General discussion about the latest news (not search related)

[Mr Gray]

Is there something you do not understand about the departure dates of Jez Wilkins and the T7?

Yet for a 'reason' that you have not yet given, the reconstruction deadline you choose is after the date the McCanns informed the PJ they were flying out.

If you ignore the facts, the remaining vacuum fits any agenda.

What can I say.  Duran Duran.  Hungry like the wolf.

i think you are confused ...I havent suggested any date

[Brietta]

I would class that as propaganda.

The McCanns were left free to leave Portugal, which is not what would have happened if they were deemed guilty.

The 'incarcerated parent' mantra wore thin a long time ago.

If charged, the McCanns would have had access to the lawyer of their choice.  And there would have been a trial, eagerly followed by the media, including the Brits. And the McCanns had unprecedented diplomatic access.

Other than reality, there is nothing wrong about the 'incarcerated parent' mantra.

Pity Madeleine was let down again, IMO.

As arguidos the McCanns had access to the lawyer of their choice.

The "unprecedented diplomatic access" might have been as a result of the unprecedented nature of Madeleine's case.

The case you make falls at the first hurdle ... Cipriano.
The second ... missing keys for block 5.
The third ... the burglaries rife throughout the holiday complex.
The fourth ... the burglaries which had occurred in block 5 and in the corresponding apartment to the McCann's in block 4.
The fifth ... the spate of intruder attacks on little British girls in their holiday accommodation while their parents slept in an adjoining room.

[ShiningInLuz]

As arguidos the McCanns had access to the lawyer of their choice.

The "unprecedented diplomatic access" might have been as a result of the unprecedented nature of Madeleine's case.

The case you make falls at the first hurdle ... Cipriano.
The second ... missing keys for block 5.
The third ... the burglaries rife throughout the holiday complex.
The fourth ... the burglaries which had occurred in block 5 and in the corresponding apartment to the McCann's in block 4.
The fifth ... the spate of intruder attacks on little British girls in their holiday accommodation while their parents slept in an adjoining room.

Propaganda.

Cipriano is not relevant.
Prove any key went missing.
Prove rife burglaries in the Ocean Club.  Or even in Luz.
Prove spate of attacks on little British girls in their holiday accommodation while their parents slept in an adjoining room.

Kindly get a move on.  Luz tour 6 is underway, and I am sure my visitor would be interested in the facts

[Brietta]

Propaganda.

Cipriano is not relevant.
Prove any key went missing.
Prove rife burglaries in the Ocean Club.  Or even in Luz.
Prove spate of attacks on little British girls in their holiday accommodation while their parents slept in an adjoining room.

Kindly get a move on.  Luz tour 6 is underway, and I am sure my visitor would be interested in the facts

What a genuinely weird response to my post.

Hey ho, anyway ... (please don't link to your favourite recording, Alice) have a nice time with your guest I'm sure you will both enjoy.

[Robittybob1]

Propaganda.

Cipriano is not relevant.
Prove any key went missing.
Prove rife burglaries in the Ocean Club.  Or even in Luz.
Prove spate of attacks on little British girls in their holiday accommodation while their parents slept in an adjoining room.

Kindly get a move on.  Luz tour 6 is underway, and I am sure my visitor would be interested in the facts

They haven't got young kids have they?  Keep their doors locked this time.

[G-Unit]

The woman in purple? Mrs Murat never told the police about this woman, according to the files. She did tell the story to a newspaper some years ago. Are OG getting their leads from newspaper articles now?


'Woman in purple' is prime suspect in Madeleine McCann disappearance after witness saw her outside apartment

The witness says she saw the woman looking up at the apartments, “watching intently” and a police insider said they were ready to “move in” and arrest the mystery women

BYTRACEY KANDOHLA
08:58, 2 MAY 2017

A mystery “woman in purple” is the prime suspect British police are thought to be searching for over Madeleine McCann’s disappearance.

Jenny Murat, 79, has told how she saw the woman outside the apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal, which Maddie vanished from in 2007.

