The case of Madeleine McCann

[mike tesko]

The trip to Portugal was no ordinary holiday, the group of nine adults and their children, were taking part in an international undercover operation, designed to trap gangs of peadophiles who were known to be operating in regions of the algarve. The adult members were using their young children as bait, intending to draw out sex offenders who lived and or operated in the Park de Luz region. I shall refer to this operation by the code name "Zenith"...

The McCann parents made it known to Ocean Club staff that they were leaving their three siblings 'home alone' back in apartment 5A. It was irrelevant whether or not the McCann parents exited their apartment via the unlocked patio door on the poolside of the building, or the locked roadside door. Since to a member of staff, given the right opportunity entry into the property was an easy option...

Simply enter the apartment (5A) via the unlocked patio door, or use the Ocean clubs master pass key, to unlock the locked roadside door..

[mike tesko]

The McCann parents were responsible for deliberately trying to draw out peadophiles who worked as members of staff at the Ocean club, an operation that went dramatically wrong..

[Steve_uk]

Bridget O'Donnell
December 2007 - The Guardian

My months with Madeleine

It was a welcome spring break, a chance to relax at a child-friendly resort in Portugal. Soon Bridget O'Donnell and her partner were making friends with another holidaying family while their three-year-old daughters played together. But then Madeleine McCann went missing and everyone was sucked into a nightmare
Bridget O'Donnell
 
We lay by the members-only pool staring at the sky. Round and round, the helicopters clacked and roared. Their cameras pointed down at us, mocking the walled and gated enclave. Circles rippled out across the pool. It was the morning after Madeleine went.
Six days earlier we had landed at Faro airport. The coach was full of people like us, parents lugging multiple toddler/baby combinations. All of us had risen at dawn, rushed along motorways and hurtled across the sky in search of the modern solution to our exhaustion - the Mark Warner kiddie club. I travelled with my partner Jes, our three-year-old daughter, and our nine-month-old baby son. Praia da Luz was the nearest Mark Warner beach resort and this was the cheapest week of the year - a bargain bucket trip, for a brief lie-down.

Excitedly, we were shown to our apartments. Ours was on the fourth floor, overlooking a family and toddler pool, opposite a restaurant and bar called the Tapas. I worried about the height of the balcony. Should we ask for one on the ground floor? Was I a paranoid parent? Should I make a fuss, or just enjoy the view?

We could see the beach and a big blue sky. We went outside to explore.

We settled in over the following days. There was a warm camaraderie among the parents, a shared happy weariness and deadpan banter. Our children made friends in the kiddie club and at the drop-off, we would joke about the fact that there were 10 blonde three-year-old girls in the group. They were bound to boss around the two boys.

The children went sailing and swimming, played tennis and learned a dance routine for the end-of-week show. Each morning, our daughter ran ahead of us to get to the kiddie club. She was having a wonderful time. Jes signed up for tennis lessons. I read a book. He made friends. I read another book.

The Mark Warner nannies brought the children to the Tapas restaurant to have tea at the end of each day. It was a friendly gathering. The parents would stand and chat by the pool. We talked about the children, about what we did at home. We were hopeful about a change in the weather. We eyed our children as they played. We didn't see anyone watching.

Some of the parents were in a larger group. Most of them worked for the NHS and had met many years before in Leicestershire. Now they lived in different parts of the UK, and this holiday was their opportunity to catch up, to introduce their children, to reunite. They booked a large table every night in the Tapas. We called them "the Doctors". Sometimes we would sit out on our balcony and their laughter would float up around us. One man was the joker. He had a loud Glaswegian accent. He was Gerry McCann. He played tennis with Jes.

One morning, I saw Gerry and his wife Kate on their balcony, chatting to their friends on the path below. Privately I was glad we didn't get their apartment. It was on a corner by the road and people could see in. They were exposed.

In the evenings, babysitting at the resort was a dilemma. "Sit-in" babysitters were available but were expensive and in demand, and Mark Warner blurb advised us to book well in advance. The other option was the babysitting service at the kiddie club, which was a 10-minute walk from the apartment. The children would watch a cartoon together and then be put to bed. You would then wake them, carry them back and put them to bed again in the apartment. After taking our children to dinner a couple of times, we decided on the Wednesday night to try the service at the club.

We had booked a table for two at Tapas and were placed next to the Doctors' regular table. One by one, they started to arrive. The men came first. Gerry McCann started chatting across to Jes about tennis. Gerry was outgoing, a wisecracker, but considerate and kind, and he invited us to join them. We discussed the children. He told us they were leaving theirs sleeping in the apartments. While they chatted on, I ruminated on the pros and cons of this. I admired them, in a way, for not being paranoid parents, but I decided that our apartment was too far off even to contemplate it. Our baby was too young and I would worry about them waking up.

My phone rang as our food arrived; our baby had woken up. I walked the round trip to collect him from the kiddie club, then back to the restaurant. He kept crying and eventually we left our meal unfinished and walked back again to the club to fetch our sleeping daughter. Jes carried her home in a blanket. The next night we stayed in. It was Thursday, May 3.

Earlier that day there had been tennis lessons for the children, with some of the parents watching proudly as their girls ran across the court chasing tennis balls. They took photos. Madeleine must have been there, but I couldn't distinguish her from the others. They all looked the same - all blonde, all pink and pretty.

