km/h (this is why they suspected a local guy).

[John]

By then any would-be abductors could have been over 160 miles away quite easily.  Remember too that the Spanish border was only 80 miles or 80 minutes away.

Not any would-be abductor, John but a motorized one. This one was the walking kind : 40/45 minutes for 400/450m, this is not even 1km/h (this is why they suspected a local guy).

The PJ set up a series of road blocks some distance away from Praia da Luz and had the border security put on alert so it appears they had a lot more on their mind other than a pedestrian.

Unfortunately, they were too late. 

[AnneGuedes]

Question is why didn't the receptionist alert the police as Matthew Oldfield wanted him to do at 10.15pm?

We don't know whether MO was there at 10:15, 10:20/25 seems more likely. He first searched around and I think he had the idea Madeleine could have taken the short cut to the creche and checked there too, then was asked by Mr McCann (?) to go to the main reception (why not the near by Tapas restaurant ?), took at least 5 minutes to get there.
The asking the main reception to call and the receptionist differing the call are facts not easy to understand. The receptionist might have alerted Mrs Lindsay, since it was a problem with a child, and Mrs Lindsay found she had to inform Mr Hill.
I guess employees are trained to respect hierarchy in those resorts.

[John]

You mean the regime is such that they are shit scared to put a foot wrong?

Irrespective of who did and said what, reception knew shortly after 10pm that a young child had disappeared but did not feel it necessary to call the police.  That for me reveals a major problem with the resorts after-hours procedures.

[AnneGuedes]

By then any would-be abductors could have been over 160 miles away quite easily.  Remember too that the Spanish border was only 80 miles or 80 minutes away.

Not any would-be abductor, John but a motorized one. This one was the walking kind : 40/45 minutes for 400/450m, this is not even 1km/h (this is why they suspected a local guy).

The PJ set up a series of road blocks some distance away from Praia da Luz and had the border security put on alert so it appears they had a lot more on their mind other than a pedestrian.

Unfortunately, they were too late.  (Amaral never ever did get there did he?)   

Road blocks were later and frankly I ignore whether border security could be put on alert, since there's no border anymore in Schengen space. Nowadays, in case of a proven case of child abduction non existent borders would be reactivated for some hours.
If you read the GNR's report, you'll see that those officers were worried with a little girl lost, cold and in the darkness. Up to the sunrise. The Jane T scenario didn't sound like an abduction because 1) parent carrying their kid isn't a rare event and 2) as he was walking, the carrier didn't match the idea one has of an abductor (someone in a hurry, thus motorized).

[AnneGuedes]

Question is why didn't the receptionist alert the police as Matthew Oldfield wanted him to do at 10.15pm?  He never even telephoned the manager to ask for permission.  Obviously he didn't take the situation too seriously.

Mark Warner's child search plan might work very well in daylight with all staff on duty but it was severely lacking at 10pm at night.  A 40 minute delay in telephoning police was inexcusable.

MO doesn't say what he and the receptionist did after he asked to call the police. MO says he said the child was abducted, but the phone call to the GNR only mentioned a child had disappeared. If the GNR had been informed of an abduction, they would have called the PJ right away. Mrs Lindsay also seems to have understood a child had disappeared.

[icabodcrane]

By then any would-be abductors could have been over 160 miles away quite easily.  Remember too that the Spanish border was only 80 miles or 80 minutes away.

Not any would-be abductor, John but a motorized one. This one was the walking kind : 40/45 minutes for 400/450m, this is not even 1km/h (this is why they suspected a local guy).

The PJ set up a series of road blocks some distance away from Praia da Luz and had the border security put on alert so it appears they had a lot more on their mind other than a pedestrian.

Unfortunately, they were too late.

Let's be fair here John, if Madeleine was abducted at 9.15pm as the McCanns insist, then an hour had gone by before the alert was even raised

It was  already too late

[AnneGuedes]

John, since we observe that the police wasn't alerted on (reasonable) time, the proverb "if you want something done right do it yourself" is once more verified.

[John]

Let's be fair here John, if Madeleine was abducted at 9.15pm as the McCanns insist, then an hour had gone by before the alert was even raised

It was  already too late

I totally agree, it seems to have been error compounded upon error.

Very true Anne!

Nite all.

[icabodcrane]

Thanks for the debate guys, there are a few unanswered questions still on this issue of the phone calls but one thing is very clear and that is that the abduction was assisted by the delay in getting the police to the scene of the crime.

The phone records also reveal that no other calls were made from Ocean Club after 10pm, not even one to John Hill.

The only possible scenarios for what occurred are...

I.  The McCann's didn't request police assistance as soon as the cursory search was completed.

II.  The McCann's or Matthew asked the receptionist to phone the police at around 10.15pm, alas he didn't do so but waited for the manager to arrive.

III. Someone phoned the police using a mobile phone after 10.15pm which was followed by the two other calls from reception but the police were delayed due to being tied up with another call.

