Summers & Swan - A new book - Looking For Madeleine

[Brietta]

I'm on chapter 6 so far and have yet to find any factual errors.  Perhaps the book's harsh critics on here could list for us all the factual inaccuracies they have found in it...?

I have found one point which concerns me ... not about factual content ... but about methodology which has the potential to come back and bite them on the bum.

Unless someone else picks up on it ... I'm keeping schtum.

[ferryman]

I have found one point which concerns me ... not about factual content ... but about methodology which has the potential to come back and bite them on the bum.

Unless someone else picks up on it ... I'm keeping schtum.

Quoting from blogs?

[Brietta]

Quoting from blogs?

Nope.

I haven't read first hand yet what caused the outrage articulated by a pretendy journalist … thought it would be in chapter 15 … they must have kept the best till last.

[Alfred R Jones]

Maybe Blacksmith ....

Out of curiousity I went and took a look at his amazingly widely-read blog and have just read his latest cheery blog entry in which he seems jolly pleased with himself.  He seems to think that nothing has come out of Operation Grange in the last 3 years which supports the abduction theory.  All I can say is, what rock has he been sleeping under for the last 3 years?   

He poses this question, so important he's bolded it:


Now ask yourself this question: if the McCanns had received a  single suggestive titbit from Operation Grange’s three years’ work,  just one new piece of evidence supporting  them, would they not have given it to Summers?


We know that the McCanns didn't want this book to in any way jeopardize the on-going investigation so why would they have fed the authors anything that wasn't already in the public domain which may have done just that?  He is a dummy sometimes, that Smiffy fella.

[Mr Gray]

An Amazon reviewer............................

I'ts such a shame that the authors did not research the case before writing this book. There is a wealth of material on the McCann files and many other places on the internet that back up, without a shadow of a doubt, the theories of not just one but a whole team of Portuguese detectives, not to mention the British Police who helped to build this evidence. It seems that the book, which claims to be a true account, fails to mention the fact the many of the Private investigators employed by Brian Kennedy and the McCanns have since been imprisoned for activities outside the McCann investigation, but nevertheless were nothing other than fraudsters and crooks. Also missing is any mention of the evidence of two top British Cadaver dogs owned and trained by top dog handler Martin Grime. These dogs independently alerted to cadaver and blood in no less than 11 McCann related areas but nowhere else in Praia Da Luz. Other important documents such as the Gaspar statements and the report of Tavares de Almeida are also missing. ......................................... '

looks like a false review by someone who hasn't read the book...there are several pages on the dogs

[stephen25000]

looks like a false review by someone who hasn't read the book...there are several pages on the dogs

What does the book say exactly ?

A precis will suffice, providing it is accurate.

[Mr Gray]

What does the book say exactly ?

A precis will suffice, providing it is accurate.

it describes the deployment of the dogs...stresses no evidential reliability as the results were not confirmed by forensics...basically says what I have been saying these last few years. it also says Amararal misrepresented the dogs alerts by where he claims the alerts confirmed the previous presence of a cadaver

[ferryman]

it describes the deployment of the dogs...stresses no evidential reliability as the results were not confirmed by forensics...basically says what I have been saying these last few years. it also says Amararal misrepresented the dogs alerts by where he claims the alerts confirmed the previous presence of a cadaver

Also some fascinating original research on possible use of sedatives in the abduction ...

[ferryman]

I have found one point which concerns me ... not about factual content ... but about methodology which has the potential to come back and bite them on the bum.

Unless someone else picks up on it ... I'm keeping schtum.

Just had another thought.

Are you referring to their reference to the deal put to Kate and Gerry as a "plea-bargain"?

[stephen25000]

it describes the deployment of the dogs...stresses no evidential reliability as the results were not confirmed by forensics...basically says what I have been saying these last few years. it also says Amararal misrepresented the dogs alerts by where he claims the alerts confirmed the previous presence of a cadaver

A brief reminder if needed.

A lack of corroborative evidence from the forensics does not mean the dogs didn't alert to a body.

That's a fact.

Nothing else has come to light.

[stephen25000]

Also some fascinating original research on possible use of sedatives in the abduction ...

Or by other parties of course.

[ferryman]

There was a "deal" offered  but turned down that legal-beagles might quibble was not, strictly, a plea-bargain.

But that is mere nit-picking.

Summers and Swan have not produced a legal tome. 

[Mr Gray]

A brief reminder if needed.

A lack of corroborative evidence from the forensics does not mean the dogs didn't alert to a body.

That's a fact.

Nothing else has come to light.

you are right...the dogs alert prove absolutely nothing either way

[Mr Gray]

A brief reminder if needed.

A lack of corroborative evidence from the forensics does not mean the dogs didn't alert to a body.

That's a fact.

Nothing else has come to light.

a brief reminder to you...the lack of forensic evidence of an abductor does not rule one out

[Angelo222]

“We had a single meeting with the McCanns and one with the Met – both of them early in our research. The parents, and then the police, made only one request of us – a fair one given the parents’ hope and the Met’s working thesis that Madeleine may still be alive – that we do nothing that might hinder or interfere with the ongoing investigation. We have been careful to abide by that request.”

Wasn't is such a pity that the McCann didn't follow their own advice?