David James Smith seems to have been confided in by the McCanns. He got lots of details from them despite their claims that they observed the secrecy laws. He seems to know who it was who told them to show no emotion in public;
Jim Gamble, chief executive of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, told them that if the abductor was watching he or she might take pleasure in the McCanns’ distress.
A bit of misinformation here?
there were, apparently, obvious signs that an intruder had been there. What they were, however, is not clear. Apart from the open window and shutter, neither the McCanns nor the police have confirmed any other evidence of a break-in.
From the beginning the McCanns had been warned by the PJ that they could not speak about the details of the investigation or the circumstances of Madeleine’s disappearance. The "secrecy of justice" laws prevented anybody involved, including all police officers and witnesses, from talking about it to the press or anyone else. Both Gerry and Kate were meticulous in observing this rule.
Apart from telling this reporter all about it?
09 September 2007
Victims of the rumour mill? Timesonline
http://www.gerrymccannsblogs.co.uk/Nigel/id96.htm
As the reporter tells us;
That week in Praia da Luz, the week the McCanns were made suspects in their own daughter's "death", I was out there talking to them and to family and friends.
He's another one who believes the McCanns are innocent and, like everyone else, he is relying purely on his instincts, not on any evidence;
To me, the McCanns are genuine people in the grip of despair – the accusations against them are ludicrous and a cruel distraction from the search for their daughter.
Some of the things he says are almost beyond belief;
They were first to the table at the restaurant at 8.35 and spent some minutes talking to a couple from Hertfordshire – two more tennis players – at the next table, who were eating with their young children. As they chatted, Gerry thought how lucky he was, his children asleep nearby, he and Kate free to come and enjoy some adult time at the restaurant and not have to sit with their children, as this couple were.
[/b]
Lucky or neglectful?
Ah! The source of that little gem;
Earlier that week the McCanns had used a key to go in through the front door next to the children’s bedroom but, worrying the noise might wake the children, they began using the patio doors, leaving them unlocked.
It perhaps needs to be stated openly that all these timings and details, the way in which they weave and dovetail together, are based on witness accounts – corroborated not just by the McCann group but by others, such as Jes Wilkins
Really? Which 'others'? Wilkins was very precise; between 8.45 and 9.15 lol. Interesting;
Four times that night they put in calls via the British consul; four times the message came back from the PJ, a message that the McCanns would never forget: “Everything that can be done is being done.”
The twins slept on like logs, just as they always did at home, though even their parents were fleetingly worried – had they been sedated by an abductor' – that they should be quite so comatose.
Is that the logs who are likely to be awakened by someone unlocking a door? A passing shot at Amaral;
Sol’s journalist Felicia Cabrita had their names and phone numbers and details from their witness statements. She had called them all, and at least one other witness, Jes Wilkins.
The information had been handed to Cabrita by the police – she says she acquired the material through good journalism, which in a sense it was – and her source is widely believed by her colleagues to have been the former head of the inquiry, Goncalo Amaral.
Here's a snippet that the PJ can't be blamed for leaking. Where did that come from;
Leicestershire police have apparently paid for all the forensic tests being carried out in the case by the FSS – they are the client in the case, not the Portuguese.
Was there diplomatic pressure from the UK? He seems happy to accept that there was;
the Portuguese government and in turn the PJ had felt the heavy weight of diplomatic pressure from the UK – a pressure that the police and the journalists very much resented, with its implication that the police were not doing their job properly.
http://www.gerrymccannsblogs.co.uk/press/9dec7/TIMES_16_12_07.htm
G-Unit,
My impression is that Clarence did give a few reputable journalists basic info re the McCann's version and asked if they'd be interested in checking it out. At the time, there were no available files to verify some details, so inevitably there are a few inaccuracies that we now know about. Personally, I prefer the more neutral piece by David Rose.
However.... don't forget that this was after the PT onslaught that revved up around 12-13 September, just when they were given leave to return to the UK, repeated by the UK tabloids about "tufts" of hair, "100% DNA in the car" and allusions to gory substances that could only point to gruesome remains of a thawing corpse, "100% DNA in the car", Kate couldn't cope with her "hysterical" kids, and none of that turned out to be accurate.
Add to that, various people on social media who were threatening to take matters (physically) into their own hands. You do remember "the Molotov cocktail" and the threat to kidnap the twins, don't you?
Imagine for one moment, despite the fact you may never have left your kids unattended for a single minute and therefore disapprove of the fact that they did, but that you'd unwittingly made a bad judgment call about something (take it out of context and try to imagine something totally different) that led to a disastrous situation and ended
up with not only (something) cherished that had disappeared, or any other situation that you would never have wanted to happen, and that you knew that escalating allegations about you weren't true, but everyone was then out baying for your blood (including the police who were supposed to be considering all options, but who, in the absence of any other obvious slamdunker that quickly panned out, had decided that you were therefore the guilty party in a heinous crime and genuinely believed that you were about to be stitched up in a foreign country? And bear in mind that the original team's only other case involving a similar type of situation had got people banged up under the maximum penalty under less than limpid conditions, and on more than dubious evidence.
If you can step back and genuinely imagine yourself in such a situation, and please try to think of a different situation to this particular context, what would you have done? Honestly?
I've heard so many knee-jerk reactions... but I'm hoping that you'll take a moment to think about it.
