"Open, Sesame"-Dr Martin Roberts 15/12/2012 mccanfiles

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Open, Sesame!, 15 December 2013

Open, Sesame!



EXCLUSIVE to mccannfiles.com

By Dr Martin Roberts
15 December 2013


OPEN, SESAME!

There invariably comes a point beyond which our imagination will not reasonably extend, whereupon a joke ceases to be funny. Hence a good comedian will realize the limitations of a given situation and look for a new angle.

The classic sun-dial illustrates a good angle; an angle which serves the desirable purpose of informing the watcher the time of day. For the McCanns, whose lives, we're told, were turned upside-down overnight, it is a door which points to both events and time. The chorus has become so familiar it could almost serve as a Christmas number one: 'The door was open much further than we'd left it'.

What this invites us all to appreciate is that the position of the bedroom door in question should be taken as an indication of intrusion. 'Where we'd left it' - fine. 'Open further than we'd left it' - interfered with by someone else. The relationship expressed is a very simple one. So simple that, like 1 + 1, if anyone tried to convince us the result was anything other than '2' we'd immediately question their motive for doing so.

Anyway, together with the angle of swing, as it were, climatic constraints must be taken into account. Just as a sun-dial cannot function under cloud cover, a door will not blow open, or close spontaneously, against the wind, which, unlike a 'rip-tide', does not immediately pull in the opposite direction, unless of course it's a tornado (not typically experienced in Portugal I believe).

Armed with these basic postulates we may now proceed to review arguably the most bizarre equations ever to be advanced in the history of human discourse!

Gerry McCann (statement to police, 4 May 2007 at 11.15 [extract])

'Thus, at 9.05 pm, the deponent entered the club, using his key, the door being locked...At around 9.30 pm, his friend MATT...went into the deponent's apartment, going in through a sliding glass door at the side of the building, which was always unlocked. He went into the room, saw the twins and didn't even notice if Madeleine was there, as everything was quiet, the shutters closed and the bedroom door half-open as usual.

'At 10pm, his wife Kate went to check on the children. She went into the apartment through the door using her key.'

So, while the stand-in child inspector takes the short cut, both parents choose the long route? That is odd in itself. But the position of the bedroom door is unequivocal: 'half-open, as usual'.

Oldfield confirms the McCann account minutes later:

Matthew Oldfield (statement to police, 4 May 2007 at 11.30 [extract])

'At around 21h25, the interviewee went into his apartment and Madeleine's apartment...He states that the door of the bedroom...occupied by Madeleine...was half-open and that...he couldn't see the bed occupied by Madeleine.'

'Half-open' (as usual) witnessed by Matthew Oldfield implies 'as usual' left by Gerry McCann earlier, who, by the way, makes no observation himself at this time regarding the door's position before he entered the room. Oldfield, however, 'couldn't see the bed' (from inside the room according to Gerry McCann). Still it's 'all quiet on the Western Front'. The door is definitely not seen to have been disturbed earlier than Gerry McCann's own visit to the apartment at 9.05, nor afterwards at 9.30. Alien hands cannot therefore have touched it until well after Jane Tanner's mistaken identification of a fellow holiday-maker as a child snatcher.

What does Kate McCann have to say about all this later in the day?

Kate McCann (statement to police, 4 May 2007 at 14.20 [extract])

'At around 9.30pm...her friend Matt...went to the witness's apartment. He entered the apartment through a glass sliding door at the side that was always unlocked and once inside, he had not gone into the children's bedroom. He remained at the bedroom door, listening for noise and observing the beds. He went back to the restaurant and said that everything was fine.

'At around 10pm, the witness...went into the apartment by the side door, which was closed, but unlocked...the door to her children's bedroom was completely open.'

