The letters to the Prime Minister and Met Police Commissioner
Cressida Dick were posted on Tuesday (12 June) and I am awaiting replies
which I shall post here. I have also sent a copy to the Leader of the
Opposition, Jeremy Corbyn.
From: Ms Jill Havern and members of ‘The Complete Mystery of Madeleine McCann’
[address withheld]
Rt. Hon. Mrs Theresa May
Prime Minister
10 Downing Street
LONDON
W1A 1AA
Commissioner Ms Cressida Dick
Metropolitan Police
8-10 Broadway,
LONDON
SW1H 0BG
Monday 12 June 2017
Dear Prime Minister and Commissioner Ms Cressida Dick
NEW
DEVELOPMENTS SINCE September 2016: The conduct of the Operation Grange
investigation into the reported disappearance of Madeleine McCann
As
before, I write on behalf of the members of my forum ‘The Complete
Mystery of Madeleine McCann’, whose membership has grown to 7,645 since
my previous letter.
I now write to you again on your re-election as Prime Minister and as before wish you well in that capacity.
You
and the new Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Ms Cressida Dick, will
recall that nine months ago, I wrote to you in robust terms about the
truth about what really happened to Madeleine McCann. I gave you, in
particular, detailed evidence about the misconduct of the various
private detectives and agencies used by the McCanns. They had used a
series of discredited or bogus investigation agencies - and at least
four of their detectives had been imprisoned for criminal offences after
they had been engaged by the McCanns. Two of their investigators, Kevin
Halligen and Antonio Giminez Raso, each served four years in jail. Yet
Operation Grange has deemed that the material collected by these
criminal or discredited investigators is somehow worthy of
consideration.
I suggested to you previously that the
expensive farce that Operation Grange had become should be ended, and
that you should set up a fresh inquiry team, with an unlimited remit,
which could investigate whether the McCanns were directly involved in
any way in the reported disappearance of their daughter.
There
have been at least three major developments since I last wrote to you,
which fully reinforce what I said back in September - and make it more
urgent than ever that Operation Grange is ended and a new inquiry set up
with an unlimited remit.
These are:
(1)
The original Portuguese police investigation co-ordinator, Dr Goncalo
Amaral, winning, in January this year, the libel case brought against
him in June 2009 by the McCanns
(2) The clear declaration by the
Portuguese Supreme Court, announced in February this year, that the
McCanns had been wrong to claim that they had been ‘cleared’ by the
Portuguese police investigation. The Court ruled (a) that the McCanns
had NOT been cleared, (b) that the alleged criminal offence of the
McCanns, i.e. having hidden Madeleine’s body, was still being
investigated, and (c) that proceedings against the McCanns could still
be taken if new and credible evidence of their involvement in
Madeleine’s disappearance were to emerge, and
(3) The revelation
in April this year by a former senior Metropolitan Police officer,
Detective Chief Inspector Colin Sutton, that he had been advised by a
very senior Metropolitan Police officer that he should not accept the
recommendation of the former Head of the Child Exploitation and Online
Protection Service, Jim Gamble, that he (Sutton) should head the
proposed Operation Grange Review - because it would have a strictly
limited remit and he would “not be able to go where he wanted”.
Moreover,
in later remarks discussing the advice the ‘very senior’ officer had
given him, Sutton stated in a SKY News documentary, and in an interview
with an Australian TV network, that he had reasons for believing that
the McCanns might , after all, have been involved in Madeleine’s
disappearance.
In my previous letter I respectfully reminded you as follows, quote:
“Whilst
you were at the Home Office you personally approved and organised the
setting-up of Operation Grange in 2011 and approved its remit, which was
to investigate ‘the abduction. The innocence of the McCanns in the
disappearance of the daughter was assumed to begin with and so, contrary
to all normal rules of police investigation and conduct, any lines of
enquiry which might suggest that the McCanns knew or were involved in
the disappearance of Madeleine were excluded right from the start.
“As
Home Secretary from 2010 to 2016 you would have had regular briefings
on the case from your most senior advisers, civil servants, and security
service and police officers and you would no doubt have been fully
informed of the intensive involvement of government security services
and other agencies in the case from the very first day, and their
continuing extensive involvement for many years later.
