Did the McCann"s sudden flight from Portugal engender suspicion?

[Jean-Pierre]

So why do you think the PJ suspected the mccanns ?

Having investigated the case, including the parents (quite rightly) and found no credible evidence, this was in my view a slightly desperate fishing expedition to elicit a confession and "solve" the case.

This view is based in part on the infamous 48 questions, and also on the use of the dog video and forensic reports to claim during interview that there was a match to Madeleine in the hire car.

There was a quite narrow window of opportunity to make the McCanns arguidos (and therefore leave the door open to a confession) before the law changed. 

[sadie]

I do answer questions.

You just don't like the answers.

No you dont. 


I asked you two questions a few hours ago and you repeatedly side stepped both


Short memory Stephen?   or .......................?

[Benice]

You prove to them that you're not guilty by agreeing to answer all questions honestly and offer to do a reconstruction to cover and explain any discrepancies that they have in the timeline. If you do all to help then chances are they will believe you are telling the truth. Actions speak louder than words.

Until the day they were made Arguidos they had co-operated fully and answered all questions honestly - and look where that got them.   IMO the PJ  were not interested in 'answers' they just wanted confessions because they had no evidence against the McCanns - and time was running out as the laws were about to change.

The McCanns had not been asked  to do a reconstructon - that was the PJ's decision.        However as already discussed, the only thing a reconstruction would have proved is that it is impossible for 10 people to accurately recreate - down to the minute - their various movements on 3rd May unless they could recall the exact times they had made them.   Unsurprisingly -  9 out of 10 of them couldn't do that. 

Discrepancies  would be expected by normal police officers when so many people were involved.  If there were huge unexplained discrepancies amongst the various statements  - then why didn't the PJ make the whole group Arguidos? 

The fact that the PJ 'ploy' to lie about 100% DNA match failed so miserably - should have told them something  - as the McCanns (particularly as they were doctors)  would know that if they were guilty  - and there was a 100% DNA match to prove that   - then it would be  'game over' - and it would be pointless to carry on.   IMO they would have confessed at that point.

The fact that the DNA  'Ace'  didn't have that desired affect should have told the PJ that in suspecting the McCanns they were barking up the wrong tree  - as SY and the Oporto team have since confirmed.

No normal sane person would want to stay in a foreign country where the blatently obvious aim of the police force was to arrest them for a crime which they knew they had not committed.

AIMHO

[Eleanor]

I can remember thinking at the time that The PJ brought them in and made them Arguidos in an attempt to frighten them into going home, just to get rid of the embarrassment.
If this was so then it certainly worked, especially as The PJ instantly gave The McCanns permission to leave.

[Jean-Pierre]

The problem is that there is naff all in the way of evidence so nobody actually knows what happened.  Abduction is certainly, as things stand, one of the possibilities.

[Wonderfulspam]

The problem is that there is naff all in the way of evidence so nobody actually knows what happened.  Abduction is certainly, as things stand, one of the possibilities.

The abduction theses are difficult to explain & amusingly improbable.

Whereas the 'not abduction' thesis, is as plain as Smithman's e-fit.

So, it's friggin obvious that Maddie wasn't abducted.

[Wonderfulspam]

Based on what?

Not being born yesterday.

[John]

I see nobody has replied to my earlier comment, namely, they should have worked with the police as any innocent parent would do, encouraging the police and offering support where and when necessary.  From what I have read this investigation very quickly became a game of cat and mouse, an us and them scenario.  I will never understand how the parents of a missing child could criticise the very police charged with finding her, unless of course they were complicit in something unsavoury.

It is a detectives job to to elicit information in a case such a potential child abduction.  A true professional cannot let himself be influenced by emotion regardless of how they feel towards the parents of a supposedly missing child.  Police will in the course of an interview say many things in an attempt to get to the truth, lies included.  This is standard police procedure in every country in the world so let's stop this silliness for once and for all. 

Bottom line is the McCann's should have cooperated 100% with the Portuguese police and done whatever it took to persuade them of their own innocence.  As the Portuguese Attorney General pointed out in his final report, the parents failed to take the opportunity to 'clear their name'.  And now, seven years later and £10 million plus spent by UK taxpayers on a further investigation, where are we?

[xtina]

The last thing k mcc did for her daughter maddie .before they flew home


The 48 questions Kate McCann wouldn't answer - and the one she did


 
Q.  Are you aware that in not answering the questions you are jeopardising the investigation, which seeks to discover what happened to your daughter?

 
A.  'Yes, if that’s what the investigation thinks.'

[John]

The last thing k mcc did for her daughter maddie .before they flew home


The 48 questions Kate McCann wouldn't answer - and the one she did


 
Q.  Are you aware that in not answering the questions you are jeopardising the investigation, which seeks to discover what happened to your daughter?

 
A.  'Yes, if that’s what the investigation thinks.'

...and that was a typical evasive response too.  Pathetic really!

The more I learn about the case the more I can see a pattern emerging...

