Did Goncalo Amaral misrepresent Harrison's findings?

[Eleanor]

I think this is one reason why this case intrigues so much in that there are simply so many possibilities even now some eight years on.

As far as the OP is concerned, it is a policeman's job to weigh up all the evidence and make a judgement call based on that and not on sentiment.  One thing is for sure, right or wrong Amaral was his own man.

Especially when it came to lining his own pocket.  It was in his own interests to misrepresent anything that suited him.

[ShiningInLuz]

I take this to be the most questionable passage from Dr Amaral's book

 

Here, from his report, is what Harrison actually said:


Harrison explicitly ruled out burial.

The reference Harrison made to statistics is this:


And note the provisor: if death has occurred ...

So, Amaral has misrepresented Harrison as saying that Madeleine is definitely dead, that the statistics point to Madeleine being definitely dead, that her remains are buried somewhere in close proximity to PdL (when Harrison
ruled out burial) and that her parents might well be responsible (when Harrison reached no, definitive, conclusion about what might have happened to Madeleine.)

Do Amaral's comments not verge on the libellous?

[Title and Post edited by Admin]

36

How certain are you that the presentation mentioned by Amaral was merely the report, rather than an interactive presentation to Amaral's team, thereby allowing any queries to be resolved?

If there was no presentation, merely the handing in of the report, then at least we could be sure of the starting point.

Then we would get to the next key difference.  The bit quoted from Harrison's report is restricted to sub-surface deposition in/around PdL beach (note the beach of Luz beach).  Amaral's book refers to burial in the area around Praia Da Luz.

Both make the same mistake of calling Luz 'Praia da Luz'.  (Actually, in the Portuguese version of the book, he normally referred to it as Vila da Luz or Aldeia da Luz, not Praia da Luz, so I would need to check if this is a translation error.) Common as this mistake is, it is still a mistake.  The town is called Luz, and only the beach is called Praia da Luz (the beach of Luz).

With Harrison, it is crystal clear that this section of his report is restricted to the beach area, so good he named it twice.  Amaral is referring to the area around Luz, not to the area around the beach.  The area around Luz is immensely larger than the beach area.

[Brietta]

I think this is one reason why this case intrigues so much in that there are simply so many possibilities even now some eight years on.

As far as the OP is concerned, it is a policeman's job to weigh up all the evidence and make a judgement call based on that and not on sentiment.  One thing is for sure, right or wrong Amaral was his own man.

Is that a polite way of saying he was a loose cannon?

[Angelo222]

How certain are you that the presentation mentioned by Amaral was merely the report, rather than an interactive presentation to Amaral's tea, thereby allowing any queries to be resolved?

If there was no presentation, merely the handing in of the report, then at least we could be sure of the starting point.

Then we would get to the next key difference.  The bit quoted from Harrison's report is restricted to sub-surface deposition in/around PdL beach (note the beach of Luz beach).  Amaral's book refers to burial in the area around Praia Da Luz.

Both make the same mistake of calling Luz 'Praia da Luz'.  (Actually, in the Portuguese version of the book, he normally referred to it as Vila da Luz or Aldeia da Luz, not Praia da Luz, so I would need to check if this is a translation error.) Common as this mistake is, it is still a mistake.  The town is called Luz, and only the beach is called Praia da Luz (the beach of Luz).

With Harrison, it is crystal clear that this section of his report is restricted to the beach area, so good he named it twice.  Amaral is referring to the area around Luz, not to the area around the beach.  The area around Luz is immensely larger than the beach area.

Good point ShiningInLuz, it has become normal for the British press to refer to the entire town as Praia da Luz when that name properly refers only to the beach resort as depicted by the two webcams at the top of the page.

[Angelo222]

Especially when it came to lining his own pocket.  It was in his own interests to misrepresent anything that suited him.

It was his prerogative to write a book revealing what went on once it was clear that the British Labour Gov wanted to silence him.

[ferryman]

And neither do you, Amaral or anyone else for that matter.  Only the perp if there was one knows the answer to that particular riddle so your constant claims that Amaral is wrong are baseless.

For what its worth Amaral was best placed to understand the entire event so for him to get it entirely wrong is not logical. There must be some truth in what he uncovered given he was able to shake up Kate McCann to such an extent she refused to answer some pretty mild questions.  Little did she know then that her refusal would later be made public in the way it was, that must have been embarrassing!!

(My added emphasis to the part in bold)

Would you not say that it was much more embarrassing that Amaral's wild guesswork (at most charitable) or outright lies (at probably more accurate) should be exposed by simple comparison of what he wrote in his book with what is written in the files?

