B. Not a tourist,
C. Clothes made of ‘cloth’ or cotton,
D. Cream/beige trousers,
E. Date & time stamp,
F. ‘By the way he was carrying/holding Sean’
by Frank McLintock for the Madeleine McCann Research Group,
March 2019
Amongst all the witness statements in the released Portuguese Police files, there are six sets of remarkable and very specific ‘coincidences’.
There were three people who said they were 60% to 80% sure about the identity of someone.
There were three people who said they saw someone and who all said the person they saw was ‘not a tourist’.
There were five people who referred specifically to the clothes of an abductor/kidnapper wearing 'cream'/'beige' trousers and clothes made of 'cloth' or cotton.
There were two people who wove a complex tale about a photograph and who explained to police, in terms: ‘Look, the date and time stamp proves when it was taken’.
There were two people who were prepared to say that they recognised Gerry McCann as a person they had seen with Madeleine (in one case on 3 May, in the other case on 5 May), based solely on seeing a film of him carrying his son Sean down the steps of an aeroplane.
The details are below.
A short analysis follows at the end.
A. 60-80% sure
Martin Smith
Statement to Leicestershire Police, 20 September 2007: “I would be 60%-80% sure that it was Gerard [Gerald] McCann that I met that night carrying a child”.
Martin Smith: After initially declaring that he would never recognise the man he said he saw, ever again, over 4 months later he claimed he was 60-80% sure it was Gerry McCann. But soon after that, he began working on behalf of the McCanns and their private detectives, helping to draw up efits for their use: efits that were never released for 5 years
Jane Tanner
Jane Tanner said that she was 80% sure that a new suspect, later known as 'Monsterman' or 'George Harrison man', drawn by Melissa Little [e-fits] was the same person she had seen on 3rd May. But she clearly admitted, originally, that she had never seen the face of the man she claimed she had seen. So how could she possibly be as much as 80% sure it was the same man? Moreover, on 13 May 2007, just 10 days after Madeleine was reported missing, she had told police that she was adamant that the man she had seen on 3 May 2007 was Robert Murat. Her credibility on anything top do with Madeleine McCann is zero. Melissa Little was not as well qualified as she claimed, and was paid by the McCanns' agent and head of their private investigation, stinking rich Cheshire businessman Brian Kennedy.
Jane Tanner: Saw a man carrying a child, but not the man's face. Ten days later she said she was 'certain' that the man was Robert Murat. Later she decided she was wrong about that. Then the head of the McCanns' private investigation, Brian Kennedy, got a forensic artist, Melissa Little, to draw up an image of another suspect, a scraggy-looking man with a big moustache. She said she was 80% certain that it was the same man as the bloke whose face she had been unable to see, back on 3 May 2007
B. Not a tourist
Martin Smith
Statement, 26 May: Urged, he states that the individual did not appear to be a tourist. He cannot explain this further. It was simply his perception given the individual's clothing”.
Gonçalo Amaral talking about the statement of Nuno Lourenco
“A 40 year-old man, wearing glasses, tells the investigators that the photographer tried to kidnap his daughter in the afternoon of April 26th in Sagres. He allegedly then fled in a hired car with a woman in the passenger seat. The stranger did not look like a tourist…This report reminds us of the individual encountered by Jane Tanner in the streets of Vila da Luz on the evening of Madeleine's disappearance”.
Goncalo Amaral: Deceived by Nuno Lourenco into thinking that Madeleine’s abductor might be Wojchiech Krokowski
Jane Tanner
(From an article by Paulo Reis) [She noticed the man when the person was seen from the back]. He was wearing golden beige cloth trousers (linen type) with a ‘Duffy’ type coat (but not very thick). He was wearing black shoes, of a conventional style and was walking quickly. He was carrying a sleeping child in his arms across his chest. By his manner, the man gave her the impression that he wasn't a tourist”
C. Clothes made of ‘cloth’ or cotton
Martin Smith
Statement, 26 May: “He did not wear glasses and had no beard or moustache. He did not notice any other relevant details partly due to the fact that the lighting was not very good. He was wearing cream or beige-coloured cloth trousers in a classic cut”.
Aoife Smith
Statement, 26 May 2007: “The individual was male…she saw his face but now cannot remember it… His trousers were smooth ‘rights’ along the legs, beige in colour, cotton fabric, thicker than linen…”.
Nuno Lourenco
Statement, 5 May 2007: “He describes him as masculine…He wore cloth trousers and a coat/jacket of the same material which was cream coloured…”
D. Cream/beige trousers
From an article by Paulo Reis
“Miss Tanner said the alleged ‘abductor’ was between two and five metres away from her and that she had a clear view of this ‘person’ whom she described as follows: Brown male between 35 and 40, slim, around 1.70m. Very dark hair, thick, long at the neck. [She noticed the man when the person was seen from the back]. He was wearing golden beige cloth trousers (linen type)…
Goncalo Amaral on Nuno Lourenco
He allegedly then fled in a hired car with a woman in the passenger seat. The stranger did not look like a tourist; brown hair down to his collar, wearing cream-coloured trousers…
Aoife Smith
Statement, 26 May 2007: “The individual was male…she saw his face but now cannot remember it… His trousers were smooth ‘rights’ along the legs, beige in colour, cotton fabric, thicker than linen, possibly with buttons, and without any other decoration. She did not see what he was wearing above his trousers as the child covered him almost completely at the top”.