It's perfectly clear. Matt uses the tradesman's entrance, does not enter the bedroom (although Gerry McCann has already told police that he did) and yet deliberately observes the beds (beds plural, not cots), one of which Oldfield has already claimed he 'could not see'. And the door is 'completely open' by the time Kate McCann sees it; opened 'much further than they'd left it' and by a third-party no doubt, as Kate's later, more florid assessment for her TV audience described how the breeze blew the bedroom door shut. It cannot therefore have blown it open at all, from which we may only conclude that 'the abductor' struck at some time between 9.30 and 10.00, unless of course Matthew Oldfield interfered with the door, which he did not, as he only remained 'at' it according to Kate McCann.

Already we have a situation in which 1+1+1 equals 3 when, from a logical standpoint, it should really equal 1. These three accounts of the same experience differ in certain fundamental respects, whereas they should concur. There is nevertheless a degree of unanimity regarding the all-important angle of the door, which, when one takes into consideration that we are harking back to a time before Jane Tanner's 'sighting' was so ruthlessly invalidated, becomes an issue all on its own. How can Jane have witnessed a fleeing abductor before he had left, or even entered, the apartment?

In an effort to make that problem go away Gerry McCann had one of his insightful moments, when he was sure, in retrospect, that someone had entered the apartment before him and was hiding somewhere (maybe it was Spiderman clinging unnoticed to the ceiling). The door however, like the sundial, would have to tell the correct time. Its angle simply had to change, which it did during that very week.

Gerry McCann (statement to police, 10 May 2007 at 15.20 [extract])

‘He walked the normal route up to the back door, which being open he only had to slide, and while he was entering the living room, he noticed that the children's bedroom door was not ajar as he had left it but half-way open, which he thought was strange.'

Now we see Gerry too using the back door. He goes on to add:

'MATHEW returned, saying only "all is quiet" (SIC), he having entered through the back door, given that he did not have the key and it was usual for them to enter in that way.'

Well it wasn't that usual for the McCanns to enter their apartment 'that way' when Gerry gave his statement a week earlier. Not only that, the 'half-way open' bedroom door is no longer 'usual', but 'strange', implying that it had been interfered with prior to 9.05 p.m., allowing time, of course, for 'the abductor' to escape before the watchful gaze of Jane Tanner. Job done then? Not quite. Having digested the matter Gerry goes on to drop the banana skin:

'He left the children's bedroom returning to place the door how he had already previously described.'

Ever observant, ever diligent, Gerry spots the door, now at a 'strange' angle, and exits the apartment leaving it in its original position – ajar.

Then along comes Matthew Oldfield.

Matthew Oldfield (statement to police, 10 May 2007 at 16.00 [extract])

'...the deponent went alone to the McCann apartment...he took the quickest route...to the rear patio of the McCann residence, to which he gained access through the glass sliding door into the apartment lounge. The door was closed but not locked as Kate had said it would be.

'...he did not enter the bedroom where Madeleine and the twins were sleeping. He recalls that the bedroom door was half open, making an angle of 50 degrees.'

50 degrees. That's 'ajar' plus 'half-open' (the breeze can only blow the door shut, remember). Well I guess we can forgive Oldfield a five degree error. But what does our 'door dial' now tell us?

The abductor must have followed Gerry out, once more leaving the door 'half-open as usual' (Gerry McCann's first statement) and not the more recent 'ajar' (Gerry McCann's second statement). But did the abductor also forget something, paying 5A a second visit that night once Oldfield had returned to his seat at the Tapas Bar, this time leaving the bedroom door for Kate McCann to discover 'completely open' (that's another 40 degrees folks, against the prevailing wind)?

Were it not for the fact that these observations reflect statements to police that were 'read, ratified and signed' at the time of their deposition, the opening and closing of doors here presents almost as comical a scene as one from Labiche and Michel's 'Italian Straw Hat', and a pointer to anything but the truth.

We now know that Oldfield did not visit the apt.

So we have that visit made up and subsequently the state of the door's degree of openness changed by Gerry to account for this invented check.

