Mrs Fenn and that crying child incident revisited.

[icabodcrane]

I for one would really like an answer to this question. Why was Madeleine crying out in distress for an hour and a quarter on the night of 1st May as reported by a neighbour in a nearby apartment? The neighbour was concerned enough about the crying to speak to a friend about it. What was noteworthy was that the crying escalated. This would not be the case if it were a child who was crying him or herself to sleep. The crying then stopped abruptly when the neighbour heard the patio doors of the apartment being opened.

It's strange that Kate McCann did not refer to this incident in her book, do you not think?  I would have thought it was quite relevant. You would think that Kate would have wanted to speak with the neighbour to find out if she had seen anything suspicious. Surely in the minutes and hours directly after Madeleine's alleged disappearance the McCann's would have wanted to get as much information from bystanders as possible. Neighbours could hold vital information.

But no.In actual fact, as Kate helpfully records on page 75 of her book Madeleine, an hour after Madeleine is alleged to have gone missing, 'a lady appeared on a balcony......and, in a plummy voice, inquired: 'Can someone tell me what all the  noise is about?'

When Kate told her that 'my little girl had been stolen from her bed' the woman's response was 'woefully inadequate and apparently unconcerned'. So much so that Kate and Fiona 'shouted back something rather short and to the point'.

How extraordinary. A potentially important witness appears and their friends and by their insistence that they knew exactly what had happened to their daughter when, in reality, they could not have known exactly what had happened unless they were there when it happened or they were complicit in some way.

They can't have it both ways. They either don't know - in which case abduction would be one possible theory out of many. Or they do know what happened, because either they were in the apartment or they had something to do with it or some prior knowledge.

You raise some excellent  points j rob,  that hadn't even occured to me before

Why,  indeed,  have the McCanns  never shown concern that the lady upstairs heard a child crying in their apartment on Tuesday night  ? 

They may think she was mistaken about the length of time she said the child was crying  for, ( depending on whether they have been honest about their checking routine  )   but why dismiss the relevance of her  recollection all together ?

The McCanns made quite a big deal about Madeleine telling them  that she had been crying on Wednesday night  ...   going as far as to say that   (  in retrospect  )  they think someone may have been in the apartment causing her to wake

Yet they have no such retrospective concerns about what Mrs Fenn says she heard

Why  ? 

The point  made in the op that really struck me,  though,  was Kate McCanns response to the upstairs neighbour appearing on ther balcony

As you say j rob,  here was someone who might be a crucial witness,  yet she was sent off with a flea in her ear for being  'woefully inadequate'  and having  'a plummy voice'

Kate did not even ask her   "Did you  see anything ?  ...  did you hear anything ? ... did you notice anything at  all  ? 

Just  dismissed her with a shouted  'short and to the point'  remark

[Lyall]

You raise some excellent  points j rob,  that hadn't even occured to me before

Why,  indeed,  have the McCanns  never shown concern that the lady upstairs heard a child crying in their apartment on Tuesday night  ? 

They may think she was mistaken about the length of time she said the child was crying  for, ( depending on whether they have been honest about their checking routine  )   but why dismiss the relevance of her  recollection all together ?

The McCanns made quite a big deal about Madeleine telling them  that she had been crying on Wednesday night  ...   going as far as to say that   (  in retrospect  )  they think someone may have been in the apartment causing her to wake

Yet they have no such retrospective concerns about what Mrs Fenn says she heard

Why  ? 

The point  made in the op that really struck me,  though,  was Kate McCanns response to the upstairs neighbour appearing on ther balcony

As you say j rob,  here was someone who might be a crucial witness,  yet she was sent off with a flea in her ear for being  'woefully inadequate'  and having  'a plummy voice'

Kate did not even ask her   "Did you  see anything ?  ...  did you hear anything ? ... did you notice anything at  all  ? 

Just  dismissed her with a shouted  'short and to the point'  remark

There's definitely a reason why they were so uncomfortable when Emma Loach asked them about what they said Madeleine had said to them, Icabod.

They clearly weren't prepared for that question. A very rare occasion.

[Carana]

Incorrect. She said she thought it was Madeleine.

"She also said that she never told the McCann's that she had heard their daughter crying previously on 1st May because she thought it would just increase their suffering"

There is no original statement in English and it wasn't verbatim.

How would she have known whether it was Madeleine or not or any other young male or female child at the time? She may well have thought that it could well have been Madeleine as an obvious tragedy had occurred in her apartment building.

I would have done the same... reporting anything I thought might be relevant. However, my recollection might not have been totally accurate, which would have been up to the police to verify. And if I had been in my 80's and a close neighbour, I'd have thought it reasonably important for the police to attempt to verify my recollection as soon as possible.

[pathfinder73]

Are you saying translators can't do their job? Anything that posters don't like they blame on translation errors. What a cop out! It's in her statement plain and simple. She wouldn't have said it was their daughter if she didn't think it was.

[Benice]

She did in her statement and Kate said it in her book:

"During the day nothing unusual happened, until almost 22.30 when, being alone again, she heard the hysterical shouts from a female person, calling out ?we have let her down? which she repeated several times, quite upset. Mrs Fenn then saw that it was the mother of little Madeleine who was shouting furiously. Upon leaning over the terrace, after having seen the mother, Mrs Fenn asked the father, Gerry, what was happening to which he replied that a small girl had been abducted. When asked, she replied that she did not leave her apartment, just spoke to Gerry from her balcony, which had a view over the terrace of the floor below. She found it strange that Gerry when said that a girl had been abducted, he did not mention that it was his daughter and that he did not mention any other scenarios. At that moment she offered Gerry help, saying that he could use her phone to contact the authorities, to which he replied that this had already been done. It was just after 22.30.
She said that after the mothers shouts, she had seen many people in the streets looking for the girl. She also refers to an episode when Gerry was speaking to a policeman and he refused to recognised the police force, saying that more agents of authority were needed to carry out the search.
When asked, she replied that on 3rd May she did not hear any noise from the McCann apartment, not even the opening of doors. She also said that before hearing the shouts she was watching television, as she often stays up late."