Peter Smith: The description of the individual who carried the child was: Caucasian...He does not remember if he wore glasses, or had a beard or a moustache. He did not notice any other relevant details as the lighting was bad”.
Martin Smith
Statement, 26 May: “He did not wear glasses and had no beard or moustache. He did not notice any other relevant details partly due to the fact that the lighting was not very good. He was wearing cream or beige-coloured cloth trousers in a classic cut. He did not notice the body clothing and cannot describe the colour or fashion of the same… - Urged, he states that the individual did not appear to be a tourist. He cannot explain this further. It was simply his perception given the individuals clothing”.
Jane Tanner
Statement, 4 May 2007: “She remembers that at about 21.10 Gerald left the restaurant to go to the apartment to check on the children. Five minutes later, the witness left…she saw Gerry talking to an Englishman called Jez…She passed by them…Meanwhile a man appeared carrying a child…She only managed to see him from the side…”
Statement, 10 May 2007: “…there had passed in front of her a man carrying, in his arms, a barefoot child. At the time she had not paid him much attention…Only it was strange that the child had no cover (blanket) and the way the man walked, rapidly, and how he was dressed, the trousers were slightly wide their entire length, being straight. They (trousers) were as to colour, identical to "corticine" (a type of floor covering), "chino" [Chinese] style. As for the coat it was dark coloured, she was not able to specify what, seeming to be the same material as the trousers, it being a type of ‘anorak'.
Nuno Lourenco
Statement, 5 May 2007: “He describes him as masculine…He wore cloth trousers and a coat/jacket of the same material which was cream coloured. Almost the same colour to the hat he had worn previously. His shoes were dark brown: the type that need to be shined or polished.
E. Date & time stamp
Gerry McCann
Guardian, 11 April 2008 “What happened on the day Madeleine disappeared?”
2.29pm: The last photograph of Madeleine is taken at the pool. The camera clock reads 1.29pm but the family says it was out by one hour.
Joana Morais ‘Madeleine’s Official ‘Last Photo’’ (early 2008) “On Thursday May 3, 2007 at 2:29pm, Kate McCann took a photo of husband Gerry and daughters Amelie and Madeleine.
We are told this on the official Find Madeleine website:
Gerry and Kate McCann have released the last photograph of their daughter before her abduction in the Algarve three weeks ago.
The picture is of Madeleine sitting by the swimming pool on the day she was snatched from her bed. Kate took the photo of Madeleine at 2.29pm on May 3 - Mrs McCann's camera clock is one hour out so the display reads 1.29pm. Less than eight hours later, before 10pm that night, Madeleine disappeared.
The disputed 'Last Photo': When was it taken? The McCann insist it was taken at 2.29pm on Thursday 3 May, a day that was chilly, cloudy, windy and with occasional rain. NOT the sort of weather for people to be out in shorts, T-shirts, sun-hats and sunglasses
There are several observations one may deduce from this information:
· The parents say Madeleine was snatched from her bed before 10pm.
· Was Kate standing in the pool when she took the photo, or using zoom and standing on the other side of the pool?
· The McCanns emphasise the fact that this photo was taken at 2:29pm and also tell us that Mrs. McCann's camera clock was one hour out with (presumably) the date stamp on the digital photo being 1:29pm.
Another mystery concerns the release of this photograph. Why release it three weeks after Madeleine disappeared? Many older photographs were released into the public domain before this one - perhaps the most important photo of all. Why the delay? Could it be because this "last photo" is a forgery? Do the McCanns want us to believe Madeleine was alive at 2:29pm for a specific reason?
Nuno Lourenco
Statement: “The witness managed to take a picture of the vehicle which he handed over to the police, and which is now exhibited. The picture is recorded as having been taken at 18H08 on 29/04/2007. After taking the picture of the vehicle, with the date/time stamp recorded by the mobile phone, a few minutes later the couple in question left in the direction of Sagres Fortaleza…
F. ‘By the way he was carrying Sean’
Martin Smith
Statement, 20 September “…made a statement to Portugal police in Portimao on 26th May and returned to UK. Is saying that after seeing the McCanns on the news on 9th Sept when they returned to UK he has not slept and is worried sick. He states he was watching the 10 PM news on BBC and saw the McCanns getting off the plane and coming down the steps. He states it was like watching an action replay of the night he saw the male carrying the child back in Portugal. He states the way Gerry was carrying his twin triggered something in his head. It was exactly the same way and look of the male seen the night Maddie went missing . He also watched ITV news and Sky news and inferred it looked like the same person both times carrying the children”.
