THE ‘SALSALITO SUMMIT’: Brian Kennedy’s two meetings in Portugal on 13 November 2007

THE ‘SALSALITO SUMMIT’: Brian Kennedy’s two meetings in Portugal on 13 November 2007


by the Madeleine McCann Research Group

April 2019 

Executive Summary:  Cheshire businessman Brian Kennedy was appointed by the McCanns in, or before, September 2007, to run the McCanns’ private investigation into Madeleine’s disappearance. In November 2007 he, together with the McCanns’ co-ordinating lawyer, senior Freemason Edward Smethurst, travelled  to Portugal, where they attended two very important meetings. MMRG believes that these two meetings hold vital clues as to what really happened to Madeleine McCann. This article reveals what is known about these two meetings and attempts an understanding of their real purpose, examining in detail events before and after this historic meeting.


Chapters


A  INTRODUCTION

B  BRIAN KENNEDY MEETS THE PORTUGUESE POLICE – DAYTIME, 13 NOVEMBER 2007                                                                                                                                             

C  THE MEN FROM METODO 3                                                                                      

D  INFORMATION FROM BRIAN KENNEDY AND THE METODO 3 MEN                            

E  THE ARADE DAM PLOT                                                                                            

F  BRIAN KENNEDY MEETS WITH ROBERT MURAT, HIS FAMILY AND LAWYERS – EVENING, 13 NOVEMBER 2007                                                                                 

G  ROBERT MURAT’S ACTIVITIES BETWEEN 1 MAY AND 13 NOVEMBER 2007   

H  HOW NEWS OF THE SALSALITO MEETING EMERGED                                           

I   ANALYSIS

J  THE SMITHMAN SIGHTING AND THE ‘SALSALITO SUMMIT’

K  EVENTS AFTER THE ‘SALSALITO SUMMIT’

L  CONCLUSION


---------------------------

A  INTRODUCTION     

This article focuses on the action of Brian Kennedy in attending two meetings in Portugal on 13 November 2007. According to the McCanns, they appointed Cheshire businessman Brian Kennedy to run their ‘Find Madeleine’ campaign on Friday 14 September 2007, just one week after they had been made formal suspects over the disappearance of their daughter. He was then responsible for carrying out their private investigations.

Although this article suggests that these two meetings were attended by Brian Kennedy on Tuesday, 13 November 2007, it has not been formally admitted by any of those present at the meeting that the second meeting was on the very same day as the first. However, it seems highly likely that they were. Brian Kennedy and Edward Smethurst would hardly fly out to Portugal for a police meeting, then fly back only to fly out again days later for another meeting with the Murat group. If not that very day, it must surely have been the following day.

The first in time of these was with the Portuguese Police at Portimao Police Station. The second was with Robert Murat and three other members of his family at the home of Ralph and Sally Eveleigh, Robert Murat’s uncle and aunt.

We will deal now with the first one.

B  BRIAN KENNEDY MEETS THE PORTUGUESE POLICE – DAYTIME, 13 NOVEMBER 2007

There were several weeks of preparation, at least, leading up to this first of two meetings on 13 November.. Brian Kennedy brought with him to the meeting two private investigators from the disreputable Spanish detective agency, Metodo 3, who had been hired by Brian Kennedy some weeks earlier, in or before September 2007, to ‘look for Madeleine’. Metodo 3 was eventually closed down in 2011 after several corruption scandals involving criminal conduct, including illegally recording meetings of top politicians at a premier Barcelona restaurant.

At that time, Brian Kennedy had - maybe still has - a villa in or near Barcelona. Maybe he already had had contact with this controversial private detective agency before 2007. 

The immediate cause of this meeting taking place was a telephone call from the Spanish Police to the Portuguese Police on Friday, 19 October.

A report of this ’phone call is given in the Portuguese Police files which were controversially released to the general public on a DVD in August 2008 - much to the anger of the McCanns, because it revealed a great deal of information, embarrassing to them and their friends, about the detailed police investigation into Madeleine’s disappearance. 

Here is the actual report in the files, translated by a Portuguese volunteer interested in the Madeleine McCann case.

QUOTE

“On the 19th of October, we were contacted by Alberto Carbas, Chief of the Kidnapping Unit of the Commissary-General, based in Madrid, who passed to us the information that the McCann family had contracted a Spanish private detective agency known as ‘Metodo 3’. The costs of their investigation into Madeleine McCann were being covered by a Scottish multi-millionaire whose name is Brian Kennedy. His objective was to find Madeleine.

“We were asked if we were available and interested in meeting with a representative of Metodo 3 and the Spanish Commissary General and Chief of the Kidnapping Unit of the Police in Spain. The purpose of this proposed meeting, they said, was to find out the truth, but they stated that they would not interfere in police work. At most, they said, they would ‘complement’ our investigation.  They firmly stated that they are not working directly for the McCann family, but for Brian Kennedy. They didn’t ask for any information regarding the investigation, nor was any offered to them, for obvious reasons”.

UNQUOTE

The claim that Metodo 3 was ‘not working directly for the McCanns’ was highly misleading. Brian Kennedy had attended a meeting with the McCanns and a bevy of lawyers at a meeting in London on Friday, 14 September 2007 and agreed to help them by searching for Madeleine and trying to find out who had abducted her. One of the lawyers had driven to the McCanns’ home in Rothley, Leicestershire, to take them to and from the London meeting.

Moreover, in running this private investigation, he worked hand-in-hand with the McCanns’ co-ordinating solicitor, Edward Smethurst, a high-ranking Freemason from Lancashire - as we shall see in a moment.

This part of the report was interesting:

“On the 19th of October, we were contacted by Alberto Carbas, Chief of the Kidnapping Unit of the Commissary-General, based in Madrid, who passed to us the information that the McCann family had contracted a Spanish private detective agency known as ‘Metodo 3’…We were asked if we were available and interested in meeting with a representative of Metodo 3 and the Spanish Commissary General and Chief of the Kidnapping Unit of the Police in Spain”.

It seems clear that this meeting must have been arranged by one of Brian Kennedy’s men from Metodo 3, Antonio Jiminez Raso. He was one of the men who attended with him in Portugal on 13 November 2007. He had also once been employed as an Senior Inspector in the Kidnapping and Drugs Unit of the Catalonia Regional Police Force, so no doubt would have had connections with  the Kidnapping Unit of the Commissary-General in Madrid.

However, as we now know, Antonio Giminez Raso was arrested on 18 February 2008, just three months after he attended this meeting in Portimao on 13 November 2007. He was arrested on very serious charges, including assisting a violent drugs gang in their attempt to steal drugs from a boat in Barcelona harbour, and corruption in public office. Although he had been a trusted Senior Inspector in the Catalonian Regional Kidnapping and Drugs Squad, by the time he was engaged by the McCann Team in 2007, he had either been dismissed from the police or resigned from them. It seems though that he must still have had contacts or influence inside the Spanish Kidnapping and Drugs Unit, hence his being able to persuade (himself or through inside contacts) the Chief of the  Kidnapping and Drugs Unit in Madrid to contact the Portuguese Police on 19 October. How convenient it often is to have friends in high places! 

We now know that Brian Kennedy flew out in November 2007, less than four weeks after this ’phone call from the Spanish police, to attend a meeting with the Portuguese Police at Portimao Police Station. The meeting at Portimao Police Station must have been arranged following the ’phone call from the Spanish Police on 19 October. Since Edward Smethurst accompanied him to the meeting with the Murat family in the evening of 13 November (and probably to the police meeting as well - see below) it is highly probable that the two men flew out from England together. It is likely that they flew to Portugal at least the day before.

Below are the Portuguese Police’s accounts of a meeting between them, Brian Kennedy, three members of Metodo 3 and (probably) Edward Smethurst. They began with this introduction:

QUOTE

“We held a meeting on 13 November, with Inspectors Paulo Ferreira and Ricardo Paiva [from the Portuguese Police] present, with Brian Kennedy, Director of the [Metodo 3] detective agency, Francisco Marco and one of his advisers, plus Antonio Jimenez, ex-chief of the Kidnapping Unit of Catalonia [Note: Other information suggests that Edward Smethurst was also present]. Brian Kennedy insisted that his motives were purely charitable, aimed at finding the truth, and generally helping missing children. He said he was interested in discovering the truth even if the McCann family, the friends, or any other person is found to be involved in the disappearance”.