Jenny, whose son Robert was the first “arguido” – official suspect – but was formally cleared of suspicion in 2008, said: “I saw the woman standing on the corner of the street.”

The woman was looking up at the apartments, “watching intently” .

Jenny said: “She caught my eye as she was dressed in purple-plum clothes.

“It struck me as strange. It’s so usual for anyone, particularly a woman, to be standing alone on the street in our resort, just watching a building.”

The next morning she heard that Maddie had gone missing and told police about the woman.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/woman-purple-prime-suspect-madeleine-10336719

[Brietta]

Interesting. I thought they passed information to the police who ignored it. Well, they got it all in the end, didn't they?

McCanns 'fell out' with police over search for Madeleine
A Home Office report details the "turbulent relationship" between the McCanns and Portuguese and British law enforcement.
06:38, UK,
Tuesday 02 May 2017

By Martin Brunt, Crime Correspondent

The parents of Madeleine McCann claimed they were treated badly by Portuguese police from the start of the investigation into her disappearance, according to a secret Home Office report.

They eventually fell out with UK authorities too and later did not share with police information gathered by their own private investigators.

The revelations are contained in a report ordered by the then Home Secretary Alan Johnson who wanted to know if it was worth getting Scotland Yard involved after Portuguese officers closed their first investigation.

The report said: "It is clear that from the beginning the McCanns felt there was a lack of clarity and communication on the part of the Portuguese police.

"Despite the involvement of British consular staff, they were, by their own accounts, left for long periods without any updates or communication with the investigators.

"They state they were taken to the police station on more than one occasion and then left for hours waiting to speak to someone who never materialised.

"They describe this situation as inhumane, with no real consideration for their emotional and physical wellbeing."

The report, written by the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, also said too many UK law enforcement agencies had rushed to help and caused chaos, and that frequent criticism of the Portuguese investigation led to accusations the UK was acting like "a colonial power".

The report said: "Clearly, the McCanns have had a turbulent relationship with both Portuguese and UK law enforcement. They now openly acknowledge that there is a distinct lack of trust between all parties."

Even before the end of the first Portuguese investigation, Kate and Gerry McCann used money collected by their Madeleine Fund to hire private investigators. They continued to use them for the three years before Scotland Yard got involved.

The report said: "It is clear that the McCanns and the private investigators working on their behalf have gathered a large amount of information during the course of their enquiries. This information does not appear to have been shared fully with the Leicestershire constabulary or the Portuguese authorities.

"It is imperative that they are encouraged and persuaded to share this information."

The report led to Scotland Yard launching a review and later its own investigation in 2011.

It recommended the setting up of a UK national centre for missing children to better coordinate the response when British children go missing abroad. That has never happened.

Mr Johnson supported the report's recommendation, but was voted out of office in the 2010 General Election.

He said: "Nothing's happened in the ensuing 10 years that suggests that if it happened again it would be an any better, more coordinated response."
http://news.sky.com/story/mccanns-fell-out-with-police-over-search-for-madeleine-10859915

:

Doesn't really tell us anything we didn't already know.

The shortcomings of Leicestershire Police were discussed at the Chilcot Inquiry and what can one possibly say about the insensitivity of keeping anyone, let alone grieving and anxious parents, hanging around in a police station for hours for no good reason as was done in Portugal.

In my opinion you have highlighted the wrong part of that item.  It is history and its only use now is as a convenient excuse for a plethora of pejorative McCann comment ... watch this space!

What isn't history; what is really important; what is an issue that needs to be addressed if for nothing else than to spare people involved in a future missing child abroad case the vile treatment suffered by the McCanns, is the implementation of measures highlighted by Madeleine's case.

quote
The report led to Scotland Yard launching a review and later its own investigation in 2011.

It recommended the setting up of a UK national centre for missing children to better coordinate the response when British children go missing abroad. That has never happened.

Mr Johnson supported the report's recommendation, but was voted out of office in the 2010 General Election.

