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In the Uk and Portugal it is legal to leave sleeping children for half an hour whilst you are fifty metres away checking on them every half an hour. In fact you can be further thna fifty metres as nanny listening services have the nanny quiet far away whilst they are doing the other checks.

Its just becoming a game of disinformation and trying to push the same point over and over again.
Really, this forum is a sleuthing forum, if people are not interested in looking for clues then why bother being here?
I can only speak for myself here, I am not trying to frame anyone, I am simply interested in looking at the publicly available information that is freely available on the internet and trying to sensibly discuss thoughts on various aspects of the case.

From now on, I am not going to get into ping pong messages over the same points, if anybody wants to join me in having a constructive conversation, then please do.
As per the terms and conditions on websleuths, we know the boundaries and accept them willingly, lets get back to the clues and our thoughts on the case please?
 
donjeta,
According to reports they did check them. jeremy wilkins says he saw Gerry not long after nine and saw that he had come down from the path in fron of the flat. Matt oldfield says he checked the children, and then at ten Kate checked. No-one has ever contradicted this.

Fab,
What are your clues you want to discuss (PM me again if you wish).
 
I do not believe that endangering the welfare of children is legal in any civilized country.

of course when you phrase it like that then it is not legal

the problem with this being enshrined in law is fraught with the difficulties - when does a child stop being a child ? is it 12 ? is that a child . Should Ti's Sharpes parents be charged as they let her travel and be with Hazel - was that endangerting her welfare .

My 6 year old is playing in the garden outside - I do pop my head out now and again to make sure all is ok - but should I be charged with possible endangerment - kids walk to school go to the shops etc etc

I am a great believer in personal responsibilty - I hate it when I go to the pool and some jobsworth tells me that my daughter is too small to go down the slide - just becasuse she is small than average - but is actualy a great swimmer than most of the kids - - it should be my choice to choose and look after her

In this country we have a huge problem with people expecting goverment to do everything - cater for every need , have a view on every way we bring our kids up. say you cant do this cant do that - sure there has to be some laws or a line , but to have a law for every minutae - crazy

Listen what the Mccanns did can be debated till the cows come home - and people will never be swayed either way. This is the last I will post in this subject as it is going round in circles for 5 years and is pointless now this case is about murder/disposal or abduction. If there was child abuse then it should have been presented at the time - it wasnt - both police - the brits and portugese did not go down this road -

I am always suspicious of people who claim to have the highest of standards on everything especialy when it comes to bringing up children - I very rarely comment on other people child caring skills as if you look hard enough you can always find something - as in the old proverb better check the plank in your own eye before you coplain about the splinter in others

any way I am sure that views are entrenched and in some peoples eyes the Mccanns should be flung in jail for neglect , and have the twins taken .
 
the problem with this being enshrined in law is fraught with the difficulties - when does a child stop being a child ?

Certainly not at the ages of 2 and 3 years.
JMO.
 
donjeta,
According to reports they did check them. jeremy wilkins says he saw Gerry not long after nine and saw that he had come down from the path in fron of the flat. Matt oldfield says he checked the children, and then at ten Kate checked. No-one has ever contradicted this.

Fab,
What are your clues you want to discuss (PM me again if you wish).

Shall we start from when was the last truly independent sighting of Madeleine McCann, reported through official channels that we know of?
we could then work from a timeframe, to do this we have to consider anyone is a suspect from the pool cleaner to the parents and eliminate everyone as we go?

I personally don't want to go through all the "Gerry said this" or "Amaral is a torturer" stuff, I want to see if its possible to truly eliminate people on verified reports, I don't think in truth it is possible but it's worth a shot
 
donjeta,
According to reports they did check them. jeremy wilkins says he saw Gerry not long after nine and saw that he had come down from the path in fron of the flat. Matt oldfield says he checked the children, and then at ten Kate checked. No-one has ever contradicted this.

Fab,
What are your clues you want to discuss (PM me again if you wish).


If Matt Oldfied had checked on the children at nine thirty pm or so then either the last time anybody outside the family saw Madeleine alive wouldn't be at 6.30 pm, or Madeleine would have been reported missing when he came back.

He and Gerry did not check, they just wandered nearby and went away because they heard no noise.

Checking on the children means making sure that the children are all right.
All they checked was the decibel levels.
 
If Matt Oldfied had checked on the children at nine thirty pm or so then either the last time anybody outside the family saw Madeleine alive wouldn't be at 6.30 pm, or Madeleine would have been reported missing when he came back.

He and Gerry did not check, they just wandered nearby and went away because they heard no noise.

Checking on the children means making sure that the children are all right.
All they checked was the decibel levels.