UNQUOTE

Here is the full report of the meeting, dated Wednesday 14 November 2007, kindly translated into English by a Portuguese volunteer, and preserved for us by ‘pamalam’ on the mccanpjfiles site, at this link: http://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/BRIAN-KENNEDY.htm

QUOTE

Volume XIII Pages 3434 - 3436

Service Information 2007.11.14

To: Coordinator of the Criminal Investigation
 From: Joao Carlos, Inspector

Concerning the investigation of the disappearance of the British minor, Madeleine McCann, I present you Sir with the following:


On the 19th of October, we were contacted by the Commissary General, located in Madrid, by the Chief of the Kidnapping Unit, Alberto Carbas, who passed to us the information that the McCann family had contracted a Spanish company known as 'METODO 3', composed of Spanish private detectives. This business, or in other words, the costs of the activities of this business, were being covered by a Scottish multi-millionaire whose name is BRIAN KENNEDY and whose objective was to locate the British minor. 

With this information, we were asked if we were available and interested in meeting with a representative of this Spanish business, and also with the Commissary General and Chief of the Kidnapping Unit of the Police of our neighbouring country, whose operation is in Madrid. 

The meeting had as its objective to receive on behalf of the private detectives, from that moment and for their own wishes, relevant information with the aim to ascertain the truth, and to state that they would not interfere in police work, and at most they would serve as a complement to some useful information. They firmly state that they are not working directly for the McCann family, but for Brian Kennedy and that their sole purpose is to locate the missing child, or to gather the inescapable truth of what happened.

They did not ask for any information regarding the investigation, nor was any offered to them, for obvious reasons as this is found incorporated in the Portuguese penal process. 

On the 13th of the current [month], in the presence of the signatory and inspectors Paulo Ferreira and Ricardo Paiva, a meeting was held, in this department, with Brian Kennedy, the director of the detective company, Francisco Marco and an advisor of this same company, Antonio Jimenez, ex-chief of the Kidnapping Unit of Catalan. From the beginning, Brian Kennedy was questioned, and ascertained that the meeting only had this scope - of transmitting that his objective in all of this was purely charitable in that he is interested [in helping to stop] the bad treatment of minors and in missing children. He affirmed that he only was interested in discovering the truth and nothing more even if the McCann family, the friends, or any other person is found to be involved in the disappearance. 

During the course of this meeting, the director of METODO 3 gave us a small book (attached), with information relative to the disappearance of the minor. This information, as we were told, was received via telephone and that they had already opened a line in Spain, specifically to receive and deal with information. 

In this book, written in Spanish, we can analyse three pieces of information: 

1. In the first case, we observed that there was report of facts which occurred in August/September of 2006, and which appears to us somewhat extemporaneous, as it cannot now be related to the material under investigation.

2. In the second point, we should remember that the computers of Sergey Malinka were searched and that nothing of suspicion was found there or related to paedophilia.

3. In that which concerns the third point, we are currently carrying out diligences with the intent to confirm or disprove the related information. 

With nothing more to report.
Joao Carlos, Inspector

UNQUOTE

Item 1 to which Brian Kennedy and the Metodo 3 investigators referred was the evidence of Margaret Hall. We will not reproduce it here, but this is the link for those who wish to see it:

http://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/MARGARET_HALL.htm (Incident 1 - Evidence of Margaret Hall)

Item 2 refers to allegations apparently made by Kennedy and Metodo 3 against Sergei Malinka, referenced here:

http://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/SERGEY-MALINKA.htm#p13p3439 (Incident 2 - Question marks about Sergei Malinka) See File No. 3439

Item 3 refers to an alleged sighting of Madeleine McCann by a lorry driver, whose report suggested he had seen a lady looking like Michaela Walczuk handing a large package, which could have been a child, over a fence or wall several miles east of Praia da Luz. There were multiple indications that this sighting was a complete fabrication. The link for those who want to see the extent of the Portuguese Police enquiries on this alleged sighting is here:

http://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/METODO_3.htm (Incident 3 - Alleged sighting by lorry driver)

Read the rest of the article here: https://jillhavern.forumotion.net/t16301-the-salsalito-summit-brian-kennedys-two-meetings-in-portugal-on-13-november-2007#401768

Disgraced 'Olive Press' Editor Jon Clarke's role in 'Maddie in US' claim

This article was originally written for the Madeleine Foundation website by Tony Bennett on 24 March 2011. It was revised and updated by MMRG on 17 May 2019.  


NOTE: Earlier this year, editor of Spanish ex-pat newspaper, The Olive Press, Jon Clarke, published a disgraceful and libelous attack on 'PeterMac', the retired Nottinghamshire Police Superintendent, who is a member of CMOMM and has made such an extraordinary contribution to understanding what happened to Madeleine McCann and when. 'PeterMac' has responded this month (May 2019) with a detailed analysis of some of Jon Clarke's many lies, especially regarding the Madeleine McCann case.

From PeterMac's FREE e-book:   
Chapter 31: JON CLARKE – OLIVE PRESS LIES AND VIDEOTAPES
Chapter 32: ON LIES AND CONSPIRACIES
Chapter 33: Jon Clarke Entrenched Lies

______________________________________________________________________

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Does an Angolan bouncer in a Spanish basketball team know that Madeleine McCann is alive and now in the United States?

Ananlysis of another media story, in February 2011, about Madeleine.
by The Madeleine Foundation

C O N T E N T S

A.  How the British media profit from 'Madeleine' stories'

B.  The role of Clarence Mitchell

C. The Sun story which broke the news from the Angolan bouncer

D. The alleged sequence of events that led to the publication of the Sun article on 18 February 2011

E. Under what circumstances did Marcelino’s ‘dossier’ get handed over to the Spanish police?

F. Marcelino Italiano

G. Marcelino Italiano’s lawyer

H. The person at the Spanish police station in Huelva who received the ‘dossier’

I. Jon Clarke, Editor of The Olive Press, who broke the story

J. Clarence Mitchell and the McCanns

K. The Sun editor and his journalist, Emily Nash

L. Comments on the SolTimes story

M. Analysis on the ‘Little Morsals’ blog

N. Marcelino Italiano’s basketball team

O. The Algarve prostitution ring - and a claimed link with the disappearance of Madeleine McCann

P. Conclusion

Introduction The Madeleine Foundation, set up in January 2008 to assist in the process of finding out the truth about what really happened to Madeleine McCann, and named after Madeleine because of our conviction that, once the full truth about her is known, her name must stand for all time for lessons to be learned about child welfare, has never made any secret of the fact that we question the McCanns’ account of what happened to Madeleine the week the McCann family were on holiday in April and May 2007.

It follows that we have always been very sceptical about all the media-generated stories about Madeleine’s whereabouts, which swing from the McCanns’ detectives’ firm conviction that she is being held in a prison lair near Praia da Luz, Portugal (where she went missing), to claims that a Victoria Beckham-lookalike took her on a boat to Australia, to recent reports of a ‘sighting’ in Dubai, and now this latest claim: ‘Maddie in U.S.’ All of these claims and many more have been made in the past 18 months alone.

A. How the British media profits from ‘Madeleine’ stories

The Daily Express once boasted that it could sell tens of thousands of pounds by putting a charming photograph of Madeleine on its front page - and indeed this newspaper, owned by ‘pornograhy king’ Richard Desmond, would gaily order an extra print run just by the device of printing any old story about Madeleine, accompanied of course by a photo, and sticking this on their front page. Other British tabloids have done the same for the past four years, caring nothing about whether there is any substance at all to their articles.

These stories are usually fed to them by the well-oiled and well-funded McCann Team machine, and, one day, the process by which these stories appeared in our media will hopefully be brought fully into the light, so that we may all learn useful lessons from it.

Few Madeleine McCann stories appear in any of the media unless the McCanns’ Chief Public Relations Officer, Clarence Mitchell, has either fed them to the media, or been allowed to influence the content. Whilst this article is not mainly about Clarence Mitchell, for the benefit of new readers of our material it is worth just giving a short biography of Mitchell before we move on to the core of our article.

B. The role of Clarence MitchellMitchell rose to prominence as a BBC journalist. There, he specialised in covering stories of gruesome deaths. He was the main BBC reporter covering the serial murders by Fred and Rosemary West in Gloucester, the murders of 9-year-olds Jessica Chapman and Holly Wells in Soham by paedophile Ian Huntley, and the shooting dead of TV presenter Jill Dando, where incidentally he was the very first on the scene. In the case of the Soham murders of Jessica and Holly, Mitchell teamed up with reporter Lori Campbell, who was the first journalist to openly place Robert Murat under suspicion for the abduction of Madeleine McCann, in an article in the Daily Mirror.