Jes and Gerry were playing on the next court. Afterwards, we sat by the pool and Gerry and Kate talked enthusiastically to the tennis coach about the following day's tournament. We watched them idly - they had a lot of time for people, they listened. Then Gerry stood up and began showing Kate his new tennis stroke. She looked at him and smiled. "You wouldn't be interested if I talked about my tennis like that," Jes said to me. We watched them some more. Kate was calm, still, quietly beautiful; Gerry was confident, proud, silly, strong. She watched his boyish demonstration with great seriousness and patience. That was the last time I saw them that day. Jes saw Gerry that night.

Our baby would not sleep and at about 8.30pm, Jes took him out for a walk in the buggy to settle him. Gerry was on his way back from checking on his children and the two men stopped to have a chat. They talked about daughters, fathers, families. Gerry was relaxed and friendly. They discussed the babysitting dilemmas at the resort and Gerry said that he and Kate would have stayed in too, if they had not been on holiday in a group. Jes returned to our apartment just before 9.30pm. We ate, drank wine, watched a DVD and then went to bed. On the ground floor, a completely catastrophic event was taking place. On the fourth floor of the next block, we were completely oblivious.

At 1am there was a frantic banging on our door. Jes got up to answer. I stayed listening in the dark. I knew it was bad; it could only be bad. I heard male mumbling, then Jes's voice. "You're joking?" he said. It wasn't the words, it was the tone that made me flinch. He came back in to the room. "Gerry's daughter's been abducted," he said. "She ..." I jumped up and went to check our children. They were there. We sat down. We got up again. Weirdly, I did the washing-up. We wondered what to do. Jes had asked if they needed help searching and was told there was nothing he could do; she had been missing for three hours. Jes felt he should go anyway, but I wanted him to stay with us. I was a coward, afraid to be alone with the children - and afraid to be alone with my thoughts.

I once worked as a producer in the BBC crime unit. I directed many reconstructions and spent my second pregnancy producing new investigations for Crimewatch. Detectives would call me daily, detailing their cases, and some stories stay with me still, such as the ones about a girl being snatched from her bath, or her bike, or her garden and then held in the passenger seat, or stuffed in the boot. There was always a vehicle, and the first few hours were crucial to the outcome. Afterwards, they would be dumped naked in an alley, or at a petrol station with a £10 note to "get a cab back to Mummy". They would be found within an hour or two. Sometimes.

From the balcony we could see some figures scratching at the immense darkness with tiny torch lights. Police cars arrived and we thought that they would take control. We lay on the bed but we could not sleep.

The next morning, we made our way to breakfast and met one of the Doctors, the one who had come round in the night. His young daughter looked up at us from her pushchair. There was no news. They had called Sky television - they didn't know what else to do. He turned away and I could see he was going to weep.

People were crying in the restaurant. Mark Warner had handed out letters informing them what had happened in the night, and we all wondered what to do. Mid-sentence, we would drift in to the middle distance. Tears would brim up and recede.

Our daughter asked us about the kiddie club that day. She had been looking forward to their dance show that afternoon. Jes and I looked at each other. My first instinct was that we should not be parted from our children. Of course we shouldn't; we should strap them to us and not let them out of our sight, ever again. But then we thought: how are we going to explain this to our daughter? Or how, if we spent the day in the village, would we avoid repeatedly discussing what had happened in front of her as we met people on the streets? What does a good parent do? Keep the children close or take a deep breath and let them go a little, pretend this was the same as any other day?

We walked towards the kiddie club. No one else was there. We felt awful, such terrible parents for even considering the idea. Then we saw, waiting inside, some of the Mark Warner nannies. They had been up most of the night but had still turned up to work that day. They were intelligent, thoughtful young women and we liked and trusted them. The dance show was cancelled, but they wanted to put on a normal day for the children. Our daughter ran inside and started painting. Then, behind us, another set of parents arrived looking equally washed out. Then another, and another. We decided, in the end, to leave them for two hours. We put their bags on the pegs and saw the one labelled "Madeleine". Heads bent, we walked away, into the guilty glare of the morning sun.

Locals and holidaymakers had started circulating photocopied pictures of Madeleine, while others continued searching the beaches and village apartments. People were talking about what had happened or sat silently, staring blankly. We didn't see any police.

Later, there was a knock on our apartment door and we let the two men in. One was a uniformed Portuguese policeman, the other his translator. The translator had a squint and sweated slightly. He was breathless, perhaps a little excited. We later found out he was Robert Murat. He reminded me of a boy in my class at school who was bullied.

Through Murat we answered a few questions and gave our details, which the policeman wrote down on the back of a bit of paper. No notebook. Then he pointed to the photocopied picture of Madeleine on the table. "Is this your daughter?" he asked. "Er, no," we said. "That's the girl you are meant to be searching for." My heart sank for the McCanns.

As the day drew on, the media and more police arrived and we watched from our balcony as reporters practised their pieces to camera outside the McCanns' apartment. We then went back inside and watched them on the news.

We had to duck under the police tape with the pushchair to buy a pint of milk. We would roll past sniffer dogs, local police, then national police, local journalists, and then international journalists, TV reporters and satellite vans. A hundred pairs of eyes and a dozen cameras silently swivelled as we turned down the bend. We pretended, for the children's sake, that this was nothing unusual. Later on, our daughter saw herself with Daddy on TV. That afternoon we sat by the members-only pool, watching the helicopters watching us. We didn't know what else to do.

