Met Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley gives update on the search for Madeleine McCann.

[Alfie]

They were not interviewed as witnesses "we are happy that was dealt with at the time". If they were interviewed he would have said so. They are the parents of the missing girl we are doing are best for is their official line.

So in your opinion, despite Gerry being chief suspect in his daughter's disappearance and the net closing in on him, neither he nor any of his friends or wife have been interviewed by Op Grange?  Why not, in your view?

[stephen25000]

As a reminder....................

' Rowley stated...

"We have achieved a complete understanding of it all"

Then says he doesn't know if she is alive or dead.'

He hasn't got a clue.

[stephen25000]

Those two scenarios don't stack "one above the other" they continue from one to the other (woke and wandered then abducted from the outside).
Whereas with parental involvement scenario I have not seen a feasible scenario being promoted to answer the Gerry McCann questions "when did she have an accident" and "when did we have time to dispose of her body"?

If there was a sensible theory no doubt SY would have investigated the parents.

In any proper and thorough investigation Rob, they would have been.

NOW WE KNOW THEY WEREN'T.

[Brietta]

The Madeleine McCann investigation, codenamed Operation Grange within the Metropolitan Police, has always suffered from the inadequacies of the original Portuguese investigation.

Just one was the fact that mobile phone call records from Praia Da Luz that night were collected, but not interrogated for clues.

At least they were collected, says the Met, which has now caught up with the huge task of examining them. But who knows what opportunities have been missed?

Detectives on the case have developed hypotheses about Madeleine's disappearance and it is clear they are still trying to confirm at least one of them - a "significant", "critical" line of inquiry.

Even if this bears fruit, it may not answer that chilling, decade-old question: Where is Madeleine McCann?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-39706194?ocid=socialflow_twitter&ns_mchannel=social&ns_campaign=bbcnews&ns_source=twitter

The most important information given out by the police is that they are saying there remains significant information about Madeleine's case under active investigation.

Of less importance but something which is relevant to posters like ourselves is the admonition that Madeleine's case is not some soap opera ... it is real life.
It is not our real lives ... it is someone else's in which people like us are mere ill informed, self opinionated intruders.


The BBC cite continues with the quote from Madeleine's mother ...

Ahead of the 10th anniversary Kate McCann wrote in a message on the Official Find Madeleine Campaign Facebook page:

"Ten years - there's no easy way to say it, describe it, accept it.


"I remember when Madeleine first disappeared I couldn't even begin to consider anything in terms of years...

"And now here we are... Madeleine, our Madeleine - ten years."

She said she and husband Gerry were "bracing ourselves for the next couple of weeks" of coverage.
https://www.facebook.com/notes/official-find-madeleine-campaign/ten-years/1487222091329410/

[Robittybob1]

As a reminder....................

' Rowley stated...

"We have achieved a complete understanding of it all"

Then says he doesn't know if she is alive or dead.'

He hasn't got a clue.

If you haven't seen someone for 10 years you would be entitled to say "he doesn't know if she is alive or dead."

[stephen25000]

If you haven't seen someone for 10 years you would be entitled to say "he doesn't know if she is alive or dead."

"We have achieved a complete understanding of it all"

 &%&£(+ &%&£(+ &%&£(+

[Alfie]

As a reminder....................

' Rowley stated...

"We have achieved a complete understanding of it all"

Then says he doesn't know if she is alive or dead.'

He hasn't got a clue.

The "it" referred to is the vast amount of information gathered to date, the "it" does not refer to what happened to Madeleine McCann.  You are being unduly harsh on the investigation - you could equally apply "he hasn't got a clue" to Amaral, the PJ, yourself.   The Met are not miracle workers, they cannot promise to solve every crime.  Your expectations are pitched far too high. 

[stephen25000]

The "it" referred to is the vast amount of information gathered to date, the "it" does not refer to what happened to Madeleine McCann.  You are being unduly harsh on the investigation - you could equally apply "he hasn't got a clue" to Amaral, the PJ, yourself.   The Met are not miracle workers, they cannot promise to solve every crime.  Your expectations are pitched far too high.

I said several years ago Alfie, that they wouldn't solve this crime.

We both agree I believe , there is a lack of evidence.

[Robittybob1]

"We have achieved a complete understanding of it all"

 &%&£(+ &%&£(+ &%&£(+

%£&)**# %£&)**# %£&)**#

[carlymichelle]

I said several years ago Alfie, that they wouldn't solve this crime.

We both agree I believe , there is a lack of evidence.

that doesnt rule the mcanns out though after all kate  was the last to see maddie

[Alfie]

I said several years ago Alfie, that they wouldn't solve this crime.