“You must
have personal knowledge that the McCanns have by no means been ruled out
of involvement in Madeleine’s disappearance”.
At the end of
January this year, after a legal process that lasted over 7½ years, the
Portuguese Supreme Court refused the McCanns’ appeal against a ruling in
the Portuguese Appeal Court in April 2016 that the original Portuguese
investigation co-ordinator was not guilty of libeling the McCanns in his
book on the case: ‘The Truth of the Lie’. His book, published back in
2008, had given clear evidential reasons for believing that Madeleine
McCann had died in the McCanns’ apartment, and that they had covered up
Madeleine’s death and arranged to hide her body.
The comments of former Detective Chief Inspector Colin Sutton
I
now reproduce some of the statements made by former Detective Chief
Inspector Colin Sutton. In a SKY TV documentary on the Madeleine McCann
case, he said::
“I did receive a call from a very senior Met
Police officer who knew me and said it wouldn't be a good idea for me to
head the investigation on the basis that I wouldn't be happy conducting
an investigation being told where I could go and where I couldn't go,
the things I could investigate and the things I couldn't...”
In a longer interview with an Australian news source, he said:
"There were critical errors because of a high level agenda to not interrogate the child's parents...", and
"Operation
Grange's narrow remit to focus only on the theory that the
four-year-old was abducted from the family's holiday apartment in
Portugal was unusual and a 'missed opportunity'..."
The
Australian article continued: "In 2010...Sutton received a phone tip-off
from 'a very senior Metropolitan police officer', warning him about the
looming investigation and how it would be handled. The insider told
Sutton, who served 30 years with London's Met before retiring in 2011,
that the dozens of murder detectives assigned to Operation Grange would
be instructed where they could and couldn't look. 'I immediately assumed
that what was meant was that the [McCann] family and Tapas 7 [the group
of seven friends on holiday with the McCanns] were a no-go area',
Sutton said".
The article went on "...the detective's instincts
were proven correct. The 'crucial phrase', as Sutton calls it, in the
Operation Grange remit was a line stating the review would be carried
out 'as if the abduction occurred in the UK'. That meant Kate and Gerry
McCann, despite several concerning inconsistencies in their witness
statements, were not to be looked at”, Sutton said. The rest of [the
remit] is really of little consequence after that because that's sort of
saying…we are only treating this as an abduction and we are not looking
at any other scenario."
"Sutton also hit out at Scotland Yard
claims that the McCanns...had been cleared...'The PJ have never cleared
anyone', Sutton said. ‘Ceasing the investigation 'just meant they
couldn't find enough evidence to proceed against them'."
Moreover,
they quoted more statements from Sutton: “Sutton...said it was
well-rehearsed, best police practice in cases such as Madeleine McCann
to eliminate those closest to the child first. 'Also any kind of
investigation of murder or akin to murder the other place you need to
eliminate early on is those that last saw the victim alive. In this case
you've got essentially the same group of people who are both close to
the victim and the last to see her alive. I'd always want to start with
that. I don't understand why that hasn't been done [by Operation
Grange]...'."
Sutton said he disagreed with [Met Police] Asst
Com Rowley's assessment. He said inconsistencies in some of Kate and
Gerry's statements, Kate's 2011 book ‘madeleine’ and also some of the
witness accounts of the Tapas 7 disturbed him.
"After police
found no forensic evidence in the apartment to back up claims of a break
in, Gerry's statements to police detailing what doors he and Kate had
used while checking on their three sleeping children changed".
The
article concluded: “Portugal's police also had some doubts over the
accuracy of timelines provided by Kate and Gerry, and the Tapas 7, in
the critical hours either side of Maddie being reported missing at 10pm.
Specialist cadaver and blood dogs were brought to Praia da Luz from
the UK, and signalled hits inside apartment 5A and a hire car rented by
the McCanns 25 days after Madeleine disappeared. [Colin Sutton said
that] It was 'entirely possible' that some of Operation Grange's remit
was forced upon Scotland Yard by government officials who rubber stamped
the multi-million-[pound] funding of the investigation".
The comments of Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley
I
also wish to refer to the comments made by Assistant Commissioner Mark
Rowley about the case in an extended interview given to the media.