Saturday came, our last day. While we waited for the airport coach to pick us up, we gathered round the toddler pool by Tapas, making small talk in front of the children. I watched my baby son and daughter closely, shamefully grateful that I could.

We had not seen the McCanns since Thursday, when suddenly they appeared by the pool. The surreal limbo of the past two days suddenly snapped back into painful, awful realtime. It was a shock: the physical transformation of these two human beings was sickening - I felt it as a physical blow. Kate's back and shoulders, her hands, her mouth had reshaped themselves in to the angular manifestation of a silent scream. I thought I might cry and turned so that she wouldn't see. Gerry was upright, his lips now drawn into a thin, impenetrable line. Some people, including Jes, tried to offer comfort. Some gave them hugs. Some stared at their feet, words eluding them. We all wondered what to do. That was the last time we saw Gerry and Kate.

The rest of us left Praia da Luz together, an isolated Mark Warner group. The coach, the airport, the plane passed quietly. There were no other passengers except us. We arrived at Gatwick in the small hours of an early May morning. No jokes, no banter, just goodbye. Though we did not know it then, those few days in May were going to dominate the rest of our year.

"Did you have a good trip?" asked the cabbie at Gatwick, instantly underlining the conversational dilemma that would occupy the first few weeks: Do we say "Yes, thanks" and move swiftly on? Or divulge the "yes-but-no-but" truth of our "Maddy" experience? Everybody talks about holidays, they make good conversational currency at work, at the hairdresser's, in the playground. Everybody asked about ours. I would pause and take a breath, deciding whether there was enough time for what was to follow. People were genuinely horrified by what had happened to Madeleine and even by what we had been through (though we thought ourselves fortunate). Their humanity was a balm and a comfort to us; we needed to talk about it, chew it over and share it out, to make it a little easier to swallow.

The British police came round shortly after our return. Jes was pleased to give them a statement. The Portuguese police had never asked.

As the summer months rolled by, we thought the story would slowly and sadly ebb away, but instead it flourished and multiplied, and it became almost impossible to talk about any-thing else. Friends came for dinner and we would actively try to steer the conversation on to a different subject, always to return to Madeleine. Others solicited our thoughts by text message after any major twist or turn in the case. Acquaintances discussed us in the context of Madeleine, calling in the middle of their debates to clarify details.

I found some immunity in a strange, guilty happiness. We had returned unscathed to our humdrum family routine, my life was wonderful, my world was safe, I was lucky, I was blessed. The colours in the park were acute and hyper-real and the sun warmed my face.

At the end of June, the first cloud appeared. A Portuguese journalist called Jes's mobile (he had left his number with the Portuguese police). The journalist, who was writing for a magazine called Sol, called Jes incessantly. We both work in television and cannot claim to be green about the media, but this was a new experience. Jes learned this the hard way. Torn between politeness and wanting to get the journalist off the line without actually saying anything, he had to put the phone down, but he had already said too much. Her article pitched the recollections of "Jeremy Wilkins, television producer" against those of the "Tapas Nine", the group of friends, including the McCanns, whom we had nicknamed the Doctors. The piece was published at the end of June. Throughout July, Sol's testimony meant Jes became incorporated into all the Madeleine chronologies. More clouds began to gather - this time above our house.

In August, the doorbell rang. The man was from the Daily Mail. He asked if Jes was in (he wasn't). After he left I spent an anxious evening analysing what I had said, weighing up the possible consequences. The Sol article had brought the Daily Mail; what would happen next? Two days later, the Mail came for Jes again. This time they had computer printout pictures of a bald, heavy-set man seen lurking in some Praia da Luz holiday snaps. The chatroom implication was that the man was Madeleine's abductor. There was talk on the web, the reporter insinuated, that this man might be Jes. I laughed at the ridiculousness of it all and then realised he was serious. I looked at the pictures, and it wasn't Jes.

Once, Jes's father looked him up on the internet and found that "Jeremy Wilkins, television producer" was referenced on Google more than 70,000 times. There was talk that he was a "lookout" for Gerry and Kate; there was talk that Jes was orchestrating a reality-TV hoax and Madeleine's disappearance was part of the con; there was talk that the Tapas Nine were all swingers. There was a lot of talk.

In early September, Kate and Gerry became official suspects. Their warm tide of support turned decidedly cool. Had they cruelly conned us all? The public needed to know, and who had seen Gerry at around 9pm on the fateful night? Jes.

Tonight with Trevor McDonald, GMTV, the Sun, the News of the World, the Sunday Mirror, the Daily Express, the Evening Standard and the Independent on Sunday began calling. Jes's office stopped putting through calls from people asking to speak to "Jeremy" (only his grandmother calls him that). Some emails told him that he would be "better off" if he spoke to them or he would "regret it" if he didn't, implying that it was in his interest to defend himself - they didn't say what from.

Quietly, we began to worry that Jes might be next in line for some imagined blame or accusation. On a Saturday night in September, he received a call: we were on the front page of the News of the World. They had surreptitiously taken photographs of us, outside the house. There were no more details. We went to bed, but we could not sleep. "Maddie: the secret witness," said the headline, "TV boss holds vital clue to the mystery." Unfortunately, Jes does not hold any such vital clues. In November, he inched through the events of that May night with Leicestershire detectives, but he saw nothing suspicious, nothing that would further the investigation.

