An excerpt from Flores Preface to Book

http://joana-morais.blogspot.com/2007/12/guilt-of-mccanns.html

I don't agree with all of this excerpt but there are parts I never knew before which are interesting.
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7 December 2007 | Posted by
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Preface by Francisco Moita Flores

All the steps of
the investigation that passions the world

Maddie's
case moved the world. The tragedy of her parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, sparked
a wave of sympathy and solidarity truly unique. But Madeleine McCann is still
missing and from the initial assumption of abduction, the evidence also requires
the possibility of her death. Without stopping the poignant impact in the public
one wonders what happened that night of May 3 at the Ocean Club.

What
happened to Maddie?
Who’s to blame for her disappearance?
What
investigation has been made to find her?

"This is not just a timely book.
It is a story of great inspiration. An essential document for a day in the
future, intended for the story of Madeleine's disappearance. "
- From the
preface of Francisco Moita Flores

This book includes an updated and
unique interview to the criminologist José Manuel Anes, that made an impartial
review to the investigation conducted by the Judiciary Police.

Who is the
Author?
Manuel Catarino is a Correio da Manhã head redactor. As a journalist
his career is linked to major reports on crime. His journalistic intuition is
very alike of a criminal investigator, which is due to his intense knowledge of
the "modus operandi" of the police. He began working in 1986, in the newspaper
"O Dia". He was founder of the "Diário Europeu". He worked also in the weekly
newspaper Tal & Qual, where he played up as a reporter for seven years. He
was editor and chief of the 24 Horas, where he published, for example, three
major dossiers: "The coups that have shaken Salazar", "Major operations of the
Colonial War" and "Crimes that shocked Portugal". He was editor of the magazine
Focus and cooperated in the magazine Grande Reportagem. He also collaborates in
the magazine "Sábado".

The title of this book, The Guilt of the McCann's,
is not a point of arrival, but a point of departure. This book is essentially a
journalistic work. Recalls facts widely reported and discussed in newspapers, on
radio, on television. Does not point an accusing finger to the McCann’s. It
helps the readers in the labyrinth of stories on the disappearance of
Madeleine.

An excerpt from the book “A Culpa dos McCanns”

"THE
MCCANN'S GUILT"

If the disappearance of Maddie was the plot of a novel by
Agatha Christie, Hercule Poirot would have reunited the McCann’s couple and the
seven British friends by the side of the pool of the Ocean Club, and in an
exercise of reasoning would have solved the mystery.

The
researchers from the Judicial Police did not. They acted since the beginning
conditioned by a thesis inflated and exerted by the high spheres of influence in
England, that was the thesis of the abduction.

However the instinct,
powerful weapon of the criminal investigation, told them that the key for the
Madeleine’s disappearance could be in what they called the “British milieu”:
They had the conviction that the McCann's and their friends probably knew more
than they told.

(...)

Every night, the employees of the Tapas
restaurant prepared the oval table, by the pool side of the Ocean Club for the
dinner of an enjoyable group of nine Brits that were spending their holidays
there.

None of the couples took their children: the children were
sleeping alone in the apartments. They began to arrive to the restaurant around
half past eight. They liked to drink. Some asked for martinis and beer as an
aperitif. Others, like Kate, preferred a daiquiri mixture prepared in the shaker
with white rum, lemon juice and sugar syrup. They were crazy about
wine.

The women ordered white wine very cold. The men selected red wine.
Over dinner, which would usually last almost till midnight, they typically drank
amongst them between 10 and 12 bottles, always in a good
mood.

(...)

That night of May 3, Thursday, Gerry and Kate McCann,
both of 39 years old, were the first to arrive at Tapas. It was around half past
eight.

Thirty minutes later, as always happened since April 27 when they
arrived to the Ocean Club, all friends were already sit down at the oval table
near the illuminated pool: David and Fiona Payne, both doctors, parents of two
small children; Russell O'Brien, doctor, and Jane Tanner, also with two babies;
Mathew Oldfield and Rachel, doctors, which had a 18 month old baby, and Fiona's
mother, Dianne Webster, 62 years old. That afternoon, around half pat five, Kate
and Gerry walked with the three children near the beach, about 800 meters of the
village. They were in the restaurant esplanade Paraiso.

Kate and her
husband were with two more English couples. The employees remember it very well.
There were six adults and seven children. Only the small children ate the kids
menu. Madeleine ate spaghetti bolognese. Adults asked for beer. Madeleine still
ate an ice cream and played with her father in the swings.

It was the
last time the child was seen publicly. They all left the restaurant Paraiso by
18, 15 and took the path to the Ocean Club. In a little more than two hours,
after they put the children to sleep, the McCanns' were at Tapas for the routine
dinner with their friends.

(...)

It was a pleasant Spring night.
The customers of the oval table oval glowed with joy. Kate was the more
reserved. They asked for the usual drinks and the dinner, grilled fish and meat
kebabs with the usual wine. The employees did not notice anything
different.