[Eleanor]

It was his prerogative to write a book revealing what went on once it was clear that the British Labour Gov wanted to silence him.

The British Labour Government?  Are you serious?  Why would The Labour Government want to silence a tin pot little man from some obscure Algarve village?  You will be telling us next that Gordon Brown refused to sign that Treaty if Portugal didn't sack Amaral.

[G-Unit]

Firstly, in case people are unaware, Mark Harrison was brought in following a request by Guillhemino Encamacao the Algarve Regional Director of the Portuguese Judicial Police. He asked for help from the NPIA. Harrison's brief was to help the Portuguese authorities by reviewing the searches already carried out and to advise how to carry out new searches but this time the search was for a body. He was not required to give an opinion as to whether Madeleine was dead, he was required to assume that she was and to advise how to search for her body.

This report has highlighted the extensive and professional efforts made by the Portuguese authorities regarding the search to locate Madeleine McCann alive. It has now begun to consider further opportunities to re search locations in order to address the possibility that she has been murdered and concealed nearby. This would be a proportionate and appropriate response given the elapsed time since her disappearance and previous experience in such similar cases.
http://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/MARK_HARRISON.htm

[pegasus]

MH recommended that Eddie should search various scrubland areas near the apartment and this was done on 1st Aug 2007 http://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/P8/08_VOLUME_VIIIa_Page_2058.jpg

My only critisism of MH's otherwise excellent recommendations is that all these scrubland areas are exclusively roughly northeast from the apartment. It is obvious IMO that this was because of the JT sighting focussing investigators' eyes northeastwards and never looking west.
A scrubland area much closer to the apartment (immediately west of Block 4) was excluded, and the only reason IMO was that it is due west of the apartment, in the opposite direction of the JT sighting.

If MH had known at that time that the JT sighting was irrelevant, he (and therefore Amaral) would IMO have included this bit of scrubland on Eddie's list.

[stephen25000]

The British Labour Government?  Are you serious?  Why would The Labour Government want to silence a tin pot little man from some obscure Algarve village?  You will be telling us next that Gordon Brown refused to sign that Treaty if Portugal didn't sack Amaral.

The UK Government did get involved.

That is a fact.

The question is why did a couple of nondescript doctors need government backing in the first place ?

Did the Needhams get government intervention 20 years ago,  or have the parents of other missing UK children had government help  at prime ministerial level ?

[Mr Gray]

The UK Government did get involved.

That is a fact.

The question is why did a couple of nondescript doctors need government backing in the first place ?

Did the Needhams get government intervention 20 years ago,  or have the parents of other missing UK children had government help  at prime ministerial level ?

. 
The clue is in 20 years ago
It's quite normal for the govt to be involved in serious crimes against Brits abroad
I'm sure a quick Google search would show other cases

[stephen25000]

With 3 prime ministers ?

Do tell.

[Mr Gray]

With 3 prime ministers ?

Do tell.

I would say it's normal
Why do you think it's strange

[ferryman]

Firstly, in case people are unaware, Mark Harrison was brought in following a request by Guillhemino Encamacao the Algarve Regional Director of the Portuguese Judicial Police. He asked for help from the NPIA. Harrison's brief was to help the Portuguese authorities by reviewing the searches already carried out and to advise how to carry out new searches but this time the search was for a body. He was not required to give an opinion as to whether Madeleine was dead, he was required to assume that she was and to advise how to search for her body.

This report has highlighted the extensive and professional efforts made by the Portuguese authorities regarding the search to locate Madeleine McCann alive. It has now begun to consider further opportunities to re search locations in order to address the possibility that she has been murdered and concealed nearby. This would be a proportionate and appropriate response given the elapsed time since her disappearance and previous experience in such similar cases.
http://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/MARK_HARRISON.htm

So why did Amaral lie in his interview to the Spanish El Mundo magazine that (sic) we talked about death by others, not murder?

(Key parts underlined)

By Silvia Taulés
The apartment window stayed always shut, in spite of what Kate McCann said
The girl might have fallen from the sofa; there could have been an accident because of the sleeping solution
Gonçalo Amaral in a moment of the interview (Photo: Bernabé Cordón)


Madrid - He arrives late, with a certain’ star’ look. His book (Esquilo, 2008), which will be officially presented on the 9 of September, has sold 120.000 copies in two weeks, a record in Portugal.

This, once begun, was unstoppable. Gonçalo Amaral, the visible head of an investigation that had thousands of people in suspense, tells why he remains insistent that it was Madeleine's parents, Kate and Gerry, who were responsible for her disappearance.

