The child gate located at the top of the steps.

[G-Unit]

I believe JT had one.     Personally I wouldn't 100% trust anything 'mechanical'.     Also the fact that the alarm is sitting there in full view - and thus advertising to all and sundry that your children are alone in their apartment -  is not a good idea IMO.

Personally I think the use of baby alarms and the listening service - as a means of child care whilst parents are absent should be discouraged or even banned maybe  -  at all holiday venues.

I'm amazed that they're still seen as viable options considering the publicity this case received. Not because of the danger of abduction, but because other things can happen when children are left alone and they won't necessarily include noise.

[pathfinder73]

The possibilities are:-
1. MO was mistaken & the gate was closed
2. The gate had been left open by GM.
3. The gate had been left open by a wandering Madeleine.
4. The gate had been left open by a potential intruder.

I think MO would have remembered stopping & having to assess how the child gate opened, which tends to suggest it was already open & he left it open after completing his check.

Number 2 if it was open. Kate was supposed to check at 9:30 not anybody else. If Matt took those extra steps as he put it he would've found Madeleine gone. Smithman moved her out before 9:30 (patio side) but to be seen nearly an hour later there is only one explanation for Madeleine's disappearance. She was moved by Smithman on two separate occasions but the plan was not clever enough to fool Pathfinder.

[Brietta]

I haven't read Pat Brown's ideas.  The link looks like it is a bit of jolly amusement for a idle hour so I have stacked in my in-tray, thanks.

But concise?  I need to read an entire book for a concise rebuttal?   

LOL ... depends very much how many arguments you wish to counter  I think it would possibly take the equivalent of a few volumes of Encyclopaedia Britannica to get most ...

Perhaps you are correct though ... having given it some thought, 'concise' was possibly the wrong adjective here.

[pegasus]

I doubt anyone aged around 4 would bother shutting the patio door, closing the child gate and closing the garden gate, which is why the state of these is so important.

Yes. The only way to properly ask each checker the state of the stairgate before and after each check, is for investigators to first obtain an identical stairgate. So they can learn how it works and learn the right questions to ask. I found the exact make and model so SY should be capable of doing the same.

You need to understand the function of the u-shaped metal flange, and the detailed operation of the button and lever, and the fact it doesn't lock by itself, and that it opens both ways.

Then have it there in the interviews so that witnesses can demonstrate hands-on exactly how they opened and closed it.

If it was at all times locked, that might rule out out the wandering-then-abduction (MWT and O'Connor theories) and wandering-then-accident (e.g. see Morgan statement) ideas.

[pegasus]

Number 2 if it was open. Kate was supposed to check at 9:30 not anybody else. If Matt took those extra steps as he put it he would've found Madeleine gone. Smithman moved her out before 9:30 (patio side) but to be seen nearly an hour later there is only one explanation for Madeleine's disappearance. She was moved by Smithman on two separate occasions but the plan was not clever enough to fool Pathfinder.

So in your theory (what I disagree with) your hypothetical bag by way of this safety gate and steps?

[pegasus]

Do you think Madeleine could have closed the patio door without getting the heavy curtain/nets jammed in it?

- (answered on sliding door thread)

[pathfinder73]

So in your theory (what I disagree with) your hypothetical bag by way of this safety gate and steps?

I'm not ruling out a bag being used on the first move until it's properly investigated. There's an unidentified bag that needs to be confirmed. One thing is for certain you don't want to be seen carrying a child away from the crime scene.

[mercury]

I read the 'rebuttal' link, but they haven't got the correct information either. There is hard evidence that the police weren't called until 10.40pm;

That the police were called at 10.40.
False.  The police had been called twice by this time.  According to the witness statements of the Ocean Club receptionist (see below), the police were called immediately following a phonecall from restaurant staff.  When the police had not arrived by around 10.30pm, they were called a second time at the request of Gerry McCann. By this time, there were many guests and staff searching the complex and surrounding streets for Madeleine.

Correct. The police WERE called twice but at 10.40 and 10.50 or so, not earlier, proof is in the files, but some insist on hearsay and assumptions. Cold hard evidenced facts are normally better to rely on.

[pegasus]

The gate has three states
Open / Closed and unlocked / Closed and locked.
Why not obtain same gate, fit it at top of some stairs, same way round as in PDL, and ask relevant peeps to re-enact how they went through the gate?

[G-Unit]

Correct. The police WERE called twice but at 10.40 and 10.50 or so, not earlier, proof is in the files, but some insist on hearsay and assumptions. Cold hard evidenced facts are normally better to rely on.

That helping of hearsay and assumptions was from a site claiming to be exposing the myths too. Here they are saying someone was wrong about the time the police were called. As we know, they are the ones who have got it wrong.

That the police were called at 10.40.
False.  The police had been called twice by this time.  According to the witness statements of the Ocean Club receptionist (see below), the police were called immediately following a phonecall from restaurant staff.  When the police had not arrived by around 10.30pm, they were called a second time at the request of Gerry McCann. By this time, there were many guests and staff searching the complex and surrounding streets for Madeleine.
http://madeleinemythsexposed.pbworks.com/w/page/41720163/Analysis%20and%20Rebuttal%20of%20Pat%20Brown's%20ebook%20%22Profile%20of%20the%20Disappearance%20of%20Madeleine%20McCann%20(UPDATE

[Mr Gray]

That helping of hearsay and assumptions was from a site claiming to be exposing the myths too. Here they are saying someone was wrong about the time the police were called. As we know, they are the ones who have got it wrong.