After working for the BBC, he then moved seamlessly on to work in the Labour government’s spin machine, ending up in the Media Monitoring Unit, right at the heart of government in the Cabinet Office. Before long he was its Director, and in an interview with Spanish newspaper Espresso in October 2007, he boasted that as Head of the ’40-strong’ Media Monitoring Unit, it was his job to ‘control what comes out in the media’.

Maybe, then, that is why, in May 2007, just days after Madeleine McCann was reported missing, Mitchell was switched from his post within the Central Office of Information to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, where his assignment was, in terms: “See to it that you oversee all the McCanns’ public relations”.

On 31 January 2008, the Daily Mail ran a piece which, inter alia, stated: “Clarence Mitchell said officials had assured him in private briefings that they were treating the case as one of rare stranger abduction”.

One is bound to wander what happened at these ‘private briefings’ (note the plural). When did these private briefngs occur? Who were they with? And - most important of all - what was Clarence Mitchell told, and what did he agree to do?

In September 2007 he was, unusually, given permission to leave the Civil Service (or so we were told), to take up a full-time post as the McCanns’ Chief Public Relations Officer, at a reported salary of £75,000 a year plus expenses.

In late 2008 Mitchell announced that he was now only working for the McCanns ‘on a part-time basis’, on a salary thought to be around £30,000 a year, and had gone to work for high profile international public relations firm Freud International. Just as it happens, Matthew Freud is the husband of Elizabeth Murdoch, daughter of Rupert Murdoch, arguably the world’s post powerful media magnate - and by some distance.

It was Rupert Murdoch’s Sun which, in May 1997, following Tony Blair’s triumph in the General Election, after 18 years of unbroken Conservative government, trumpeted: “It woz the Sun wot won it”. It was no idle boast. The Sun then sold 5 million copies daily and had an estimated readership of double that. The previous year, Tony Blair had met with Rupert Murdopch - and no doubt they had agreed a deal. The Sun would back Labour, no doubt in return for a few ‘favours’.

Twelve years later, in the summer of 2009, Rupert Murdoch met David Cameron on Murdoch’s luxury yacht in the Mediterrranean Sea. There, once again, an aspiring, wannabe Prime Minister, David Cameron, talked turkey with Murdoch.

The following then happened in quick succession. The Sun switched its allegiance from Labour to Conservative. Then Cameron appointed Andy Coulson, formerly Editor at Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World, to be his ‘Director of Communications’.

In March 2010, Cameron appointed Clarence Mitchell as No. 2 to Coulson in his Communications Team. Coulson of course was forced to resign from his post earlier this year after persistent rumours that he authorised ’phone hacking by his journalists on an industrial scale.

Cameron had met with Murdoch in the summer of 2009. Cameron had appointed Murdoch’s former man at the News of the World, Andy Coulson, as his Director of Communications. Now he had appointed Clarence Mitchell as Coulson’s assistant. By then, Mitchell had been working for Murdoch’s son-in-law for over a year, and then moved to a public relations post with Lewis PR.

Unsurprisingly, the following then took place.

David Cameron won the 2010 General Election.

Months later, the government minister appointed to vet Murdoch’s bid for total control of BskyB, Liberal Democrat Vincent Cable, voiced doubts about the takeover bid. He was unceremoniously removed to a more junior post. Into his shoes stepped Jeremy Hunt, a known and vocal backer of Murdoch. It was no surprise that, last month (February 2011), Murdoch got his way when Hunt raised no objection to Murdoch’s deal going through, despite a chorus of opposition from other media owners and from the general public.

We give this little introduction to Clarence Mitchell to show that this is a man who swims in the same elite pool as Rupert Murdoch and successive British Prime Ministers. He is very close to very powerful people. That may in itself give us a vital clue as to why Tony Blair dispatched him to Portugal in May 2007 in the days following Madeleine being reported missing.

And it would help us to understand why Dr Gerald McCann and future Prime Minister Gordon Brown spoke so often on their mobile ’phones to each other in May 2007, when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer. It should have been the Foreign Secretary’s role to help the McCanns, not the man in control of the Treasury. There is significant public interest raised by the spectacle of the Chancellor of the Exchequer apparently interfering in matters which quite clearly fall within the province of the Foreign Secretary.

Two mainstream journalists have both told us, in confidence, that Clarence Mitchell is really employed ‘right at the top of MI5’. That, if true, would not surprise us. If that were the case, he would know all that there is to know about anybody who is anybody. And that would explain the almost mesmeric hold he appears to have on the nation’s media.

Whatever his true role, his main purpose over recent years has undoubtedly been the business of what is euphemistically called ‘reputation management’, whether for the Labour government, the Conservative government, or the McCanns. Some have said, a touch unkindly, that his job can be likened to that of a ‘professional liar’. For those who want a little more background on Mitchell, we’d refer you to the article, also on our website: ‘Clarence Mitchell: A Master Media Manipulator’. [NOTE:  Clarence Mitchell was a publicist and Assistant Director to Andy Coulson as part of David Cameron's successful election team in 2010. In the 2015 General Election, he was the Conservative Party candidate for Brighton Pavilion. In 2019 he was included in the list of Conservative candidates in the European Parliamentary Elections, due to be held on 23 May 2019  -  MMRG]. 

So, against that background, we can now turn our attention to the seemingly dramatic story, which first appeared in the Sun on 18 February 2011, that an Angolan bouncer working in Spain knew that Madeleine McCann was being held alive in the United States by an international, elite, paedophile ring.

C. The Sun story which broke the news from the Angolan bouncer

Let us begin by quoting in full the story which broke that morning in the British media:

QUOTE

MADELEINE MCCANN IS IN AMERICA – AND I KNOW WHO TOOK HER: 
Paedo ring which snatched Madeleine McCann took others, investigator claims

From EMILY NASH and JON CLARKE in Huelva, Spain

Published: 18 Feb 2011


[Photo of Marcelino Italiano by Revelation…Marcelino Italiano claims to have located Maddie McCann…Jon Clarke/Olive Press/ ENP]

AN INVESTIGATOR has told cops Madeleine McCann was taken to the US - and he has named two key suspects. Marcelino Italiano, 36, said she had been snatched by an Algarve-based paedophile ring. The amateur sleuth added: “They can get away with anything”. Maddie vanished in Portugal in May 2007.

Angolan-born Italiano said the gang of influential and dangerous perverts had hunted children in the Algarve before smuggling them out of Portugal. And he told how he had to flee for his life when his investigations threatened to unmask them.

The 6ft 4in nightclub bouncer said: "I know these people were involved and I have been told that Madeleine may now be in America. I can't say how, but I have known these people and believe they can get away with anything. I think there have been over a dozen children kidnapped. They prey on the weak and vulnerable”.

Italiano, 36, said the ring was based in Faro and Albufeira, but had high-level contacts in Portugal's judiciary and links to a legal practice in London. He added: "They are ruthless. I have been attacked twice for trying to investigate it and even lost my front tooth in one attack. I am prepared to go to any length to reveal the truth about these sick people - they need to be exposed”.

Italiano has handed a dossier of information he uncovered to police in Huelva, south west Spain. He says it includes the names of two prominent Portuguese businessmen and provided photographs of them at a birthday party in the Algarve.

Officers have passed the information to Portuguese cops while private investigators hired by the Find Madeleine Fund - set up by her parents Kate and Gerry - are also looking into the dramatic claims. They chillingly echo the case of the Casa Pia paedophile ring, which involved the abduction of youngsters from state-run orphanages.

In September six men including a solicitor, a former ambassador and a TV presenter were jailed for sexually abusing 32 children living at Casa Pia homes across Portugal. One of the chief witnesses, former resident Paulo Namora, told the trial that many of the group's wealthy members were based in the Algarve.

Last night a lawyer acting on behalf of Italiano told The Sun her client had a "credible and believable story". She added: "He told the police he believed Maddie was taken by the gang and he believes she may now be in the US”.

A spokesman for Kate and Gerry, of Rothley, Leics, said: "We are grateful for the information. As with any information of this nature the man concerned has done the right thing by informing the Spanish authorities. Clearly it will be a matter for them and the private investigators currently searching for Madeleine to investigate further."

