Here you are, Brietta;
firstly the involvement of the parents, that was dealt with at the time by the original investigation by the Portuguese. We had a look at all the material and we are happy that was all dealt with...........
Just to be clear you did not interview the McCanns as potential suspects?
MR: No
In terms of Andy using the word abduction, she was not old enough to set off and start her own life. However she left that apartment, she has been abducted. It is not a 20-year-old who has gone missing and who has made a decision to start a new life, this is a young girl who is missing and at the heart of this has been an abduction.
http://news.met.police.uk/documents/transcript-of-interview-with-ac-mark-rowley-66743
A very clear systematic approach to cold case investigation is outlined by Rowley in which review of evidence is taken back to the very beginning to analyse anything which may have originally been overlooked or evidence which can be clarified in light of fresh developments or improved forensic development.
The beginning of Madeleine's case was around ten pm on the third of May 2007 against a backdrop of a side of Luz the visitors seldom see. It is risible in my opinion to suggest the Scotland Yard investigation didn't go back there and check out the case from the beginning.
Indeed as Rowley has said ...
But we had the data available and we worked with the Portuguese and that was part of the background to do with
phone data and various sightings. There was enough there to say, not to prove the case, but there was something worth looking at in more detail and that’s what we did.
Transcript AC Rowley interviewThat indeed was a huge part of the time Scotland Yard spent on trying to unravel what happened to Madeleine on the night of the 3rd.
That investigative avenue was not investigated by the first investigation. Why it wasn't is possibly one of the more intriguing aspects of Madeleine's case but there is little doubt that it should have been.
Building a picture of what happened using a step by step process to discard some information and to progress to the next step retaining and using some information gives the bigger picture.
The proper interrogation of the phone records did not occur.
Operation Grange did what had not been done ... Madeleine's case could not progress until it was.
In answer to the interviewer, Rowley also described other aspects of the process in a cold case inquiry concerning aspects which had already come under close scrutiny and which had been conclusively resolved.
In my opinion that does eliminate the risk of groundhog day
Q: One of the biggest criticisms of the Portuguese investigation, which they acknowledge as well, is that they did not interrogate the parents from the start, if only to eliminate them.
When you started your investigation, you appear to have done the same. Did you formally interview the McCann’s under caution, ever consider them as suspects?
MR: 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.
Transcript AC Rowley interviewIn my opinion that is a very clear outline of how the task of finding Madeleine was was addressed and I have no doubt all the proper procedures were followed with her at the centre of the endeavours of everyone involved.
