Documentaries & Articles for Discussion

[Brietta]

One article (posted on here ages ago) stated that he did go the police back in 2007 - but it didn't state which police. If he did, then his statement may have been overlooked until the review.

I never got the impression that Redwood had formally eliminated Tannerman, but believed that there was a strong possibility that Crècheman was Tannerman. The point being, IMO, was to give more emphasis to Smithman to try to jog memories of that later timeframe.

My first thought when the DCI made the announcement was one of relief for Jane Tanner. 
After years of being vilified as a liar, her sighting of a man carrying a child was verified.  The burden of years of thinking she had witnessed Madeleine being carried off by her kidnapper was lifted at a stroke.
But the more I thought about the wording of the statement the more it led me back to square one.

On the night of the third at least three unidentified men with a child were allegedly abroad on the streets of Luz. 

Each one carried a barefoot pyjama clad sleeping girl with blonde hair. 
None had bothered to wrap the child up against the chill of the evening.

One sighting was reported when the police arrived to conduct the search for a missing child.
One sighting was reported nearly a fortnight later.
We do not have definitive knowledge of when the third was reported.

If the man Jane Tanner saw had just exited the car park at block 5 to be picked up by a nearby vehicle it could explain why he wasn't seen by anyone else.
It is remarkable that the man the Smiths say they saw was seen by no-one outwith that location.   
It is also remarkable that the man who carried his daughter back from a creche somewhere? walked from there passing block 5 to his destination without being seen by anyone other than Jane Tanner.

[John]

My first thought when the DCI made the announcement was one of relief for Jane Tanner. 
After years of being vilified as a liar, her sighting of a man carrying a child was verified.  The burden of years of thinking she had witnessed Madeleine being carried off by her kidnapper was lifted at a stroke.
But the more I thought about the wording of the statement the more it led me back to square one.

On the night of the third at least three unidentified men with a child were allegedly abroad on the streets of Luz. 

Each one carried a barefoot pyjama clad sleeping girl with blonde hair. 
None had bothered to wrap the child up against the chill of the evening.

One sighting was reported when the police arrived to conduct the search for a missing child.
One sighting was reported nearly a fortnight later.
We do not have definitive knowledge of when the third was reported.

If the man Jane Tanner saw had just exited the car park at block 5 to be picked up by a nearby vehicle it could explain why he wasn't seen by anyone else.
It is remarkable that the man the Smiths say they saw was seen by no-one outwith that location.   
It is also remarkable that the man who carried his daughter back from a creche somewhere? walked from there passing block 5 to his destination without being seen by anyone other than Jane Tanner.

I see the goings on during that 45 minute time frame from 9.15pm until 10pm as a combination of remarkable events and coincidences. Little wonder so many people have spent such a long time pouring over it.  Bloody confusing or what?

[mercury]

On the night of the third at least three unidentified men with a child were allegedly abroad on the streets of Luz. 

Each one carried a barefoot pyjama clad sleeping girl with blonde hair. 

Tanner didnt see past the bare feet and Crecheman /Redwood havent said the daughter had blonde hair, (did he?)so? How did you make it three blonde girls?

[mercury]

One article (posted on here ages ago) stated that he did go the police back in 2007 - but it didn't state which police. If he did, then his statement may have been overlooked until the review.

I never got the impression that Redwood had formally eliminated Tannerman, but believed that there was a strong possibility that Crècheman was Tannerman. The point being, IMO, was to give more emphasis to Smithman to try to jog memories of that later timeframe.

LEicester Police


http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/editors-picks/madeleine-mccann-bungling-police-prime-2965027

[Brietta]

Tanner didnt see past the bare feet and Crecheman /Redwood havent said the daughter had blonde hair, (did he?)so? How did you make it three blonde girls?

Everything else seemed to match ... why not the hair colouring?  However my error pales into insignificance when measured against the failure of the investigation to check out the information supplied to them at the time when it might have been of some use in recovering Madeleine.  Saving ten years of grief for her and her family.

It is interesting that the information was imparted round about the time that Mr Amaral was preparing his case against and indeed his coup de grace on the parents of the child he had given up for dead.

Shattering to think that concentration on the flawed understanding of the significance of the VRD alerts combined with misinterpretation of the forensic results may have led - in the opinion of ex-Met Police chief Peter Kirkham - to the failure look at other lines of enquiry.