In a legal case, would friends testimony be accepted or would it need to be corroborated by other evidence, other sightings,cctv etc?
 
There are reports that Madeleine was seen at the children's club high tea between five thirty and six. being cautious lets say five thirty was the last time she was seen by someone outside the tapas nine. This is confirmed by the staff there who had worked with Madeleine all week. We then know it would have taken a few minutes to get back in the flat - say five forty.

At six Gerry is confirmed as going to the tennis courts.

at six thirty David Payne claims to have gone to the flat and seen Madeleine and her siblings alive and well. He had been playing tennis with the other men and Gerry, so there are witnesses who can say he left the court in this time frame.

at seven thirty Gerry returns to the flat.

at eight thirty Kate and Gerry are seen at the tapas bar by other guests (not the tapas nine).

at not long after nine Gerry is seen by Jeremy wilkins (someone they met on holiday) coming down from the patio path, and spent several minutes talking to him. Gerry claims to have seen Madeleine sleeping in her bed.

at about half nine matt goes to check on the children accoridng to the tapas nine. He says he just listens so does not see madeleine. People can confirm he left the table, but obviously no-one can confirm he actually went into the flat.

at ten kate goes to the flat, and finds the window is open, and Madeleine gone. She noted that she realised the window was open because of the breeze, so we can presume that if there had been no breeze she might not have noticed. She also noticed the patio door was shut, and the two gates were latched. kate raises the alarm.

After ten when the alarm is raised the mccanns, their friends, and other guests and staff start alertign people. Someone goes to reception twice to call police. mark warner activate their missing child procedure.

When the police arrive they find no sign of madeleine, but a sniffer dog follows her trial to the car park (this should be double checked because I have seen conflicting reports).

Other people then report having seen a man acting suspiciously near to the flat, watching it, possibly having been near flat 5b, etc. in the days before the disappearence.

jane tanner says she left the table, walked past Gerry and Jeremy and saw a man carrying a child. She said the child was wearing pale, possibly pink, pyjamas. No-one has come forward to say this was him. Although no-one else can confirm her sighting, and Gerry and Jeremy say they did nto notice her, people can confirm that Jane left the table and went down to that road, so she had to have gone soemwhere, and my opinion is that Jeremy and Gerry just did not notice her because they were talking. That does happen.

A few weeks later the smith family report a similar sighting of a man with a child. None of the adults can confirm the child is madeleine, or rcognize the man. However a few weeks later the grandfather of the family says based on the movements he thinks it could eb Gerry, but was not certain, did nto have his glasses, and says he did not recognize the mans face, and is just going on movements. The PJ discoutn if being Gerry because other wittness say they saw him at the resort at the time (withnesses outside the tapas nine). It appears that Janes sighting had not been released at this time, and no-one has come forward to say the smith sighting was him.
 
Donjeta, yes it would have to be a visual sighting of a child who was alive and well at the time of sighting, not just a listening check
 
In a legal case, would friends testimony be accepted or would it need to be corroborated by other evidence, other sightings,cctv etc?

Yes and no. In a court case it would be up to a jury to decide on their reliability. But before that I would assume that the police would look at their reliability, motives for lying, could they have lied etc. In this area there was no cctv, and there were nine people in the holiday group all telling the same story, and it is nearly impossible to prove a negative.
Because it is innocent before being proven guilty testimony to someones innocence cannot be thrown out because they are friends etc. For instance Murat's alibi is his mother, but that doe snot mean it is less reliable. can you imagine having to get someone completely independent to verify your alibi, most people I spend time with are close to me.
 
Brit1981 "There are reports that Madeleine was seen at the children's club high tea between five thirty and six. being cautious lets say five thirty was the last time she was seen by someone outside the tapas nine. This is confirmed by the staff there who had worked with Madeleine all week."

So we have a confirmed sighting by a third party and not the friends at 6pm.
Everything else after that is either the friends that holidayed together or the parents.

I will search for the Pj report confirming the holiday club and link it
 
As far as I am aware six might be a bit late, I would be cautious and go with five thirty. But yes as far as I am aware that is the last sighting of Madeleine by someone outside the tapas nine.

The other sightings are by the tapas nine, so I have tried to see if these could be lies, and see how it could add to the cover-up story. I think it is also important that not all of the tapas nien were good friends, some were just friends of friends. Not all knew kate and gerry that well at all, so we have to ask why would one lie for people they did not know that well.