That the police were called at 10.40.
False.  The police had been called twice by this time.  According to the witness statements of the Ocean Club receptionist (see below), the police were called immediately following a phonecall from restaurant staff.  When the police had not arrived by around 10.30pm, they were called a second time at the request of Gerry McCann. By this time, there were many guests and staff searching the complex and surrounding streets for Madeleine.
http://madeleinemythsexposed.pbworks.com/w/page/41720163/Analysis%20and%20Rebuttal%20of%20Pat%20Brown's%20ebook%20%22Profile%20of%20the%20Disappearance%20of%20Madeleine%20McCann%20(UPDATE

it is ironic you use the word hearsay....

the report of another person's words by a witness, which is usually disallowed as evidence in a court of law.

that sums up Gerry's statements

[stephen25000]

it is ironic you use the word hearsay....

the report of another person's words by a witness, which is usually disallowed as evidence in a court of law.

that sums up Gerry's statements

Usually disallowed.

By whom exactly.

Cite.

[Benice]

That helping of hearsay and assumptions was from a site claiming to be exposing the myths too. Here they are saying someone was wrong about the time the police were called. As we know, they are the ones who have got it wrong.

That the police were called at 10.40.
False.  The police had been called twice by this time.  According to the witness statements of the Ocean Club receptionist (see below), the police were called immediately following a phonecall from restaurant staff.  When the police had not arrived by around 10.30pm, they were called a second time at the request of Gerry McCann. By this time, there were many guests and staff searching the complex and surrounding streets for Madeleine.
http://madeleinemythsexposed.pbworks.com/w/page/41720163/Analysis%20and%20Rebuttal%20of%20Pat%20Brown's%20ebook%20%22Profile%20of%20the%20Disappearance%20of%20Madeleine%20McCann%20(UPDATE

Not hearsay at all - the above statement was based on the witness statement of the employee who actually made the calls. 


Helder Jorge Samaio Luis, receptionist

"He knows about the situation that happened at the Ocean Club concerning the disappearance of a little given that on the day in question (03/05/2007) he was on duty and was contacted by a member of staff from the Tapas Restaurant between 09.30 and 22.00 who informed him that the daughter of some guests who were dining there had disappeared. That he immediately contacted the GNR in Lagos, shortly after this the child’s father and John Hill arrived at the reception and he phoned the GNR again."

Vitor Manuel dos Santos, Head of accommodation

With regard to the date of the disappearance on 3rd May 2007, he remembers that at 22.00/22.15 he received a phone call from the reception, from receptionist Helder, who told him that John Hill was extremely agitated as a child had disappeared and that the GNR had been contacted but had not arrived yet. He added (the receptionist) that he had phoned the GNR post several times and that he had been told that they would arrive when they could but that they were investigating a theft in Odiaxere. The receptionist asked the witness whether he should contact the PSP, to which the witness replied no as this area belongs to the GNR.

End quote.

Not a hint anywhere in those two statements that the first call was not actually made until 10.41 but a clear indication that the first call had been made between 10 and 10.15.

Just goes to show the fallibility of memory and although I'm sure both witnesses told the truth as they remembered it - they were both obviously wrong about the time of the phone calls.   Another reason IMO why the   information in witness statements cannot be relied on to be accurate. 

[G-Unit]

Usually disallowed.

By whom exactly.

Cite.

Previous consistent and inconsistent statements

Sometimes during the testimony of a witness, the witness may be questioned about statements he previously made outside court on an earlier occasion, to demonstrate either that he has been consistent or inconsistent in his account of events. The Act did not change the circumstances in which such statements could become admissible in evidence (which are still prescribed in the Criminal Procedure Act 1865), but it did change the evidential effect of such statements once admitted. Formerly, such statements were not evidence of the facts stated in them (unless the witness agreed with them in court): they only proved that the witness had kept his story straight or had changed his story, and so were only evidence of his credibility (or lack of it) as a witness. They were not hearsay. Under the 2003 Act, however, such statements are now themselves evidence of any facts stated in them, not just of credibility, and so are now hearsay.

[Mr Gray]

Previous consistent and inconsistent statements

Sometimes during the testimony of a witness, the witness may be questioned about statements he previously made outside court on an earlier occasion, to demonstrate either that he has been consistent or inconsistent in his account of events. The Act did not change the circumstances in which such statements could become admissible in evidence (which are still prescribed in the Criminal Procedure Act 1865), but it did change the evidential effect of such statements once admitted. Formerly, such statements were not evidence of the facts stated in them (unless the witness agreed with them in court): they only proved that the witness had kept his story straight or had changed his story, and so were only evidence of his credibility (or lack of it) as a witness. They were not hearsay. Under the 2003 Act, however, such statements are now themselves evidence of any facts stated in them, not just of credibility, and so are now hearsay.

That statement was not made by Gerry... plus...it would not be allowed in court as evidence as Gerry had not been made arguido...uk equivalent of cautiuoned