In my opinion there really can't be much of a chance of anyone who isn't privy to the inner workings of the reopened PJ and SY investigation to pick up on anything about the lead we have been told is currently being followed.
There was just so much information from the time which was swishing around ignored ... which may or may not have been reported to Operation grange but if it was, would take time to collate and which may have slotted into something else to lead off in an entirely different direction from any we know of.
I have dwelt on the fact that Mr and Mrs Moyes who were out and about around the time of Madeleine's disappearance might have seen something of relevance without even knowing it ... but despite being resident in the apartment block from which Madeleine disappeared, were not interviewed by the police.
The other night I discovered they were not the only family who may have had a story to tell ... but it seems they, like the Moyes had no-one to tell it to.
Crucial Madeleine McCann case questions that remain unanswered after a decadeIrish journalist John McGee was holidaying in Praia da Luz when the little girl went missing. In a compelling account, he says we seem to be no nearer to the truthMay 2 2017
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Somewhat oblivious to what was unfolding on the streets below us, my wife and I and our daughter, who was only a few months older than Madeleine, went to bed in the Estrela da Luz apartment complex a couple of hundred yards from where Madeleine disappeared.
Having just returned from dinner in a nearby restaurant, we could hear commotion four floors below us on the street. It eventually moved on to another street and, thinking nothing of it, we headed for our wine-induced and, in hindsight, selfish slumber.
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A little English girl has gone missing overnight, we were told by one of the women working on the reception of the apartment complex. Hastily printed photos of a pretty, young blonde child had been left at hotel and apartment reception desks. This was the same Madeleine McCann we had seen tagging along with her mother as she pushed her twins in a double buggy up the hill. This was happening to the same family we had passed on several occasions days before as we walked down towards the supermarket. This was the same Gerry McCann we had seen playing tennis several days earlier.
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At no stage of the initial investigation, however, did local police attempt to interview us or anyone in our apartment complex, despite its proximity to the Ocean Club resort. In our case, certain things we had witnessed over the previous week and indeed on the night of Madeleine's disappearance might have been of use to them.
The suspicious looking characters hanging around Hugo Beatty's bar two nights earlier - one of whom resembled the identikit photo issued by the Metropolitan Police years later; the pick-up-style truck that sped past us as we walked back to the apartment from the restaurant that fateful night; the elderly bearded man videoing children at a nearby theme park three days before.
At the time, their possible significance meant nothing to us, but they might have been of some help. It was only when we arrived back in Dublin five days later that we felt compelled to volunteer statements to the gardai, who then passed them on to Interpol, by then already on the case. Presumably, Interpol then passed them on to the Portuguese police.
In addition, the many photos we had taken during our holiday that might have provided clues or identified 'people of interest' in and around Praia da Luz and Lagos were uploaded to a website that was set up by the investigation. We never heard anything back from the Portuguese police, who in July 2008 officially closed the case.
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... the Find Madeleine campaign never gave up hope, and a concerted effort was made to keep it in the headlines, something that irked the Portuguese police considerably.
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Of particular interest to the Metropolitan Police was the speeding pick-up truck that flew past us on the way home from the restaurant and the three suspicious looking in Hugo Beatty's bar. It later emerged that two waiters working in the restaurant also noticed a man acting suspiciously in a phone box across the road earlier in the evening. And one of the subsequent identikit photos published by the Metropolitan Police of two men they wanted to talk to resembled one of the men we'd spotted in the bar.
After carrying out a cell-dump of all mobile phone activity in the Praia da Luz area in the lead-up to Madeleine's disappearance and the days after, the Metropolitan Police were also able to identify all the telephone numbers we dialled, as well as the numbers that had dialled us during that period. As is the norm in such cases, details of all calls made and received were submitted as part of our statements.
The use of cell-dumps has helped police gain convictions in several high-profile murder cases in the past, and nowadays cell-dumps are almost as useful to the police as fingerprints or DNA. It was later reported by several UK newspapers that the cell-dump turned up a large number of telephone calls and texts in and around the Ocean Club between a group of men around the time of Madeleine's disappearance. Nothing ever came of it.
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/uk/crucial-madeleine-mccann-case-questions-that-remain-unanswered-after-a-decade-35670997.htmlI'd never heard of that potential witness before now ... one wonders how many similar stories there may be which were not heard in May 2007 ... and one wonders if there might have been one which might have provided the key to part of the puzzle which would have found Madeleine.