Maddie was about to turn four when she disappeared from her family's holiday apartment in Praia da Luz on May 3, 2007. Bungling Portuguese police named her parents as suspects before clearing them. In 2008 detectives looked into suggestions that Maddie may have been taken ‘to order’ by a child smuggling ring based in Belgium.

Scotland Yard intelligence officer John Shord sent Leicestershire police an email reporting: "Somebody connected to this group saw Madeleine, took a photograph of her, and sent it to Belgium. The purchaser agreed that the girl was suitable and Maddie was taken”.

Some of the information, which came from an anonymous source, was dismissed as not credible. And both Portuguese police and Interpol were unable to unearth further details. Meanwhile the McCanns' team of investigators have interviewed hundreds of witnesses, received more than 1,000 phone calls and dealt with more than 15,000 emails from people from across the globe. Sightings have been reported across Europe and North Africa and as far away as Canada, Tasmania and Dubai.

UNQUOTE

There is one important aspect of this story to which we shall return in depth later. The story is billed as an ‘Exclusive’ - which usually means, simply, that the newspaper knows that no other newspaper has got the story. The article is by-lined to ‘Emily Nash’, a Sun reporter, but also, jointly, to ‘Jon Clarke in Huelva’.

The article is also accompanied by several photographs, one of which features a close-up of 36-year-old Italiano, reproduced above. The text underneath the photo reads: “Photo of Marcelino Italiano by Revelation…Marcelino Italiano claims to have located Maddie McCann…Jon Clarke/Olive Press/ ENP”.

From this, we learn that the ‘Jon Clarke’ who is billed as the joint writer of this exclusive Sun article is the Jon Clarke who is the owner and editor of a popular English-language newspaper in southern Spain, cleverly called ‘The Olive Press’, a reference to the huge olive groves that can be found in the regions of Andalucia and around, where the free newspaper is eagerly snapped up and read. It will become even clearer, later, that Jon Clarke is the source through which the world learnt about this latest claim that someone knows where Madeleine is. How he got hold of the story is a matter we will analyse later in our article.

It’s also of more than passing interest that when Fox News ran this story in the United States, it elevated Marcelino Italiano to the dizzy status of ‘private investigator’, not mentioning that he was a bouncer. They preferred to claim that he was a ‘private investigator’. Even the Sun more modestly described him as ‘amateur sleuth’. But then, the McCanns have books to sell in the United States and Fox News is owned and run by Rupert Murdoch. Link to the article:

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/02/19/investigator-says-madeline-mccann-kidnapped-pedophile-ring-possibly/

D. The alleged sequence of events that led to the publication of the Sun article on 18 February 2011

The claim that Madeleine McCann was smuggled into the U.S. is not a story which we believe has any substance to it, though no doubt some strands of truth are somehow woven into what any person with common sense should immediately be able to recognise as a tissue of fabrications.

Nevertheless, let us assume, if only for a moment, that it is true. And then let us look at the alleged chain of events which would have had to have occurred, for this story to have broken on 18 February.

1. Marcelino Italiano is described as ‘Angolan-born’. Presumably he, or perhaps his parents, settled some time ago in Portugal. Angola was a Portuguese colonial territory. Presumably he must be able to speak Portuguese

2. He is now 36. He must therefore have been 32 or 33 at the time Madeleine was reported missing in May 2007

3. He appears to have been living in the Algarve, according to the initial reports. During this time he somehow encountered a group of people, ‘based in the Algarve’, who were paedophiles. He refers to them as ‘a gang of influential and dangerous perverts’, allegedly based in Faro and Albufeira, who ‘could get away with anything’. They ‘hunted children in the Algarve’ and then ‘smuggled them out of Portugal’. Not only that, but - of course without naming anyone - he says the gang ‘had high-level contacts in Portugal's judiciary’ and ‘links to a legal practice in London’. ‘Contacts’ and ‘links’ could mean anything or nothing. He also chips in with claims of two ‘prominent’ Portuguese businessmen said to have been ‘photographed at a birthday party’. It all sounds impressive on a first reading. But when you examine the claims in more detail, none of it is capable of verification. Not one of these people is named in the newspaper article, though Marcelino apparently told his lawyer and the press that he did have names.

4. At some stage, whilst on the Algarve, he appears to have become an ‘amateur sleuth’, or even, with typical Fox News hype, a ‘private investigator’

5. Then we come to some distinctly uncertain and unverifiable claims. He says he has been ‘told’ that Madeleine ‘may be’ in America. ‘May be’? So that means that even the person who is said to have spoken to him has only said: ‘Marcelino, Madeleine may be in America’. Of what possible use is that to man or beast? And he says he’s been ‘told’ this, which effectively means that he has no means of verifying whether what he has been ‘told’ is true or not. The Sun headline runs: “Madeleine McCann is in America”. It should of course have been re-written: “I have been told that Madeleine may be in America”. But then that wouldn’t sell so many papers, nor make such a good headline, would it?

6. Continuing with the lack of certainty about the claims he makes, Italiano says he thinks ‘more than a dozen’ children have been kidnapped by this ‘gang’. It is legitimate to ask who those children are supposed to be, what are their names and ages…has there been anything about these missing children in the media at all?

7. He ‘believes’ this gang can ‘get away with anything’ but also says, enigmatically: ‘I can’t say how’.

8. He says: ‘They prey on the weak and vulnerable’. What does that mean in practice? Obviously, all children are by definition ‘vulnerable’ Does he mean the children are ‘vulnerable’, or does he mean their families?

9. He says he has been attacked twice by members of the gang (or their accomplices) and in one of those two attacks, ‘lost a front tooth’

10. He says he had to ‘flee for his life’ to Spain

11.The article then goes on to day he has ‘handed a dossier’ to the Spanish police.


We might note one further point of interest. SKY NEWS (another Murdoch-owned news medium) reported the news and quoted the McCanns’ chief public relations spokesman Clarence Mitchell as follows:

“Clarence Mitchell told SKY NEWS he was sceptical about claims made by a private investigator that Madeleine was abducted by an international paedophile gang. The Angolan-born man and nightclub bouncer who made the claims also said he was forced to flee for his life when the group became aware of his interest. Madeleine was nearly four when she disappeared from her family's holiday apartment in Praia da Luz on May 3, 2007. We should stress a note of caution here. These are claims that have been made to Spanish police, we understand”, said Mr Mitchell. “If this man has any credible information about Madeleine, he has done the right thing in the first instance by going to the police. But of course this information has to be investigated to establish if there is any truth or not”.

Mitchell’s professed scepticism may have been just to pitch himself as the wise counsellor who, amidst the undoubted ‘hype’ of the Sun story, seeks to calm his clients and damp down public speculation about the alleged ‘revelations’. But this is not the first time this year that Mitchell has made a slightly off-message pronouncement.

On 6 January this year, interviewed on BBC Radio Humberside, in a failed attempted tour of Britain’s radio stations to try to generate interest in the McCanns’ new ‘very truthful’ book, he candidly admitted that the McCanns’ claims that Madeleine had been abducted were no more than ‘an assumption’ or a ‘working hypothesis’. This concession was little short of remarkable for a man who had been paid hundreds of thousand of pounds over the past four years to hypnotise the general public into believing that the abduction of Madeleine was a stone cold fact - and backed in this instance by the powerful considerable legal muscle of Carter-Ruck (the ‘most feared libel lawyers in the U.K.’, according to a boast on their own website), who had threatened for years to sue for libel anyone who dared, or presumed, to suggest otherwise. The McCanns of course have never explained how they ‘knew instantly’ that Madeleine had been abducted.

Mitchell’s concession has led to open speculation that Mitchell may be beginning a process of distancing himself from his clients.

The SKY NEWS bulletin included an exclusive interview with Mitchell. Here’s the transcript of what he said, with our emphasis in italics:

QUOTE

“We, er…we should stress a note of caution here, er…these are indeed claims that have been made, er..to Spanish police, er…we understand in the first instance, er… and this man, if he has any credible evidence, credible information about Madeleine, has done the right thing in the first instance by going to the police.

That’s exactly what Kate and Gerry, myself and everybody else helping them has been saying for the last three-and-a-half, four years. People should go to the police first and foremost. But of course, this information has to be investigated and it’s now incumbent on the Spanish police, the Portuguese police, indeed any law enforcement agency er looking at Madeleine’s case as well as our own private investigation team, to, to, go into these claims in depth and to establish if there is any truth in it or not.