He continues to lie to the police because at that point - and every point afterwards - he is more concerned about presenting themselves as responsible and this tanner sighting as the abduction -

What does SY think of this? Did they just accept it as normal that people would go to these lengths to cover their own arse? Having a friend go and listen at the door is not getting them much in the way of responsible parenting points. Once said it cannot be taken back, and a tangled web gets woven with Madeleine's well being off to one side, in favor of the IMAGE of her well being. That's not normal surely.

As this is the first night they checked each other's kids - ie Matt checked for them - this implies that every night prior at least one person from each family - apart from Payne's who took the coward's way out and simply admitted they did not check their kids but relied on a monitor - was up every half hour or even 20 minutes. Except the prior night where 5A inhabitants went to the bar after dinner and didn't check over an hour as Kate admitted in the book.

I think I saw a student created reconstruction of how that would look, or possibly it was how the group behaved only on that night, like jacks in the boxes, up and down crossing paths, Kate getting up to leave ten minutes after Gerry had returned, etc. SY is tossing that out, so with that they toss out the credibility of the interviewees.

Clarence was firm that there was no such couple that went back to the police after leaving Portugal to correct their statement - vehement and practically apoplectic about it being nonsense "there was no such couple"

How did SY determine that Matt's check was not made then? Either outside the window or inside the flat? They've got to be onto this. ?

Matt altered his statement , said he didn't go into the Apartment, he listened at the door. Unless there is a confession or indisputable evidence like Madeleine.s body , the McCanns cannot be tried for neglect and if the Portugese wanted to ,they could have charged the McCanns with neglect causing harm , which for some reason they did not. Probably thinking that once the McCanns were back home the case would be forgotten or the English Government had interfered .

Panda wrote:Matt altered his statement , said he didn't go into the Apartment, he listened at the door. Unless there is a confession or indisputable evidence like Madeleine.s body ,  the McCanns cannot be tried for neglect and if the Portugese wanted to ,they could have charged the McCanns with neglect causing harm , which for some reason they did not. Probably thinking that once the McCanns were back home the case would be forgotten or the English Government had interfered .

I would think the neglect is pretty obvious - you don't need a body for that, just the fact that the kids were left alone. I think abandonment would need for them to leave the child and not intend to return, which of course is not the case. Punishing them for neglect they'd open a whole can of worms- first if the child was kidnapped, it seems pretty awful to prosecute parents who "have suffered enough" or more than enough for their crime of having dinner 50 yards away and checking - and then all the other people who leave their kids including the T 7 or at least T6 (not Webster, who wasn't responsible for her grandkids as their parents were the ones who would be) would also have been open for simple neglect as well as any other tourists who did what is evidently somewhat common to the point that resorts actually have these services to help parents do just that - not really feasible to pursue just neglect.

I think neglect leading to harm was not pursued due to no body or no proof of WHAT had occurred. Legal proof that could win the case. Prosecutors don't like cases they can't win especially if the PM of the parents' country is getting involved.

I know Oldfield changed his statement to just listened - however if the timeline is 9 to 10 as SY says then someone listening at the door at 930 doesn't make sense. He'd have heard SOMETHING. So the time is between 915 and 925 ish, or 935 to ten. They (SY) left it at 9-10. And with the hue and cry going up at 935-940 as Mrs Carpenter says (she heard them call for her as Carpenters were on their way back from the Tapas), that really only leaves 5-10 minutes in either case. Possible, but how likely?

Abductor went IN between 830 and 9, hid there while Gerry checked - would have HAD to be in the kids' room at that time - then out just after Gerry left but before Matt stood listening - or after Matt stood there, and before the cry went up. It doesn't take long to walk out of an apt but the fact of NO NOISe and the evidence of sedation seems to leave little time to get this all done. The kids would have been sedated before MM was taken but they or at least she, was "exactly as they left her" in the same position - which says she was not drugged before her father got there at 910. that leaves the guy who left the door open to a different angle than they left it, to come out of hiding, drug 3 kids, keeping them all silent for Matt's 930 listen - and then out before 935 or 940 OR he drugged them after 930 and still got out in time for someone to be calling her name at 940... unless Mrs Carpenter is wrong by ten+ minutes.