We both agree I believe , there is a lack of evidence.

Yes I can't argue with that.  It seems the perfect crime has been committed.  Some people here believe that in a mad panic, with virtually no planning, in a foreign country and with few if any tools for hiding a body at their disposal and with dozens of potential witnesses to their actions,  the parents were able to pull off that perfect crime leaving no evidence of it whatsoever.   I think that's absurdly far fetched. 

[stephen25000]

Yes I can't argue with that.  It seems the perfect crime has been committed.  Some people here believe that in a mad panic, with virtually no planning, in a foreign country and with few if any tools for hiding a body at their disposal and with dozens of potential witnesses to their actions,  the parents were able to pull off that perfect crime leaving no evidence of it whatsoever.   I think that's absurdly far fetched.

Apart from the perpetrator, if a crime occurred, or a confession, we will probably never know what actually happened.

[G-Unit]

I think it is a mistake to assume that Kate and Gerry have not been looked at ... or anyone else for that matter.

"Q: Just to be clear you did not interview the McCanns as potential suspects?
MR: No"

Means just that ... they have not been interviewed as potential suspects ... not that they haven't been interviewed at all as witnesses.

Part 2

Q: Andy Redwood, the first senior investigating officer, said in one interview his policy was to go right back to the beginning, accept nothing, but one thing you appear to have accepted is that this was an abduction. It’s in your first remit statement, it refers to ‘the abduction’, which rather suggests right from the start you had a closed mind to the possibility of parents’ involvement, an accident or Madeleine simply walking out of the apartment.

So when we started, we started five or so years into this and there is already a lot of ground
been covered, we don’t cover the same ground, what we do is pull all the material we had at the start,
all the Portuguese material, private detective material, with all the work that had been done, what that
evidence supports, what rules these lines of enquiry out, what keeps them open and you progress
forward. It would be no different if there were a cold case in London, a missing person from 1990, we
would go back to square one look at all the material and if the material was convincing it ruled out that
line of enquiry we would look somewhere else. So you reflect on the original material, you challenge
it, don’t take it at face value. You don’t restart an investigation pretending it doesn’t exist and do all
the same enquiries again that is not constructive.

I understand that as saying that they looked at the evidence from the Portuguese investigation, decided they had found nothing to support parental involvement, and moved forward from there. They therefore ignored the questions raised during the archiving process. The legal summary is quite clear that there were unanswered questions which, it was said, only a reconstitution could answer. As no reconstitution took place, those questions remained unanswered. Those questions are listed under this heading;

E - About the Interest of the Reconstitution
http://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/LEGAL_SUMMARY.htm

[Alfie]

Part 2

Q: Andy Redwood, the first senior investigating officer, said in one interview his policy was to go right back to the beginning, accept nothing, but one thing you appear to have accepted is that this was an abduction. It’s in your first remit statement, it refers to ‘the abduction’, which rather suggests right from the start you had a closed mind to the possibility of parents’ involvement, an accident or Madeleine simply walking out of the apartment.

So when we started, we started five or so years into this and there is already a lot of ground
been covered, we don’t cover the same ground, what we do is pull all the material we had at the start,
all the Portuguese material, private detective material, with all the work that had been done, what that
evidence supports, what rules these lines of enquiry out, what keeps them open and you progress
forward. It would be no different if there were a cold case in London, a missing person from 1990, we
would go back to square one look at all the material and if the material was convincing it ruled out that
line of enquiry we would look somewhere else. So you reflect on the original material, you challenge
it, don’t take it at face value. You don’t restart an investigation pretending it doesn’t exist and do all
the same enquiries again that is not constructive.

I understand that as saying that they looked at the evidence from the Portuguese investigation, decided they had found nothing to support parental involvement, and moved forward from there. They therefore ignored the questions raised during the archiving process. The legal summary is quite clear that there were unanswered questions which, it was said, only a reconstitution could answer. As no reconstitution took place, those questions remained unanswered. Those questions are listed under this heading;

E - About the Interest of the Reconstitution
http://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/LEGAL_SUMMARY.htm

The Portuguese Legal summary was quite wrong to say that only a reconstitution would answer "unanswered questions".  I think the Met are a little bit smarter than you give them credit for, frankly.

[G-Unit]

The Portuguese Legal summary was quite wrong to say that only a reconstitution would answer "unanswered questions".  I think the Met are a little bit smarter than you give them credit for, frankly.

You think the PJ were wrong, the Legal Summary was wrong, the Portuguese Appeal Court was wrong, the Portuguese Supreme Court was wrong............do I detect a theme here?

The Met may be smart but what use is that if their remit restricted their investigations.