The man himself apparently did not approach the media first, he’s not seeking money for his story, he is naming names of individuals, he is producing some documentation suggesting an association with these individuals, erm…again, all of that tends to suggest he may be slightly more serious an informant than some, erm…but that’s not to say it’s not fantasy, we just don’t know at this stage and that’s the bottom, that’s the bottom line, it has to be investigated”.

UNQUOTE

E.  Under what circumstances did Marcelino's 'dossier' get handed over to the Spanish police?

It is at this stage that we need to ask some pertinent questions about the exact circumstances involved in the alleged handing over of this dossier to the Spanish police. There are a number of people involved in the immediate lead-up to this story:

(1) Marcelino Italiano, the Angolan-born bouncer and part-time amateur sleuth with a dossier

(2) Marcelino Italiano’s lawyer

(3) The person at the Spanish police station in Huelva who received the dossier

(4) Jon Clarke, Editor of The Olive Press, who broke the story

(5) Clarence Mitchell, who was quoted in the story

(6) The McCanns, who would have known all about the story in advance

(7) The Sun editor and his journalist, Emily Nash, who published this story as an ‘Exclusive’.

Let us analyse the role of each of those in turn.


F. Marcelino Italiano

Leaving aside the inevitable suspicions that most people would have about the whole story, once again let us assume, just for a moment, that Italiano thinks he has reasonable grounds for believing that he knows where Madeleine McCann may have been taken. Let us assume that he then complies a dossier, along the lines of “I know so-and-so, he told me about someone else, he told me where Madeleine had been taken, he told me about other children who had been snatched etc. etc.”. This, in effect, is basically all that his story amounts to: A told me this, B told me that, and so on. What should he do, assuming he has been told all this and believes, in good conscience, it to be true?

He could of course ring the Portuguese police, especially as it seems he can speak Portuguese. He could send them his dossier by Recorded Delivery or Registered Post. But it appears he has consulted a lawyer. That is, I suppose, understandable. Then we might ask if he paid any money to get the lawyer’s advice? How did he choose this lawyer? We are not told. In fact, who is the lawyer? We’re not told that either.

In Section N of our article in PART TWO] we present evidence that Marcelino was living in Spain in 2008. He is said to have ‘fled to Spain’. He sees a Spanish lawyer in Huelva. Was the lawyer Portuguese, or Spanish? What language was their interview conducted in - Portuguese or Spanish?


G. Marcelino Italiano’s lawyer
What do we make of this anonymous lawyer’s actions? If our Angolan bouncer was unsure what to do with this information, well at least a lawyer would know what to do with it. Or you would think so. Did she (one newspaper says it is a female lawyer) quietly send her information by Registered Post to the Portuguese Police? It seems she didn’t. Did she ’phone up the Portuguese Police and ask what she should do with her client’s material? Apparently not. Did she go quietly to the Spanish Police and ask them to liaise with the Portuguese Police? No to that as well, it seems.

No, what she chose to do was to liaise instead with the media. And, so far as we can tell, it was The Olive Press editor, Jon Clarke, to whom she spoke. There is another possibility, to which we will return later. That is that Marcelino Italiano and his lawyer in fact contacted Rupert Murdoch’s paper, the Sun, and that the Sun then put her in touch with Jon Clarke to develop the story. This could have occurred if Jon Clarke was already in touch with the Sun.

One other point. Why does this lawyer need to remain anonymous? Why can’t she - or her client - say who she is? It is absolutely typical of the mystery and secrecy which surround so much in this case. There was the British banker, who at 2am in downtown Barcelona, three days after Madeleine was reported missing, said he spoke to a Victoria Beckham-lookalike who was ‘looking for a new daughter’. It took him two years of ‘agonising’ before he told his story to the McCanns’ private investigators. He was also said by the McCann Team to ‘wish to remain anonymous’, just like the ‘unnamed British barrister’ who claimed to have seen Robert Murat near the Ocean Club on the night that Madeleine disappeared.

H. The person at the Spanish police station in Huelva who received the ‘dossier’

We are not told, but may presume, that either Marcelino Italiano, or his lawyer, or both, either walked in to a police station to make a statement, or delivered their material to a police station. The question arises, when was that done? We are told that: “Officers have passed the information to Portuguese cops while private investigators hired by the Find Madeleine Fund…are also looking into the dramatic claims”.

So by the time the story appears in the Sun, we are told that the Portuguese Police have been passed the information, while the McCanns’ ‘private investigators’ are ‘looking into’ the claims. At the moment, the McCanns’ ‘private investigators’ seem to consist just of former Cheshire Detective Inspector Dave Edgar, though the McCanns a few months ago made claims that three other detectives had been appointed to strengthen their investigation team.

The information that the claims have been ‘passed to the Portuguese Police’ tells us nothing, without a comment from them. It could mean that the Spanish Police have only just passed the ‘dossier’ to the Portuguese Police. Or the Portuguese Police may have received the information and decided to do nothing with it - after all, they have repeatedly said they will only re-open their investigation of ‘new and credible’ information is received.

CONTINUED IN PART TWO 

https://jillhavern.forumotion.net/t16099-jon-clarke-s-role-in-maddie-in-us-claim#400490

Red flags - The McCanns first reactions

The First Reactions 

Here we read the first reactions from Kate and Gerry's closest family and friends, immediately after they have been contacted individually with the news that Madeleine has been 'abducted'.

Note how consistent the stories are that an 'abductor' gained access to a locked apartment by breaking open the shutter on the bedroom window and escaping by the front door.

The story changed later when it became clear the shutters on the window had not been forced, were not damaged in any way and could only be opened from inside the apartment.

From that point, the McCanns became convinced that an 'abductor' had entered through 'open' patio doors and escaped through the open shuttered window.

Clarence Mitchell, the McCanns' spokesman, is eventually forced to admit that "There was no evidence of a break-in".

Gerry rings his sister, Trish Cameron, at 23:40 on 03 May 2007
Heart specialist Gerry McCann rang his sister Trish in Scotland after Maddy vanished from her cot placed between two-year-old twins Sean and Amelie.
Trish revealed yesterday: "He was breaking his heart, saying 'Madeleine's been abducted, she's been abducted'."
Trish said: "When Kate checked, she came out screaming. Maddy had gone. The door was open and the window in the bedroom and shutters were jemmied open. Nothing had been touched and no valuables taken."
"Kate came screaming back to the group crying, 'They’ve taken her, they’ve taken her'. Gerry was crying and roaring like a bull."
"They think someone must have come in the window and gone out the door with her."
Link to Daily Mirror article containing this quote
Frantic search for toddler, 04 May 2007
Frantic search for toddler BBC East Midlands Today (video)


Eileen McCann and Trish Cameron (with script)

04 May 2007

A frantic search is continuing for a three-year-old girl who has gone missing on holiday in Portugal.

(00:01:42)

----------------------

Transcript

By Nigel Moore

Reporter: Well, the McCann family, Gerry and Kate, with their twins and three-year-old Madeleine went on holiday to Portugal last Saturday, from their home in Rothley, in Leicestershire. They'd gone to a popular resort on the coast of the Algarve with a group of other families; nine adults; eight children; all on holiday together. Now, last night Madeleine and the twins were left sleeping in their room, while her parents had a meal in a restaurant two hundred yards away - and they did regular checks on them - but at ten o'clock last night there was a huge shock for Kate. Madeleine's aunt who lives in Scotland, takes up the story.

Trish Cameron: They last checked at half past nine; they were all sound asleep, sleeping; windows shut; shutters shut. Kate went back at ten o'clock to check; the front door was lying open; the window had been tampered with; the shutters had been jammied open... or whatever you call it, and Madeleine was missing.

Reporter: Madeleine's disappearance led to a frantic search. Some of the guests were out looking for the little girl all night; the police brought in sniffer dogs. The group of friends in Portugal with the McCanns are devastated.

Rachael Oldfield: Some people are... are out looking again, as well, errm... you know, everyone at the resort has been great and they're doing everything they can to help.

Reporter: The owners of the Ocean Club resort, the Mark Warner holiday firm, have offered to fly out more family members to support the McCanns.

John Hill: The parents were regularly checking, errm... through the, errr... the french windows of their apartment, errm... and between, errm... errr... ten... ten o'clock and ten fifteen, errm... the alarm was raised that Maddie was missing from that room.

