Crèche records 1
In the first part of 'When Madeleine Died?', Mr Hall questions whether Madeleine attended High Tea on Thu 3 May, and raises the possibility that the McCanns are lying about this, and/or the crèche records are in error to a serious extent i.e. false.
This conclusion is based on a flawed premise – namely, that parents signed children out (e.g. from the Mini Club), walked their children to the Tapas area, then High Tea was undertaken.
Kate's book says she went for a run that ended at the Tapas area around 5.30pm with Gerry and the 3 children already at High Tea. The crèche records show the McCann children were signed out around then, with Kate signing both forms.
In Mr Hall's version, Gerry signs the 3 children out before High Tea started therefore it should be his signature on both forms. Mr Hall does not address the issue of timing directly, simply relying on one statement that there was conviviality at the High Tea that day, and at least some of the participants seemed to have stayed after 5.30pm.
Mr Hall makes a further odd assumption, albeit minor. On 3rd May, he suggests that Gerry would have taken the long route to get from the Mini Club to the High Tea. At that point in the holiday, the short route had been discovered.
There are 2 options for the short route. Thanks to G-Unit's prodding in another thread, I have some confidence in which alternative was taken, by the McCanns at drop off/pick up times, and by the nannies to get the children to High Tea, and that happens to have importance elsewhere.
The crèche records are at
http://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/CRECHE.htm On 3 May, these show Ella O'Brien being signed out at 4.30pm, and she would then go to the beach with the T7, and miss that day's High Tea.
The bottom entry is for William Totman, and I interpret the squiggle in the time signed out as 5.15. Check for yourself. If I'm right, that means he attended High Tea but was one of the first to finish. Cat Baker could not be both at the crèche and at High Tea at 5.15, so if this entry is valid, William took High Tea.
One child, Alexander Mann, was signed out at 5.30pm, as per Madeleine. This suggests to me that the High Tea ended around 5.30pm, and more or less anything that might have gone on afterwards was simply parents socialising, as per Mr Raj Balu's statement.
Mr Hall thinks the records and Kate's book are in such disagreement that one must consider lying and/or forgery.
My opinion is that the records, statements, and Kate's book are in harmony, and that Mr Hall is applying very faulty logic.
One final option is that the crèche records are erroneous or forged to a lesser or greater extent, but this is already a long post, so I will leave that to another day.