Nothing led them to be suspicious of anything. They barely
knew that a mysterious crime would, in the evening, shake the tranquillity of
the Ocean Club in Praia da Luz and throw the resort to the limelight of
newspapers and televisions around the world. While the adults dined happily,
eight children slept alone in four apartments: the three children of McCanns',
two of Russell O'Brien and Jane Tanner, and two of David and Fiona Payne and the
baby of Rachel and Mathew Oldfield .

Only David and Fiona used a system
of communication to ensure that children did not cry.

The employees of
the Tapas, that were working followed with particular attention any call from
the oval table, in that evening they didn’t notice many people get out of the
chairs in that night to go see their children.

They are sure that two men
stood up, almost at the same time, only a few minutes after the dishes were
served, shortly after nine o'clock. One of them was Russell O'Brien. The other
was Gerry McCann. The rest of the group continued to eat and
drink.

Russell, doctor, married to Jane Tanner, only returned to the
table one hour later. He told his friends that he found the eldest child, same
age as Maddie, unwell: the girl was vomiting and he changed the bed
linen.

Gerry took about 25 minutes. To reach the apartment, Gerry had to
circumvent the pool, leave the Ocean Club and go about 20 meters from the street
poorly lighted till the small access gate of eight steps that ends in the
door.

Back to the restaurant, he meets up in the street with a British
television producer Jeremy Wilkins that he acquainted during the holidays.
Jeremy was walking his baby to making him sleep. The two men, who usually played
tennis at the Ocean Club, greet each other and exchange two fingers of
conversation. The street was deserted.

When Gerry sits again at the
dinner table, Russell O'Brien had not yet come back, he finally, returns almost
at 22 hours, nearly half an hour after Gerry. Then, when Russell had barely
explained that the eldest child was vomiting, Kate McCann put the glass of white
wine and gets up to go see her children.

Employees had already taken 12
bottles of wine to the oval table in an hour. For the time being, everything is
still calm. Five minutes later, the Ocean Club turns into a chaos.

Kate
McCann appears in the rear balcony of the apartment, which faces the interior of
the Ocean Club. She screams and calls by her husband, Gerry, at the table with
his friends. Kate is about 50 meters in a straight line. All hear her, but not
all can see her because of the palm trees between the pool and the
apartment.

The friends sat up and rushed themselves in the direction of
the house rented by the McCann’s. That night, they did not take the digestives.
They loved small glasses of bitter almond. The dinner was interrupted. Only one
person stayed at the table: Dianne Webster, Fiona’s mother.

All the
others headed for Kate. They found her in a trance: They took our Madeleine, she
repeats, without stopping, shouting. The friends go in the apartment, open and
close doors, test the windows, open and close the blinds. Among the confusion,
Dianne appears, the eldest of the group, which stayed at the table and walked
slowly to McCann's apartment. Dianne went to Maddie's room and sees how the
twins Sean and Amelie, despite the noise, slept like angels.

The Ocean
Club, that was calm, becomes suddenly a confusion of screams and running.
Alarmed guests appear at their windows.

The employees of the resort who
were still on duty at that time also approach the McCann's apartment. The
upstairs neighbour, Pamela Fenn, owner of the flat that has lived there for half
a dozen of years also goes to the McCann's door. She recalls very well seeing
Kate without a tear on her eyes. Pamela offers herself immediately to call for
the GNR. Kate thanks her but tells her that it was not necessary because she had
already called.

Maddie's mother did not tell the truth. The first call
for the GNR was infact made by an employee of the Tapas restaurant around 22h40
more than half an hour after Kate discovered that her child was missing. The
first patrol arrived at 23 hours. The military did not speak English and
collected the first statements with the help of an employee of the resort which
acted out as a translator.

(...)

When the first investigators of
the Judicial Police arrived to the Ocean Club, only a few minutes after
midnight, in the early hours of 3rd to May 4th, they spoke with Gerry and
Kate.

The conversation took place in the apartment 5A – the scene of the
crime. The two twins, Sean and Amelie, slept deeply. The policemen, trained to
look in for the minimum details, observe curiously how the house is flawlessly
tidy. It does not seem a place of holidays where three children run around and
jump the whole day.

The sofa has not one single crease and chairs are
positioned meticulously. There aren’t any clothes forgotten or out of the place,
not even toys in sight. Only the cuddle cat, which was always with Maddie, is
now tight in Kate's hands. The kitchen is clean, without the smallest vestige of
remains of milk or children food.

The inspectors searched the house. They
did not find the smallest signal of break in neither in the door or the windows.
They noticed that the couple had not at home any medicine awkwardly to the
normal for a family in holidays. On that night, the McCann’s left the apartment
and were accommodated in another flat of the Ocean Club. The crime scene is free
for the team of experts of the Laboratory of Scientific Police that left from
Lisbon.