Reporter: Today Madeleine's parents have been giving statements to the police. Their friends say they just can't believe what's happened. The family were due to fly home tomorrow to their home in Rothley.
Kate rings childhood friend, Linda McQueen, at 2:00am
Yesterday Linda recalled how she had spoken to Kate at about 2am on the night Madeleine vanished.
"She just said, 'Somebody's taken Madeleine, somebody's taken Madeleine.' She sounded shocked and frantic and was just trying to get everything up and running to find her. It was just awful. This cold, icy feeling came over you."
Link to Daily Mail for this quote
*
It seems slightly odd that Kate McCann should feel the need to phone a childhood friend at 2:00am in the morning - after all, what could she do to help?
It's also interesting that Linda McQueen says that Kate 'was trying to get everything up and running to find her'. Surely, Kate would have been better employed 'up and running' looking for Madeleine herself rather than ringing a childhood friend who was in no position to offer any help.
It appears to show that the McCanns were already embarked on a campaign.
Why did they need to get 'everything up and running' when the police were already there? How could they think so logically at a time of high emotions, extreme stress and desperation.
We have been told by friends and relatives that the McCanns were absolutely devastated and uncontrollable with grief - yet they had the calm presence of mind to undertake a carefully organised system of phone calls to friends and relatives to get 'everything up and running'.
Were the friends and relatives simply used by the McCanns in order to provide a smokescreen for their real aim - which was to shift attention away from themselves and unleash a typhoon of media comments that would wipe out all opposition to their story?
Kate rings another close friend, Jon Corner, at 03:00am
Jon Corner, a close friend of Mrs McCann and godparent of the twins, said Kate telephoned him in the middle of the night distraught.
He said: "She just blurted out that Madeleine had been abducted. She told me, 'They have broken the shutter on the window and taken my little girl.'
"They had left the apartment locked while they were having their meal, but when they went back the last time they saw the damage."
After speaking to her a second time, he repeated his earlier account, but this time in stronger language
He told how tearful Kate sobbed down the phone early yesterday: "Someone has taken my little girl."
He continued: "She was in an absolutely hysterical state - very, very distressed. She blurted out Madeleine had been abducted.
"Kate said the shutters of the room were smashed. Madeleine was missing It looks as though someone had gone straight past the twins to get to her. Kate was incredibly upset. I've spoken to her since, and she's still completely devastated.
"She's also very upset that the police don't seem to be doing more to find Madeleine. She thinks there's too little happening."
The Liverpool Daily Post also speaks to Jon Corner and reports a very similar conversation:
Jon Corner, founder of Liverpool-based River Media, is godfather to the McCann’s twins and his wife has known Mrs McCann since they were both three. The co-founder of city centre-based River Media, and a father-of-three himself, said: “Kate phoned me in the early hours totally devastated."
"She just told me that Maddy had been abducted, that the shutters of the apartment had been forced and someone had taken her."
"Maddy was asleep in the room with Sean and Amelie and whoever has taken her has gone straight past the sleeping twins, left them completely alone and snatched Maddy."
"Kate is just so distressed. She doesn’t know what to do. It has knocked me and everyone else for six. It doesn’t actually seem real."
Link to Daily Telegraph article - original quote from Jon Corner
Link to Daily Mirror article - second quote from Jon Corner
Link to Liverpool Daily Post article - third quote from Jon Corner
Kate/Gerry ring another friend, Jill Renwick, at 07:00am
Jill Renwick, a family friend, told GMTV at 7:45am, on the morning of 04 May, that the distraught parents were certain that Madeline had been abducted. "They were just watching the hotel room and going back every half-hour."
She said the parents went out about 8pm, checked on the children at 9pm and then when they "went back in at 10pm she was gone".
Ms Renwick said: "Poor Kate and Gerry don't know where to turn. She's obviously been taken as she couldn't have gone out on her own and the shutters had been forced open."
"The shutters had been broken open and they've gone into the room and taken her."
Speaking to the BBC later, Ms Renwick said the McCanns, who had been holidaying with three other British families, had felt let down by police in Portugal. "I spoke to them this morning and they said the police had done nothing overnight and they felt as if they'd been left on their own. They just don't know where to turn."
However, the manager at the Mark Warner resort, John Hill said the police had been doing all they could. He said around 60 staff and guests at the complex had searched until 4.30am while police notified border police, Spanish police and airports.
Female Tapas group member quoted Daily Mirror 05 May 2007
A woman friend of the McCanns - one of their holiday party of nine adults and eight children - said: "We went for dinner at 8.45pm in a restaurant near the apartments as we've done every night.
"A parent from each family went back to check on the children every half hour.
"Someone checked at 9.15. But when Kate went later Madeleine had gone.
"The window shutters, which had been closed since we arrived on Saturday, were open along with the window. They can be opened from the outside.
"The window opens on to a car park. The door to the room was shut. It looks as if someone has come through the window and possibly left through the door."
Link to Daily Mirror article containing this quote
*
This is a very interesting quote atributed to 'a woman friend of the McCanns'. Although the woman friend is unnamed, judging by the time they say they arrived at the tapas restaurant, it is most likely this was Rachael Oldfield speaking. Fiona Payne and Diane Webster are not believed to have arrived until 8.55pm. It is interesting for 6 reasons:
1) Before Jane Tanner's appearance on Panorama in November, this was the only quote to come from a tapas group member that specifically spoke about the events of that night, May 3rd.
2) It clearly implies that the last check was done at 9.15pm, before Kate discovered Madeleine missing at 10.00pm. This fits in with Gerry's check at 9.05pm but would appear to cast doubt on Matthew Oldfield's alleged check at 9.30pm.
3) She states how the window shutters which 'had been closed since we arrived on Saturday, were open along with the window'. This makes it even more remarkable that, on 6 separate occasions, members of the group walked past them and didn't see, or register, they were wide open and supposedly damaged. Jane Tanner walked past 3 times, Russell O'Brien walked past twice and Matthew Oldfield allegedly stood in the apartment , at the entrance to the room, and had a 'cursory' look inside. The window, behind the shutter, would almost certainly have needed to be forced or smashed to gain entry - there was no evidence of any forced entry anywhere in the apartment.
4) She states that the window shutters 'can be opened from the outside' but we know this to be incorrect. It is impossible to open the shutters from the outside. The shutters are made from heavy metal and are ratcheted so they can only be opened from the inside the apartment.
5) She continues: 'The door to the room was shut'. This clearly contradicts Kate's later story that the door had been open. Kate stated that she immediately knew there had been an abduction because, as she opened the patio doors, the door slammed shut when the wind whistled through the apartment.
6) She reaffirms the version of events reported in the immediate phone calls to Kate and Gerry's family/friends, that the 'abductor' entered through the window and escaped by the front door. Yet, we are now led to believe that the abductor entered through open patio doors and escaped by the window. How could she get this so wrong when she was actually there?
"the apartment... was locked" Philomena McCann, Gerry McCann's sister
Philomena McCann, said on 04 May: "Some people may ask why they left the children alone in the apartment but it was locked and they had a full view of the front door and they were checking every half hour."

Link to Daily Mail article containing this quote
Philomena McCann talks to Sky News 05 May 2007


'It Is Abhorent To Suggest Bad Parenting'
Last night the family of Madeline McCann made an emotional appeal for her return, 24 hours after she vanished from her bed in the Algarve while her parents were having dinner nearby. The little girl's Aunt, Philomena McCann says the family is devastated.
00:02:28
*
Note: Philomena says she has spoken to Gerry ''several times'' and she is still recounting the 'abductor through the window' scenario, when she says ''It is obvious that someone, with malicious intent, went through that window.''
When Ian Woods asks: ''Is there a temptation for them to get out and try and search themselves...'' Philomena replies: ''Yeah, well, I mean for Gerry and Kate they want to get out there, they want to search everything, they want to leave nothing unturned.'' - Yet Kate later admits, in the McCanns first interview with Jane Hill from the BBC, that she never actually did any physical searching. There are also no reports that Gerry ever searched beyond the first few immediate hours after Madeleine's disappearance.

Gerry tells Brian Healy the shutters were broken and the door was open, 05 May 2007
"Gerry told me when they went back the shutters to the room were broken, they were jemmied up and she was gone," said Mr Healy. "She'd been taken from the chalet. The door was open."