[Mr Gray]

I see nobody has replied to my earlier comment, namely, they should have worked with the police as any innocent parent would do, encouraging the police and offering support where and when necessary.  From what I have read this investigation very quickly became a game of cat and mouse, an us and them scenario.  I will never understand how the parents of a missing child could criticise the very police charged with finding her, unless of course they were complicit in something unsavoury.

It is a detectives job to to elicit information in a case such a potential child abduction.  A true professional cannot let himself be influenced by emotion regardless of how they feel towards the parents of a supposedly missing child.  Police will in the course of an interview say many things in an attempt to get to the truth, lies included.  This is standard police procedure in every country in the world so let's stop this silliness for once and for all. 

Bottom line is the McCann's should have cooperated 100% with the Portuguese police and done whatever it took to persuade them of their own innocence.  As the Portuguese Attorney General pointed out in his final report, the parents failed to take the opportunity to 'clear their name'.  And now, seven years later and £10 million plus spent by UK taxpayers on a further investigation, where are we?

No one has replied John because this has been discussed many times. Kate should have told the pj to shove their stupid 48 questions where the sun don't shine but as the pj didn't know their a##e from their elbow they would have probably put them in the wrong place. A pathetic excuse for a police investigation...IMO

[Eleanor]

The last thing k mcc did for her daughter maddie .before they flew home


The 48 questions Kate McCann wouldn't answer - and the one she did


 
Q.  Are you aware that in not answering the questions you are jeopardising the investigation, which seeks to discover what happened to your daughter?

 
A.  'Yes, if that’s what the investigation thinks.'

Perhaps you should look to The Portuguese Secrecy Laws.  The PJ was leaking like a sieve within a few short weeks of Madeleine's disappearance.
Anyone with half a brain knew which way the investigation was going.

I wouldn't have answered their putrid questions, which were in no way designed to help find a missing child.

[xtina]

The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, removed the traditional ‘Right to Silence’. However, all this means is that the police/prose- cution can point to your refusal to speak to them, when the case comes to court, and the court may take this as evidence of your guilt. The police cannot force you to speak or make a statement, whatever they may say to you in the station.
 
Refusing to speak cannot be used to convict you by itself. We reckon the best policy if you want to get off is to remain silent. The best place to work out a good defence is afterwards, with your solic- itor or witnesses, not under pressure in the hands of the cops. If your refusal to speak comes up in court, we think the best defence is to refuse to speak until your solicitor gets there then get them to agree to your position. You can then say you acted on legal advice.

[Wonderfulspam]

I see nobody has replied to my earlier comment, namely, they should have worked with the police as any innocent parent would do, encouraging the police and offering support where and when necessary.  From what I have read this investigation very quickly became a game of cat and mouse, an us and them scenario.  I will never understand how the parents of a missing child could criticise the very police charged with finding her, unless of course they were complicit in something unsavoury.

It is a detectives job to to elicit information in a case such a potential child abduction.  A true professional cannot let himself be influenced by emotion regardless of how they feel towards the parents of a supposedly missing child.  Police will in the course of an interview say many things in an attempt to get to the truth, lies included.  This is standard police procedure in every country in the world so let's stop this silliness for once and for all. 

Bottom line is the McCann's should have cooperated 100% with the Portuguese police and done whatever it took to persuade them of their own innocence.  As the Portuguese Attorney General pointed out in his final report, the parents failed to take the opportunity to 'clear their name'.  And now, seven years later and £10 million plus spent by UK taxpayers on a further investigation, where are we?

Considering that they never actually called the police (or even bothered to try)  in the first place, despite knowing she had been taken, it's not really that much of a surprise that they didn't fully cooperate with the investigation thereafter, when taken in the context of the 'abduction' being nothing other than a circus act. IMO.

[Alfred R Jones]

I see nobody has replied to my earlier comment, namely, they should have worked with the police as any innocent parent would do, encouraging the police and offering support where and when necessary.  From what I have read this investigation very quickly became a game of cat and mouse, an us and them scenario. I will never understand how the parents of a missing child could criticise the very police charged with finding her, unless of course they were complicit in something unsavoury.

It is a detectives job to to elicit information in a case such a potential child abduction.  A true professional cannot let himself be influenced by emotion regardless of how they feel towards the parents of a supposedly missing child.  Police will in the course of an interview say many things in an attempt to get to the truth, lies included.  This is standard police procedure in every country in the world so let's stop this silliness for once and for all. 

Bottom line is the McCann's should have cooperated 100% with the Portuguese police and done whatever it took to persuade them of their own innocence.  As the Portuguese Attorney General pointed out in his final report, the parents failed to take the opportunity to 'clear their name'.  And now, seven years later and £10 million plus spent by UK taxpayers on a further investigation, where are we?

I find your assertion above (highlighted in bold) quite bizarre.  You think the only reason the McCanns could have for criticising an inept police force who had failed to find their daughter and who was focusing all their attention on themselves (when they knew themselves to be innocent) is because they were complicit in something unsavoury?  How about being critical of them for being inept and barking up the wrong tree, are those not valid grounds?