He said: "Nothing's happened in the ensuing 10 years that suggests that if it happened again it would be an any better, more coordinated response."

http://news.sky.com/story/mccanns-fell-out-with-police-over-search-for-madeleine-10859915


I think it should also be noted that the McCanns really did not receive anything like the alleged unprecedented special attention of myth and propaganda ... they were barely treated in accordance with regard for their human rights ... unless anyone thinks it appropriate in the circumstances to be by their own account ...

"left for long periods without any updates or communication with the investigators.

"They state they were taken to the police station on more than one occasion and then left for hours waiting to speak to someone who never materialised."

I'm sure there will be at least one.

[G-Unit]

Doesn't really tell us anything we didn't already know.

The shortcomings of Leicestershire Police were discussed at the Chilcot Inquiry and what can one possibly say about the insensitivity of keeping anyone, let alone grieving and anxious parents, hanging around in a police station for hours for no good reason as was done in Portugal.

In my opinion you have highlighted the wrong part of that item.  It is history and its only use now is as a convenient excuse for a plethora of pejorative McCann comment ... watch this space!

What isn't history; what is really important; what is an issue that needs to be addressed if for nothing else than to spare people involved in a future missing child abroad case the vile treatment suffered by the McCanns, is the implementation of measures highlighted by Madeleine's case.

quote
The report led to Scotland Yard launching a review and later its own investigation in 2011.

It recommended the setting up of a UK national centre for missing children to better coordinate the response when British children go missing abroad. That has never happened.

Mr Johnson supported the report's recommendation, but was voted out of office in the 2010 General Election.

He said: "Nothing's happened in the ensuing 10 years that suggests that if it happened again it would be an any better, more coordinated response."

http://news.sky.com/story/mccanns-fell-out-with-police-over-search-for-madeleine-10859915


I think it should also be noted that the McCanns really did not receive anything like the alleged unprecedented special attention of myth and propaganda ... they were barely treated in accordance with regard for their human rights ... unless anyone thinks it appropriate in the circumstances to be by their own account ...

"left for long periods without any updates or communication with the investigators.

"They state they were taken to the police station on more than one occasion and then left for hours waiting to speak to someone who never materialised."

I'm sure there will be at least one.

You knew they fell out with LP? That's not something the McCanns have ever said as far as I know.

The report by Jim Gamble didn't lead to OG being set up, Cameron and May decided on that despite May having no interest in it previously.

The McCanns rejected the FLO's sent out by LP. It would have been their job to 'update' them. Instead, beginning on 24th May they met with Encarnacao and Neves, with Angela Morado to translate. At the same time Paiva became their liaison officer.

They met with the PJ directors every seven to ten days, and saw a lot of Paiva, according to Kate's book. If that is "left for long periods without any updates or communication with the investigators" we need to know what it is being compared with.

Kate McCann attended the police station four times. On 10th May she waited to be interviewed but time ran out and she was asked to return the following day. That's the only time she waited but wasn't seen to my knowledge,
so hardly "more than one occasion".

[Brietta]

You knew they fell out with LP? That's not something the McCanns have ever said as far as I know.

The report by Jim Gamble didn't lead to OG being set up, Cameron and May decided on that despite May having no interest in it previously.

The McCanns rejected the FLO's sent out by LP. It would have been their job to 'update' them. Instead, beginning on 24th May they met with Encarnacao and Neves, with Angela Morado to translate. At the same time Paiva became their liaison officer.

They met with the PJ directors every seven to ten days, and saw a lot of Paiva, according to Kate's book. If that is "left for long periods without any updates or communication with the investigators" we need to know what it is being compared with.

Kate McCann attended the police station four times. On 10th May she waited to be interviewed but time ran out and she was asked to return the following day. That's the only time she waited but wasn't seen to my knowledge,
so hardly "more than one occasion".

Please provide a cite to substantiate "The McCanns rejected the FLO's sent out by LP."  Thank you

[G-Unit]

Please provide a cite to substantiate "The McCanns rejected the FLO's sent out by LP."  Thank you

http://library.college.police.uk/docs/npia/Strategic-debrief-operation-task-2009.pdf
[Page 18]

[Alfie]

If what Sutton and Brunt say is true, Operation Grange was and is an absolute disgrace.