Throughout all this, I have always believed that Gerry and Kate McCann are innocent. When they were made suspects, when they were booed at, when one woman told me she was "glad" they had "done it" because it meant that her child was safe, I began to write this article - because I was there, and I believe that woman is wrong. There were no drug-fuelled "swingers" on our holiday; instead, there was a bunch of ordinary parents wearing Berghaus and worrying about sleep patterns. Secure in our banality, none of us imagined we were being watched. One group made a disastrous decision; Madeleine was vulnerable and was chosen. But in the face of such desperate audacity, it could have been any one of us.

And when I stroke my daughter's hair, or feel her butterfly lips on my cheek, I do so in the knowledge of what might have been. But our experience is nothing, an irrelevance, next to the McCanns' unimaginable grief. Their lives will always be touched by this darkness, while the true culprit may never be brought to light.

So my heart goes out to them, Gerry and Kate, the couple we remember from our Portuguese holiday. They had a beautiful daughter, Madeleine, who played and danced with ours at the kiddie club. That's who we remember.

© Bridget O'Donnell 2007.

· Bridget O'Donnell is a writer and director. The fee from this article will be donated to the Find Madeleine fund (findmadeleine.com).

In other words Gerry and Kate left all three children vulnerable to any Tom, Dick or Harry predator who just happened to pass by.

[mike tesko]

I believe that the McCanns used their children to tempt the local peadophiles, deliberately putting the word out that their children were home alone in their apartment - they did not leave the sliding patio door unlocked, and when they left their apartment they exited via the roadside door which they duly locked..

The missing pass key was used to enter the McCann apartment in order to remove the body whilst both parents were cavorting at the tapas restaurant..

[mike tesko]

NEWS

Outrage as newspaper claims Kate McCann was MI5 agent when Maddie went missing

Portuguese newspaper Sol - which sells 33,000 copies every week - said a source insisted Maddie’s disappearance was linked to her parents' 'secret activities'

By Gerard Couzens
11:17, 28 APR 2019UPDATED08:07, 29 APR 2019

Maddie McCann went missing 12 years ago on Friday
Kate McCann was a secret agent when daughter Maddie went missing, it has been outrageously claimed.

Portuguese newspaper Sol, which sells to 33,000 people every week, linked anguished Kate, 51, to MI5.

Veteran journalist Jose Antonio Saraiva fed wild conspiracy theories, saying a female doctor had contacted him to insist Maddie’s disappearance was linked to her parents “secret activity” because of her mum’s “suspected” MI5 membership.

Friday will mark the 12th anniversary of the three-year-old's disappearance from an apartment in the Portuguese coastal resort of Praia da Luz.

Mr Saraiva gave the hair-brained idea oxygen by claiming it might explain Gordon Brown’s decision to send then-British Ambassador John Buck to to resort after the youngster vanished.

Disgraced ex-Portuguese police chief Goncalo Amaral, who features heavily in the new Netflix documentary about the case, claimed last year MI5 spies helped cover up her death and disappearance.

Kate McCann has been accused of being a spy when her daughter went missing while Gerry was also 'linked' to MI5
Madeleine McCann’s parents post message of hope as missing anniversary approaches
 
In an Australian documentary which aired last April Mr Amaral, the original lead investigator before his October 2007 sacking for criticising the British police, said British secret agents “for sure had an involvement”.

Lisbon-born Mr Saraiva, who trained as an architect before becoming a journalist, said a female genetics doctor he named only as H. Santos had identified Kate as an MI5 agent and claimed it explained her daughter’s disappearance. Husband Gerry was also singled out as a potential spy.

He also wrongly identified Gerry and Gordon Brown as old schoolmates by saying: “This would explain the immediate dispatch to Portugal of a representative of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and future Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

“It was said that Brown did it because he was Gerry’s schoolmate. But this explanation doesn’t wash.

“The English are very formal and there’s not the cronyism there that characterises southern Europe.

“A minister doesn’t send an official representative to find out about the disappearance of a little girl because he went to school with her father.”

Maddie went missing in May 2007 aged three

Madeleine McCann case remains unsolved after DNA sample fails to produce match
 
Kate and Gerry McCann have spoken in the past about the hurt speculation and conspiracy theories have caused to the family.

Family spokesman Clarence Mitchell said their refusal to take part in new Netflix series The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann was based on their belief it may encourage conspiracy theorists and would do nothing to help with the ongoing search for her.

He told This Morning last month “the worst of human nature” was spread across social media.

Kate McCann insisted from the outset her daughter had been abducted and she and her husband took Amaral to court over his claims in controversial 2008 book The Truth of the Lie that they had covered up her accidental death in their holiday apartment.

Mr Mitchell revealed last year in an interview one of the “most ridiculous” conspiracy theories he had ever heard was that Madeleine was born as the result of a government cloning project.

Gerry McCann said two years ago of the hurt fake accusations had caused them: “I’m sure it is a very small minority of people who spend their time doing it, but it has totally inhibited what we do.”

[mike tesko]

Lisbon-born Mr Saraiva, who trained as an architect before becoming a journalist, said a female genetics doctor he named only as H. Santos had identified Kate as an MI5 agent and claimed it explained her daughter’s disappearance. Husband Gerry was also singled out as a potential spy.

[mike tesko]

Who was Gerry McCann talking to on his mobile phone in Lagos on the 7th May 2007?

