Kate McCann insisted that Gerry and Dave go out searching for Madeleine.

[faithlilly]

I'm sorry but that quote simply won't do as it does not prove that David Payne knew where the church was on the night of the 3rd.  He is talking months after the event, months in which he had had ample time to get the lay of the land.

I'd say it is almost impossible to visit the Paraiso restaurant without catching sight of the church.

[Alfie]

I'd say it is almost impossible to visit the Paraiso restaurant without catching sight of the church.

Really?  Catching sight of something and mentally logging and remembering where something is are two different things.

[ShiningInLuz]

I'd say it is almost impossible to visit the Paraiso restaurant without catching sight of the church.

I'll test this out when I get the time, but at the moment it is 30C in the shade, and I'm not going walkabout in that.

Without knowing the route taken for the Kate/Gerry jog or the one on 3 May 2007, it is somewhat speculative as to which route they took, and indeed, how much of Luz they covered.

The board on the seafront where water purity figures are posted makes the length of the beach as 300m.  Normal walking rate of 4mph comes out at 100m/minute.  If all they did was jog there, jog along the beach once, then jog back, it was scarcely worth the effort (despite the fact that the climb back from the beach to 5A is a bit of a challenge).

Does anyone have the Ocean Club map to hand?  That might clarify a potential route.

[pathfinder73]

The McCanns can run for many miles nevermind a little hill up to 5A from the beach. They ran up a far steeper one to the monument. The church is only a 5 minute walk if that. Some people need to get real.

4078 'And do you remember what you did that day''
Reply 'Erm, I remember I went running with Kate at lunchtime, she's quite a good runner, and we went out on the road all the way up to the main junc, erm, the sort of main road where you access Praia da Luz from and then back'.
 
4078 'What sort of distance would that be''
Reply 'Erm, yeah, I think it'd be about three or four miles, maybe each way'.

http://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/MATTHEW-OLDFIELD-ROGATORY.htm

[ShiningInLuz]

The McCanns can run for many miles nevermind a little hill up to 5A from the beach. They ran up a far steeper one to the monument. The church is only a 5 minute walk if that. Some people need to get real.

4078 'And do you remember what you did that day''
Reply 'Erm, I remember I went running with Kate at lunchtime, she's quite a good runner, and we went out on the road all the way up to the main junc, erm, the sort of main road where you access Praia da Luz from and then back'.
 
4078 'What sort of distance would that be''
Reply 'Erm, yeah, I think it'd be about three or four miles, maybe each way'.

http://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/MATTHEW-OLDFIELD-ROGATORY.htm

Matthew's ability to estimate distance is dubious.  The jog that tallies with this is from 5A going out of Luz on the M537 to the east towards Lagos to the junction with the N125.  Google Earth makes it around 1.9 miles each way.  This route is understandable as the McCanns/Paynes probably arrived in Luz using it, and basically it is a near flat run along the valley.

[Angelo222]

As regards who saw GM at the beach on the night, unless you believe GA just makes things up and nothng else, then read here...


http://portugalresident.com/new-revelations-as-mccanns-go-all-out-for-€1-million-in-damages


As Gerry McCann was due to testify today (June 16) in the long-running civil action for defamation that he and wife Kate have taken out against former detective Gonçalo Amaral, damning new claims about his behaviour on the night three-year-old Madeleine disappeared have appeared in the Portuguese press.

On Sunday, the headline of a story carried by Correio da Manhã proclaimed “Gerry searched for Maddie drunk”, while in the evening the policeman whose inconvenient theory the couple is demanding over a million euros in damages for went on television to describe how a key witness had placed Gerry McCann on Luz beach on the night Madeleine went missing - but how that witness’ testimony has since been “wiped from police records”.

The first story hinged on an account from farmer and former fisherman Cândido Furtado who lives a short walk from Luz church overlooking the beach.

Furtado told journalists how he had seen Gerry McCann “totally drunk” calling Madeleine’s name in the street in the early hours of the morning after she reportedly vanished.