Madeleine McCann: Anyone saying they were carrying a child around when Maddy disappeared should have been investigated

**Snip
Questions will be asked as to why the relevance of the information was not recognised earlier.

While there may have been an oversight by Leicestershire Police, there are two things we should remember.

They did not have access to all the material collected during the investigation and full responsibility for the case remained with the Portuguese at that time.

In their liaison role, they may have simply forwarded the questionnaires to Portuguese police without analysing them themselves.

Even if they did consider the content, they may not have realised the relevance without access to all of the material.

The information should have been recognised as of great relevance by the Portuguese police.

I would have expected any person saying they were innocently carrying a child at around the relevant time and place to be investigated and cross-referenced with other witness accounts.

That said, in a high-profile investigation, so much information floods in that it is all too easy for a crucial item to get lost.

At that time, the main focus of the investigation centred on the interpretation of the DNA evidence which had been recently made available.

This may have led to other potential lines of enquiry being overlooked.

No matter what the explanation, the fact that this “new” witness was in the system all along illustrates why case reviews are so important.

A review of all material, by new pairs of eyes and with the benefit of hindsight, almost always identifies something which has been overlooked.

In this case, it appears to have changed the basic understanding of what may have happened on Thursday, May 3, 2007.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/madeleine-mccann-anyone-saying-were-2965383

[mercury]

Everything else seemed to match ... why not the hair colouring? 

what else matched?
The only thing that "matched" was a small child

[Brietta]

what else matched?
The only thing that "matched" was a small child

A small child was missing therefore that was a most compelling match. 
Perhaps if the investigation had focused more on collating and following through on the information it seems they had to hand other lines of inquiry might have been opened up.

Perhaps if Mr Amaral had organised his team to do the donkey work of working through the information held for example, on people carrying small children at the relative time we wouldn't be having this conversation.

[Brietta]

In the I link posted earlier a former police chief expresses the opinion that an important investigative opportunity was missed when "information should have been recognised as of great relevance by the Portuguese police" was received at a time when "the main focus of the investigation centred on the interpretation of the DNA evidence which had been recently made available".
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/madeleine-mccann-anyone-saying-were-2965383

The focus on DNA evidence was of course after the visit of the dogs when the investigation into Madeleine's disappearance formally became the investigation into Madeleine's parents with all that entailed.

[Carana]

LEicester Police


http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/editors-picks/madeleine-mccann-bungling-police-prime-2965027

Thanks, Mercs. 

LP was responsible for collating UK-based enquiries, but he may have gone to his local cop shop, which then forgot to pass it on. Anyone, assuming he did indeed contact the cops, someone screwed up.


And Redwood said "almost certain", so that's a bit stronger than a strong probability, but still not a formal elimination. I don't really see how they could formally eliminate Tannerman without some other form of corroboration (eg CCTV).


DCI Redwood said in October: “Our focus in terms of understanding what happened on the night of May 3 has now given us a shift of emphasis. We are almost certain that the man seen by Jane Tanner is not Madeleine’s abductor.

“It takes us through to a position at 10pm when we see another man who is walking towards the ocean, close by to the apartment, with a young child in his arms.”

[G-Unit]

Everything else seemed to match ... why not the hair colouring?  However my error pales into insignificance when measured against the failure of the investigation to check out the information supplied to them at the time when it might have been of some use in recovering Madeleine.  Saving ten years of grief for her and her family.

It is interesting that the information was imparted round about the time that Mr Amaral was preparing his case against and indeed his coup de grace on the parents of the child he had given up for dead.

Shattering to think that concentration on the flawed understanding of the significance of the VRD alerts combined with misinterpretation of the forensic results may have led - in the opinion of ex-Met Police chief Peter Kirkham - to the failure look at other lines of enquiry.



Madeleine McCann: Anyone saying they were carrying a child around when Maddy disappeared should have been investigated

**Snip
Questions will be asked as to why the relevance of the information was not recognised earlier.

While there may have been an oversight by Leicestershire Police, there are two things we should remember.

They did not have access to all the material collected during the investigation and full responsibility for the case remained with the Portuguese at that time.

In their liaison role, they may have simply forwarded the questionnaires to Portuguese police without analysing them themselves.

Even if they did consider the content, they may not have realised the relevance without access to all of the material.

The information should have been recognised as of great relevance by the Portuguese police.

I would have expected any person saying they were innocently carrying a child at around the relevant time and place to be investigated and cross-referenced with other witness accounts.