He
told his interviewer: “What I’ve always said on this case, and I’ve
said it to Kate and Gerry as well, we will do everything reasonably
possible to try and find an answer for them”. He thus confirms DCI Colin
Sutton’s statements that the remit, devised originally by Detective
Superintendent Hamish Campbell, excluded the McCanns from the
investigation.
In rambling responses to the interviewer, AC
Rowley said first of all that: “There is still a lot unknown”, but
later contradicted himself by stating: ”We’ve achieved a complete
understanding of it all”. Later in the same interview he contradicted
himself once again by saying: “Ten years on, we still don’t have
definitive evidence about exactly what’s happened”, and further adding:
“All the different hypotheses have to remain open”. In the same vein,
he continued: “This case is [one where] the evidence is limited at the
moment as to which one of the [various] hypotheses we should follow. So
we have to keep an open mind”.
He continued: “As I said earlier
on we have no definitive evidence as to whether Maddie is alive or dead”
but then, bizarrely, claimed: “The investigation has achieved an awful
lot”.
He also referred to the initial Portuguese investigation,
stating that: “When we started, we started five or so years into this,
and there is already a lot of ground been covered, we don’t cover the
same ground, what we do is pull all the material we had at the start,
all the Portuguese material…” This material included multiple lines of
evidence that Madeleine died in the McCanns’ apartment.
He then
said: “It would be no different if there were a cold case in London, a
missing person from 1990, we would go back to square one look at all the
material and if the material was convincing, it ruled out that line of
enquiry, we would look somewhere else…You don’t restart an investigation
pretending it doesn’t exist and do all the same enquiries again, that
is not constructive… What hypotheses does it open, what does it close
down…?”
So, despite all the material in the Portuguese police
files pointing to Madeleine’s death in the McCanns’ apartment, AC
Rowley admitted that Operation Grange ignored these lines of enquiry. To
make it crystal clear, Rowley confirmed that “We did not interview the
McCanns as potential suspects”.
AC Rowley then
developed one of Operation Grange’s favourite hypotheses over the past
few years for Madeleine’s disappearance, namely a ‘burglary gone wrong’.
He said: “One of the lines of enquiry, one of the hypotheses was:
could this be a burglary gone wrong? Someone is doing a burglary,
panicked maybe by a waking child, which leads to Madeleine going
missing”. The interviewer retorted, very sensibly: “Most burglars would
just run out”. AC Rowley, aware that nothing had been stolen from the
McCanns’ apartment even if this was a ’burglary gone wrong’, replied
with yet another rambling, 200-word answer, and admitted that, three
years after identifying three Praia da Luz residents as the possible
burglars, “we have pretty much closed off that group of people”.
The
arrest and questioning of these three alleged ‘burglars’ was based on
records of one mobile telephone call made between two of them lasting 58
seconds at 9.51pm on Thursday 3 May, the night Madeleine was reported
missing. This was the one and only piece of evidence against them, and
it was achieved after Operation Grange sifted some 11,000 mobile ‘phone
records obtained from some 31 countries of people known or thought to
have lived in or visited Praia da Luz at the time Madeleine was reported
missing. To achieve this, letters had to be sent by Operation Grange to
31 countries to obtain these records, and thousands of man-hours would
have been needed to examine them all. The only result of this vast
amount of expensive activity was the wrongful arrest of three local
Praia da Luz residents.
In my previous letter, I called on you both to, quote:
1.
Appoint independent assessors of proven integrity and independence to
evaluate the work of Operation Grange, and make its findings public. In
this respect, may I remind you of this part of the review’s remit, as
determined by DCS Hamish Campbell: “The ‘investigative review’ will be
conducted with transparency, openness and thoroughness…” Any such report
must include a full investigation into the huge involvement in this
case of MI5, Special Branch and other government or government-backed
security agencies;
2. Appoint, via the new Home Secretary, a
different police force, which has the highest possible reputation for
integrity and independence, to investigate the reported disappearance of
Madeleine McCann;
3. Ensure that any new police investigation has an unlimited remit and can therefore go to wherever the evidence leads them;
4. Order the relevant government department to investigate all aspects of the operation of the Find Madeleine Fund, including:-
investigating the actions of all of its Directors,
the funding of the private investigations,
whether or not funds have been used to pay the McCanns’ legal fees and expenses,
why it was necessary for a separate account to be set up last year, to be controlled by the McCanns and not the Directors, and
accounting for all monies paid into and from the Find Madeleine Fund since it was set up in May 2007..