“The father was walking at 1am with a bottle of wine in his hand,” Furtado told CM.

“He was calling the child’s name outside my door, and I asked him ‘what kind of noise is this?’ He said: ‘Menina, menina, embora, embora’.”

Father and grandfather Furtado said he told Gerry McCann to call the police, and then went fishing.

But as CM adds, “he had no doubts that Gerry McCann was drunk”. “You could see it instantly, by the way he was walking,” he told the paper.

Intriguingly, hours later, former police inspector Gonçalo Amaral went on air on CMTV to say Gerry McCann had also been seen on the beach on the night Madeleine went missing - but that the witness who placed him there (a British tourist) had her testimony wiped from police records.

“We have tried to recover the testimony and the documents that related to it. They simply disappeared. Still today we don’t know who this person is, or where she is,” he told the news channel.

Even more intriguing perhaps is a letter received in The Resident offices today claiming that Madeleine’s body is indeed buried in Praia da Luz, but not in any of the places searched so far.

Madeleine will be found under a nearby driveway to a private house, “very possibly inside a missing carry all tennis bag", wrote South African investigator Martin Van Wyk, who maintains the truth lies with the Tapas 13 - not the Tapas 7 “as everybody was made to believe”.

Adding that he knows his email, sent to a number of news sources and investigating police, “will be pushed to one side”, Wyk advises recipients “do not delete it, as you will later refer back to it and be calling me”.

As we wrote up these developments, Sky News reported that Gerry and Kate McCann had not yet been able to give their “victim impact assessments” to the Lisbon court. There has been a “delay in the proceedings”.

Whatever happens today however will not lead to any instant verdict. The case, which was brought out against Amaral in 2009, will need “a few weeks” consideration before the judge contacts the legal teams on both sides with her final decision.

By NATASHA DONN news@algarveresident.com


Sorry, PF cross posted

This witness appeared to be in little doubt that the man he spoke to was Gerry, that he was shouting out for Maddie, was carrying a bottle of wine and was drunk.  Other than the wailing mullah episodes in main reception and at the apartment are there any references by the police or Amaral to GM being intoxicated?

Where did GM get a bottle of wine at 1am in the morning?

[G-Unit]

This witness appeared to be in little doubt that the man he spoke to was Gerry, that he was shouting out for Maddie, was carrying a bottle of wine and was drunk.  Other than the wailing mullah episodes in main reception and at the apartment are there any references by the police or Amaral to GM being intoxicated?

Where did GM get a bottle of wine at 1am in the morning?

I assume he may have had some in the apartment unless they drank a whole bottle of NZ before going out.

The GNR officers said their colleagues called the Policia Judiciaria - the Portuguese equivalent of our CID - because they felt "something wasn't right".
One said of the Tapas Nine: "They were upset, panicking, wide-eyed, the usual, but there was something else. They were scared - not the usual scared, they were jumpy, nervous. It wasn't normal. None of it was normal.
"They'd all been drinking. They weren't falling over but it was hard to deal with them.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1568477/Portuguese-police-admit-Madeleine-circus.html

[Brietta]

** Snip
The inquiry's new head, Portugal's second most senior policeman Paulo Rebelo, was reported this week to have reinterrogated staff serving the group about whether they were drunk the night Madeleine vanished.

But waiters who served the Tapas Nine insisted that they had drunk only moderate amounts.

The GNR officers said their colleagues called the Policia Judiciaria ...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1568477/Portuguese-police-admit-Madeleine-circus.html

In my opinion the GNR officers called the PJ because their search for Madeleine had made it plain they were dealing with the serious case of a missing child.

[pathfinder73]

This witness appeared to be in little doubt that the man he spoke to was Gerry, that he was shouting out for Maddie, was carrying a bottle of wine and was drunk.  Other than the wailing mullah episodes in main reception and at the apartment are there any references by the police or Amaral to GM being intoxicated?

Where did GM get a bottle of wine at 1am in the morning?