I think option III can be dismissed as unevidenced, and therefore not a viable possibility   ( no witness even claims to have contacted the police using a mobile that night )

With regard to the remaining two possibilities,  it might be worth noting that even Kate, herself, in her book,  does not claim that Matthew Oldfield told reception to contact the police ...  she merely remarks that just after 1010pm Gerry  asked him to

Matthew himself, has this to say about the incident in his rogatory interview :

"I think if I'd done anything differently I would have stood by the desk and said, no, you must ring now, you really must, rather than just sort of saying, oh, you know, and sort of thinking, well maybe they're right, maybe I'll go back and she's turned up and that'll be absolutely fantastic, maybe I'm wasting his time, but I didn't stand over the desk and say, do it"

To me that sounds like Oldfield was told that it was too soon to phone police because the child had not even been  'looked for'  yet

It sounds like he was persuaded that a more thorough search should be done before calling the police in, and when he left reception he was fully aware that the police hadn't been called

Whether he relayed that to the McCanns, we do not know,  but it wasn't until 10.35pm that he was asked (  again by Gerry )  to go back to reception

That would tie in with the first recorded call to the police being made at 10.41pm

[AnneGuedes]

Matthew himself, has this to say about the incident in his rogatory interview :

"I think if I'd done anything differently I would have stood by the desk and said, no, you must ring now, you really must, rather than just sort of saying, oh, you know, and sort of thinking, well maybe they're right, maybe I'll go back and she's turned up and that'll be absolutely fantastic, maybe I'm wasting his time, but I didn't stand over the desk and say, do it"

To me that sounds like Oldfield was told that it was too soon to phone police because the child had not even been  'looked for'  yet

It sounds like he was persuaded that a more thorough search should be done before calling the police in, and when he left reception he was fully aware that the police hadn't been called

Whether he relayed that to the McCanns, we do not know,  but it wasn't until 10.35pm that he was asked (  again by Gerry )  to go back to reception

That would tie in with the first recorded call to the police being made at 10.41pm

Icabodcrane, how could MO be "persuaded that a more thorough search should be done before calling the police in" since, in his first statement he said clearly that he thought it was a "kidnapping with the intention to demand a ransom from the parents, because these are people who are very comfortable financially" ?

[gilet]

Matthew himself, has this to say about the incident in his rogatory interview :

"I think if I'd done anything differently I would have stood by the desk and said, no, you must ring now, you really must, rather than just sort of saying, oh, you know, and sort of thinking, well maybe they're right, maybe I'll go back and she's turned up and that'll be absolutely fantastic, maybe I'm wasting his time, but I didn't stand over the desk and say, do it"

To me that sounds like Oldfield was told that it was too soon to phone police because the child had not even been  'looked for'  yet

It sounds like he was persuaded that a more thorough search should be done before calling the police in, and when he left reception he was fully aware that the police hadn't been called

Whether he relayed that to the McCanns, we do not know,  but it wasn't until 10.35pm that he was asked (  again by Gerry )  to go back to reception

That would tie in with the first recorded call to the police being made at 10.41pm

Icabodcrane, how could MO be "persuaded that a more thorough search should be done before calling the police in" since, in his first statement he said clearly that he thought it was a "kidnapping with the intention to demand a ransom from the parents, because these are people who are very comfortable financially" ?

I find that comment from you most odd.

Can you not understand that the comment at the end of the May 4th Interview was made 12 hours or so after the events of the previous night? Can you not see the possible difference in thinking between the moments after being told that a child is missing and the answer to such a question posed 12 hours after a child has gone missing?

Can you not understand that a person may well have changed their mind about the situation based on the fact that it was by then fairly clear that she had not simply wandered or she would almost certainly have been found?

I cannot understand how you apparently conflate the statement made after 12 hours, much of that time in serious reflection I suspect about what had occurred, and the reactions a person would be having immediately after being informed of a child's disappearance.

What was going through Matthew Oldfield's mind at 10pm, minutes after being told Madeleine was not in her bed, and what he would be thinking 12 or more hours later when the child still had not been found are unlikely to be the same thoughts. Initially there would be hope of immediate discovery of the child. After 12 hours other thoughts would come to the fore.

[AnneGuedes]

"I said, you've got to phone the Police, a child's been taken"
ROG MO

[DCI]

Processos Vol XVII Pages 4599 to 4622
With thanks to Ines
 
(Part B of the Archiving Dispatch)

B – Concrete Analysis
 
According to the GNR, the disappearance would have occurred at about 22.40 (it was later checked that the detection and subsequent alarm effectively happened between 22.00 and 22.10) on 3rd May 2007, in one of the apartments of the Ocean Club resort, situated in Praia da Luz – Lagos, where the British family, composed of a couple and three young children were staying.

http://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/LEGAL_SUMMARY.htm