I
shall again send this same letter to the new Metropolitan Police
Commissioner, Cressida Dick. Again I urge you to seek an urgent meeting
with her to discuss the contents of my letter.
In the three
years and eight months since a BBC Crimewatch ‘McCann Special’ on
Madeleine McCann on 14 October 2013, one of my members, Richard Hall,
has produced five documentary films on the case lasting a total of 17
hours. These films have had over 5 million views on YouTube alone. The
films developed the evidence that Madeleine did indeed die in the
McCanns’ apartment and that Gerry and Kate McCann, with the help of
others, hid her body. There are in addition literally hundreds of other
YouTube uploads by other Google members which also develop this
evidence, many of them having a large number of views.
Another
member of mine, a retired police superintendent, has published an e-book
documenting in detail the evidence that Madeleine died in the McCanns’
apartment. It has been re-published all over the internet and has been
read by hundreds of thousands at least. In these ways, ever more people
are realising, in line with what Colin Sutton was told in May 2010, that
Operation Grange is a sham investigation which was deliberately
designed to cover up what really happened to Madeleine.
It would
surely be in your interests to admit that Operation Grange was
seriously flawed from the start and must be urgently replaced with a new
investigation with an unlimited remit.
Please give this matter your most careful consideration and I shall look forward to your response in the near future.
Yours sincerely
_______________________
Jill Havern
For and on behalf of the members of ‘The Complete Mystery of Madeleine McCann’
https://jillhavern.forumotion.net/t14299-the-letters-to-the-prime-minister-and-met-police-commissioner-cressida-dick-were-posted-on-tuesday-12-june-and-i-am-awaiting-replies-which-i-shall-post-here-i-have-also-sent-a-copy-to-the-leader-of-the-opposition-jeremy-corbyn
Saturday, June 17, 2017
Monday, March 20, 2017
A complaint to the Academic Ethics Committee of Huddersfield University (and others) about a research paper by Dr John Synnott on ‘Anti-McCann Trolls’
I
have sent a detailed letter, on behalf of members of CMOMM, to the
Huddersfield University Ethics Committee about the flawed research
project of Dr John Synnott, discussed on this thread:
https://jillhavern.forumotion.net/t13598p150-three-university-forensic-psychologists-say-anti-mccann-trolls-cannot-be-cured#360653
I have also sent it to the following publishers of the research: Nature, and Elsevier B.V. (publishers of ‘Computers in Human Behaviour’, where the full research article was published).
The letter has also been sent to the Chairman of the Ethics Committee of the British Psychological Society and the International Academy of Investigative Professionals, to whom Dr Synnott belongs.
The research was seriously flawed, yet was written up in one of the world’s premier scientific journals, Nature, and in several newspapers including one of the world’s leading newspapers, the Washington Post. For these and other reasons, a strong protest needs to be registered and heard.
Thank you Tony for raising this issue in the first place, and many thanks to every other member who has helped to compile what is a long letter.
I won’t reproduce all of it, just the Executive Summary and the bit about ‘Our Interest’ i.e. why we’re making a big fuss about this research. I’ll just give the headings for the rest of the letter.
I’ll keep you all posted with any replies
Jill
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
From: Jill Havern and members of ‘The Complete Mystery of Madeleine McCann’
Monday, 20 March 2017
Dear Professor Philllps, Dr Synnott and all other recipients,
The conduct of Dr John Synnott and his co-researchers in their research project on ‘Anti-McCann Trolls’ – Multiple Breaches of Academic Standards and Ethics
I write on behalf of my forum and my members to express serious concern about the conduct of two of your researchers, Dr John Synott and Dr Maria Ioannou, and a student researcher at Portsmouth University, Andrea Coulais, in the way they carried out a research project titled: “Online trolling: The case of Madeleine McCann”.