If it was Gerry, he saw him not far from the church, hours before he was asking for directions to it. Oh dear but it's obvious why he asked for directions to it if he actually knew where it was.

[John]

The one thing especially about this thread is that the people who a few threads back were insisting that neither Gerry nor Kate did any searching (What terrible people they were !!).... have suddenly decided that Gerry and Kate did search and a good deal of it .... and that Gerry was on the beach looking.

The double standards of some of you appalls me.


It was a long search period.  Of course Gerry would search the beach ... and he would go to all the places where they had gone as a family.  He would be thinking that it was possible that Madeleine had gone back there looking for them.   In his desperation he would look everywhere.

PFinder, there is no proof whatsoever that Smithman, went east towards the church from Rua D'Escola.  He could have gone south, down the steps towards the little rocky cove .... or he could have gone down the steps and then west.  In fact at any point he could have vanished into a house or have been picked up by a car.   
All this is if Smithman actually exists and some think he doesn't.


There are persuasive arguments by both Shining and Heri that Smithman would not have gone towards the church.

Shining pointed out that the route you suggest took him past the busy ATM machine and several restaurants.  Not likely for one wanting to not be seen.

Heriberto used a more scientific approach using vector diagrams, which indicated that he was most likely to be heading south or west ... but definitely NOT east towards the Church           

Smithman went down the steps (south) that the Smith family came up.  Had he been heading east towards the church he would have taken the shortest route around the corner.  Had he been going west he would not have approached Aoife as she emerged from the top of the steps and then passed her.  Amaral worked this out early on and that is why derelict properties and gardens bordering the steps and the adjacent street were searched.

[sadie]

I'll test this out when I get the time, but at the moment it is 30C in the shade, and I'm not going walkabout in that.

Without knowing the route taken for the Kate/Gerry jog or the one on 3 May 2007, it is somewhat speculative as to which route they took, and indeed, how much of Luz they covered.

The board on the seafront where water purity figures are posted makes the length of the beach as 300m.  Normal walking rate of 4mph comes out at 100m/minute.  If all they did was jog there, jog along the beach once, then jog back, it was scarcely worth the effort (despite the fact that the climb back from the beach to 5A is a bit of a challenge).

Does anyone have the Ocean Club map to hand?  That might clarify a potential route.

 

The safest and shortest, so best route, to the beach area near the Paraiso, with young children was via the alleyways coming out by "The Plough and .......", or by OC main reception.  Then across the main Rua Direita and down one of the little roads leading to the beach.

I didn't especially look for the church when I did it, but the route was never near the church.  After the first part, the church was always at right angles to the way I was walking.   So beyond my periferal vision had it been on view.  At all times there were villas and apartments between me and the church.  Once at the Paraiso restaurant beach area, the top part of it would have probably have been in view over villa and apartment rooves, but I never noticed it.   I never noticed it all the way down and up again

Looking at the sea and people watching was far more interesting.


Maybe Shining will prove me wrong.  We shall see.

[Angelo222]

Why was GM looking for a church at 4am in the morning anyway?  Should he not have been looking for the Chief of Police??

[John]

Why was GM looking for a church at 4am in the morning anyway?  Should he not have been looking for the Chief of Police??

Seemingly the McCanns never met the chief detective until years later when they sat in the same courtroom.

[pathfinder73]

Why was GM looking for a church at 4am in the morning anyway?  Should he not have been looking for the Chief of Police??

"A second witness spotted the man minutes later rushing past the church in the resort and heading to the sea front.

The dark-haired man was wearing white trousers and a dark jacket."

http://www.mccannfiles.com/id331.html

Is this the witness Amaral claimed disappeared from the files? White trousers and a dark jacket matched with the Smiths statements. Be interesting to know the source of the man passing the church information.

SY had Smithman heading towards the church in the Crimewatch special. I agree but the steps is a possibility.

[sadie]

Why was GM looking for a church at 4am in the morning anyway?  Should he not have been looking for the Chief of Police??

News to me.  Where did you get that Gerry was looking for a church at 4am from?