Full article:

Grandfather: evidence that three-year old was snatched Guardian

Sandra Laville and Dale Fuchs in Faro
Saturday May 5 2007

The grandfather of a three-year-old snatched from her parents' holiday apartment in the Algarve said yesterday that there was clear evidence she had been abducted.

Police helicopters flew over Praia de la Luz yesterday as the hunt intensified for Madeleine McCann, who went missing from her bedroom in the apartment on Thursday night.

Teams of officers used sniffer dogs to scour the resort, in the south-west of Portugal, where Gerald McCann, a cardiac surgeon, and his wife Kate, had taken their three young children - Madeleine and her younger brother and sister, who are twins - for a week-long holiday.

Mark Warner, the holiday firm which runs the luxury resort, claimed last night there was no sign of a break in at the ground floor apartment overlooking the sea. But Brian Healy, Madeleine's maternal grandfather, told the Guardian his son-in-law had phoned him shortly after returning to the apartment from a nearby restaurant to find Madeleine had disappeared.

"Gerry told me when they went back the shutters to the room were broken, they were jemmied up and she was gone," said Mr Healy. "She'd been taken from the chalet. The door was open."

Mr Healy flew to Portugal yesterday to lend support to his daughter Kate, 39, who is a Leicester GP, and son-in-law Gerry, 38, a consultant cardiologist at the city's Glenfield Hospital. He denied suggestions that the couple had simply left their three children alone while they ate in a restaurant.

"It is not right to say that they just left them," said Mr Healy. "They could see the chalet from where they were sitting in the restaurant, they were a hundred yards away. They went back every half hour to check on the children. When they returned at the end of their meal she was gone. My daughter can hardly speak. She is distraught, she is crying and in shock."
'apartment was locked up' - Liverpool Daily Post 06 May 2007
The McCanns made sure the toddler, who turns four next week, and her two-year-old twin brother and sister, Sean and Amelie, were sound asleep, and that their apartment was locked up.
But between their checks at 9.30pm and 10pm the apartment was broken into through a window and Madeleine was taken, according to the young girl’s aunt, Trish Cameron.
Link to full Liverpool Daily Post article
Timesonline 06 May 2007
At 9.30pm Gerry McCann checked his children and they were sound asleep, with Madeleine lying with her comfort blanket. Thirty minutes later his wife returned and found Madeleine gone and the shutter of the rear window open.

Silvia Batisa, head of administration at the complex, helped to comfort the family and interpret their interviews with the police: "The parents were devastated, in a panic. They wanted more police and dogs immediately. Kate said all the time, 'Please find my daughter’ and ‘Madeleine is beautiful'."

She recalled that the twins were still asleep in their two cots and there was the small, bright pink wool blanket that Madeleine likes to hold when she sleeps. "We walked out quickly so as not to wake up the twins. The parents immediately said, 'She’s been kidnapped'," said Batisa.

Link to complete Timeonline article

*

There are 2 particularly interesting things in this report:

1) It again highlights, despite a number of other possibilities, the McCanns immediate insistance that Madeleine had been kidnapped.

2) It casts doubt on the belief that 'Cuddle Cat' was Madeleine's sleep comforter, instead it suggests, from this report, that her comforter was a 'small, bright pink wool blanket'. This is later confirmed by David James Smith's article published on 16 December 2007 which states that Madeleine 'was lying almost in “the recovery position” with Cuddle Cat, the toy her godfather, John Corner, had bought her, and her comfort blanket up near her head'.
Susan Healy's account of first conversations with Gerry and Kate
On 23 October 2007, Spanish TV aired an interview with Susan Healy, Kate's mother.

In the interview, Mrs Healy revealed details of the first frantic calls she received from Gerry and Kate after Madeleine went missing. The first call she received was from Gerry and the call from Kate came an hour later.

She said: "Kate rang me and said, 'She's gone, mum. She's gone', the night Madeleine disappeared.

"I was able to say to her, 'We'll be able to get her back'. I'm finding it harder to say that. But we're not going to acknowledge she's gone from our life altogether. She's too important for that."

She also revealed that she initially thought there had been a crash when Gerry called her on the night of May 3.

She said: "Gerry phoned me and said, 'There's been a disaster. It's a disaster'. I thought there had been a car accident. He was hysterical. It took me a while to realise. He just said 'Madeleine has been abducted from her bed'."

Susan then talked about how Kate had clung to her Catholic faith since Madeleine's disappearance.

She said: "It was as if she started to ask God straight away to give her Madeleine. Possibly, she feels that there has to be a greater thing that helps her to get Madeleine back, something that has more power than we have."

In the interview, in which she was joined by husband Brian, she was asked about the fact that police believe Kate killed Madeleine by accident.

She said: "I don’t understand the fact that Kate's been made an arguido. I know it's rubbish and because I believe things usually work out, I'm reasonably confident this will go away. For Madeleine to be dead, that's something that could never be rectified."

Describing the scene she and husband Brian found, at the McCanns’ holiday apartment after they flew to the Algarve, she added: "Kate and Gerry were hysterical. Their voices were out of control and I think it was just blind panic and fear that they couldn’t get through to police or to anybody to make it clear they felt Madeleine had been abducted. They were afraid every minute that was lost was crucial to getting her back."

"My daughter is very placid, very easy-tempered and I saw her scream at the British consul that night; shout down the phone at him to get someone to do something." 

And in a final message to her granddaughter, Susan said: "Madeleine, you know how loved you are. You know how much your mummy and daddy want you back. Stay strong and we'll get you back."

Brian Healy added in a whisper: "We will keep searching."

McCanns 'left patio doors unlocked' for 'fear of fire', 13 May 2007
Madeleine's parents 'left patio doors unlocked' Daily Mail

Last updated at 16:53pm on 13th May 2007

Police in Portugal are working on the theory that Madeleine was snatched through patio doors left unlocked by her parents as they dined just 40 yards away.

Until now, it was believed that shutters at the front of the apartment had been jemmied open by the little girl's abductors.

But Chief Inspector Olegario Sousa, spokesman for the investigation, has confided in British former Chief Inspector Albert Kirby that neither the windows nor their shutters had been tampered with.

Mr Kirby, who led the investigation into the abduction and murder of Liverpool-born toddler Jamie Bulger, revealed that it was the unlocked patio doors of the apartment that allowed Madeleine to be taken away swiftly and quietly.

Sources close to the investigation also confirmed that police attention was solely focused on the back of the apartment, which leads on to a small garden easily accessible from a public path through a gateway.

Gerry and Kate McCann would have used the patio doors as they checked on their daughter and her twin siblings during their meal near the Mark Warner holiday complex swimming pool and it is these doors that were left unsecured.

The McCanns and all their friends on the holiday left their patio doors open throughout the evenings for fear of fire.

Mr Kirby told The Mail on Sunday: "I had a very interesting chat with the officer in charge. The window shutters are not an issue.

"Their mechanism makes them almost impossible to open. The door was left unlocked. They did that every night.

"I think the police have a very specific understanding of what they are looking for."

Mr Kirby believes Portuguese police will solve the case of the missing toddler within days. He said: "I am impressed by the investigation. I have a feeling we will have a result by the end of the next week."

*

There is considerable doubt that the patio doors were ever left open, but, for arguments sake, if they were left open 'for fear of fire' then that would be a very serious admission to make. For it would show that they accepted there was risk of fire and, more significantly, were aware of this risk. Yet, they continued to leave their children alone and unattended, despite being aware that they were placing them at risk. This would add considerable support to any possible neglect charges.

McCanns reverse 'break in evidence', 25 October 2007
McCann family reverse story over break-in 'evidence' Irish Independent
By Shane Hickey
Thursday October 25 2007
THE spokesman for the family of Madeleine McCann has reversed a statement made in the early days of the search for the missing child.