Carolyn Kish told me the following:

- she saw Mr McCann at the avenida of Lagos when she tried to withdrew (sic) money from the cash machine next to the Banif outlet.

- Mr McCann looked very upset and said a few time the following ?Don't hurt Madeleine?.

- Carolyn felt this was a very bizar (sic) situation but thought this men (sic) must be an actor or a journalist as he repeted (sic) again and again this sentence.

- Carolyn then walked to the Banco Espiritu Santo outlet a few 100 meters. Carolyn is a customer of BES for many, many years and the staff know her well at the bank.

- The bank staff asked that they whether she heard the latest (sic).The bank staff told her about Madeleine going missing and Carolyn immediately made the connection to the man she saw in front of the cash machine. She told the bank staff that she must have seen Mr McCann just a few minutes ago. Pictures of Mr McCann on TV confirmed this later.

- I understand that Carolyn did not report the above observation till today as she did not think that it makes sense to report an observation on the parents of Madeleine. However, latest development of the case seem to go in another direction.

[mike tesko]

The CD issued by Ministerio Publico de Portimao in July 2008, contains a great deal of information on the mobile calls made and received by the 'Tapas 9' but it is dispersed, difficult to retrieve and with important pages and charts missing. The main documents of interest from the CD are:

* A 3 page report by the Policia Judiaria (undated, but probably 4th May 2007) listing call records retrieved from the handsets of Mr and Mrs McCann
* A detailed (and excellent report) by Inspector Paulo Dias, Inspector of UNI-Sector de An'ise, Lisbon, dated 9th November 2007
* Schedules provided by Vodafone on 14th December 2007 covering a period from 29th April 2007 for Gerald McCann, David Payne, Rachael Mampilly, broken into four separate sections for incoming and outgoing telephone calls, incoming and outgoing SMS traffic
* A second report by Inspector Dias dated 5th February 2008, containing time bars, link charts and maps pinpointing where the 'Tapas 9's' sets were when they activated antennae
* A third report by Inspector Dias dated 2nd June 2008 which includes details of activations of the Luz and other mobile antenna from 28th April 2007 to September 2007
* The Rogatory Letter requests and correspondence dated from 5th December 2007 to May 2007 and responses from the Home Office in April and May 2008

The PJ used a program, called the 'Analyst's Notebook' as well as 'Excel' to handle what were very large datasets. Inspector Dias pointed out that 'Excel' was far from ideal, because of its limited capacity and it seems that much of the data provided was paper based and had to be rekeyed. Also the main focus of the research was limited to the evening of Thursday 3rd May 2007. But, despite the problems, the PJ's work is impressive, innovative and very detailed. For example, there is a brilliant analysis (which unfortunately led nowhere) based on the hypothesis of two abductors each working with mobiles in the Ocean Club area immediately before Madeleine was reported missing. There is another excellent piece of work which tracks down a misrouted call, from Swansea, to Kate McCann at 11.21 on Wednesday 2nd May 2007.

However, there are potentially serious omissions:

* The most important records were not available when Mr and Mrs McCann attended their 'Arguido interviews' on 6th and 7th September 2007 and it is doubtful that they were ever reviewed by the very experienced analysts from the Leicestershire Police, whose team left the Algarve soon after the McCann's return to the UK in September 2007
* There are no detailed call records from the mobile operators for Kate McCann, Russell O'Brien, Matthew Oldfield and Jane Tanner
* When the PJ obtained the McCann's mobiles they do not appear to have retrieved deleted data or to extract their contact lists
* None of the telecom records show triangulation co-ordinates but are limited to identifying the single primary antenna on which calls were registered
* The details of over 50 UK subscribers contacted by the Tapas 9 in the critical period, as well as their onward local and international call records, was included in the Rogatory Letter request in December 2007. If this information was provided, it is not in the CD
* A critical link chart (Anexo 37) for Tuesday 1st May 2007 is missing from Inspector Dias's report

These omissions make interpretation of the data difficult but what is available provides an interesting picture. First, it is obvious that the memories in the McCanns mobiles were incomplete and, in Kate McCann's case, selectively deleted.

Her mobile memory held details of 39 calls from 18.28 on Wednesday 25th April to 16.35 on 27th April 2007. After her arrival in Portugal on 28th April 2007, with the exception of one incoming call on Wednesday 2nd May 2007 at 11.21 (which, very interestingly, was the Swansea 'wrong number'), and one call from her husband at 23.17 on Thursday 3rd May 2007, everything else has been 'whoosh-clunked' from memory. These deletions could have been accidental, but a high degree of cunning could be implied. Why would she selectively delete everything up to Thursday 3rd May 2007 with the exception of one wrong number and what was her reason for deleting three of the four calls, between 23.14 and 23.17, from her husband on that critical night'. A possible answer is that she wished to avoid alerting the PJ to evidence that details of around 40 calls had been erased and she felt happier leaving something uncontroversial (or misleading) in memory for them to find. Another answer is that, unsurprisingly, she was under the most extreme stress imaginable following the disappearance of her daughter: but why, in that case, give priority to deleting anything. It is the last thing most parents would think about in the circumstances.

The first call found in Geralds mobile memory was timed at 00.30 on Friday 4th May 2007. Again matching antenna records to memory suggests that by the time he gave the handset to the PJ the records of 24 calls or SMSs had been erased, including the one from him found on his wifes handset and timed at 23.17 on Thursday 3rd May 2007. It appears that he had deleted details of the four calls he made to her that night and she deleted just three. It was this simple discrepancy that first led the PJ to suspect interference with the handsets.