"Gerry McCann did come up to apologise to my mother for all the unwanted attention – which was incredibly kind as he has endured a grief and pain that no parent should ever have to withstand.” (Ian Fenn - son of Pamela)

Personally I don't believe Gerry said ''A little girl has been abducted.    I think he said 'Our little girl has been abducted'    An easy mistake for Mrs. Fenn to make in the chaos IMO.

[jassi]

Are you saying translators can't do their job? Anything you don't like you blame on translation errors. What a cop out! It's in her statement plain and simple. She wouldn't have said it was their daughter if she didn't think it was.

Certainly a convenient excuse which has been used by some apologists on here recently.

[Sherlock Holmes]

We cannot be completely certain that it was Madeleine whom Mrs Fenn heard crying.

Nonetheless, someone was crying that night, for well over an hour - an exceptionally long period of time for a child to be upset. The fact that the crying became increasingly louder over time suggests that the child was alone and not being comforted by a parent.

Even if the child in question was not Madeleine, the fact that a child's loud crying apparently went undetected by the McCanns and all the other members of T9 who were occupying the neighbouring apartments suggests that minimal checking was going on. If the crying was audible enough to have disturbed Mrs Fenn, with her television on (and Mrs F's hearing, at the age of 80 plus, was possibly less than perfect), then surely someone else in T9 should have noticed it walking back and forth on the checks.

As Carana says, it would have been a good idea to have done a reconstruction of the crying to see what would have been audible from where.

[Benice]

Are you saying translators can't do their job? Anything that posters don't like they blame on translation errors. What a cop out! It's in her statement plain and simple. She wouldn't have said it was their daughter if she didn't think it was.

The statements have been translated more than once.    Of course errors can be made.   It only needs one word to be even slightly  incorrect and it could throw the whole meaning of a sentence.   Are you saying translators never make mistakes?

This is why the McCanns paid to have the PJ files professionally translated.

Also some of the statements are not verbatim - and are just summaries made by someone other than the witness.   We do not know what questions were asked, or what was left out of the summarized versions.

A statement needs to be verbatim to convey a full and clear meaning to any reader.

Apart from losing their daughter the worst thing the McCanns had to contend with was the language barrier imo.






 

[Lyall]

Did they hire a translator, Benice?

[Carana]

We cannot be completely certain that it was Madeleine whom Mrs Fenn heard crying.

Nonetheless, someone was crying that night, for well over an hour - an exceptionally long period of time for a child to be upset. The fact that the crying became increasingly louder over time suggests that the child was alone and not being comforted by a parent.

Even if the child in question was not Madeleine, the fact that a child's loud crying apparently went undetected by the McCanns and all the other members of T9 who were occupying the neighbouring apartments suggests that minimal checking was going on. If the crying was audible enough to have disturbed Mrs Fenn, with her television on (and Mrs F's hearing, at the age of 80 plus, was possibly less than perfect), then surely someone else in T9 should have noticed it walking back and forth on the checks.

As Carana says, it would have been a good idea to have done a reconstruction of the crying to see what would have been audible from where.

Further questioning or a reconstruction might have established whether she heard a single child crying over that entire period.

[Cariad]

Personally I don't believe Gerry said ''A little girl has been abducted.    I think he said 'Our little girl has been abducted'    An easy mistake for Mrs. Fenn to make in the chaos IMO.

Personally I believe that he said "our little girl has absconded"

I don't really believe that of course, I was just making the point that we can believe what we like. We should probably take the word of the person there at the time though.

Also, he had two little girls. He would probably have tried to differentiate between the two if he'd been trying to impart information as to who had been abducted.

 "My elder daughter has been abducted"

"Our 3 year old has been taken"

For example.

[John]

The Portuguese police did not have any doubts as to where the crying originated...

Gonçalo Amaral book The Truth of the Lie...

Tuesday 1st May,

For an hour and a quarter, between 10.30 and 11.45, in the apartment in which she is in the company of her brother and sister, Madeleine does not stop crying and calling out for her father.  She does not calm down until her parents return.


Wednesday 2nd May.

At breakfast, Madeleine asks her parents why they had left her to cry the night before, and did not come back immediately.

[Sherlock Holmes]

Further questioning or a reconstruction might have established whether she heard a single child crying over that entire period.

Do you mean that the crying could have been Madeleine and the twins together - or two separate instances of crying from children in different apartments?

[Carana]

Do you mean that the crying could have been Madeleine and the twins together - or two separate instances of crying from children in different apartments?

I have no idea. Neither do the police.

If all three McCann children had been howling at the same time, wouldn't she have noticed the cacophony?

It might have been different children in different apartments and the susceptibility element of a missing child might have made her assume that it was her. Depending on acoustics, and if there were several children in various apartments at that time, one or more may not necessarily have even been on the floor below.

[Sherlock Holmes]

I have no idea. Neither do the police.

If all three McCann children had been howling at the same time, wouldn't she have noticed the cacophony?

It might have been different children in different apartments and the susceptibility element of a missing child might have made her assume that it was her. Depending on acoustics, and if there were several children in various apartments at that time, one or more may not necessarily have even been on the floor below.

I agree with you here Carana, although as John says, Madeleine herself mentioned to her mother that she had been crying.

If Madeleine, and possibly the twins, and possibly another child / children elsewhere in the block had been crying for long periods of time, that would indeed have constituted a lot of noise.