Question – You defend the theory that the parents are guilty of what happened to Madeleine McCann.

Answer – No. That is not in the book.

Q - However that is the theory that one can understand from reading it.

A - From the synopsis you also obtain the same conclusions of the book.

Q - What are the reasons that make you believe that imply the McCanns in the disappearance of their daughter?

A - First, it is that they always defended the theory of the kidnapping. The mother said that the window of the room was open when she saw that the girl was not there. That is not correct, the window was closed and is impossible that the girl left that way. We worked in the apartment and the window was closed. The parents have always defended that the girl was alive and they were the first saying that Maddie could be dead.

Q - Other evidences?

A - The witnesses, there were several incongruities between their statements. Those that had dinner with the McCanns that one night, their friends, invented the system of monitoring of the children. Why? There are various details that take to you to think about the culpability of the parents. There are two different lists about the monitoring system.

Q - You speak of incongruities in the declarations about the monitoring system. The book also indicates that the nine people who had dinner together drank an average of eight wine bottles, four of red and four of white. Isn’t there the possibility that, between the disappearance and the alcohol, they were confused and that they did not remember the exact minutes in which they watched the children?

A - Right, but then there is the window where we found Kate’s finger prints, the mother of the girl. She said that she had never touched that window, and the cleaning lady assured that she had cleaned it on the previous day. And above all she said that the window was open when it was closed, it doesn’t add up.

Q - It could not be that the mother or the father closed the window later, when returning to the room to search for the girl?

A - There are three people who say that they walked in front of the apartment and saw the window closed. Didn’t they state that it was open? After all what is the truth? And there are other things. The mother says that she entered in the room and that the windows were open and the shutters were raised. No one else saw that. They simulated a kidnapping. They wanted us to say that someone went in to steal and when the girl was discovered he killed her.

Q - That could have happened?

A – It is very complicated.

Q - Why?

A - Let us return to the persons who passed in front of the apartment. Nobody saw anything strange. We investigated all the persons who commit theft in the area. There were no unknown fingerprints in the apartment, of course they could have used gloves, that is true, but that could not have been the case. Furthermore, the parents were the first to speak of death. And it is normal to think that their daughter could have died, but they have never admitted this in public. I do not believe that the parents killed her.

Q - So, what are we talking about?

A - About an accident. The child could have fallen from a sofa, could have had an accident with Calpol (a sleeping solution). We never had access to the girl’s medical history, so we don’t know whether she was healthy or not. We can only speculate. There are many very strange details.

Update - The rest of the Interview, thanks to Mercedes from Hasta que Se Sepa La Verdade (Until the Truth is Known)

Q - What do you think that could have happened that night?

A - Both the British and Portuguese police, and even the prosecutor, who has already changed his mind, thought the same. We talked about death by others, not murder. In the room blood and cadaver odour was found just below a window where a sofa was. The father was talking to a friend just outside that window for a while. The girl did not have a a heavy sleep, that's what the parents said. Perhaps she heard her father and climbed to the sofa bellow the window. But the parents, for the girl not to go out,moved it away from the wall. Madeleine could have fallen.

Q - The girl falls from the sofa, dies with the blow and the parents find her.

A - The mother. It is the mother who finds the girl dead.

Q - But I am trying to think out an idea. How can a mother who has just found her daughter dead on the floor decides to hide the corpse? And how do you hide the corpse of a girl of nearly four years old so that no one can't find it?

A – This is what we were investigating when I was dismissed from the case. I want to recall that there is an Irish man who claimed to have seen Gerry McCann with a girl in his arms, on his way towards the beach that same night. That testimony has been hidden. The dogs specialized in finding traces of blood and odour of cadaver, found both in the wall of the apartment and in the boot of the car that the McCann rented 23 days later.

Q - Did Gerry McCann buried his dead daughter on the beach and then unearthed and put her in the boot after 23 days later?

A - We do not know. The Irish [witness] that I have told you about saw Gerry on television with a child in his arms arriving in the UK and stated that it was the same image they had seen back in May in Portugal. That man spent two days without sleeping when he realized what he had found, but nobody has talked about them. And what one of the Irish has said is logical, a man with a child in his arms toward the beach.

Q - But this implies that the whole group, the nine people who eat dinner that night, had agreed to lie.

A - All of them. Because, if you do not know, the British law regarding negligence and child welfare is very strict. They left their children alone in the apartments. In the UK, if you leave a child alone for half an hour, you lose the custody. After Madeleine's death, if it had been made public that it was an accident, everyone could have lost custody.