If the deletions were deliberate (and it is an 'if') it implies the McCanns were both 'forensically aware' and crafty and wanted to hide something from the PJ. For this reason, it is important to explore the call record data and to match it against other evidence.

On Saturday 28th April 2007, after their arrival in Luz, Kate McCann's mobile triggered the antenna 9 times. It is not possible to say, from the available records, whether these were incoming or outgoing calls or SMSs or for how long they lasted. The last activations were at 20.55 and 20.59 when (based on their statements) the Tapas 9 returned for an early night after eating at the Millennium Restaurant with their children. All of these records were erased from the memory of Kate McCanns mobile. Gerald McCanns mobile did not activate any of the Luz antennae that day.

On Sunday 29th April 2007, the first activation of Kate McCanns mobile was at 9.23, but again there are no Vodafone logs or time bars to provide further detail. However, by internally matching the antenna records it appears that she called her husband at 12.26 and 17.02.

The Creche records indicate that he collected Madeleine at 12.15. He also picked up the twins around 17.00 but mistakenly recorded the time as '12.30'. Chances are that the calls from Kate McCann were to check that he had picked up the kids. At 10.13 Gerald McCann received a call from a UK mobile xxxxx3899. The last activation by Kate McCanns mobile was at 19.30 and Geralds at 17.02.

A pattern on this sheet (and it applies to all of the Tapas 9) is that no activations took place at any time during the week while they were at dinner. So maybe Clarence Mitchell was right, after all, and that they were so 'into each other' that they didn't want to be disturbed while sardine munching and left their mobiles in their rooms. They were never specifically asked this question, but it is very important and the point will be addressed later.

On Monday 30th April 2007, neither of the McCanns telephones activated the Luz transmitters. This looks very odd, especially as they were around the Ocean Club to shuffle the kids to and from the creches. On this afternoon, Madeleine remained in the Creche for only 15 minutes and was picked up by her mother at 15.30. We do not know what Madeleine did for the rest of the day, but it is possible she was being fractious. Interestingly, a friend of Mrs and Mr McCann supposedly told the 'Dispatches' team that made a TV program on the tragedy, that 'Madeleine was a screamer'. This could be interpreted in one of two ways, but any use of the past tense in referring to Madeleine would be very significant. It was such a past tense referral, to her supposedly living children, that alerted the FBI to their murder by Susan Smith, their mother.

On Tuesday 1st May 2007, Gerald McCann's handset was silent all day. Kate McCanns mobile first activated the Luz antenna at 10.16, but all details of the days calls have been deleted from the handset and there is no nothing in the CD from her mobile provider. Another activation took place at 12.17. The Creche records show that Gerald McCann picked up Madeleine at 12.20 (a bit earlier than usual) but Kate McCann's call at 12.17 does not appear to have been to him, (because his mobile was not activated at all that day). Kate McCann dealt with her last call before leaving for the Tapas Bar at 20.35.

At around 8.45pm on Tuesday 1st May 2007, Miss Nejoua Chekeya, the Ocean Clubs busty Aerobics Instructor, held a 'Quiz Night' and was later invited, allegedly by Gerald McCann, to join his table which she did sometime between 9.30pm and 9.50pm. She did not say how long she had remained with them, but she is not the sort of woman men would wish see to leave too quickly. Miss Chekeya stated that one dinner setting was unused and that she could not remember seeing Kate McCann.

However, both Jane Tanner and Russell O'Brien have stated that he did not go to the Tapas Bar on the 'Quiz Night' (ie Tuesday 1st May 2007), but had stayed in their room looking after his sick daughter. Jane Tanner took his dinner to the room; thus explaining the unused plate setting. Russell O'Brien was not asked by either the Polícia Judiciaria or Leicestershire Police whether he had heard Madeleine crying!

Kate McCanns mobile was next activated six times, in rapid fire, between 22.16 and 22.27, after she had returned to Apartment 5A after dinner. The antenna traffic proves that these calls were not made to any of the 'Tapas 9'.

The evidence from the call logs gives the strongest clue that the 'Tapas 9' left their telephones in their rooms when they went to dinner. Clarence Mitchell, the McCanns spokesperson, confirmed this. In an interview, reported on 6th April 2008 by Ned Temko of 'The Guardian', Mr Mitchell said: 'You had nine people in a bar without watches on, without mobile phones and absolute panic set in when they realised what had happened'. We would say that, if the police had a perfect time line across nine people, that would be a damn sight more suspicious than the fractured, illogical, composite statements they might have got'

Mrs Fenn, the McCanns neighbour, reported that Madeleine had cried for her father between 22.30 and 23.45. The evidence shows that Kate McCann was in Apartment 5A 14 minutes before Madeleine started crying. Tuesday 1st May 2007 is the only night (except, of course, for Thursday 3rd May 2007) that either of the McCanns or any of their friends made calls after dinner.

Mrs McCann volunteered to the PJ that on the night of Wednesday 2nd May 2007, she had slept in the spare bed in her childrens room because her husband had not paid her enough attention over dinner. Or put another way, does she mean the amorous Scot was paying someone else (like Miss Chekeya) too much attention, causing her to stomp out of the Tapas Bar before him: ultimately leading to the spare bed in a strop' Gerald McCann said he thought the reason his wife had slept in the childrens bedroom was because of his snoring and that he did not even bother asking her the following morning what the problem was.

