03/04 May Timeline

Thursday 03 May 2007

3.30 pm Kate and Gerry are at the tennis court (PR)   4.30 pm Kate leave tennis court and goes jogging on the beach. Gerry stayed in the courts, playing with Julian .(PR)   ca. 5.00 pm The nannies took the children (including the three McCann children) to have "high tea" near the Tapas bar. (PR)   5:15/5:20 pm According to Matthew, Paraiso group sees Kate jogging on the beach - they wave.   5.20/5.30 pm Kate finished jogging and met Gerry, who was already with Madeleine, Sean and Amelie near the Tapas Bar. They took the kids, together, to the apartment and Gerry went back to tennis (PR)   5.30 pm Kate picks the three children up at the creche and heads for the apartment (GA)   Note: David and Fiona Payne, Rachel and Matthew Oldfield, Jane Tanner and Russell O'Brien and children went to the beach, on the afternoon of May 3, at different hours and later, all together, went to Paraíso beach bar. According to NOTW and Paulo Reis, Dianne Webster was there. According to Gonçalo Amaral, she was not. 5.30 pm Food arrives for the Paraiso group (The entire group, minus the five McCanns and Dianne Webster, are at Paraiso restaurant/GA).   6.00 pm Start of scheduled "men's social tennis round".   6.13 pm The men leave the table and head to the resort, leaving the women and children (GA/Paraiso CCTV) to go to the tennis court.   ca. 6.30 pm When the three men arrived at the tennis court, Gerry was there, already, playing.   ca. 6.30 pm Gerry asked David Payne to have a look at Kate, to see if she needed help to take the kids to the playing area, near Tapas bar;   ca. 6.30 pm (6. 28 / 15 minutes later), the women/kids follow (GA/Paraiso CCTV) (Paulo Reis says around 6:10/6:15 pm) all the women left Paraíso, with the kids and went to the tennis court to see the men playing. They stayed there for some undisclosed time and went to their apartments, around 6:45/7:20 pm;   ca. 6.35/6.40 pm David knocked at apartment 5A. Kate had just finished having a bath and David saw that the kids were already bathed, with their pyjamas, playing around; Kate told David the kids were very tired, so they were not going to the playing area (PR).   According to Kate, David knocked at the door (the door facing the swimming pool). She just put a towel around her, went to the living room and they had a brief talk. David said he thinks the French doors were open and he went inside the apartment. The kids were there, playing around, and the conversation with Kate was short. David Payne confirmed this was the last time he saw Madeleine. The conversation with Kate was short: 3 to 5 minutes, David Payne said. ca. 6.45/6.50 pm David Payne got his tennis kit and went to the court. He arrived around 7:00 pm and the four men (Gerry, David, Matthew and Russell) started to play, but a little bit after Gerry decided he had enough tennis and went to the apartment. He was replaced by Dan, a tennis coach from Ocean Club;   7.00 pm according to Gerry (Panorama transcript) At 7, lesson over, Gerry McCann goes back to the apartment. He says he reads the children a story and all three are asleep by 7.30.   The couple say they have a glass of wine before at half past eight they leave for the tapas restaurant, it's on the complex about 70 metres away.   7.10 pm According to Fiona Payne, David came back from tennis at 7:10 pm, still on time to help give a bath to the children. Dianne Webster said her son-in-law helped bathing the children, around 7:10 pm. Matthew Oldfield said that the three men (he, Russell and David) played up to 8:00 pm.   ca. 7.15/7.20 pm Gerry returns to the apartment. Rachael told police that Gerry left at 7:20 pm to help Kate put the children in bed.   7.30 pm McCann children are asleep (Gerry, Panorama transcript).   ca. 7.50 pm Gerry returns to the apartment, according to Russell.   8.00 pm Russell also said that he, David and Matthew played for almost one hour, close to 8:00 pm and they left the tennis court together and they went back to their apartments, to get ready for dinner, as the table was reserved for 8:30 pm. Tapas timeline: This graphic originally appeared in the News of the World 8.30 pm Table is reserved at Tapas bar (PR). Gerry and Kate arrive at the Tapas restaurant.   8.45 pm Russell, Matthew and Rachael Oldfield go to the restaurant.   8.55 pm David and Fiona Payne also arrive at the Tapas (Did Dianne Webster arrive with them?). According to David, all the elements of the group were already there. But Rachel assures that Matthew arrived two or three minutes after the Paynes.   9.00 pm Matthew went to check on the children.   