I think it's clear from reading his book that Amaral simply didn't have the dynamic mind and mental flexibility to handle an investigation as complex as the one he found himself presented with. Nobody, not even Kate and Gerry, would try to argue that the police shouldn't explore theories. Amaral and his colleagues were right to question the statements made by the McCanns' holiday companions. They were right to scrutinise contradictions and of course, they were right to consider the possibility that the parents or friends were involved in their daughter's disappearance. However, within the first twenty-four hours, certainly within the first forty-eight, they should have eliminated the parents from their inquiries. They failed to do so.
Amaral's problem was that he became fixated, to the detriment of the investigation. He misunderstood the forensic evidence, hardly surprising given that the local officers were trying to gather it without even wearing gloves! More worryingly, he grew increasingly paranoid about the motivations of his superiors and his British counterparts, seeing plots and hidden agendas everywhere. In short, he was not fit to carry out the role entrusted to him by the good people of Portugal.
The above was clear to anyone who had so much as a passing interest in the case. For Kate and Gerry - at the centre of it - it would have been painfully clear that Amaral had all but abandoned any sense of objectivity, and was interested only in his own pet theories. Their decision not to indulge his idiocy any longer was perfectly understandable.
Reconstruction? The only thing that needed reconstructing was the investigative process!
I will say this once again, hoping that this information might just sink into some people's heads. Gonçalo Amaral did not lead the investigation. The Polícia Judiciária are part of the judicial system and work under the authority of the judges in the Ministério Público. All decisions are made by the judges not the inspectors. Many of you still insist on the idea that investigations in Portugal are run like they are in the UK.
The investigation in the beginning was influenced by pressure from the British authorities. Although the PJ and the Ministério Público had their suspicions about the parents, they were pressured into looking exclusively at the abduction theory for the first 3 months and obviously got nowhere, even with the presence of the British police to help them. So, please don't come up with the story that the Portuguese did not look at other alternatives. Also, I would like to remind you that the British were the first to come up with the possibility that Madeleine was dead. Perhaps you should acquaint yourself with Lee Rainbow and Mark Harrison.