Richard McCluskey
Statement, 12 September “Another thing which has played on my mind is the coverage of Mr McCann walking off the aeroplane holding one of his young children. The way he was holding the child over his left shoulder reminded me of the man carrying the child from the white van in Portugal. Although I could not describe the male I'd seen in Portugal because he had his back to me, it was the particular way Mr. McCann held the child that made me think. He held the child over his left shoulder with his left arm supporting the child’s weight”.
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ANALYSIS
The statements by Martin Smith (60% to 80% sure) and Jane Tanner (80% sure) are very unusual. I cannot ever recall having seen statements like this about a person’s identity. Usually people are either ‘sure’ or ‘not sure’. The use of percentages raises the suspicion of collusion, or working to a script.
The phrase ‘didn’t look like a tourist' is first raised by Jane Tanner about the alleged abductor. She says she saw him about 9.15pm on 3 May 2007. Operation Grange now say that the man seen by Jane Tanner was a man taking his young daughter back home from the night crèche, often now referred to as 'Crecheman'. Since then, a newspaper reported that Dr Julian Totman’s wife said it was her husband. Operation Grange refused to confirm this.
Then Nuno Lourenco used the same description about Wojchiech Krokowski, a man he said he'd see photographing children on Sagres beach. (Krokowski was of course real, but Lourenco’s statement was fabricated). Krokowski's car was said by Lourenco to have been photographed on 29 April. (whom Operation Grange say is ‘Crecheman’, and whom Dr Julian Totman’s wife is reported to have said is her husband)
Then the phrase 'not a tourist' was also used by Martin Smith, whose alleged sighting of a possible abductor was at about 10pm on 3 May 2007.
The use of a highly unusual - in fact almost meaningless - form of identification, ‘not a tourist’, by three people, different people, in three different places, is so unusual as to, again, raise the suspicion of collusion.
The Smiths had a very short space of time, in the dark, to be able to tell what material they were made of. Lourenco’s statement, given the very day after Jane Tanner’s statement, echoes their description. Lourenco, we can deduce, knew exactly who Krokowski was, and it is at least possible that the detailed description of the colour and type of material emanated from him.
Four separate people identified the colour of the trousers as beige/cream.
The evidence is overwhelming that the last ‘Pool Photo’ was not taken at lunchtime on 3 May 2007 as the McCanns claim, but on Sunday 29 April. It may be a coincidence that Nuno Lourenco says that his photo was taken on 29 April. Equally, there is also overwhelming evidence that his entire statement is a fabrication. Analyses of his statement published on the internet reveal (a) the extreme improbability of his account and (b) multiple inconsistencies.
Let us take these two issues together, then add the remarkable coincidence of the alleged sightings of an abductor Jane Tanner (reported to police during Friday 4 May) and of Wojchiech Krokowski by Nuno Lourenco early the following morning, 5 May.
These two descriptions of an alleged abductor were so similar (as we saw above) as to divert Goncalo Amaral and his investigative team into pursuing Wojchiech Krokowski across Germany and Poland, using the services of three police forces: Germany, Poland and INTERPOL.
These facts, it is suggested, amount to persuasive evidence that those who promoted the abduction story, deliberately used Jane Tanner’s fabricated abductor and Lourenco’s false statement about Wojchiech Krokowski to deceive the Portuguese Police. It appears that Nuno Lourenco was used by these plotters to promote an entirely bogus story of the McCanns being seen with Madeleine at Sagres on Sunday 29 April or Monday 30 April. There were newspaper reports in British newspapers on 12 & 13 May 2007 promoting the story of another alleged witness who claimed to have seen the family in Sagres on the Sunday or Monday that week. Who that witness was, we do not know. If there was such an individual, it seems to have been known only to those who gave the story to the British press for that weekend’s papers.
It is suggested that something very serious may have happened to Madeleine on the Sunday and that Nuno Lourenco was dispatched by the hoaxers to take the photo of the Krokowskis’ hired car later in the week. It is further suggested that the time-stamp data were altered so as to make it appear that the photo was taken on the Sunday evening.
Finally the coincidence of two men (Martin Smith and Richard McCluskey) both contacting the police, over four months after Madeleine's reported disappearance, to say that a short scene on a TV news bulletin, showing Gerry McCann carrying his son off a plane, could make both them believe that he was the man they had seen on 3 May (Martin Smith) and 5 May (Richard McCluskey) respectively - is surely too great to claim that this is merely a strange coincidence. It seems far more likely that there was a co-ordinator somewhere who, for whatever reason, prompted both men to come up with these scarcely believable stories of having suddenly ‘recognised’ Gerry McCann.
FMcC, March 2019, for the Madeleine McCann Research Group - with thanks to the many people who made this article possible
For discussion, please visit this thread: https://jillhavern.forumotion.net/t16022-madeleine-mccann-remarkable-coincidences-or-people-working-to-a-script