9.05 pm Gerry left the Tapas to check on his children. around 9.05 p.m. When he entered the apartment the children were fine, he just noticed that the door to their bedroom was partially open. He looked at the window, which was closed, just as the shutter.   In another statement Gerry says Madeleine was not in her bed, and he assumed that the twins woke her up with their crying, and she went into her parents bedroom (which he did not check).   In one of the first statements (Timesonline, May 6) it is said that at 9.30pm Gerry McCann checked his children and they were sound asleep, with Madeleine lying with her comfort blanket.   According to the book of Gonçalo Amaral, - Gerry: says he entered by the front door with the key, sees Madeleine for the last time, all the windows are closed. He says he could see the back door from the restaurant and that no one came in through it that night.   9.10/15 pm Jane Tanner (either was on her way to the tapas bar or went to check on her children and) notices a man walking hastily, carrying a child. She memorises the suspect, but fails to recognise Maddie.   9.10/15 pm When Gerry is returning to the dinner, he meets Jeremy Wilkins – an English man he met during the holidays – and chats with him for ten minutes. Neither Gerry nor Jeremy notice Jane or the suspicious man that she says she saw, although they were all on the same narrow street at the same time.   9.25 pm Gerry returns to the tapas bar. Russell told the PJ that at this time Matt and he went to check the children.   9.20/30 pm Mathew Oldfield goes to check on the children, enters the room, sees the McCann children fast asleep, and notices nothing out of the ordinary. Russell O'Brien leaves the restaurant at the same time. In the first statements, Matt does not refer anything strange in Madeleine's room and Russell fails to explain that he stayed in his apartment because his younger daughter was feeling sick. Later, Matt said that he noticed more light in the McCanns' apartment and Russell revealed his daughter was vomiting.   Seating plan according to Kate: 9.35 pm Matthew Oldfield returned to Tapas.   9.45 pm Jane Tanner says at this time – not at 9.30 – Matthew and Russell left the restaurant.   9.50 / 10.00 pm According to their deposition to the PJ, Martin Smith, his wife and his children, after leaving the Kelly bar, which is located approximately 400 metres from the Ocean Club, around, saw an individual described as Caucasian, measuring 1.70 – 1.75 m, walking towards the beach. The Irishman told Sol that he knew Robert Murat (the only arguido in the process) visually for years – and also remembered seeing the Anglo-Portuguese man in a bar that evening, "already a bit intoxicated". Therefore, the Irish dismissed the possibility that the person he saw carrying a child could be Murat: "If it was him, I guarantee to you that I would have recognised him".   Note: Mr Smith's testimony about Robert Murat was false. Murat's lawyer Francisco Pagarete, said: "He tried to defend Robert and ended up prejudicing him". According to a police source, "This was the statement that put Murat in trouble".   9.55 pm Russell returns to the restaurant.   approx. 9.55 pm The Smith Family, (4 adults and 5 children) are returning from 'Kelly's Bar', heading north, all spread out along the street and they pass a man walking down the middle of the street, carrying a child, with the head against his left shoulder and the arms hanging down alongside the body, in light colored or pink pyjamas, bare feet, pale skin typical of British and blond, shoulder-length hair; the girl is about 3-4 years old, about 1 metre tall. - The man is not dressed like a tourist; he's wearing cream or beige trousers, classic cut, of linen or cotton. He is white, 30-35 yrs, 1.70-1.80 meters tall, averagel build, physically fit, short, brown hair, with a face that looks tanned. (GA)   10.00 pm Kate reports Madeleine gone and the shutter of the rear window open. Trish Cameron, McCann's sister, said: "Kate came screaming back to the group crying, 'They've taken her, they've taken her'. Gerry was crying and roaring like a bull." (Timesonline, May 6).   Gerry thought "that can't be right, that can't be right". He went running up to the apartment with Kate and checked everywhere she had already looked, and made a quick run around the apartment block. (Timesonline 09 September 2007) According to book of Gonçalo Amaral: Kate enters at 22h00. Sees open window, raised blinds and curtains waving.  - Both refuse to believe someone entered the back door because they could see it and no one could have entered without their detecting it. (it was then verified that they could NOT see the back door, given the hedge and the fact that they were sitting with their backs to their apartment) When the alarm is given, at an unknown hour, which for the investigation is somewhere between 9h30 and 22h00, based on the employee statements from the Tapas bar, as well as other tourists, all the group ran to the apartment as if a medical emergency had occured, except for Dianne Webster who stayed at the table for a few minutes. (GA) In seconds, the resort is in turmoil. The group's four men (others say: the whole group of friends) and the club's employees/staff check every corner. Timesonline, May 6: John Hill, the Ocean Club manager, said the alarm was raised by the family between 10pm and 10.15pm: "The staff, many guests and the best part of the village started looking right away, a total of 40 to 65 people. The police were called and started taking details from the family and then took the decision to escalate the search."   Everybody leaves the restaurant, except Dianne Webster. 10.05 pm Dianne Webster goes into Maddie's room. The twins are sleeping.   According to Felicia Cabrita (on TV 10/9) when Dianne got to the apartment and Kate was saying the window and shutters were open, went to the window from the outside and tried to lift the shutters. Impossible. They would not move. The staff explained that the shutters have already had 14 years of sun and rain and they were not possible to open from the outside without breaking. 10.11 pm A police source claims: "Someone within the McCann circle phoned from the Ocean Club the night of the crime to Sky News' representative in the Algarve. The call took place at 22.11. We were warned of the disappearance at 22.40". (No link) 'They decided straight away to call the police but had no idea what the emergency numbers were and, anyway, could not speak Portuguese. They asked one of their friends in the group to go down to the main reception, which is manned 24 hours, and call the police. The call was made at 10.14pm or 10.15pm, according to the McCanns.' (Timesonline 09 September 2007)  10.15 pm Dianne returns to Tapas, to pick up her purse and her camera. Between 10.00 and 10.50 pm The first call that Gerry made on the night of the crime was to Alistair Clark, a good friend from university days and a diplomat who is close to Gordon Brown. Clark made contacts at the highest level and - before Policia Judiciaria - already Sky News and the British Ambassador were being informed about the abduction. (Correio da Manhã 14, September 2007, no link but translated report here) Between 10.00pm and 10.50pm, dozens of people came inside the McCanns apartment (friends, other guests, staff from Ocean Club) alarmed and willing to help in the search of Madeleine.   Timesonline, May 6: John Hill, the Ocean Club manager, said the alarm was raised by the family between 10pm and 10.15pm: "The staff, many guests and the best part of the village started looking right away, a total of 40 to 65 people. The police were called and started taking details from the family and then took the decision to escalate the search." Ms. Baptista 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. Exact time unknown, estimated time 10.20 pm: Mrs. Fenn, the neighbour upstairs notices a commotion downstairs: "She looked over the balcony and saw the child's mother. She was in a state of panic. She was repeatedly saying 'We've let her down. We've let her down.' - All the people in their group were running in and out of the apartment. She (Mrs. Fenn) asked someone if she should call the police and was told it had already been done." Estimated time 10.30 pm: Kate McCann was just panicking, frightened for Madeleine and wondering what happened to her, according to a statement from Fiona Payne. She described to police what she saw, when she returned to the McCann apartment, after searching the area around Ocean Club, with other members of the group of friends, for five to ten minutes, following the alert that Madeleine was missing.   She went inside the children's room, noticed Madeleine's bed had the sheets quite kind of neatly, and the twins were fast asleep in their cots. While she opened the cupboards in the room, they remained asleep and didn't stir at all - something she thought was odd.   Kate McCann was frightened and the sensation of not being able to do anything made her angry, howling and punching and kicking walls – the reason why she was covered in bruises the next day, according to the statement of Fiona Payne.   Questioned if the twins didn't wake up, at all, she said they didn't and Kate kept going into the twins, kept putting her hands on the twins to check they were breathing, as she seemed very much concerned in checking they were okay.   