UK Justice Forum 🇬🇧
Disappeared and Abducted Children and Young Adults => Madeleine McCann (3) disappeared from her parent's holiday apartment at Ocean Club, Praia da Luz, Portugal on 3 May 2007. No trace of her has ever been found. => Topic started by: G-Unit on March 20, 2016, 03:40:15 PM
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Based on the records we have the only children using the Kid's Clubs were Mark Warner Guests. Judging by the Tapas booking sheets the only people eating at the Tapas Restaurant were Mark Warner Guests. I can only find the names of Mark Warner Guests on the Tennis booking sheets also.
I can think of only two reasons why. Can anyone think of any others?
1. The sheets were all censored so other guests didn't appear.
2. The Kid's Clubs and the Tapas area were solely reserved for Mark Warner Guests that week.
No 1 is unlikely as the Tapas booking sheet for Sunday 6th May was included, and a Thomas Cook Guest is named on there. A Thomas Cook Guest who arrived after the disappearance (late May) seems to have used the Kid's clubs;
The children's club seemed to revolve around junk food games and were a little irregular; however we were there just before half term so not so many kids about.
https://www.holidaywatchdog.com/8534-Lagos-Ocean_Club_Apartments-Holiday-Review.html
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I'm not clear about who was entitled to use what. MW v TC v outsiders v owner bookings.
The staff statements say outsiders could use the Tapas Restaurant, though the staff seem to say no outsider did.
Which children were allowed to attend High Tea is also beyond me. If I knew the answer, I could build up a picture of which parents could have been at High Tea with Madeleine that week.
I take it by tennis courts, you mean Tapas tennis courts. I think there are two courts in the Millennium area.
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mI have looked at every MW child that week and at the creche sheets available. All the Lobster Mini's were MW, that's definite. Some of them had siblings so I've assumed they also attended the creches suitable for their ages. In other cases the guests had booked creches on the MW booking sheets.
All in all, @ 45 MW children were entitled to High Tea.
There were 14 of 'Mini' age, 8 babies, 7 Toddler 1's, 11 Toddler 2's and 5 Juniors, although Kirsty M said she had 7 in that group. If so, they weren't MW unless older children were in that group. There was a 17 and 12 year old brother and sister present that week.
Of the Mini age group 9 had younger siblings, 5 were only children.
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Is it possible to reconstruct from the statements, the crèche records, Kate's book etc who SHOULD have been present at the high tea on 3 May 2007, and what they say?
The Tapas group was at the Paraíso, so none of those should have been there.
But who should have been there?
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Is it possible to reconstruct from the statements, the crèche records, Kate's book etc who SHOULD have been present at the high tea on 3 May 2007, and what they say?
The Tapas group was at the Paraíso, so none of those should have been there.
But who should have been there?
Lobsters
Madeleine McCann
W Totman (boy)
A Mann (boy)
Toddler 2
Sean McCann
Amelie McCann
Lucy Totman
Isobel Handy
Matthew McCormick
Now it's guesswork. There's a booking for Weinburger for tennis at 2.30-3.30. If that was the couple then one Shark and one baby were in the creches.
Jes Wilkins and Bridget O'Donnell seemed to use the creches, she says in her article 'The Mark Warner nannies brought the children to the Tapas restaurant to have tea at the end of each day'. So another Shark and a baby.
The Carpenters were at the Tapas in the evening and although they had the children with them the booking was for 2, so the children may have had high tea. Another Shark and another baby.
The Balu's son was there. He was in Toddler 1;
At 16:45 my son was lunching with other children in the Tapas area.
From 15:30 onwards, the bar was full, as normally happened, with the majority of people there. Neil and E*** were having a drink with my wife and I.
http://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/RAJ_BALU.htm
His friend Neil Berry was also in the bar with his wife and children (1 mini 1 toddler 1). I expect they ate also, if Balu's child did.
I make that 17 children who realistically could have been there. The nannies present were 2 from the minis with the babies and Toddlers 1 and two represented also. So at least 5 nannies.
Interesting when speaking of drinking that Balu says the bar usually filled up in the afternoons with most people being there. When speaking of the T9 alcohol consumption it should be noted that one Tapas employee mentions seeing Gerry in the bar in the daytime, Jane says she would normally have a beer early evening, and the McCanns at least drank before they went to dinner. It all adds up.
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Weren't Sean and Amille (then) a bit young to be playing tennis?
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Weren't Sean and Amille (then) a bit young to be playing tennis?
Did someone say they were playing tennis? I think not.