The twins are taken by the parents. Kate carries the girl in her
arms and Gerry the boy. Amelie and Sean continue to sleep and not even noticing
the change. The couple is only authorized to carry the indispensable things to
spend the night in another apartment.

The Judicial Police gives the next
day, to the family the rest of their belongings. The vestiges collected in the
apartment where the crime happened were useless: they were contaminated by the
crowd of curious that entered that house after the
alarm.

(...)

Katherine Marie Healy and Gerald Patrick McCann "Kate
and Gerry", for the most intimate, grew separated by thousands of kilometres. It
was difficult that one day they met in an island of 50 million
inhabitants.

She is English from Liverpool; he grew in a working
neighbourhood of Glasgow, in Scotland. Most Scots are catholic and the English
are mostly Anglicans. Kate's family is part of the English minority faithful to
the Church of Rome. The religion and the faith will be determinant to the union
of Kate and Gerry.

The Catholic girl from Liverpool, when she decided to
study Medicine, went to the University of Dundee in Scotland where she met the
future husband, also student of the medical school.

Kate and Gerry
belonged to the same group. She is snob, he is more sociable. But Kate according
to what a colleague told the British newspaper The Mail on Sunday begun to loose
the irritating superior air and turned into a bohemian. She went to bars,
drinked beer and amused herself until early morning. She graduated without
problems. The book of the end of the course, in 1992, recalls her as one of the
most popular of the medical school of the University of Dundee. It was known by
the suggestive nickname of Hot Lips.

(..)

The complicity between
the four couples fuelled the rumours that they engaged themselves in an
exchanging sexual game known as swing.

The insinuation emerged for the
first time in an English blog and ran world. The Criminal Police also became
interested, though with prudence in the sexual secrets of the McCann’s. The
issue would only have interest to the investigation if the exchanges of partners
surpassed the group of friends.

If the swing was open to other men and
women, the author of the abduction could just as well be one of presumable
sexual partners of Kate or in a far fetched theory, his wife, who for various
reasons could feel despised.

Another fact interested the detectives
concerning the sexual habits of the McCann’s and friends: Madeleine, like the
twins, was born by artificial insemination. Would Gerry be the real biological
father? Or was the girl not born by in vitro fertilization, and the father could
be one of the swingers? The entire hypotheses were open as the manuals of
criminal investigation instruct.

The Criminal Police nevertheless was
just pursuing a possibility, the abduction. The crime could be justified by one
of five reasons: Madeleine was taken by a paedophilia network; stolen by a
family to be sold to adoption; abducted for the payment of a ransom, taken by
real biological father or abducted by circumstances related to the swing.

(...)

Maddie's
eyes are not equal. The left has shades of blue and green. The right is green
and displays a sign of malformation in the iris, which in medicine is called
coloboma, commonly known as cat's eyes. Gonçalo Amaral did everything to
persuade them.

Kate and Gerry, obsessed with the advertising of photos of
their missing daughter did not listen to him. He asked them to at least not show
a frontal photo of Madeleine .Without success. The McCanns' were
inflexible.

The girl has yet another sign, brownish in the twin muscle of
the left leg a particularity that was not disclosed. If Madeleine was kidnapped
to be sold to a paedophilia network or to a family for adoption, as was being
investigated and the parents suspected, the exposure of the eyes, that made her
recognizable throughout the world, could led to her death - this was a strong
belief in the Criminal Police.

The girl was easily recognizable. Her life
would not be worth a dime. The kidnapper would hardly be able to sell her.
Nobody would want her, neither the paedophiles, nor the adoption family. No
buyer would accept taking such high risks. Maddie was marked. Only one solution
was left to the abductor: get rid of her.

Kate and Gerry, despite the
prudent advice of the Judicial Police, still published the pictures of their
daughter’s eyes. They did so aware of the likelihood of the outcome. One day
after the disappearance, the angel face of Maddie was already going around
world.


Technorati Tags: excerpts, books, Gerry, Madeleine McCann, mccann, Kate, guilt, puzzle, Praia da
Luz, Maddie, xklamation



See, I am improving.....couldn't have copied an article this long a while ago

Panda wrote:http://joana-morais.blogspot.com/2007/12/guilt-of-mccanns.html

I don't agree with all of this excerpt but there are parts I never knew before which are interesting.

Too right! As a starting point, the quote:

That afternoon, around half pat five, Kate and Gerry walked with the three children near the beach, about 800 meters of the village. They were in the restaurant esplanade Paraiso.

is completely at odd with current known facts.

And in fact this whole lump:

Kate and her
husband were with two more English couples. The employees remember it very well.
There were six adults and seven children. Only the small children ate the kids
menu. Madeleine ate spaghetti bolognese. Adults asked for beer. Madeleine still
ate an ice cream and played with her father in the swings.

