Shutter Island - by Dr. Martin Roberts

Dr. Martin Roberts' latest look (8 August, 2014) at the "shutters" is available at www.mccannfiles.com under Latest News (scroll down).

interested wrote:Dr. Martin Roberts' latest look (8 August, 2014) at the "shutters" is available at www.mccannfiles.com under Latest News (scroll down).

Hi Interested

Thank you for the link to 'Shutter Island.'   

I can't find it   

it is there wjk click on latest news and its about 5 articles down. well worth a read. brings back the issue of G McC going through the front door then the patio, which was effectively sealed by the shutters which were down. so doesn't matter whether patio door open or not. Brings such "forgotten" issues back to light and really makes you think again, and again.

Found it, thanks tanzi   

Shutter Island, 08 August 2014


Shutter Island
Shutters on patio windows of Aprtment 5A

EXCLUSIVE to mccannfiles.com

By Dr Martin Roberts
08 August 2014

SHUTTER ISLAND

Madeleine McCann was reported missing by her parents on the evening of 3 May 2007. She had been left inside apartment 5A, the external configuration of which was still fresh in the memory of the McCanns' holiday-making associate Rachael Oldfield (nee Mampilly) just a fortnight later when, on 15 May, she told police:

'The window shutters of the McCann's apartment were closed. The patio door that they used to enter the apartment also had its shutter closed. In order to enter they had to raise the shutter.'

There are no 'ifs', 'ands' or 'buts' here. The McCanns' patio door, whether locked, unlocked, open or closed at night lay behind a metal shutter, unambiguously in the 'down' position. The witness does not specify whether the McCanns' necessary raising of the patio shutter was accomplished from inside or outside the apartment. In all their accounts of how they, and presumably their daughter's abductor, came and went that evening, 3 May, the McCanns have not once referred to the status of this shutter, only the door.

If we append to Rachel Oldfield's observation those which Kate McCann makes in her book when failing to explain quite why the window to their children's bedroom should have been opened (p.130-1), it becomes clear that, by all accounts, Madeleine McCann was inside a sealed unit. The front door was locked, all the windows were closed and, as both of the holiday party's written timelines confirm, in upper case for emphasis, all the shutters were down, including, clearly, those shielding the patio door.

Whether attached to the front, back or side of apartment 5A, the shutters, all of them, worked in exactly the same way, properly operated from inside via a winding mechanism. A filmed illustration of what happens when such shutters are raised from outside, 'against the grain' so to speak, demonstrates that they can only be elevated to about 75% of their full extent before becoming stuck. Significantly, since this physical intrusion is made without the collaboration of the interior aspect of the apparatus, in order for the shutter to remain open it has to be held aloft by whoever manhandles it into that position. Without such extraneous physical support it just comes crashing down again.

The shutters obscuring the McCann's patio door (there were in fact two of them, side by side) were more than twice the size of those protecting the windows, and therefore more than twice as heavy. Artificially raising either one three quarters of the way off the floor, and keeping it there, would require an adult’s strength. Matthew Oldfield, for instance, could have managed it, and, if the door beyond were indeed open already, he would not have had to prop the shutter up with one hand like Atlas while sliding the door back with the other. But neither his arms, nor those of any intending abductor, are infinitely long.

In order to progress from patio to bedroom, the visitor, having coerced the shutter upwards, now has to release it again, either with a loud bang as it simply plummets to the floor, or by gingerly lowering it behind him somehow, only to raise it again, mechanically this time, once inside the apartment.

Nowhere has Matthew Oldfield described negotiating such an obstacle, whether on his way into or out of the McCann's apartment on the one occasion he offered to check on their children. Rather more significantly, had a child abductor preceded or followed him through that same patio door they too would have had to deal with the shutter, unless either Gerry McCann or Oldfield, in sequence, deliberately left it in the raised position when previously exiting the apartment. In which case, bearing in mind there is a child-in-arms at this point, the shutter would have remained open thereafter, unexpectedly so perhaps. Yet no mention has ever been made of any such startling discovery, suggesting that completely unimpeded access to the rear of apartment 5A came as no surprise to the returning adults.

Gerry McCann has offered police two quite different accounts of how he entered and left 5A around 9.00 p.m. that night. Version one has him going in through the locked front door then simply out again (the patio does not explicitly enter the equation and Matthew Oldfield may therefore have had to address the obstacle of the shutter subsequently). Version two on the other hand sees Gerry going in and out via the patio which, for reasons just discussed, would mean either that he must have first raised the shutter from outside, which he has never described doing, or the McCanns had left the patio shutter in the raised position in the first place, contrary to what Rachael Oldfield has said in evidence. If they left their apartment via the rear initially, as they claim, then they must have left the patio door unlocked and the shutter up, since they cannot have locked the door nor closed the shutter behind them.

Thursday appears to have been exceptional in any event, as Kate McCann had at last decided upon an extraordinary course of action; one that offered her daughter a means of escape in the event of an emergency, as she mentioned to her friends at dinner that night, not at the commencement of their holiday you notice, but very shortly before it was due to end.