That said, in a high-profile investigation, so much information floods in that it is all too easy for a crucial item to get lost.

At that time, the main focus of the investigation centred on the interpretation of the DNA evidence which had been recently made available.

This may have led to other potential lines of enquiry being overlooked.

No matter what the explanation, the fact that this “new” witness was in the system all along illustrates why case reviews are so important.

A review of all material, by new pairs of eyes and with the benefit of hindsight, almost always identifies something which has been overlooked.

In this case, it appears to have changed the basic understanding of what may have happened on Thursday, May 3, 2007.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/madeleine-mccann-anyone-saying-were-2965383

Firstly, the only thing that 'matched' with the Tanner sighting was a child with bare feet, seen from the knees down. The Smiths, on the other hand, saw a child of the right age with the right hair length and colour.

Secondly, no-one knows when the information from Crechedad came into the hands of the police, or even which police, so it's not correct to say that the PJ were busy with other things at the time;

[At that time, the main focus of the investigation centred on the interpretation of the DNA evidence which had been recently made available]

[sadie]

what else matched?
The only thing that "matched" was a small child

And palish pinkish patterned pyjamas with something around the hem

And a man dressed somewhat similarly in all three descriptions.

Tannermans hair and Crechmans hair do not appear to match and neither does Smithmans hair.

What I cannot understand is where the man labelled as Crechman was coming from?   OC creche was NOT in that direction; it was almost in the opposite direction.
Neither can I understand where Smithman was coming from.  No creches in the direction he was coming from either. 

So where were they coming from?

Furthermore if these three (one?) men were carrying their own daughter, didn't they care enough to bother to keep her warm on that cool gusty night?  Didn't they worry about her uncovered feet?   I remember reading somewhere that Jane was wearing Russells fleece because it was so chilly.

[mercury]

Thanks, Mercs. 

LP was responsible for collating UK-based enquiries, but he may have gone to his local cop shop, which then forgot to pass it on. Anyone, assuming he did indeed contact the cops, someone screwed up.


And Redwood said "almost certain", so that's a bit stronger than a strong probability, but still not a formal elimination. I don't really see how they could formally eliminate Tannerman without some other form of corroboration (eg CCTV).





DCI Redwood said in October: “Our focus in terms of understanding what happened on the night of May 3 has now given us a shift of emphasis. We are almost certain that the man seen by Jane Tanner is not Madeleine’s abductor.

“It takes us through to a position at 10pm when we see another man who is walking towards the ocean, close by to the apartment, with a young child in his arms.”

You are speculating there, I doubt any policeman stuck stuff in draws and forgot about them in a huge case like this...oh hang on...


As for redwood/sy they must have had very good reasons to eliminate tannerman when they knew they couodnt prove he was the "abductor"

[Robittybob1]

Thanks, Mercs. 

LP was responsible for collating UK-based enquiries, but he may have gone to his local cop shop, which then forgot to pass it on. Anyone, assuming he did indeed contact the cops, someone screwed up.


And Redwood said "almost certain", so that's a bit stronger than a strong probability, but still not a formal elimination. I don't really see how they could formally eliminate Tannerman without some other form of corroboration (eg CCTV).


DCI Redwood said in October: “Our focus in terms of understanding what happened on the night of May 3 has now given us a shift of emphasis. We are almost certain that the man seen by Jane Tanner is not Madeleine’s abductor.

“It takes us through to a position at 10pm when we see another man who is walking towards the ocean, close by to the apartment, with a young child in his arms.”

But you can't effectively bury a body in the sand with your bare hands!  Doesn't make sense to think Smithman was doing anything wrong.  What sort of places would be between where the sighting took place and the beach?

[ShiningInLuz]

But you can't effectively bury a body in the sand with your bare hands!  Doesn't make sense to think Smithman was doing anything wrong.  What sort of places would be between where the sighting took place and the beach?

Restaurants, pubs, an ATM, the main Luz bus stop, a 7-11 type convenience store.  And of course the church.

[Robittybob1]

Restaurants, pubs, an ATM, the main Luz bus stop, a 7-11 type convenience store.  And of course the church.

Thanks Shinning
I read that the church gave out its key to visitors to PDL  e.g Kate and Gerry got one.  Is this usual practice?  Would any of those other places have been open  at 10:00 - 11:00 on that Thursday night?