This letter has been composed by and is sent by several members of ‘The Complete Mystery of Madeleine McCann’, the leading Madeleine McCann discussion forum on the internet, currently with over 7,100 members. Some of the contributors to this letter have substantial academic experience. The forum as a whole doubts the McCanns’ version of events, along with dozens of other Madeleine discussion forum, blogs and websites, for very good reasons. At the same time, any abuse or hate towards the McCanns is not tolerated on our site, and on the rare occasions where such abuse has crept in, members were promptly expelled. Forum members include professionals such as police officers and experts in statement analysis and other forensic disciplines such as DNA and photography.
Dr J Synnott’s research project is seriously flawed for the following reasons, which are explained in more detail below.
1 The entire project is founded on the false claim that the McCanns have been declared, or may assumed to be, ‘innocent’. That was never the case. When the Portuguese police shelved the case in July 2008 they specifically declared that no-one was being prosecuted because there was insufficient evidence of either (a) abduction or (b) hiding Madeleine’s body. More recently, in January this year, the Portuguese Supreme Court, in deciding that the McCanns had lost their long-running libel case against the original investigation co-ordinator, Dr Gonçalo Amaral, declared that the McCanns were incorrect in claiming that the police had ‘cleared’ them.
2 The researchers wrongly assumed that there were no valid reasons for doubting the McCanns’ account of how Madeleine disappeared.
3 The value of the research project was thus fatally undermined by a theme running throughout the research project, viz.: The McCann-doubters (‘anti-McCanns’) are wrong, and therefore not motivated by seeking the truth, and are bad people, while the McCann-supporters (‘pro-McCanns’) are right, have pure motives and are good people.
4 One of the researchers, Andrea Coulias, who became a member of the #McCann hashtag on Twitter for six weeks to interact with the ‘anti-McCanns’, grossly misled the entire hashtag by falsely representing that one particular research project (Lasseter) showed that cadaver and blood dogs were ’unreliable’. She had absolutely no basis for saying that.
5 Moreover, the cadaver dog evidence in the Madeleine McCann case consisted of 17 separate alerts to either corpse scent or blood in the following locations associated with the McCanns; their apartment (lounge, master bedroom, veranda and garden); their hired car; three of their clothes, and personal items. These were carried out by a top British dog handler, Martin Grime, who was recommended by the top agency for British policing, the National Crime Agency, whose cadaver dogs did have a 100% track record of success in trials, contrary to Ms Coulias’ misinformation, and who was headhunted by the FBI in the U.S. and now works for them.
6 For these and other reasons set out below, the three researchers (and those who peer-reviewed this work) have brought the University of Huddersfield and the science of forensic psychology into disrepute.
7 In addition, on several occasions, Andrea Coulias was guilty of the very conduct she was supposed to be investigating e.g. mocking, belittling and goading the anti-McCanns.
8 Andria Coulais’ conduct undermined many of the assertions she made about the anti-McCanns’ conduct, which she grossly misrepresented.
9 Several examples of clear researcher bias are noted.
10 The researchers did not use or even mention dictionary definitions of trolls, and in any event didn’t define anywhere what they meant by a ‘troll’, once again undermining the entire research project.
11 Numerous assertions were made without any substantiation for them.
12 The entire research report is littered with tendentious subjective assessments.
13 The report is so bad that it must be withdrawn as soon as practicable.
14 The University will need to contact any and all media who published details of this seriously flawed research project and seek an appropriate correction
15 A formal apology should be made via the #McCann hashtag in respect of the misinformation she introduced on that hashtag, namely falsely accusing McCann-doubters of ‘rejecting science’.
Our interest
By way of background, let me explain our interest in that research project. I am the owner of an internet forum, the Complete Mystery of Madeleine McCann. I founded it in November 2009 and it has had steady growth since then. We now have over 7,100 members. I can say without fear of contradiction that it is the most popular and most-read internet forum covering the Madeleine McCann case.
Its main purpose is to search for the truth about what really happened to Madeleine McCann, by bringing together researchers who pool their information and analyses of the evidence. Our forum takes a sceptical view of the McCanns’ and the British police’s view of the case. None of my members can fairly be described, by any stretch of the precise meaning of the word, as ‘trolls’. Indeed, were I to become aware that any of my members have indulged in what might be termed ’trolling‘ behaviour, I would ban them and, on occasions, have done so. Whilst members may have robust views on certain matters and may be critical of the McCanns and their advisers and backers, it does not indulge in anything that could be described as ’hate’ or ‘abuse’. Bad language of any kind is not tolerated.