Could it be that their timings are wrong by 24 hours and that Kate McCanns nocturnal shenanigans took place on the night of Tuesday 1st May 2007' It would fit, but why be untruthful about it' A possible reason is that they wanted to conceal both Kate McCanns state of mind and the fact that she had returned to Apartment 5A, just before Madeleines cried for help.

On Wednesday 2nd May 2007, Kate McCann called her friend 'Amanda' at 7.36.41 and again at 7.36.45. This was around two hours earlier than any of mobile activations on any other morning: so Kate McCann was 'up with the larks'. Amanda returned the calls at 7.50. There is no record of how long any of these calls lasted or whether they were SMSs. They were all deleted from memory.

At 8.07 Gerald McCann received a call from the SMS message centre (447818520047), but does not appear to have responded. At 8.50 Kate McCann received a call from a UK mobile xxxxx27010 and returned it at 8.53, before going to play tennis. Gerald McCann received a series of calls from his SMS message centre between 9.10 and 10.47, again without response.

At 11.21 Kate received a call from what appears to be a landline in Swansea ( xxxxx0023). The report by Inspector Dias researched this call in detail (Page 21 in his report of 9th November 2007) and discovered that it had not activated any of the Luz antennae. But digging deeper, he found that another UK mobile (xxxxx 1583) had triggered the Luz antenna when connecting to the same Swansea number at 14.01. He dug even deeper, tracked all of the calls made from Luz by xxxx1583 and established it had no connection whatsoever with any of the 'Tapas 9'. The Swansea call to Kate McCann was simply a 'wrong number', misrouted and thus not logged by the Luz antennae.

What Inspector Dias did not realise was that the Swansea call had become so special to Kate McCann that, when deleting all of the other Portuguese call records from memory, she decided to leave this one intact.

Gerald received five further calls from the SMS message centre and at 15.50 called 91121, probably to collect his messages. He received further calls from the centre at 17.49 and 19.49. The records provided by Vodafone show these calls but that they originate from a different mobile number (0xxxx014310)

At 20.08 Kate McCann received two calls from a UK mobile xxxx7624 and six minutes late Gerald McCann called 91121: again to collect messages before he left for the Tapas Bar. This was the last activation of the day by either of the McCanns; probably confirming that their mobiles remained in Apartment 5A when they went to dinner.

On Thursday 3rd May 2007 (the critical day) at 8.23 and 8.24 Kate McCanns mobile activated the antenna to call xxxx7624. There is nothing in file to indicate the owner of this mobile but it does not appear to be any of the McCann family or friends.

At 12.24 Gerald McCann received a call from a UK Mobile xxxx1746. Again there is no clue in the file to the subscribers name. At 12.31 Kate McCann received a call (or SMS) from her mothers mobile and responded an hour later.

Neither of the McCanns appears to have had any further activity on their telephones until after Madeleine was reported missing when Gerald McCann called his wife four times between 23.14 and 23.52. At 23.40 he called his sister ' Trish Cameron and at 23.52 -Janet Kennedy.

The batch of SMS messages received by Gerald McCann on Wednesday 2nd May 2007 seems to have caused him some anxiety. Although the number '07818520047' is in a block allocated to Vodafone, the company has no record of the subscriber's name. When the number is dialled, connection is made to a recorded message which explains that changes have been made to the way customers can access their mailboxes and that they can now dial '121' from their handset or '07836121121' from any other telephone.

Thus the number appears to be a message box for Gerald McCann that sends him an SMS when his mobile is unable to accept a call (because it is out of range or turned off). However, when he was asked by 'Expresso TV' on 6th September 2008 about the 'sixteen SMS messages' received, he flustered:

'No one has ever asked to see any of my text messages. There is no way that there 16 messages on that day or even the day after, you know. You know, the day after, you know that we got'' Kate McCann came to his rescue and interrupted; 'Gerry hardly ever sends text messages until the day after, the day after Madeleine was taken'. Gerald McCann continued: 'so you know that it is actually rubbish'

Their McCann's denials were, of course, technically true although perhaps disingenuous - because there were only 14 messages received on the day before they reported Madeleine missing and two on the day after.

There were 16 SMS messages, in total, so why prevaricate and deny an allegation that was never made. The question was about received messages, not those sent, and on the day before not on 3rd May 2007 or the day after! In the field of forensic linguistics you must always concentrate on the precise wording of denials and especially on those of allegations not made. The denials made by the McCanns are suspicious. However, Mrs McCanns statement about her husband not sending SMS messages, until after Madeleines disappearance, is confirmed by Vodafones records.

Mr and Mrs McCann were never closely questioned by the PJ about the detail of their calls, but Gerald McCann excused the deletions by saying that his telephones memory only retained details of the last ten calls made. This obvious inaccuracy (It already had retained details of 17 calls) does not appear to have been challenged by the PJ and it does not in anyway explain the selective deletions from his wifes handset.

So the bottom line is that Kate McCann was in Apartment 5A when Madeleine cried for her father between 22.30 and 23.45 on Tuesday 1st May 2007, leading to a unique flurry of late night calls and to unique calls very early the following morning. A forensic examination of the records of Madeleines attendance at the 'Lobsters' creche on Wednesday 2nd and Thursday 3rd May 2007 is critically important because if they have been falsified, to establish she was there when she was not, this case takes on an entirely new dimension and sets different search parameters.