Q - So you consider that one of the reasons for the parents and friends to have lied is because they feared to loose their children's custody.

A - Yes, yes. Nobody has opened legal proceedings for what happened, for the negligence, and we have asked to the British authorities why. Have they answered? Of course not.

Q – Let's go to the day of the disappearance. At 17h30 is the last time that neutral witnesses have seen Maddie alive. At 20h30, her parents sit down, composed, at the table for dinner with friends. In the middle, Gerry even plays tennis. Is there enough time for the girl to fall from the sofa, to kill herself [sic, se mate], for the parents to realize, to decide to conceal her, for the brothers to be sleeping, and for them to arrive undisturbed and sit at the table as if nothing had happened? Even more, for them to sit down at the table after having convinced the rest of the group that they mustn't report the death of the girl?

A - In those three hours there are inconsistencies between witnesses. Some said that the checkings lasted half an hour, others said 30 seconds...

Q – It is obvious that they contradict each other, but did they have time to do everything you say they did?

A - Yes, of course they had time. Some say that Gerry had a strange behaviour on the table.

Q – Did they?

A – They said that he spoke too much, gesticulated a lot, quite the opposite from the previous days. For me this is a very real hypothesis.

Q - You have a long career as an investigator, years in which you have faced criminals and innocents. What do you see when facing the McCanns?

A - They are two persons with much fear. I do not know if they fear to be discovered or fear the police of an unknown country.

Q – It was said that Kate was very cold. But I've seen her cry.

A - So did I. She is not cold. There was a moment, in a meeting with them, when we set out the sofa theory. Kate puts her head down, looking distant, and, after a few seconds, she looked up again as if nothing had happened. She looked like she was escaping from the role that she was interpreting.

Q - When you raised the hypothesis that the girl might have died after falling off the sofa, did Kate McCann answer?

A - She did not answer, she just dropped her head for a moment, as if she was about to faint. She had an emotional collapse that lasted just a moment.

Q - And Gerry McCann?

A – He is a very strong person, dominant. He's a surgeon, a man capable of making decisions very quickly. That was good for him to be able to decide over Madeleine. If you have to hide the body, you must decide quickly. And it could only be hidden on the beach, and you have to take her on foot. This is where the statements from the Irish witness is important, the one that no one has taken into account.

Q - What is your opinion?

A - To me, Gerry hid Madeleine's body on the beach. And after a few days he moved her with his car. We work following this lead. Trying to find out the date of the switch, some details, but we were on the way. The Irish was about to arrive in Portugal, but everything was delayed too much, he even received external pressures. In the end, he didn't testify for the Police.

Q – They [McCanns] have appeared in all  the media to announce the disappearance of their daughter and if it ends up that they have done it, what are they, psychopaths?

A – No, they are human. If the McCann admit that their daughter is dead, they can no longer collect money from the Maddie fund, and that's a lot of money, over one million pounds. That's why they say that the girl was abducted.

Q - What if they do not want to lose hope? It all seems very morbid.

A - It is. If they admit that she is dead they will lose their style of life. They are human, not psychopaths.

Q - You said that the girl was frozen.

A - For there to be vestiges in the boot of the car rented 23 days later, they must have preserved the corpse in some way. I believe that when they put it in the boot, with the heat of those days in the Algarve,  happened a similar situation with that of the shopping bags, which melt and then the water is transferred to the car.

Q – Couldn't the vestiges be transferred from the room to the parents clothes and after to the car?

A - But if you have blood on your clothes it is because you've seen it [sic]. And the blood that the dogs found was washed blood, it was remains not clear spots.

Q - Neither you nor Alípio Ribeiro (former director of the Judicial Police), nor Olegário Souza (former police spokesman), are still on their posts. You have even pre-retired.

A - There were too many pressures. The McCanns have many contacts and nobody was interested to know the truth.

Q - Is it the British Empire against Portugal?

A - Yes, it seems so.

TRACES OF DNA IN THE CAR'S BOOT
The Scotland Yard dogs detected, in the boot of the car rented by the McCanns 23 days after the disappearance of the girl, traces of DNA which could belong to the girl; for the Portuguese Police more evidence, that Maddie was not kidnapped but that she died in the Ocean Club apartment.


Muchas Gracias to Ines for the late hour help and correction of my Luso-Spanish, Muchas gracias to Mercedes for her translation of the rest of the article and Muchas gracias to Rachel for the full article in Spanish.

[Mr Gray]

With 3 prime ministers ?

Do tell.

Do you think the McCanns were responsible for the two elections