I will also add that some of my most active members are those with professional or academic qualifications who use their expertise to analyse the case in depth. They include forensics experts, photographic experts, former police officers and solicitors.
We are also part of an international effort to seek the truth about Madeleine McCann, which is concentrated in Britain and Portugal but extends to forums and internet sites in many other countries, including the U.S., Germany and the Netherlands.
Another of our concerns is what has amounted to a form of hysteria generated on occasions by constant references to ‘anti-McCann trolls’. This reached its zenith in August and September 2014, just before your researchers carried out their work in 2015. References were made at the time to a ‘dossier’ of nasty tweets and internet messages by ‘anti-McCann trolls’. The media referred to the dossier as having been compiled by a ‘McCann supporter’. The dossier was handed to the Metropolitan Police, who made public pronouncements on the dossier (I should add that, later, the police publicly acknowledged that the dossier did not contain any messages that could be drafted as constituting a criminal offence).
The media at the time (August 2014) quoted Madeleine’s father, Gerry McCann - who had been active in the ‘Hacked Off’ campaign which aimed to suppress freedom of the press - as saying that such internet trolls must be severely punished. He publicly called for prosecutions of trolls who ‘should be made an example of’.
What followed shortly after his remarks, and the news about the above ‘dossier’, was the door-stepping - by SKY News Crime Correspondent, Martin Brunt - of a 60-year-old Leicestershire divorcee, Brenda Leyland, who had been active on the #McCann hashtag on Twitter, the very area of the internet chosen by your researchers to examine, just months later. This door-stepping took place on Tuesday 30 September.
It would be right to say that some of Brenda Leyland’s tweets were abusive about the McCanns, and a few contained bad language. However, so far as I am aware, she did not contact the McCanns via Twitter or otherwise, nor make any threats against them. She was also very knowledgeable about the details of the case. She was on the #McCann hashtag exchanging views robustly with those like her who did not believe the McCanns’ account of events, and with many others who were fervent supporters of the McCanns and would brook no criticism of them. There was a degree of abuse and bad language on both sides and it would be difficult to say that either ‘side’ was worse than the other. McCann-doubters who engage on Twitter are a tiny minority of the thousands on the internet who post doubts about the McCanns’ account of events and are not representative of them
On that day (30 September 2014), Brunt having door-stepped Brenda Leyland and later interviewed her in her own home, she confided in him that she felt suicidal at being exposed as a ‘troll’. Despite this, and knowing that Brenda Leyland was a vulnerable divorcee living alone, Martin Brunt and the editors of SKY News transmitted the doorstepping episode of her every 15 minutes throughout the following day. She fled from her home the day after, staying at the Marriott Hotel, Enderby, Leicestershire, just next to Leicestershire Constabulary headquarters where, on Saturday 4 October - just two days later - she was found dead, having - according to the subsequent Inquest - killed herself with an overdose of helium gas.
So we have already had one death as a result of a hysteria about ’anti-McCann trolls’. Your research project has been featured in the scientific journal Nature and published in many newspapers in Britain and in the U.S. We do not want one more ‘Brenda Leyland’. That is one of the reasons why we on our forum require you to carry out an immediate and rigorous examination of the conduct and contents of this research. .
My other concern is that the publicity generated by your research project feeds the myth that anyone who doubts the abduction narrative promoted by the McCanns, the British police and the media, must be some kind of nasty, abusive troll. Please look at my forum and you will discover a huge volume of high quality information, research and analysis that would force any neutral individual to consider the possibility that Madeleine McCann died in her parents’ holiday apartment and that her body was hidden.
Many professionals believe that Madeleine McCann died in her holiday apartment.
I would first of all draw your attention to a lengthy article by one of the most eminent forensic psychologists in Germany, Dr Christian Ludke. In a forensic science journal, he suggested there were ‘numerous indications’ that the McCanns were guilty of covering up the death of Madeleine. Likewise, Daniela Prousa, German psychiatrist and author, wrote: Analyse des Vermisstenfalles Madeleine McCann (An analysis of the case of missing Madeleine McCann). Using what she described as ‘Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis’, she also concluded from her analysis that Madeleine McCann died in her parents’ apartment.