Fiona Payne remembered that the twins never wake up, with all the noise, the screaming and the shouting, not even when police came and the lights were turned on – something that she thought, at the time, was weird.   10.50 pm - First call to GNR Lagos precinct (Guarda Nacional Republicana, rural police); The first call to Police Precinct of GNR (Portuguese Rural Police) in Lagos, reporting a missing child and asking for Police help was made at 10.50pm and a patrol was sent, arriving at Ocean Club 12/15 minutes later, according to Lieutenant-Colonel Costa Cabral, Head of Public Relations of GNR. ca. 11.00 pm Gerry calls his sister Trish: "It was my younger brother Gerry distraught on the phone, breaking his heart. He said: 'Madeleine is abducted, she's been abducted'. 'They kept going back to check the kids every half hour. The restaurant was only 40 yards away. He went back at 9 o’clock to check the children. They were all sound asleep, windows shut, shutters shut'.   Kate then went over to the two-bedroom ground-floor apartment and 'came out screaming', said Mrs. Cameron. 'The door was lying open, the window in the bedroom and the shutters had been jimmied open'. (Link)   "They think someone must have come in the window and gone out of the front door with Madeleine." (Link)  11.00/11.05 pm - A GNR patrol arrives at Ocean Club (two men); ca. 11.05 When GNR arrived, Gerry McCann walked to them, kneeled down and put both his hands on the ground and shouted twice, with rage in his voice, saying something that the witnesses close to them could not understand.   11h15/11h20 pm - GNR patrol calls CID in Portimão, reporting a possible kidnapping.   Estimated time 11.15 pm - The first officer to arrive at Ocean Club was handed two lists by Russell O'Brien, written by him on the ripped-off cover of a child's "sticker activity book". The first list: 8:45 Everyone meets at the pool for dinner 9:00 Matt Oldfield listens at the windows of apts 5A,B,D ALL blinds are closed 9:15 Gerry McCann goes to the room? bedroom door open 9:20 Jane Tanner checks 5D, sees a stranger carrying a child 9:30 Russell O'Brien in 5D, child is sick 9:55 10:00 Alarm given after Kate The second list: 8:45 Pool Matt returns 9:00-9:05 - listens at all, the 3 all have closed blinds Gerry 9:10-9:15 - goes to room? bedroom door open 9:20/5 Jane checks apt 5D. Sees stranger with a child 9:30 Russell and Matt check the three 9:35 Matt sees the twins 9:50 Russell returns 9:55 Kate sees Madeleine is missing 10:00 Alarm (GA) 11.30 pm Paul Moyes, 58, from Middlewich, Cheshire, was among those who helped to look for the missing child: "At 11.30pm there was a knock on the door and there was a distressed gentleman saying that a child had been abducted and could we help with the search. Everybody got involved." (Timesonline 06 May 2007) 11.40 pm Gerry calls his brother John: "I've got crying for help from my brother and I'm stuck couple of thousand miles away from him. I can't do anything concrete. And then eventually he just said, "I don't know what to think. I think some paedophile or some other swine has taken Madeleine". 11h30/11h40 pm A CID team leaves from Portimão to Praia da Luz. 11h40/11h50 pm The CID team arrives at Ocean Club. When the call was made to CID headquarters, in Portimão (20 miles from Praia da Luz), there was only a stand-by night shift of two CID officers. It's normal, at this time of the year (May...). Population in Algarve multiplies by ten, during summer time. So, Police (GNR, rural police; PSP, urban Police, CID and other emergency services, like paramedics, firemen, etc, etc) is reinforced only 2 weeks before the beginning of summer. The two CID officers called other colleagues that were on a 'medium' stand-by (at home, but ready to be called in an emergency) and a 4 men team (2 CID inspectors, 1 photographer and 1 expert in collecting digital fingerprints) was sent to Ocean Club, arriving there between 11h40 and 11h50 pm. (No link) Others say: 00.00 am/midnight, police arrive "The police arrived at around midnight and by that stage we were already out looking. There were uniformed police, plain clothes and even off duty local officers who joined in"   Around midnight, Mr Amaral is informed about the case (GA)   0.10 am police start operation and call PSP, PJ, Border and Immigration Services and Faro Airport. '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'."   There was substantial searching involving tourists and locals for some hours. Kate remained in the apartment hoping for news, while Gerry went out and looked. (Link)   ca. 12.00 pm To the police, Gerry says Jane told him, about midnight 4 May, that she saw an unknown individual, 30-40 yrs, light trousers, dark hair, going up the street.