Secondly, if the memories of the mobile telephones were deleted in way suspected, a level of cunning is implied that would be capable of conceiving plan to deliberately delay reporting Madeleines 'disappearance'; if for no other reason than to disassociate it from the crying incident on Tuesday 1st May 2007.

Of course, this is speculation and it is entirely possible that further investigation and the much awaited transparency by Mr and Mrs McCann will totally exonerate them. But why dont they simply produce the SMS messages and explain why call details were deleted'

By Paulo Reis and associates

[mike tesko]

Who was Gerry McCann talking to on his mobile phone in Lagos on the 7th May 2007?

Carolyn Kish told me the following:

- she saw Mr McCann at the avenida of Lagos when she tried to withdrew (sic) money from the cash machine next to the Banif outlet.

- Mr McCann looked very upset and said a few time the following ?

Don't hurt Madeleine?.

- Carolyn felt this was a very bizar (sic) situation but thought this men (sic) must be an actor or a journalist as he repeted (sic) again and again this sentence.

[mike tesko]

Calls made to / from Gerry McCanns mobile phone (0447786986188) whilst in Lagos on Sunday 7th May 2007, at the following times:-


12:00:33 hours
0447912067489 - call lasted 47 seconds

  13:15:04 hours
351000968517291 - call lasted 4 minutes and 8 seconds

 13:37:29 hours
0447766471540 - call lasted 30 seconds

13:38:56 hours
351000962481725 - call lasted 2 minutes and 11 seconds

Carolyn Kish - BINGO!

Gerry McCann was in Lagos between 12:00:33 hours and 13:41:07 hours, talking to an abductor - he knows what happened to Madeleine McCann..

It should be relatively simple and straight forward to trace the owners of these four telephone numbers 0447912067489,  351000968517291,  0447766471540 and  351000962481725).

[mike tesko]

On evening Thursday 3rd May 2007, at 21:19:08 hours,  Gerry McCann was enjoying a 3 minutes and 31 seconds conversation on his mobile phone, (0447786986188), with someone with the mobile no. 35100282789879 (Portimao)..
 

[mike tesko]

On evening Thursday 3rd May 2007, at 21:19:08 hours,  Gerry McCann was enjoying a 3 minutes and 31 seconds conversation on his mobile phone, (0447786986188), with someone with the mobile no. 35100282789879 (Portimao)..

And yet, no-one at the tapas restaurant say they saw Gerry McCann using his mobile phone that evening. I thought the tapas nine adults all left their mobile phones back in the apartments?

Nobody saw Gerry McCan using his mobile phone in the restaurant between 21:19:08 hours and 21:22 :39 hours..

[mike tesko]

Carolyn Kish told me the following:

- she saw Mr McCann at the avenida of Lagos when she tried to withdrew (sic) money from the cash machine next to the Banif outlet.

- Mr McCann looked very upset and said a few time the following?

Don't hurt Madeleine?

The Avenida referred to, is a hotel in Lagos. Reference to the Banif outlet a reference to a bank for foreigners, ex - Pat...

[mike tesko]

I wonder what Gerry McCann was doing outside the Avenida hotel, and a bank, on a Sunday afternoon? Maybe he went there to meet somebody, a guest of the hotel - if Carolyn Kish got it right then Gerry McCann was talking to somebody who had control of Madeleine McCann four days after she had been reportedly taken...

[mike tesko]

Phone calls made from / to Gerry McCanns mobile phone on Thursday 3rd and Friday 4th May 2007 had durations of seconds. For example, on Thursday 3rd May 2007 the following mobile no. Was in communication with Gerry McCanns mobile phone - 0447912020786, there was a 32 seconds connection commencing at 10:33:30, a 15 seconds connection, commencing at 10:48:46, a 5 seconds connection commencing at 15:12:51, and on Friday 4th May 2007, a 2 minutes and 1 second connection commencing at 11:43:04, then another 5 seconds connection commencing at 12:07:09..

Other very short connections exist between Gerry McCanns mobile phone and the following mobile number - 0447801099065, on Wednesday 2nd May 2007, a 10 seconds connection which commenced at 17:19:56, and two more short connections on Friday 4th May 2007, a 34 seconds duration commencing at 11:51:12, the other connection lasting all of 6 seconds, which commenced at 12:16:21..

Yet, still more short duration telephone calls can be linked with Gerry McCanns mobile telephone (044778698188),for example on Thursday 3rd May 2007, the following mobile no. - 35100282789879 with a duration of 3 minutes and 31 seconds, commencing at 21:19:08 onThursday 3rd May 2007, followed by a further two relatively short connections on Friday 4th May 2007, the first a call lasting 1 minute 7 seconds which commenced at 10:00:49, the other consisting of a 1 minute 55 seconds in duration commencing at 12:45:51..

Last but not least, another mobile phone device in connection with Gerry McCanns mobile telephone - 35100091121, two such calls made on Thursday 3rd May 2007, one lasting 1 minute and 4 seconds, commencing at 16:37:54, the other (same date) lasting 1 minute and 51 seconds, commencing at 19:51:12, followed on Friday 4th May 2007,  with a 40 seconds connection, which commenced at 15:25:03..

It remains a very distinctive possibility that many if not all of these references to these short duration telephone calls could be part and parcel of some sort of coded contact between Gerry McCann and any potential abductor or gang member..