My ten years of looking for Madeleine: how the McCann case has dominated my life

 Martin Brunt, sky news crime correspondent
2 MAY 2017 • 11:14AM

I know so much about the story of Madeleine McCann, the heartbreakingly little girl who vanished into thin air.

In the ten years since she disappeared I’ve spoken to her parents, their friends, the heads of Scotland Yard and the Portuguese police, private investigators, Government ministers and diplomats, witnesses and suspects, the family’s supporters and their trolls.

I’ve been back to Praia da Luz 20 times or more and have struck up friendships. They don’t like why I’m there. I don’t think there’s a word for the look on their faces
In the resort where she went missing I’ve chatted for many hours with residents, expats, taxi drivers, waiters and bar owners. A lot of bar owners.

But what do I really know? What do I know about the only thing that matters, what happened to three-year-old Madeleine after her parents left her and her two-year-old twin siblings Sean and Amelie sleeping in their rented holiday apartment in Praia da Luz on a breezy, late Spring night 10 years ago on Wednesday?

The answer, of course, is nothing. There are theories galore and wild speculation, but for all the time and money spent by police, journalists and armchair detectives, nobody has unearthed the slightest proof to explain her fate. For crime reporters, as an unsolved case it stands alone.

There have been two Portuguese police investigations and Scotland Yard has spent more than £11 million since it began its own inquiry in 2011. In six years the British detectives identified 600 ‘potentially significant’ individuals, all of whom have been ruled out. They have one significant line of enquiry which may or may not provide an answer.

And that’s why I’m sitting here in an editing room, more baffled and fascinated by the story than I was 10 years ago, putting the final touches to a TV documentary that hopes to shed some light, at least on what’s happened since.

‘Madeleine.’ That’s all I have to say to colleagues, friends or family who ask me what I’m working on. I don’t even have to say her surname for them to understand what’s keeping me busy. By her first name, she is so well known as the little girl at the heart of an enduring mystery.

I’ve been back to Praia da Luz 20 times or more and have struck up friendships with several people. They greet me warmly enough, but they don’t like why I’m there. I don’t think there’s a word for the look on their faces, a mixture of smile and scowl.

In the absence of facts there’s a vacuum filled by speculation and opinion, more often than not tinged with a lack of sympathy for her parents. That is especially true in Portugal, where I’ve seldom met anyone who cannot get over the hurdle of Kate and Gerry McCann leaving their three  asleep while they dined with friends across the holiday complex. Kate McCann has described tomorrow’s anniversary as ‘a horrible marker of time, stolen time’.

Nobody can beat up the parents for leaving the children more than the couple do themselves. Long ago they acknowledged they made a mistake, one they have to wake up to each morning.

Yet, the level of hostility the McCann family continues to attract, mainly on on social media, is dreadful - heaping more misery on their blighted lives. A recent posting on a Facebook page which is devoted to the theory that Madeleine’s body is buried in Praia da Luz carried an apparent photograph of her brother Sean, attributing to him a ‘comment’ in which he criticises his parents.

One of those behind the posting told me he had contacted Sean’s school in a bizarre attempt to enlist its help in a campaign to retrieve Madeleine’s body. I knew Scotland Yard was aware of the activity, but they appeared to have done nothing about it. I was told it was something they did not want to discuss with me.

Two months ago someone posted an apparent photograph of the family having lunch in a restaurant. While they were still eating, the picture was put on Twitter, followed by a map and directions to the restaurant along with many vile comments such as ‘Are the kids with them or are they also home alone?’ And ‘Shame they didn’t choke.’ One poster suggested spitting in their food, another wanted to pour beer over them.

As far as I know, none of the McCanns has ever been physically attacked, but I’ve learned as well as anyone the human impact social media activity can have.

Three years ago Leicestershire police were sent a dossier of the online anti-McCann hostility, which included death threats. After six months they decided to take no action against anyone.