Friday 04 May 2007

00.00 am Goncalo Amaral is informed about the case around midnight of the night of the 3rd. (Before he gets home he confirms that the police have already alerted the Faro Airport police authorities as well as those at the Guadiana River on the Spanish border.) Between 00.00 and 1.00 am the response team that is on duty is informed, goes to Luz to take care of the situation, photographs the scene, but fails to take pictures of what they really saw, for example there are no persons on the photos but the place was full of people. The twins' cots are empty on the photos, without bedsheets or covers - nothing at all except for the bare cots - but the officers report that the twins were sleeping in the cots. (GA) Sometime between midnight and 0.30 am Gerry calls Kate's parents: "Gerry rang me and said how desperate the situation was. He said it was a disaster. And at first I thought there had been a car accident. And then he said no, and when he told me that Madeleine had been abducted from her bed in the hotel, I just said 'No'. He said 'I'm serious, Sue'. He said everyone in the complex was searching for Madeleine. He was really, really upset. (Link) Sometime between 0.30 and 1 a.m Kate calls her parents (sol 18/8) "I had a phone call from Kate asking me to contact Fr Paul Seddon. He’s a friend of Kate and Gerry’s. Paul married Kate and Gerry and baptised Madeleine and she needed to speak to him". Felícia Cabrita said (on tv, 10/9) that kate called her parents at midnight complaining that they were all alone. That is strange, because all the staff and holliday makers were with them looking. The GNR was already there and PJ was on the way. Sometime between 0.30 and 1 am, Aurelio Guerreiro, the owner of a bar at the marina in Vilamoura got a phonecall from an old customer: Pat Perkins, the human resources director from a public English organism. She calls him, upset: "She told me the daughter of British friends of her, who were vacationing close to Lagos, had disappeared over 3 hours ago, that they were completely alone and that nobody was helping them to search for her". Pat confirms she was at Kate's parents house at the time (sol 18/8) Sometime between 0.30 and 1 am Gerry asks for the priest from the Luz parish to be called for him – but the Ocean Club staff members refused, given the time it was. (sol 18/8) ca. 2.00 am Antonio Duarte, a commander for the GNR in Lagos, got the mysterious pictures. Four equal images, in sets of two, printed in photographic paper, 15,3 cm x 10,3 cm. The military declared to the PJ that he got the pics at 2 am on the 4th of May – four hours after the disappearance was reported. Antonio Duarte said he got the pictures when he was sitting in a vehicle when trying to get identification data of the McCanns, but that he cannot recall who gave him the pics.   Gerry declared that he was not the one that had given the pics to the GNR. But the dossier contains also declarations from Sílvia Baptista, responsible for the Ocean Club who says she saw the father of Madeleine give the pics, on a poster-type paper to one of the militaries of the GNR. "They were practically all similar" said Baptista. The PJ made a research of the printers available in Luz, but the sort of paper the pics of Maddie were printed on, could not be found anywhere. Nelson Costa, one of the militaries in the GNR who was called on the night of 3 May, was perplex. He told the PJ he saw several pictures of Maddie, some A4 size and others with the size of a poster, that 'couldn't have been made' in the reception of the Ocean Club. (Link) PJ report says that the pictures were printed by nanny Amy Tierney. Pictures were printed on a personal printer from a British staff member of Ocean Club. It was Russell O'Brien who brought a memory card and that member of staff brought the printer from her room. PJ asked for the printer, but she said her boyfriend took it with him to France.