It was the
last time the child was seen publicly. They all left the restaurant Paraiso by
18, 15 and took the path to the Ocean Club. In a little more than two hours,
after they put the children to sleep, the McCanns' were at Tapas for the routine
dinner with their friends.

is just utter rubbish! Or, if true, completely disproves other known information and witness statements.

Well the piece is from 2007 .............................. !!!


The Facts have undergone many metamorphoses since then.

The End Is Nigh wrote:Well the piece is from 2007 .............................. !!!


The Facts have undergone many metamorphoses since then.

Yes TEIN, but c edwards has already pointed out an anomoly, here is another.

"The employees of the resort who
were still on duty at that time also approach the McCann's apartment. The
upstairs neighbour, Pamela Fenn, owner of the flat that has lived there for half
a dozen of years also goes to the McCann's door. She recalls very well seeing
Kate without a tear on her eyes. Pamela offers herself immediately to call for
the GNR. Kate thanks her but tells her that it was not necessary because she had
already called."

Maddie's mother did not tell the truth. The first call
for the GNR was infact made by an employee of the Tapas restaurant around 22h40
more than half an hour after Kate discovered that her child was missing. The
first patrol arrived at 23 hours. The military did not speak English and
collected the first statements with the help of an employee of the resort which
acted out as a translator.
Didn't Gerry say Oldfield had gone to phone the Police about 10.20pm?

I once did a fair bit of research into timings for a JH post or two, text contained below.

Warning, long posts alert, avoid if you get bored easily...

I'm baffled by this. I saw Blacksmith's article and then I saw him engaging in a spat with the "Amaral haters" as he calls them and did a bit of reading.

I have to say that the whole issue surrounding timing of the calls and who called when is completely confused in the witness statements. The most reliable timing in there appears to be John Hill's, who says he was contacted at 22:28. Assuming he recalls the time from checking his mobile phone, then as long as that phone has an accurate time on it, he's pretty much nailed the time that he was alerted. He goes on to say it was Lindsay who called him.

This indicates that Lindsay knew about the disappearance prior to calling John Hill.

So, on to Lindsay. She says she was told by Amy T at about 22:20 of Madeleine's disappearance. She then put into place the missing child procedure and must have called John Hill. Times sound about right, no problem so far.

Moving on to Amy Tiernan it gets a bit muddier... She says that she was on duty and that "the girl's father went to the reception to call the police as soon as her disappearance was noticed and that twenty minutes had passed" so that (assuming that 10pm was the time of the disappearance being noted) puts Gerry's visit to the reception at about 22:20 and it's reasonable to believe that Amy called Lindsay at that time. She also says the police arrived 30-35 minutes later, putting their arrival at about 22:50 or so.

We then have Emma Knight, who also gives a very accurate time - 22:17 - when she says she was called by Lyndsay. Assuming her mobile records were used and the time was right, this means that it was a further eleven minutes between Lyndsay calling her and calling John Hill. Presumably this was a time when the news was filtering up the chain of command and procedures put in place were being acted on. All feasible so far and assuming Lyndsay called Emma as soon as Amy called her, times match to within a few minutes.

Where it really begins to fall apart a bit is when the other Ocean Club employees get involved...

Firstly I think we have to accept that there were only two calls made to the GNR from the Ocean Club that night. One at 22:41 and another at 22:52. The telephone company provided this information and it's clear to see. If there were calls made from mobile phones to the GNR there doesn't seem to be any mention of it at all.

Moving on to the statement of the receptionist at the time, Helder Luis, he states quite categorically he "was contacted by a member of staff from the Tapas Restaurant between 09.30 and 22.00" and that "he immediately contacted the GNR in Lagos" and "shortly after this the child's father and John Hill arrived at the reception and he phoned the GNR again." Well hold on there, there's a world of difference between being a few minutes out (as Amy/Emma/Lyndsay appear to be) and being (at least) 41 minutes out. If he was contacted between 9:30 and 10pm and immediately contact the police, where is the record of that call? The first call has to be at 22:41:29 as we know from the records and presumably the second one at 22:52 is when John Hill walks into reception with Gerry?

However, it gets more confused... Vitor Santos in his statement says, "he remembers that at 22.00/22.15 he received a phone call from the reception, from receptionist Helder, who told him that John Hill was extremely agitated as a child had disappeared and that the GNR had been contacted but had not arrived yet." Well hang on... we know from the phone company records that the call was at 22:41 and not any time between 22:00 and 22:15... He continues that the receptionist says, " that he had phoned the GNR post several times and that he had been told that they would arrive when they could but that they were investigating a theft in Odiaxere. The receptionist asked the witness whether he should contact the PSP, to which the witness replied no as this area belongs to the GNR." So that all seems quite detailed and plausible apart from the timings which are WAY out and not just a few minutes.

Vitor adds more details though... "When he arrived at the scene about 10 to 15 minutes later, he immediately went to the reception where the GNR were present, taking a statement from the girl's father." So when Vitor gets to the OC at sometime between, say, 22:20pm and 22:35pm, John Hill and Gerry are already in the reception with the GNR? And yet the GNR weren't called until some minutes after this time... Vitor's timings are looking suspect, it must be said.