Another Forensic Psychologist who states that Madeleine died in her parents’ holiday apartment is Dr Paulo Sargento, a University Professor, Forensic Psychologist and author in Portugal. He has published numerous articles suggesting that the McCanns are not telling the truth about what happened to Madeleine.
You will also be aware that the original co-ordinator of the Portuguese criminal investigation into Madeleine’s disappearance, Dr Gonçalo Amaral, wrote a book, ‘The Truth about a Lie’, setting out in detail the conclusions of himself and his colleagues that Madeleine died in her holiday apartment.
A noted Criminal Profiler in the U.S., Pat Brown, has published a book in the U.S. setting out the same conclusion. Another U.S. book, ‘Faked Abduction’, by Brian Johnson, sets out in 400 pages why the evidence points to Madeleine McCann having died in the McCanns’ apartment.
Many other prominent figures have also suggested that the McCanns have not told the truth about what happened to Madeleine. Here are a few examples:
John Redwood MP: “The McCanns’ theory that the girl was abducted needs evidence to support it…”
John Stalker, well-known, retired, police detective: “The McCanns are hiding a big secret”.
Wendy Murphy, former U.S. prosecutor and child protection expert: “I’m not buying it. You hire the nation’s biggest defence attorneys, PR firms, yet refuse to answer police questions?”
Christopher Friend, well-known U.S. commentator and writer: “The McCanns need to come clean now”. [ http://freindlyfirezone.com/home/item/19-mccanns-needs-to-come-clean-now ] .
Key criticisms of Dr Synnott’s research
C1 The genesis of the article and the peer review process
C2 Was Madeleine McCann abducted? – the central assumption that undermines the entirely validity of this research project
C3 The researchers’ basis for saying that Madeleine was abducted
C4 Our response to the researchers’ basis for saying that Madeleine was abducted
C5 The Lasseter Report
C6 Challenges to the research paper’s claims about the unreliability of cadaver dogs
C6a. Evidence of the reliability of cadaver dogs:
C6b. Academic links and general references:
C6c. “Incredibly Unreliable”
C6d. Author’s observations (PeterMac’)
C7 What was Lasseter’s study all about, and how should it be interpreted?
C8 What definition of the word ‘troll’ was used by the researchers?
C9 Is ‘trolling’ illegal?
C10 The ‘anti-McCann trolls’ reactions to the researcher
C11 Bias
C12 ‘Doing harm’ – Breach of the researchers’ Code of Ethics
C13 Sampling of tweets to be studied
C14 ‘Disassociation from group’: Part 3.5.1.2. & Social Indicators: Part 3.6
C15 The definition of ‘good parenting’
C16 ‘Unfounded allegations that the McCanns themselves formed part of a paedophile ring’
C17 The researchers’ interpretations
C18 ‘Unsubtantiated’ news reports implicating the McCanns in Madeleine’s disappearance
C19 Were the McCanns too controlled in their response to Madeleine’s disappearance?
C20 Uncanny echoes about ‘trolls causing damage’ of Gerry McCann’s attacks on internet trolls in 2014
C21 Pro-McCann Trolls – why were they not investigated?
C22 How the University of Huddersfield research paper has been reported in the media
C22a The Nature article, 15 February 2017
C22b. The article in Phys.org, 15 February 2017
C22c. The article on the Science Direct website
C22d Newspaper and internet reports of the research: Appendices 4 to 9
C23. Was there an agenda?
Attached: Appendices 1 to 11
Appendix 1: The article in Nature:
Appendix 2: The article in Phys.org
Appendix 3: The article in Science Direct
Appendix 4: The article at
http://www.fudzilla.com/news/42890-internet-trolls-cannot-be-cured
Appendix 5: Washington Post, 2 Mar 2017
Appendix 6: Daily Mirror, 3 March, 2017
Appendix 7: Sun, 4 March 2017
Appendix 8: University of Huddersfield
Appendix 9: Huddersfield Daily Examiner, 6 March, 2017
Appendix 10: The full article in Computers in Human Behaviour
Appendix 11: Tweets on a Forum of
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