(Paulo Reis)   At 4.00 pm in the morning, Jane was asking a member of GNR: "Have you cut off all the roads already?". Minutes later, Gerry, given the fact that the priest didn't appear, asked another element of GNR to show him the way to the church. (sol 18/8) Gerry went out at about 4.00am with David Payne, another of their group, hoping to find something. (Link) Madeleine's father was also seen, in the early hours of May 4, near the temple with another British man who was with him on vacation. (CM 12/9) The searches continued until around 4.30 am, when a shattered Mr and Mrs McCann were ushered back into their apartment, which, despite it being a crime scene, had not been sealed off at that stage. (Link)   Later, at about 6.00 am, the McCanns went out alone and walked around the scrubland on the outskirts of the village, holding hands and calling Madeleine's name. There was nobody else around and they felt utterly alone. Early hours of May, 4th "Close family friend Jon Corner, of Liverpool, told how tearful Kate sobbed down the phone early yesterday: "Someone has taken my little girl." Jon, godparent to the McCanns' twins, said: "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."   Jill Renwick has known the couple since they all worked together at a Glasgow hospital more than a decade ago. She spoke to Kate at 7am on the morning after Madeleine vanished: "She just said, 'Help me, please help me'. She said, 'We've been searching all night until 4.30am, and then everybody left us'. At that stage there was only one police officer at the door. They didn't know what to do. So I phoned GMTV." Jill Renwick, told GMTV: "They were just watching the hotel room and going back every half-hour and the shutters had been broken open and they had gone into the room and taken Madeleine. They went out about eight, went back in at nine, they were fine, went back in at 10 and she was gone." Jill Renwick "phoned the McCanns' wider circle of friends, who mobilised to phone anyone they could think of to beg for help. Renwick's sister called someone she knew in CID, someone had a connection with Des Browne, the defence secretary", according to The Guardian, on its June 2 edition. Contacts start rolling on, and BBC Newsnight presenter Kirsty Wark and Gordon Brown's brother were alerted about Madeleine’s disappearance, in the following 24 hours. 4 MAY, 7.00 am, the village of Sargaçal, near Luz ================================= - Yvone Martin, 52 years old, British manager of Social Services, Protection of Minors, with 28 yrs of experience in the area of children at risk, is on holiday in the Algarve. Sees Luz/Madeleine news on the TV. Decides to go help. - 9:30am-ish, with the help of police at the scene, she finds Madeleine's parents. They are with someone introduced as a "close friend" of the family. - The parents are very upset, but only the mother is crying intensely. - Yvone Martin begins to ask questions; how often were they checking (response: once an hour), is Gerry the biological father of Madeleine (to eliminate the possibility of abduction by bio father). - Kate becomes unnerved by the questions. They should come from the police. According to Kate, there should have been a lot more police there trying to find her daughter who had been taken "by a couple." - Yvone Martin, thinking the McCanns were doubting her qualifications, produced her official documents emitted by the police and the British government. - Gerry shows the documents to the close friend, who says the docs are authentic. But this does not make them supportive of the help offered by Yvone Martin. - So Yvone Martin tries a desperate move: she tries to separate Kate from the other two, inviting her to another place to clarify this story of the "couple" that according to Kate had taken her child. - Kate reacts agressively and refuses to leave her two companions. - Yvone Martin is concerned about Kate's agitation, and verifies that Kate hasn't received any medical support, which she is needing. - At 10.00 am, Kate told Yvone Martin that Madeleine had been missing for 13 hours. (That would mean the disappearance was at 9pm and not 10pm.)   - Yvone Martin, before the "close friend" rejoined them and told Yvone Martin that the McCanns didn't want to talk to her anymore, took the time to alert the McCanns to the fact that they should be careful with the media, advising them to remain silent. - Yvone Martin, from the moment she met the McCanns and the friend, thought his face seemed familiar. She thought she knew him from work, perhaps having been involved in some case that passed through her hands, in the area of protection of minors. - Later Yvone Martin would identify this close friend as David Payne, the organizer of the holidays, and the one who was also independently pointed out to the British police (by SG and KG), for his questionable behaviour during the Mallorca holiday. - With the English police, the Portuguese investigators tried to find out if David Payne had any judicial or police reports, but nothing was found in his records. - The only information known is that David Payne is a close friend of Gerry McCann, since university. *************** 9.00 am Mr Amaral arrives at the CID in Portimão and meets with Chief Inspector Tavares de Almeida (it's supposed to be the first day of his holidays) to check on what has already been done and what needs to be done next; interpol already contacted, all Portuguese police forces are alerted; initial searches by locals and GNR done that night, to be continued/enlarged. - apt to be fully inspected, even though the arriving officers said the apt was full of people when they arrived and most likely contaminated - it must be considered if the contamination was conscious or an accident It is urgent to know who this couple is, as well as their friends, what do they do, what problems do they have in the UK, have they ever mistreated their children, has a neighbour, family, friend or anyone else noted any inappropriate behaviour? What is their profession? Full time? Has anyone suffered depression? Is the marriage relationship healthy? Are they involved in any serious litigation? Does anyone hold a grudge against them? Why?... These questions were delivered to the UK-Portuguese police liaison [on 4 May] who GA has worked with for years, Glen Power, asking him to forward the request, which the team considered "essential to the investigation" and waited for the response. - searches include garbage bins and sewers; parents/friends must be formally interviewed (these first are almost always the most important), employees, nannies, other tourists; must ask English authorities if any of those guests have any criminal background; CCTV collected from all hotels, farmacies, markets, banks, gas stations, etc. - Spanish border police are asked to watch ports to Morocco, Tarifa, Algeciras, via their CCTV; maritime police to collect any Algarve port data and do coastline searches - crisis room is set up - photos from the group and other tourists are necessary. the group deliver them but they have no photos, unfortunately, of that night; at least, none were delivered by the McCanns nor their friends - apartment has no signs of a break in, as opposed to what the parents say and what "Sky News" reports - still all break-ins in the area are reviewed, as ridiculous as it would be for a robber to take a child with them - report must be filed with the Public Ministry... but what to call it? decision is made to record as an "Abduction??" with two question marks to indicate that there are doubts about this theory. (you can see this first form with the "??" in the process files) - Mr Amaral reads the "first arrival" report. all hypotheses are open: woke and wandered, accident/eventual death/hidden cadaver, bodily injuries resulting in death, negligent or intentional homicide, vingenace, kidnap for eventual ransom, sexual pedator, robber who came to steal but was surprised by the child... - the abduction theory permits the widest investigation and means otherwise unable to justify, including bringing in teams from outside the Algarve, and all possible means are important in the first 72 hours. in peace and silence, the team can advance with a efficient and effective investigation avoiding suspicions on the family/friends while still collecting all necessary evidence to determine what happened - 10.00 am, 12 hours after the disappearance, the British Consul from Portimão arrives. PJ tell him all that is going on. He is not satisfied and is heard talking on the phone saying the "PJ are doing nothing. " Strange! - And the information about the friends/family requested so urgently from the UK still hasn't arrived...- one urgent question is whether or not M was the biological child of the McCanns, if not, this could be an abduction by the biological parents - the urgent request still has not received a response from the UK... but here comes the Ambassador, from Lisbon [debk-3 hr drive]. This is not normal. Who is this couple? Who are these fr