Further confusion - Emma Knight says the police arrived some time around midnight to half past. Amy T says they were there before 11. Vitor says they were there not long after half past 10. Matt Oldfield says that he went to reception to ask them to contact the police at five past or ten past ten. Why doesn't Helder mention this? He says that the Tapas bar contacted him and he called the police immediately. Matt Oldfield says he was having to argue quite hard to persuade the receptionist to call as they assumed Madeleine had wandered off.

More times: George Crosslands says he was called by John Hill at 22:15 (and yet John Hill himself says he wasn't told until 22:28) and that when he got to the OC 10 minutes later, John Hill was already there (some minutes before he was even contacted... good effort) and that the police arrived at 22:50.

If you want even more confusion, refer to Arlindo Pelega and Jeronimo Salcedas's statements! Pelega says the commotion started at 21:20 and by 21:40 the table was empty in the Tapas bar. Salcedas states in his first statement in May that the table was empty at 22:20 - 22:30 and yet by the time of his rogatory this had changed to 21:30 to 22:00 but he's not really sure...

Confused? I am. I haven't been able to establish the chain of who told whom what and when to start the whole chain of events of. I assume that as Amy Tiernan was on duty, she was the first person contacted but I have no idea who by. Maybe by Helder the receptionist after Matt Oldfield had been in? Or was it in response to the call from the Tapas bar he says he had?

Anyhow, all that seems clear is that only two calls were made and the first of those was at 22:41. I don't think it's fair to blame the McCanns for the lateness of the call though. They probably assumed that after Matt had rushed off to reception that the call had been made. Up until 22:41 it looks as though the OC were following through on their procedure for missing children as they wouldn't want to drag the GNR out on a wild goose chase if Madeleine was hiding in the bushes. At some point they obviously took it seriously enough to call the GNR and then when John Hill arrived in reception with Gerry, they were told to do it again to reinforce the urgency. Kate McCann's claims that she knew with certainty that Madeleine had been abducted and not wandered off wasn't really communicated to anyone that could call the police as far as I can tell (none of them spoke Portuguese so they needed an OC employee to do it), so can she be blamed for it taking the OC staff a good half hour more to get around to calling?

I can't believe that there appears to be no clear work on establishing the exact chain of events that night. Who told whom? Starting with Amy T - how did she find out and who did she tell? The timings are all so jumbled and confused that it's hard to see exactly what happened when, but apart from the way out timings of Vitor dos Santos, Salcedas and Pelega, the rest seem to match fairly well. I'm not exactly sure what Blacksmith expected the McCanns to do... stand over the receptionist until he called? If, as seems to be confirmed, they were rushing about and someone told Matt to go and get the police called, they kind of thought they'd done the job by about five past ten as far as I can tell.

Is there any more information out there that I've missed in all this? It seems to be very confused from what I've read.

and (in response to someone saying the McCanns could be blamed for the delay in calling):

I agree that whatever happened to Madeleine was down to their negligence, never going to disagree with that. They weren't there when "it" happened and I only wish they would more unequivocally take responsibility for that rather than use the circuitous phrases that they tend to. However I'm not suggesting for a minute that they expected the OC to call on their behalf, more that I find it plausible to believe that if events happened as described they would have been in the first stages of complete panic around 10pm and shortly thereafter and tearing about looking for Madeleine nearby (hence some of the witness statements mentioning Gerry near the pool, but there's still (again) too much confusion surrounding those reports too) so that when Rachel suggested that Matt went to the reception to get them to call the police they would have no reason to expect that the receptionist wouldn't have immediately done so. I think that it sounds like Matt had some difficulties with the receptionist who was probably thinking "stupid english tourist, too much wine, you've probably forgotten which of your apartments you've left the children sleeping in" or words to that effect and could have been much more forceful about calling the police.

But still I doubt that at that immediate time, the McCanns were quite so forceful in their claims that it had to be an abduction. It seems plain that many people believed she could have wandered off or else they wouldn't have been looking for her close by, right? Therefore Matt probably didn't see an immediate urgency to stand over the receptionist with the proverbial big stick until he called the GNR. All I'm trying to say is that I disagree with Blacksmith on his pinning the blame squarely on the McCanns for the delay as, to the best of their knowledge at the time, they probably thought the police were alerted in the first 5 to 10 minutes after discovering Madeleine wasn't there.