I don't recall Kate saying she was shouting for Madeleine at ten, either, just searching. So Mrs C would be wrong by 30 minutes. And Carpenters seem pretty steady people.

Of course if McCanns gave the kids something to help them sleep, then the drugging need n't have taken place by the abductor, which makes it slightly more possible to do it:  get in after the parents left at 830, hide in the flat when he heard Gerry come in (opening the door a bit wider so he could hide behind it? and then not shutting it back how it was, which is dumb as a normal person would wonder how the door got open and why MM would be in exactly the same position she had been in before, if SHE was the one who opened it to go pee; I would wonder why the door was half open) then wait til Gerry left and scram out of there before Matt stood there listening. Or hide in there til after Matt went away.

This could happen - the unprecedented checking that supposedly happened that night alone would give someone the idea that the flat would be unattended for longer periods. But you don't want to be in there for longer periods. You want to get the hell out ASAP if abduction is the game. And with checks being more frequent than usual, that makes haste even more necessary although with Matt only standing outside, the abductor might not know he was there but just kept totally silent during that period by his own good luck.

SY moving the time to 940 when the party broke up (if they did) we have all the people in and around Mccanns flat during the removal time being the Tapas group; Matt, Gerry, Jane and Russell. And Carpenters. And Jez Wilkins. And the guy SY found as Jane's sighting. No one saw or heard anything including Mrs Fenn which is odd whatever is meant to have happened.

We go back to Smith sighting for SY's best guess -

There is too much emphasis on the angle of the door for it to be true. It sounds very contrived, and therefore likely is entirely made up.

According to T9 witness statements, the "abductor" would have had to have entered 5A for Gerry to see the door open half way instead of to 5 degrees as he had left it.

The "abductor" would have needed to be in the apartment between Gerry's check and Matt's check for Matt to have found the door open to 50 degrees when Gerry had closed it to 5 degrees.

The "abductor would have needed to be in the apartment between Matt's check and Kate's check for Kate to have found the door completely open since Matt did not touch the door and left it at 50 degrees.

The angles that the witnesses find the door angles rule out the Tanner sighting, unless the "abductor" decided to take Madeleine at 9:15 pm and then come back into the apartment after Matt's check so he could open the door from 50 degrees to completely open.

This situation is completely ludicrous.

Carpenter claims to have left the restaurant between 9:15 and 9:30, when his wife heard someone yelling Madeleine's name. One of the waiters claims that there was nobody left in the restaurant at 9:45.

Another waiter states:

On the day of the disappearance, all were seated at the table between 20H35 and 20H45. He remembers them arriving as usual. Had they arrived late, this would have been noted by the staff.


The Executive Chef states:

A few minutes later, when it was around 21H20, he heard some clamour, which made him leave toward the restaurant, a few meters away, and was then informed that a child had disappeared. Given the importance of this, believed that he should be in the surroundings. At that moment, he did not leave the area of the restaurant, and did not have the opportunity to check if the vehicle mentioned before was situated in the same location;
. Later, at around 21:40, he left the restaurant passing through the same esplanade where moments before, he had seen the same table occupied by the three couples, empty, who had left in the meanwhile various items, principally clothing. He was told by his colleagues that the child who had disappeared was a child of one of those couples;

It sounds to me like everyone was at the table by 8:45/8:50. The Paynes themselves claimed to have arrived by 8:50, so there could be no hurrying up of the Paynes as claimed by Matt. Starters probably arrived at 9:05/9:10. Gerry, Russell, and/or Matt may have went back to their apartments in between ordering and getting the starters. The main course would have arrived by about 9:20/9:25, whilst Russell would have been still gone, perhaps helping Jane look for Madeleine. Russell returns to the table at about 9:40 and says that Madeleine is dead and everyone leaves the table except Dianne. Most pretend to search for Madeleine whilst Gerry whisks her away before the authorities are called. All IMO of course.