I confronted one of the McCann critics, Brenda Leyland, a woman who had Tweeted many nasty comments. She invited me into her home for a chat, though she didn’t want to be interviewed formally. Four days later she took her own life.

In an interview for our documentary the former Home Secretary Alan Johnson said he couldn’t understand why police refused to investigate the McCann trolls.

The former head of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection centre (CEOP), Jim Gamble, described the thousands of online attacks as “a legacy of bile” that would always be there on the Internet to confront Madeleine’s younger twin brother and sister.

We reveal in the documentary details of a secret report Mr Johnson commissioned from CEOP in 2009 to explore the possibility of Scotland Yard getting involved. It led to the Metropolitan Police reviewing the case in 2011 and then launching their own full investigation two years later.

The document exposes the early failures of the first Portuguese investigation and the chaos added by many British agencies competing to help. They included the Association of Chief Police Officers, the National Policing Improvement Agency, the Serious Organised Crime Agency, the Crown Prosecution Service and others. It led to the Portuguese authorities  accusing Britain of acting like “a colonial power.”

In turn, says the leaked report, it lead to growing distrust between the McCanns and both Portuguese and UK police. So much so, that when the McCanns later hired a series of private investigators, the couple refused to share the information that was gathered with either force.

We’ve also spoken to former detective Colin Sutton, who was in the running to head the Scotland Yard investigation before he retired. He says that a senior officer rang and warned him that if he took on the case he would not be able to do everything he wished. He interpreted that as a ban on any formal interview with the McCanns.

Mr Sutton says that if Scotland Yard really did intend to “re-analyse and re-assess everything, accept nothing”, as Det Chief Insp Andy Redwood told BBC Crimewatch in 2013, it should have interviewed the McCanns under caution at the start, if only to rule them out. Mr Sutton says that from the beginning they did accept something, the abduction theory.

The Metropolitan Police has confirmed it didn’t formally interview the McCanns because it was satisfied the couple had been ruled out by the initial Portuguese investigation.

Without that interview, says Mr Sutton, the Scotland Yard inquiry was flawed from the start and so the McCanns have still not had the “proper” investigation Alan Johnson promised them.

The growing distrust between the McCanns and police was so bad that when the McCanns later hired private investigators, they refused to share the information gathered
The 10th anniversary has been an excuse for me to contact my fellow hacks who spent many weeks in Praia da Luz in the summer of 2007 to see if they have learned anything more than me.

So far, despite recent headlines about breakthroughs and new leads, they haven’t. Over the years we have all tried very hard to beat each other to exclusives, sometimes going to extraordinary lengths. I remember turning up one January to discover that three of my rivals had spent Christmas in Praia da Luz and shared a lonely festive lunch in the dimly-lit Fortaleza restaurant with the sound of freezing waves crashing on the rocks below.

It was a reminder that Madeleine’s disappearance has played such a big part in our lives and, as long as it remained a mystery, we couldn’t let it go.

There’s talk of a reporters’ reunion, but that would hardly be appropriate. Now, Madeleine’s safe return, wouldn’t that be a cause for celebration for us all?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/thinking-man/ten-years-looking-madeleine-mccann-case-has-dominated-life/

This Colin Sutton bloke sounds like he has an axe to grind.  Why didn't he get the job?

[stephen25000]

This Colin Sutton bloke sounds like he has an axe to grind.  Why didn't he get the job?

Or just maybe he knows what he's talking about.

[Alfie]

Or just maybe he knows what he's talking about.

Doesn't sound like it to me, it's merely his interpretation of an investigation he has not been a part of.

[stephen25000]

Doesn't sound like it to me, it's merely his interpretation of an investigation he has not been a part of.

He would have contacts in the force.

Not the dark side, of course.

[Alfie]

He would have contacts in the force.

Not the dark side, of course.

If that's the case then why is he somewhat vague in his assessment of the situation?  Moreover why if he was considered for the job of heading up OG did he not actually get the job?   &%+((£