Again, I think it plausible that if the McCanns or one of their friends close by at the time had contacts in the media/high places who spoke English, they could contact them. In a foreign land where they couldn't speak the language then what would be the point in trying to call the police when you couldn't tell them what was going on? Again, I don't know for certain, but I think I'd try to find someone locally as soon as possible to make that contact and as far as I can see from the witness statements, it would appear that this was pretty much what happened. I've still no real idea (yet more confusion) about who was actually called by the McCanns or their friends on the night as, once again, there are many and varied reports but I can't say that anyone other than the police and maybe family (but I think I'd have probably left that until the morning in case Madeleine was found as I don't know what I'd expect my parents/sister to do in such circumstances) would have been high on my list of people to contact in such circumstances so I do find myself wondering what their reason for that course of action was. People do strange things in stressful situations I suppose and without knowing for certain who was called and by whom it's kind of daft to speculate wildly in my book.

Re your last point, it would make sense if they were trying to cover something up (which I think they are still... not sure what, but I don't think the entire truth is coming out) to have all the confusion, agreed. Please don't anybody follow this up with a "quote" from Gerry about confusion being good unless you've actually found where he said it as I've never actually managed to find that quote when I've looked! I've grown to learn to look far more closely at what are supposed to be "facts" in this whole circus of late and I'd rather see the source for these claims than blithely accept them as fact, as that's as blinkered as some of the fervent pros!

I may be nitpicking but I need to correct the title of the thread. The author of the book is not Moita Flores (who only wrote the preface) but Manuel Catarino, a journalist with Correio da Manhã.

Carolina wrote:I may be nitpicking but I need to correct the title of the thread. The author of the book is not Moita Flores (who only wrote the preface) but Manuel Catarino, a journalist with Correio da Manhã.

Carolina.....you are right it does say Flores wrote the Preface, but I'm sure members will have seen that. However, to please you I will amend the title.

@ c edwards, you have mentioned names I have never heard of......no wonder the McCanns et al did not want to take part in a recon.!!

Panda wrote:@ c edwards, you have mentioned names I have never heard of......no wonder the McCanns et al did not want to take part in a recon.!!

All in the files, but it took a lot of research.

C.Edwards wrote:I once did a fair bit of research into timings for a JH post or two, text contained below.

Warning, long posts alert, avoid if you get bored easily...

I'm baffled by this. I saw Blacksmith's article and then I saw him engaging in a spat with the "Amaral haters" as he calls them and did a bit of reading.

I have to say that the whole issue surrounding timing of the calls and who called when is completely confused in the witness statements. The most reliable timing in there appears to be John Hill's, who says he was contacted at 22:28. Assuming he recalls the time from checking his mobile phone, then as long as that phone has an accurate time on it, he's pretty much nailed the time that he was alerted. He goes on to say it was Lindsay who called him.

This indicates that Lindsay knew about the disappearance prior to calling John Hill.

So, on to Lindsay. She says she was told by Amy T at about 22:20 of Madeleine's disappearance. She then put into place the missing child procedure and must have called John Hill. Times sound about right, no problem so far.

Moving on to Amy Tiernan it gets a bit muddier... She says that she was on duty and that "the girl's father went to the reception to call the police as soon as her disappearance was noticed and that twenty minutes had passed" so that (assuming that 10pm was the time of the disappearance being noted) puts Gerry's visit to the reception at about 22:20 and it's reasonable to believe that Amy called Lindsay at that time. She also says the police arrived 30-35 minutes later, putting their arrival at about 22:50 or so.

We then have Emma Knight, who also gives a very accurate time - 22:17 - when she says she was called by Lyndsay. Assuming her mobile records were used and the time was right, this means that it was a further eleven minutes between Lyndsay calling her and calling John Hill. Presumably this was a time when the news was filtering up the chain of command and procedures put in place were being acted on. All feasible so far and assuming Lyndsay called Emma as soon as Amy called her, times match to within a few minutes.

Where it really begins to fall apart a bit is when the other Ocean Club employees get involved...

Firstly I think we have to accept that there were only two calls made to the GNR from the Ocean Club that night. One at 22:41 and another at 22:52. The telephone company provided this information and it's clear to see. If there were calls made from mobile phones to the GNR there doesn't seem to be any mention of it at all.

Moving on to the statement of the receptionist at the time, Helder Luis, he states quite categorically he "was contacted by a member of staff from the Tapas Restaurant between 09.30 and 22.00" and that "he immediately contacted the GNR in Lagos" and "shortly after this the child's father and John Hill arrived at the reception and he phoned the GNR again." Well hold on there, there's a world of difference between being a few minutes out (as Amy/Emma/Lyndsay appear to be) and being (at least) 41 minutes out. If he was contacted between 9:30 and 10pm and immediately contact the police, where is the record of that call? The first call has to be at 22:41:29 as we know from the records and presumably the second one at 22:52 is when John Hill walks into reception with Gerry?

However, it gets more confused... Vitor Santos in his statement says, "he remembers that at 22.00/22.15 he received a phone call from the reception, from receptionist Helder, who told him that John Hill was extremely agitated as a child had disappeared and that the GNR had been contacted but had not arrived yet." Well hang on... we know from the phone company records that the call was at 22:41 and not any time between 22:00 and 22:15... He continues that the receptionist says, " that he had phoned the GNR post several times and that he had been told that they would arrive when they could but that they were investigating a theft in Odiaxere. The receptionist asked the witness whether he should contact the PSP, to which the witness replied no as this area belongs to the GNR." So that all seems quite detailed and plausible apart from the timings which are WAY out and not just a few minutes.

