UK Justice Forum 🇬🇧

Fiona -

 'And by the time I got back everyone else had done their loop and at that point then no-one had seen Madeleine. Erm, I remember saying to Matt at that point 'You go down to main reception and phone the Police'. Erm, and I, I don't know what Matt, erm, I don't know what Dave and Russell did at that point. I said 'I'm going to go up to the', erm, 'Kate and Gerry's apartment'. Gerry had come down at that point. They hadn't found Madeleine, erm, panic was starting really. Erm, tut, after that really I stayed with Kate for the rest of the evening, I didn't, other than going onto their sort of balcony and out the front area of their apartment, I was with Kate. Erm, and Gerry, he was to'ing and fro'ing, in and out, in and out. Erm, it was just awful'.

 Erm, tut, so, you know, I don't know which way they went, but I, I went round the back of, erm, tut, well this way around the back of the apartments and round the back of the tennis courts on the main road and then cut down in front of the Baptista Supermarket and back up, that was the route I did'.
 
 
 1485
 'Yeah'.
 
 
Reply
 'And by the time I got back everyone else had done their loop and at that point then no-one had seen Madeleine. Erm, I remember saying to Matt at that point 'You go down to main reception and phone the Police'. Erm, and I, I don't know what Matt, erm, I don't know what Dave and Russell did at that point. I said 'I'm going to go up to the', erm, 'Kate and Gerry's apartment'. Gerry had come down at that point. They hadn't found Madeleine, erm, panic was starting really. Erm, tut, after that really I stayed with Kate for the rest of the evening, I didn't, other than going onto their sort of balcony and out the front area of their apartment, I was with Kate. Erm, and Gerry, he was to'ing and fro'ing, in and out, in and out. Erm, it was just awful'.
 
 00.49.05
 1485
 'So having got back from your search around the corner, did you go then straight into the McCANN's''
 
 
 Reply
 'Yeah'.
 
 
 1485
 'What did you see when you walked in, describe it''
 
 
 Reply
'At that point, Gerry, I don't think was in the apartment, it was mainly Kate. And Kate was just, huh, utter disbelief and I had disbelief, thinking she's got to be here, you know, what, how can this have happened. And by that point Kate was already saying that the, what she'd found when she'd gone back, which was that the, she'd found the window open and the shutter open and she was convinced at that point that somebody had taken, taken Madeleine and that's what she was telling me and I was like 'They can't have done. They can't have done this', you know. And I looked, I looked throughout the whole apartment and I looked in all the cupboards, under the drawers, under the beds, behind the curtains, everywhere, erm, just, you know, trying to, knowing it had already been done, but you just do. Erm, tut, I looked, when I went into the room that Madeleine was sleeping in, the room was dark, Madeleine, erm,


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When she say's 'Gerry had come down at that point' it is clear it means from the apartment steps initially. She does her loop by the tennis courts & supermarket & when she comes back, Gerry isn't there anymore. Only Kate is in the apartment.

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Reply
 'We, I say we all jumped up, Gerry was first, he just sprinted off with Kate and they, they were ahead of everybody else, erm, cos I had the monitor and mum and I just thought somebody ought to stay behind, I was probably latter in the, in the line, cos I just said to mum, 'Stay put and see if she comes back, keep the monitor' and then you know, me, erm, Jane wasn't there obviously, it was me, Rachael, er Matt, Russell and Dave that sort of, erm, got to the part outside the apartment and that's when we, we just said, 'Right, let's do a quick search, like you go that way, you go that way'.'
 
 
 1485
 'Yes'.
 
 
 Reply
 'Because you see within seconds it was, you know, everybody split up and did a quick, quick search in a different direction'.
 
 
 1485
 'I think my next series of questions I've asked you in relation to you going into the McCANN's apartment, you went in with Kate, what you said earlier on'.
 
 
 Reply
 'Umm'.
 
 
 1485
 'And you described what you saw, you've described the children sleeping, they slept and everything, so are the twins, nothing unusual, but one thing I want, need to ask you is, erm, how long after the alarm was raised, did you end up in the McCANN's apartment''
 
 
 Reply
 'After that initial search, it was as long as it took me to walk round, erm you know to the left of the apartments, round the back of the tennis court and the, so you know, five minutes'.
 
 
 1485
 'Five minutes'.
 
 
 Reply
 'It wasn't long (inaudible)'.
 
 
 1485
 'So from the time that you'd gone racing off after Kate and Gerry'.
 
 
 Reply
 'Yeah'.
 
 
 1485
 'You ended up in the apartment, five minutes later you think''
 
 
 Reply
 'Yeah, five, ten minutes it was certainly within ten minutes it wouldn't have taken me long to (inaudible)'.


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Fiona does an initial sweep & 5 to 10 minutes later, when she goes back only Kate is in the apartment but no sign of Gerry.

Half and hour later without anything to signal, it being 22h03, he turned to alert KATE that it was time for her to go to see the children. She immediately made her way to the apartment by the usual path, she having entered by the rear door. About 10 minutes later, he started to worry about her lateness and, at the moment he prepared to stand and to go to see the reason for her lateness, KATE appeared running, completely distraught and crying, saying that MADELEINE had disappeared and that she was sure because she had looked throughout the house.

No watch. Just Gerry somehow magically knew it was precisely 10:03.

' Anyway where would he be going with Madeleine? '

As if I haven't already answered this question a dozen times in the last couple of weeks.

In your hypothesis, and I'm trying to rationalise this from your perspective not mine, is it possible that the Smith sighting spooked Gerry into temporarily aborting and occulting Madeleine locally in an attempt to maintain his alibi?
Do the timings work in your world view?

Even if you explain it all to Lace, come the next day she conveniently forgets that it's been pointed out a dozen times that Gerry didn't send Matt to reception to call the police, she'll make claims like 'Gerry was waiting for the police to arrive' as if they instinctively appear every time a child goes missing. Absolutely pathetic the mental gymnastics required to ignore the obvious.

So Kate took 10 minutes to search the apartment? You think that's a reasonable amount of time for her to discover the open window & do a quick search of such a tiny apartment? He claimed he became worried about her lateness, 10 minutes later which would be 10:13. So Gerry has the alarm being raised nearly 20 minutes later than Matt. But you can't see anything suspicious about that?

As we know Russell came back to the table at quarter to ten he said it took ten minutes for them to cook him a fresh steak he had started eating his steak when Kate left the table so she could have come back about five to ten minutes later. What difference does it make?  Gerry left the table to go to 5a he searched around the area then went back to wait for the Police to arrive.  If he was the man Smith saw how could he be there at 10 o"clock?  It's impossible.  Anyway where would he be going with Madeleine?  We know CB had a house not far away he also had a van. It makes more sense that it was CB.