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Lobsters
Madeleine McCann
W Totman (boy)
A Mann (boy)
Toddler 2
Sean McCann
Amelie McCann
Lucy Totman
Isobel Handy
Matthew McCormick
Now it's guesswork. There's a booking for Weinburger for tennis at 2.30-3.30. If that was the couple then one Shark and one baby were in the creches.
Jes Wilkins and Bridget O'Donnell seemed to use the creches, she says in her article 'The Mark Warner nannies brought the children to the Tapas restaurant to have tea at the end of each day'. So another Shark and a baby.
The Carpenters were at the Tapas in the evening and although they had the children with them the booking was for 2, so the children may have had high tea. Another Shark and another baby.
The Balu's son was there. He was in Toddler 1;
At 16:45 my son was lunching with other children in the Tapas area.
From 15:30 onwards, the bar was full, as normally happened, with the majority of people there. Neil and E*** were having a drink with my wife and I.
http://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/RAJ_BALU.htm
His friend Neil Berry was also in the bar with his wife and children (1 mini 1 toddler 1). I expect they ate also, if Balu's child did.
I make that 17 children who realistically could have been there. The nannies present were 2 from the minis with the babies and Toddlers 1 and two represented also. So at least 5 nannies.
Interesting when speaking of drinking that Balu says the bar usually filled up in the afternoons with most people being there. When speaking of the T9 alcohol consumption it should be noted that one Tapas employee mentions seeing Gerry in the bar in the daytime, Jane says she would normally have a beer early evening, and the McCanns at least drank before they went to dinner. It all adds up.
Have a look at the Balu statement in Portuguese. I thought the construct was very odd, and the bit about the Tapas Bar always filling up mid-afternoon seemed off, so I checked the 15.30 time. It's not 15.30, it's 17.30 in the Portuguese statement i.e. 5.30pm.
Then everything made sense. A bunch of children attending high tea were being picked up/signed out by parents, some of whom then socialised in the Tapas Bar, before the parents and kids headed for home.
So all in all a fair bit of activity at that high tea.
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Have a look at the Balu statement in Portuguese. I thought the construct was very odd, and the bit about the Tapas Bar always filling up mid-afternoon seemed off, so I checked the 15.30 time. It's not 15.30, it's 17.30 in the Portuguese statement i.e. 5.30pm.
Then everything made sense. A bunch of children attending high tea were being picked up/signed out by parents, some of whom then socialised in the Tapas Bar, before the parents and kids headed for home.
So all in all a fair bit of activity at that high tea.
Ah, that's better. So we know that Balu and Naylor were there. Possibly the Carpenters and Wilkins/O'Donnells too. Then we have the Totmans, Handys, Manns, Weinburgers, and McCormicks.
Possibly nine couples, 17 children and 5 nannies. Do you know where the raised area under awnings was where the children ate?
@ SIL, an unrelated question if I may. I assumed the mini and baby clubs were reached by entering the MW main reception then going upstairs, but when I looked at this it looks like there was a different entrance. Is Palm Bay the MW reception? Their route begins to the right and above the Palm Bay entrance. Google earth isn't helping as I can't get into the car park;
(http://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/P4/04_VOLUME_IVa_Page_876.jpg)
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Ah, that's better. So we know that Balu and Naylor were there. Possibly the Carpenters and Wilkins/O'Donnells too. Then we have the Totmans, Handys, Manns, Weinburgers, and McCormicks.
Possibly nine couples, 17 children and 5 nannies. Do you know where the raised area under awnings was where the children ate?
@ SIL, an unrelated question if I may. I assumed the mini and baby clubs were reached by entering the MW main reception then going upstairs, but when I looked at this it looks like there was a different entrance. Is Palm Bay the MW reception? Their route begins to the right and above the Palm Bay entrance. Google earth isn't helping as I can't get into the car park;
(http://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/P4/04_VOLUME_IVa_Page_876.jpg)
I am not familiar with exactly where the children ate. I am simply assuming it was somewhere outside of the Tapas Restaurant, thus allowing the staff to get on with prepping the restaurant for the evening meal. If high tea could extend up to 6pm and early bookings at the Tapas could be of the order of half an hour later then the kids meal would probably have not been in the restaurant proper.
The photo with Palm Bay is not MW reception. That part is used for estate agency. I don't know whether it is restricted to Ocean Club properties, but I would have thought not.
The OC reception is just around the corner, on the E side, by the car park.