Vitor adds more details though... "When he arrived at the scene about 10 to 15 minutes later, he immediately went to the reception where the GNR were present, taking a statement from the girl's father." So when Vitor gets to the OC at sometime between, say, 22:20pm and 22:35pm, John Hill and Gerry are already in the reception with the GNR? And yet the GNR weren't called until some minutes after this time... Vitor's timings are looking suspect, it must be said.

Further confusion - Emma Knight says the police arrived some time around midnight to half past. Amy T says they were there before 11. Vitor says they were there not long after half past 10. Matt Oldfield says that he went to reception to ask them to contact the police at five past or ten past ten. Why doesn't Helder mention this? He says that the Tapas bar contacted him and he called the police immediately. Matt Oldfield says he was having to argue quite hard to persuade the receptionist to call as they assumed Madeleine had wandered off.

More times: George Crosslands says he was called by John Hill at 22:15 (and yet John Hill himself says he wasn't told until 22:28) and that when he got to the OC 10 minutes later, John Hill was already there (some minutes before he was even contacted... good effort) and that the police arrived at 22:50.

If you want even more confusion, refer to Arlindo Pelega and Jeronimo Salcedas's statements! Pelega says the commotion started at 21:20 and by 21:40 the table was empty in the Tapas bar. Salcedas states in his first statement in May that the table was empty at 22:20 - 22:30 and yet by the time of his rogatory this had changed to 21:30 to 22:00 but he's not really sure...

Confused? I am. I haven't been able to establish the chain of who told whom what and when to start the whole chain of events of. I assume that as Amy Tiernan was on duty, she was the first person contacted but I have no idea who by. Maybe by Helder the receptionist after Matt Oldfield had been in? Or was it in response to the call from the Tapas bar he says he had?

Anyhow, all that seems clear is that only two calls were made and the first of those was at 22:41. I don't think it's fair to blame the McCanns for the lateness of the call though. They probably assumed that after Matt had rushed off to reception that the call had been made. Up until 22:41 it looks as though the OC were following through on their procedure for missing children as they wouldn't want to drag the GNR out on a wild goose chase if Madeleine was hiding in the bushes. At some point they obviously took it seriously enough to call the GNR and then when John Hill arrived in reception with Gerry, they were told to do it again to reinforce the urgency. Kate McCann's claims that she knew with certainty that Madeleine had been abducted and not wandered off wasn't really communicated to anyone that could call the police as far as I can tell (none of them spoke Portuguese so they needed an OC employee to do it), so can she be blamed for it taking the OC staff a good half hour more to get around to calling?

I can't believe that there appears to be no clear work on establishing the exact chain of events that night. Who told whom? Starting with Amy T - how did she find out and who did she tell? The timings are all so jumbled and confused that it's hard to see exactly what happened when, but apart from the way out timings of Vitor dos Santos, Salcedas and Pelega, the rest seem to match fairly well. I'm not exactly sure what Blacksmith expected the McCanns to do... stand over the receptionist until he called? If, as seems to be confirmed, they were rushing about and someone told Matt to go and get the police called, they kind of thought they'd done the job by about five past ten as far as I can tell.

Is there any more information out there that I've missed in all this? It seems to be very confused from what I've read.

and (in response to someone saying the McCanns could be blamed for the delay in calling):

I agree that whatever happened to Madeleine was down to their negligence, never going to disagree with that. They weren't there when "it" happened and I only wish they would more unequivocally take responsibility for that rather than use the circuitous phrases that they tend to. However I'm not suggesting for a minute that they expected the OC to call on their behalf, more that I find it plausible to believe that if events happened as described they would have been in the first stages of complete panic around 10pm and shortly thereafter and tearing about looking for Madeleine nearby (hence some of the witness statements mentioning Gerry near the pool, but there's still (again) too much confusion surrounding those reports too) so that when Rachel suggested that Matt went to the reception to get them to call the police they would have no reason to expect that the receptionist wouldn't have immediately done so. I think that it sounds like Matt had some difficulties with the receptionist who was probably thinking "stupid english tourist, too much wine, you've probably forgotten which of your apartments you've left the children sleeping in" or words to that effect and could have been much more forceful about calling the police.

But still I doubt that at that immediate time, the McCanns were quite so forceful in their claims that it had to be an abduction. It seems plain that many people believed she could have wandered off or else they wouldn't have been looking for her close by, right? Therefore Matt probably didn't see an immediate urgency to stand over the receptionist with the proverbial big stick until he called the GNR. All I'm trying to say is that I disagree with Blacksmith on his pinning the blame squarely on the McCanns for the delay as, to the best of their knowledge at the time, they probably thought the police were alerted in the first 5 to 10 minutes after discovering Madeleine wasn't there.