Gerry was at the flat for a max of twenty minutes before he left for tennis. At half six he claims to have asked David 9who was already going back to the flats) to see if Kate as going to the play park. David backs this up, and other witnesses see David leave. Now if David is lying about seeing madeleine, why? Did those that say he left the tennis courts also lie, and would that not indicate Gerry knew something had happened, which meant it had happened in the twenty minutes before he left t play tennis, which in turn means his daughter died, and at most twenty minutes later he was off playing tennis! Or did david see something at the flat and in the very few minutes he was there agree to help stage a cover-up (but did not go and fetch gerry)

Jeremy says he saw Gerry, why would he lie he was not one of the tapas nine, he had only recently met Gerry.

Jane says she saw a man carrying a child? Ok we could say she had been convinced to lie to help the mccanns. But why say she saw jeremy and Gerry, when they did not see her. If it was important that she had seen gerry why woudl he not agree he saw her, and if it was not why nto say she left a couple of minutes after gerry got back and did not see anyone she knew there. And if she is lying and did not walk past Gerry and jeremy, where did she go as people saw her leave- are they all lying? Also the smith sighting is very similar, but the smiths did not know of janes sighting when they reported theirs.

Matt says he went to the flat, but did not see madeleine. How does this add to the cover-up?
 
I find it very far fetched that all those people conspired to cover up Madeliene's death. A husband and wife covering for each other is one thing, but a whole group of friends colluding with them...yeah, no.
 
Apparently they were comfortable letting him go in their flat with the kids alone but is Matt Oldfield a friend or a friend of a friend?
 
I find it very far fetched that all those people conspired to cover up Madeliene's death. A husband and wife covering for each other is one thing, but a whole group of friends colluding with them...yeah, no.

I too find it impossible to believe all those people would cover up a death, Im not saying its a death personally, I'm saying lets look at the evidence or statements that we can agree on and see where it gets us.

I think there are many questions as to statements and reports and feel these would be worth investigating.

If a "friend" approached me to ask me to cover up the death of one of their children, I am 100% sure I would ask him the circumstances, advise him to go to the Police and then say I would help in any way I could that was legally and morally the right way to help, I really cannot imagine anyone I know asking me to be honest.

The only way that there could be a consideration to get involved in some way, would possibly be if there was a serious threat to my family, but then we are getting in to the realms of the unknown and to be honest, thats not really going to get us anywhere
 
I don't believe in conspiracies ("help me cover up my child's death") unless there is some kind of shared responsibility ( "oh carp, we're all going to be in trouble for this") but I think that occasionally friends may influence each other's testimony either unknowingly or deliberately using the power of suggestion to their benefit ("you saw that too, didn't you? It was about nine-ish, wasn't it?") without being part of an overt conspiracy. I think it would partly depend on how drunk everybody was. If you've got hazy memories it is easier to be convinced by someone else who seems to remember better.
 
As well as the fact it is unlikely you are going to be able to convince friends, and friends of friends to help cover up a child's death (I mean one perosn was the mothe rof friends of friends, nto soemone likely to lie for them) there is also the time. They had a tiny window to actually ask their friends, and come up with a staged abduction. They had to have planned it at dinner surrounded by staff.
 
I think there's a few too many people involved here for that Donjeta. One or two friends sure, but once you go over half a dozen and all of them have stuck to their stories for years, "influenced testimony" becomes a bit far fetched too.
 
Well, it depends on what's the topic. Not everything was witnessed by everybody at the same time.

Also, there have been psych experiments in which several people stick to the same erroneous eye witness story because a few of the more vocal people fed it to them in the beginning. Not saying that this is the case here but it's been known to happen.

Anyway, if something happened to Madeleine earlier in the evening when it was just Gerry and Kate no one of the Tapas 9 needs to lie.

edit:
According to Gerry they apparently drank more or less a bottle of wine per person during their dinners so that would probably be a little tipsy to some people and a lot of alcohol to others. I know I'm not very observant if I've consumed a whole bottle of wine, more like drowsy.

Concerning the half-hourly checking of the children, it had been inspired by the MARK WARNER system called "baby listening", as referred to previously. On the night of the events, he ate fish at dinner, and sausages and potatoes as a starter, drinking white wine. Usually, between 20h30 and the end of dinner, they would drink more or less a bottle of wine per person.

http://missingmadeleine.forumotion.net/t5212-gerry-mccann-statement-10th-may-2007
 
But there is the staff as well who saw people getting up from the table. And one of the most important witness accounts was from jane, and Jeremy and Gerry did not confirm seeing her, which puts pay to the influenced testimony theory for that account. Plus jeremy was not drinking and he confirms he spoke to gerry for several minutes, and everyone confirms kate coming back raising the alarm.
David Payne either saw madeleine at half six or he is lying for some unknown reason.
 
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