The car park allows drop off for those coming by taxi from Faro, and it is where the OC minibus is normally parked, because that would shuttle this type of arrival from reception to their apartments. The McCanns/Paynes did it this way. The rest of the T9 group got the MW bus from Faro, booked in during the bus journey, and got dropped off without going through OC reception.
You can see the OC reception from StreetView. Just go E a bit on Direita, turn back, and have a look.
The PJ Files, quite possibly in the page before the one you have used, show the route from the Mini Club to the beach. From memory, to reach the Mini Club one enters OC reception, turns left, and goes up a flight of stairs on the LHS (though the sequence to the beach was in the opposite direction).
I have not, to date, been in the inside of OC reception, and I do not know the layout upstairs.
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So it's to the right of the 'Palm Bay' property?
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So it's to the right of the 'Palm Bay' property?
Houston, we have a problem.
I was working on the basis that reception was the entrance on the E side marked Palm Bay, because there was a big sign outside saying 'Reception Palm Bay'. That does not appear to have the correct upstairs to house 2 kids clubs.
There is an entrance on the S side marked Recepição. That has the correct sort of upstairs for two kids clubs.
One OC minibus in the photo attached. And for whatever reason, 2 Baptista delivery vans. How odd.
We need the photo where the kids journey to the beach started.
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Here you are photos 1 and 2. The ones I posted earlier are 3 and 4. The starting point is up high, where the 2 clubs are. Somehow they reach ground level but they'e coming from the right of that Palm Bay place.
(http://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/P4/04_VOLUME_IVa_Page_875.jpg)
http://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/BEACH_OUTING.htm
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Here you are photos 1 and 2. The ones I posted earlier are 3 and 4. The starting point is up high, where the 2 clubs are. Somehow they reach ground level but they'e coming from the right of that Palm Bay place.
(http://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/P4/04_VOLUME_IVa_Page_875.jpg)
http://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/BEACH_OUTING.htm
Things are getting a bit clearer now. I have attached a photo of the E side of the OC building, with the approximate location of the PHOTOGRAPHER when each of the 4 PJ photos was taken.
The trail actually starts with photo 2, taken of the Mini Club and Baby Club signs, on the glass slab that is the first floor. NB It took me a while to work out that the vague figure in this is a reflection, not the interior.
Then one heads N a bit on the flat terrace above the Palm Bay. Confusingly, that is photo 1 in the file.
After that there is a clockwise gradient (photo 3), followed by steps down to the car park.
The final photo 4 is from the cark park, roughly in front of the Palm Bay.
The Portuguese typing between photos 1 and 2 says the clubs were immediately above OC reception. That is a good fit to the room marked Recepção, and a poor fit for the one marked Palm Bay.
If Gerry used a variation of this route on the night of 3 May when he checked the crèche, his path would not have crossed with that of the receptionist, which solves 1 puzzle.
There are 2 'short routes' from the Mini Club to 5A/Tapas. One goes up the E side of the block and is smoothed out for wheelchair access. The other goes up the E side of the block and requires a bit more effort.
I wonder if the kids in the Minis were Sammy snaked to the high tea. If they were, it would be much easier on the wheelchair route.
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Thank you so much! I've looked at the beach route photos before and just couldn't work out where the creches were.
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I think I've found the raised area under awnings where the children had high tea. The orange roofed places to
the right of the Tapas.
(http://www.gerrymccannsblogs.co.uk/press/19-Sep8/telegraph-3sep08Ocean-Club.jpg)
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I think I've found the raised area under awnings where the children had high tea. The orange roofed places to
the right of the Tapas.
(http://www.gerrymccannsblogs.co.uk/press/19-Sep8/telegraph-3sep08Ocean-Club.jpg)
Well done, Gunit, you could be right 8@??)(
Now why didn't I think of that? I actually saw those covers and wondered what they were for. I think they were white then, but I am not sure. I dont remember any tables and chairs there tho. But again I am not sure.
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I've been wondering where it was. One of the group said the children could have been seen from over the wall (can't remember who atm) because they were in a raised area.
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Got it;
where they had high tea was on a raised area, it wasn’t in the Tapas restaurant it was another bit that was higher up, beside a wall which again they could be watched, the children could be seen from err beyond this, this wall.”
http://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/DIANE-WEBSTER-2.htm
’To the Tapas area’, there was a sort of raised covered area where they would sit all the kids down and they would bring them out their food, so they were fed separately”.
1578 “’For high tea’'”
Reply “Yeah, I’d never heard of the word ‘high tea’ until I’d been to MARK WARNER.
http://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/RUSSELL-OBRIEN_ROGATORY.htm