PeterMac's email to Crime Correspondent Martin Brunt after he rehashed the theory, despite evidence to the contrary, that Madeleine McCann was the victim of a Hit and Run.
Dear Mr Brunt,
Madeleine McCann
I was sorry to see you putting your name and professional credibility to the re-hash of the very old “Woke and Wandered and got run over” theory, which was dismissed within days of the original report.
I am sure that during your career you have attended the scene of fatal accidents involving a car and a pedestrian, and will have observed the scene.
I am also confident you will have researched what happens to a victim at different speeds of impact. The Royal Society for Prevention of Accidents has years of statistics to support their campaigns. This is from a google search :–
“ The severity of injuries in a pedestrian-vehicle collision significantly increases with speed, with a roughly 5% fatality risk at 30 km/h, rising to 45% at 48 km/h, and a drastic 85% at 64 km/h.”
The distance from the ’T’ junction Agostinho da Silva with Dr. Fran.Gentil to the exit from Apartment 5A is ca. 25m. The entrance to Ocean club pool and Tapas bar is 20m. further
Assuming the car was driving South, on the west – the apartment side of the road, and although it is theoretically possible for a car to accelerate hard in the 25m. up to 30 kph, the stopping distance after striking the child is then of the order of 20m. taking the car level with the entrance to the pool and Tapas bar before it comes to a halt.
At 40 kph these figures increase exponentially.
If the car came from the south, since she says she was working in a restaurant close to the beach, [Edited to correct error in original] then the distance to be travelled to the pool entrance from the Supermarket is ca. 95 m., and the Apartment ca. 115 m. The car is now on the opposite side of the road - the east side, and the stopping distance after any collision with a small child, assuming the car was not beginning to slow for the approach to the T junction, takes it well into Rua Dr. Agostinho.
In both cases the theory requires the driver to park, alight, return the 20 or 25m., scoop up the child, carry it back to the car, secrete it, get back in the car, start it up, and drive away. This takes a significant and finite time, with the ever present danger of being observed by other drivers, pedestrians, checking Tapas members, or neighbours on balconies.
Add to this the absence of any description of the squeal of tyres under hard braking; the lack of reports of a sudden and dull “thump”; the lack of any trace of the normal debris from under wheel arches, pieces of plastic bodywork; the absence of blood, hair, human tissue, body parts, torn clothing or anything else in the area which was searched that night by police, dogs, the public and detectives, and the next day when it was photographed extensively by Police, Journalists and TV crews, and the notable absence of any such description by the various people who claim to have visited or passed by the apartment after Dr Gerry McCann’s alleged 2105 Hrs visit, including the final visit by Kate herself, and we are left with enough absence of evidence to allow us to conclude that this theory, whilst clearly needing to be eliminated 18 years ago, lacks any credibility.
As a footnote, death is a process, not an event. A child struck by a car, even if fatally injured, would be clearly ‘alive’ for some time after the accident, and for a woman to scoop up a living but badly injured child, chuck it in the boot or on the back seat and drive off, only subsequently disposing of the body when it had bled out or had succumbed to a sub-arachnoid haemorrhage, requires a further stretching of the definition of perverted and abnormal behaviour by otherwise normal people that many are not willing to follow without strong and credible evidence.
Sincerely
Peter Mac. [full name given in original]
Retired Police Superintendent
Nottingham 1972 - 2000
EDITED to correct typos in the original, improve syntax, and add one phrase of further explanation.
UPDATE:
Friday 17 September 0730
There has been neither acknowledgement nor reply