Speaking to RTE's 'Prime Time', Clarence Mitchell said she could "easily" have been kidnapped by an abductor who did not leave the trail of a break-in.
However, in the early part of the hunt, friends and family members told journalists that the shutter on the apartment where the McCanns were staying had been broken.
Mr Mitchell made his comments when questioned by a 'Prime Time' team in a report on the disappearance to be screened tomorrow. "There was no evidence of a break-in," said Mr Mitchell.
"I'm not going into the detail, but I can say that Kate and Gerry are firmly of the view that somebody got into the apartment and took Madeleine out the window as their means of escape, and to do that they did not necessarily have to tamper with anything. They got out of the window fairly easily."
Of the criticism that the McCanns left their children by themselves on four evenings while they went for dinner, Mr Mitchell said there was a cultural difference between Britain and Portugal.
"It is a British approach to get your children washed, bathed and in bed early in the evening if you can so you can have something of the evening to yourself. That is the British way of doing things. It doesn't mean it's wrong. It doesn't mean it's right," he said.
"Nobody feels more guilty than Gerry and Kate over the decision they took jointly to leave their children in that position that night. And they will never forgive themselves. They've said this often.
"Nobody feels more guilty than they that Madeleine was alone when she was taken. However, they felt they had a perfectly proper system of checking (her in place)."
- Shane Hickey
*
Note: On Martin Brunt's documentary 'The Mystery of Madeleine McCann, aired on 24 December 2007, Prof David Barclay, one of Britain's top forensic consultants said: "I think it's impossible for somebody to get in and out, through that window without leaving a forensic trace. Apart from anything else, the window sills in that area are covered in green lichen. The minute you try and scrape over the window sills you would have left marks and we know that the scenes of crime lady, the next morning, was looking for exactly that."
Interestingly, Clarence Mitchell's statement about the McCanns reversal of their 'break in' story, came one week after Dispatches aired the documentary 'Searching For Madeleine' on 18 October 2007. In that documentary, it was effectively proved that there was no way anybody could break into the apartment and leave no forensic trace or damage to the lightweight aluminium shutters, which are covered with a fine coating of polyurethane paint which marks extremely easily.
They also tested the thumb prints, that showed up under the red dust of the forensic fingerprint powder, and proved the prints came from somebody moving the shutter from inside the apartment.
Again, Prof Dave Barclay said: "We must be very careful that we're not saying this is actually staging but it's difficult to see how anybody could have interefered with those shutters, from outside, without leaving some trace. In fact, having looked at them, I think it's almost impossible."
Grief, 10 April 2008
Grief, 10 April 2008

Excerpts the Rogatory interviews of Rachael Oldfield, Fiona Payne and Russell O'Brien, in which they comment on the McCanns' grief in the minutes immediately following Madeleine's reported disappearance.

Thanks to KazLux for compilation

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Rachael Oldfield in an interview with the Leicestershire Police, April 2008

Q: "On realising Madeleine had not been found in the first ten minutes, how did Kate react?"

RO: "She was really upset, she was hysterical, really distressed, crying and screaming, there's no way she could have acted that, or anyone could have in fact, I don't think, not even an actress."

Q: "On realising Madeleine had not been found in the first ten minutes, how did Gerry react?"

RO: "Very similar to Kate, it was, you know, screaming, shouting, errm... crying, just, you know, he was very much a... you know, a father whose child had disappeared, as Kate was a mother whose child had disappeared or wouldn't you know?"

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Fiona Payne, in an interview with the Leicestershire Police, April 2008

Q: "How was Kate?"

FP: "Awful, errm... I've never seen such horrible raw emotion in my life and I've seen a lot of it in my job. Errm... tut, she... she was just bereft, she didn't know what to do, she was just panicking, extremely frightened, extremely frightened for Madeleine and, errm... was wondering where she was or what was happening to her. And the helplessness, errm... of not being able to do anything, what should she be doing, what could they do? Errm... she was angry, really angry, tut, punching walls, kicking walls, she was covered in bruises the next day, because she just didn't know what, what else to do. She was angry at herself, she kept saying 'I've let her down. We've let her down Gerry', you know, 'We should have been here'. Errm... tut, she was praying a lot. Errm... I just don't think she knew what to do, what to do. And she was just howling. It was just, just awful. I think as time went on it just seemed a massive delay from when we said to Matt to phone the Police, errm... that hour, it was an hour, it just seemed like an eternity, where nothing was happening, tut. Errm... you know, we're all intelligent people, we were all trying to think what we should be doing and, you know, what's going to make a difference. And Kate's ringing, Gerry's ringing anybody under the sun, family, they just don't, they honestly just didn't know what to do. So there was a lot of, Gerry's in and out, I mean, they were just sobbing, going between sobbing and then feeling helpless and then ringing people and this frantic activity. Kate was desperate to have a Priest, which, you know, people find weird, but I think that was just her way of thinking 'At least I can pray for Madeleine' and her way of feeling that she was doing something. Errm... tut, but she wasn't functioning."

"No, and that was the other thing, she kept going into the twins, she kept putting her hands on the twins to check they were breathing, she was very much concerned in checking that they were okay. But they were okay, I mean, they were fine, they didn't... they were asleep, but at the time it did seem weird, I remember thinking, you know, when the Police came they turned the lights on, there was loads of noise, obviously from the moment Kate discovered that Madeleine was gone, the screaming and the shouting and there was a lot of noise and they, they didn't, you know, so much as blink."

Q: "Okay and realising that Madeleine had not been found in the first ten minutes, how did Kate react?"

FP: "Oh, as I said earlier, she was hysterical, it upsets me very much to even think about how she was, cos it was, errm... she was so terrified, absolutely inconsolable, she was rampaging round the... the room, she's up and down, pacing, kicking walls, just on, for most part, just imagining where or what might be happening to Madeleine and angry at herself and them for having left her, not being there and just, she was shouting a lot, I can't, 'We've, we've let her down Gerry, we've let her down, we weren't there for her', errm... you know, the pain that was causing her that she hadn't been there, was just very raw, errm... anger at the... the whole, I say the system that nobody was seemed to be arriving and, you know, what was being done and the feeling of just nothing, nothing being done, the helplessness and that, that raw, raw emotion of just grief, of just terror and just praying, she was praying, she kept kneeling everywhere just praying and praying and praying and asking for a Priest and just wanted, you know, everybody to be praying for Madeleine for her to be safe."

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Russell O'Brien, in an interview with the Leicestershire Police, April 2008

"...but this was the first time I'd actually really seen or heard Gerry, he was on the phone to, errm... a member of his family, errm... curled up, really, on the floor, just outside the sliding patio door, just sobbing uncontrollably and in between sobs just saying 'They've', you know, 'Someone's taken her' or 'Somebody's blo*dy got her', you know, 'She's gone' and absolutely, errm... you know, you know, for such a strong man to see him on the floor broken, he was... he was incapable of even standing up, he was just lying on the floor and just repeating himself, there was so little he could, you know, there was just nothing else in there."

(...)

"Errr... in my opinion, you know, if this was... if there was any foul play bestowed on them, this was the... the... the most powerful Oscar winning act you have ever seen. There was no... there was no way I could imagine anyone could... could hide the fear they must have had if something had already happened and, and then... and... and... and display this... this degree, this degree of anguish without being the most accomplished of... of... and cynical of actors, you know, this was unimaginable. I mean I've told patients they are dying I've told relatives they've, you know, people have died, you know I've seen lots of people very, very angry, you know, you know very, very upset, very, very quickly and really broken and this was, this was as bad as any of them I've ever seen or heard. Errr... you know, and the same for Gerry, not... not just in these moments but over the... over the coming... over the coming days, I've never ever witnessed such unimaginable grief."

Q: "On realising Madeleine had not been found in the first ten minutes, how did Kate react?"

RO'B: "I think I've already discussed this, I mean although I wasn't there for the whole of that... that early period whenever you were back from outside, you know, she was, well, I can certainly recall hearing her on occasions and when I later saw her she was in... in a, you know, in a terrible state, an absolute terrible state."

Q: "And again, the same question for Gerald."

RO'B: "Errr... I can honestly say that I would never ever have expected to see Gerry in that state, so I'd imagine if his, you know, if a relative had died, errr... you know, he's not... he's not... he's not some kind of cold.. cold... big cold heart, but I'd imagine he would, he's a rational, you know he rationalises things, he says, you know, she was eighty you know she was (inaudible) she smoked or something, he, he would be upset but he would accept, he would accept it as being a normal part of things, I've never seen anything like it, I would never expect to see Gerry like he was. He was... he was, errr... distraught beyond any, any kind of measure."
With thanks to Nigel at McCann Files
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http://www.gerrymccannsblogs.co.uk/Nigel/id31.htm

Discussion on CMOMM here:  https://jillhavern.forumotion.net/t14729-the-mccanns-first-reactions

More red flags on this thread: https://jillhavern.forumotion.net/t16255-the-red-flags-that-first-raised-the-question-of-what-really-happened-to-madeleine#401336