Unless he already knew what would afterwards take place (in terms of visitors, checks, or abductions even) there should have been no reason at all for Gerry McCann to have left the apartment completely unsecured in exiting though the rear. Nor should Matthew Oldfield have done so on the McCanns' behalf, unless of course he merely left the situation as he had previously found it. On 10 May Gerry McCann told police that although he was certain the front door was closed it was unlikely to have been locked, because they left through the back door. On this evidence apartment 5A was literally open to all comers, something it never was on any other occasion during the holiday, as the McCanns would customarily lock the patio door from inside before leaving via the front door which they, or the last person to leave at least (usually Gerry) locked behind them.

For anyone entering the McCann's apartment from the rear, a lowered patio shutter would have posed unavoidable logistical problems. These would, in turn, have led inevitably to hand and finger prints around the shutter base and on the glass sliding door which, although unlocked, would still have to be slid back to allow entry (as David Payne discovered, or so we are told).

Returning then to the unequivocal evidence offered by Rachael Oldfield on 15 May, and confirmed (twice) by the entire Tapas group's written timelines, either they were all lying in saying that ALL the shutters were down, or any investigation intent on identifying who it was took Madeleine McCann from apartment 5A (Operation Grange, for example) should begin (and quite possibly end), with the keyholders.

wjk wrote:Found it, thanks tanzi   

Shutter Island, 08 August 2014


Shutter Island
Shutters on patio windows of Aprtment 5A

EXCLUSIVE to mccannfiles.com

By Dr Martin Roberts
08 August 2014

SHUTTER ISLAND

Madeleine McCann was reported missing by her parents on the evening of 3 May 2007. She had been left inside apartment 5A, the external configuration of which was still fresh in the memory of the McCanns' holiday-making associate Rachael Oldfield (nee Mampilly) just a fortnight later when, on 15 May, she told police:

'The window shutters of the McCann's apartment were closed. The patio door that they used to enter the apartment also had its shutter closed. In order to enter they had to raise the shutter.'

There are no 'ifs', 'ands' or 'buts' here. The McCanns' patio door, whether locked, unlocked, open or closed at night lay behind a metal shutter, unambiguously in the 'down' position.

Can anyone clarify this? I've never seen shutters on patio doors that had to be raised, they always slide left and right.

Windows shutters raise not doors, or was OC's different?

When you look at the photo, you can see the shutters, front of the patio doors. It's normal. Glass doors/ for dark / and because of bulglars.
I have missed it totally, as I only concentrated on the 'jemmied shutter/window' lie.

Well spotted from Dr. Roberts   

ive not seen them in the uk except for outside shops.  yet on the continent they are common place to be raised rather than run across.  I think theyre fab id like some where I live and they are a bit noisy but not adversely so small price to pay for privacy/safety.

And if you have no shutters in your house and are broken into, some insurances don't pay you back because they say you made it easy for the burglars to brake into!
When I was in England, the neighbour told me that there is no need of shutters for the windows there because the English burglars always enter by the door!

that's probably true frencheuropean.

tanszi wrote:ive not seen them in the uk except for outside shops.  yet on the continent they are common place to be raised rather than run across.  I think theyre fab id like some where I live and they are a bit noisy but not adversely so small price to pay for privacy/safety.

I have had even had them for balcony door/window when you could get to the other balcony from the next one. (3th floor)

As well as the shutters there were window locks as well apparently. I found this part of her interview interesting: -

1578 'How was the window locked'
Reply 'Oh it just had some sort of little catch erm but you know it was just when Madeleine disappeared, we had a thinking well you know, could a cleaner or somebody from the inside have just kind of left it unlocked for that day, erm you know so that somebody coming in at night, could come in from the outside by lifting up the shutters and opening the window, you know if they'd come in from the, you know through the window, cos we could never really work out why the shutters were up and the window was open, if I dont know, no it was just our theories of how somebody might have got in, erm you know, if they'd come in the patio door, why would they have gone out the window, I'm sure that they could have just gone back out that way, or they could have even just gone out the front door, erm which would have been much easier, erm so one of the, our theories for why the window and the shutters were open, were that you know, they came in that way and then but that would mean obviously that the window would have had to have been unlocked, you know either all week, or sometime during the day you know, thats kind of a bit of a risky thing to do because actually you know, if, if they had been checked before the children went to bed and you know Gerry and Kate had found the window unlocked, then they would have locked it and then that would have kind of scuppered anyones plans for coming in that way'.
1578 'The locking mechanism on the window, was that key operated, or just manually''
Reply 'No I think it was just like a little catch that sort of went, it was a sliding window erm, there might have been a button on the handle, erm yeah it might have been a button on the, on the handle and the window slid back'.

Those shutters would make an almighty noise being opened and closed, would they not ? Particularly in the still of the night when sounds travel quite a distance.

mossman wrote:Those shutters would make an almighty noise being opened and closed, would they not ?  Particularly in the still of the night when sounds travel quite a distance.

Of course. They are noisy.
That was also for me one of the points 4th of may when I heard about the 'jemmied shutter' ...and I thought WTF...can't be true. And..it wasn't. All lies.