Again, I think it plausible that if the McCanns or one of their friends close by at the time had contacts in the media/high places who spoke English, they could contact them. In a foreign land where they couldn't speak the language then what would be the point in trying to call the police when you couldn't tell them what was going on? Again, I don't know for certain, but I think I'd try to find someone locally as soon as possible to make that contact and as far as I can see from the witness statements, it would appear that this was pretty much what happened. I've still no real idea (yet more confusion) about who was actually called by the McCanns or their friends on the night as, once again, there are many and varied reports but I can't say that anyone other than the police and maybe family (but I think I'd have probably left that until the morning in case Madeleine was found as I don't know what I'd expect my parents/sister to do in such circumstances) would have been high on my list of people to contact in such circumstances so I do find myself wondering what their reason for that course of action was. People do strange things in stressful situations I suppose and without knowing for certain who was called and by whom it's kind of daft to speculate wildly in my book.

Re your last point, it would make sense if they were trying to cover something up (which I think they are still... not sure what, but I don't think the entire truth is coming out) to have all the confusion, agreed. Please don't anybody follow this up with a "quote" from Gerry about confusion being good unless you've actually found where he said it as I've never actually managed to find that quote when I've looked! I've grown to learn to look far more closely at what are supposed to be "facts" in this whole circus of late and I'd rather see the source for these claims than blithely accept them as fact, as that's as blinkered as some of the fervent pros!

I would just like point out that according to the log ins at the Lagos GNR headquarters, a call was received from OC at 22h50 and it seems that there was only one call made. Also, I believe that it was normal for the Tapas to expect the reception to call the police for them and I doubt very much that anyone at the reception would have ignored their request to do so. I worked in tourism here in the Algarve and whenever a client had problems ranging from stolen tires on a rental car to a break in of his lodgings we called the police immediately, even if it was just so that the client could make an insurance claim later. So I find it not at all plausible that anyone would decide to call friends in the UK to resolve their problem in Portugal when there are people on site to help them. Receptionists here all speak good English, it is a requirement in order to get such a job, especially in a resort which caters to UK clients. Therefore, IMO what you state just does not stand up.
As to your claim that people do strange things in stressful times, it is still true that the police's attention is always called to inappropriate behaviour from those involved in any way in a crime.
BTW, the "confusion" quote came from Gerry when he spoke at the police awards ceremony in July I think of 2007, an event sponsered by the NOTW or the

But still I doubt that at that immediate time, the McCanns were quite so forceful in their claims that it had to be an abduction. It seems plain that many people believed she could have wandered off or else they wouldn't have been looking for her close by, right? Therefore Matt probably didn't see an immediate urgency to stand over the receptionist with the proverbial big stick until he called the GNR. All I'm trying to say is that I disagree with Blacksmith on his pinning the blame squarely on the McCanns for the delay as, to the best of their knowledge at the time, they probably thought the police were alerted in the first 5 to 10 minutes after discovering Madeleine wasn't there."
c edwards
I agree with you there because not only other holidaymakers , but Staff as well searched for hours .......which suggests it was assumed Madeleine went walkabout. I think it was sky news who were informed by midnight , Gerry had phoned Philomena , Kate had phoned her Mother asking for the telephone number of the Priest, why would she do that? The Manageress had arrived , it think about 11pm, Sylvia Batista, saw the Apartment crowded and people using their mobiles and contaminating any evidence. It was she who organised the removal of the twins, still sleeping, to I think the Paynes until they could find another apartment for the McCanns.

M.O.

so Fiona, I think, asked me to go and phone the Police, so I actually went down the route to where she would have gone for Nursery drop off, which his back to the, to the main reception essentially, so I went down that route looking for her at that time and I asked the reception to phone the Police, and that must have been about five past, it’s difficult to know what time it was at that time, but maybe about ten past ten, five past ten, ten past ten”.
00.51.10 4078 “Quite quick then?”
Reply “Yeah, sort of pretty much, you know, straight away, erm, I think it was only, but then it was a kind of, it was surreal when you got there, I said, you’ve got to phone the Police, you know, a child’s been taken, and they went, oh no, she’s probably just sort of woken up and he thought she’s probably sort of wandered off or something like that and you thought, yeah, maybe you’re right, maybe you’re right, erm, can you please, it was sort of, it was kind of, it was sort a weird kind of lack of urgency, you know, he’d ring, but you had to sort and stand there and say, ring now, ring now, so I don’t know if they rang at that point, but certainly, erm, you know, I certainly asked them to, about perhaps sort of maybe about ten past ten maybe.

Thanks ann_chovey, that was Oldfields statement I gather. For Professional people the Tapas group really were incapable of stringing a sentence together . Can you imagine them dealing with Patients? His timing is way out isn't it, wasn't it Oldfield who went to Portugal to change his Statement?