Apartment 5A

Photograph of Tapas Restaurant/Bar, 16 August 2008

Tapas Restaurant/Bar

This picture shows very clearly how the Tapas restaurant and bar are distinctly separate structures.

The McCanns and their friends, the 'Tapas 7', were seated in the canopy structure known as the Tapas restaurant, behind plastic sheeting.

It is very difficult to imagine that any of the group could have seen anything of the apartments, given it was night-time and the lights inside the restaurant would have naturally reflected on the clear sheeting.

Being seated at a round/oval table means that some members of the group were seated with their backs to the apartments (including Kate and Gerry according to Gonçalo Amaral) and, in themselves, providing a further barrier to vision for those seated opposite.

In addition, by being enclosed, and with the general noise and chatter inside the restaurant, it is very hard to imagine that the screams or cries for help from a distressed baby, or small tot, left alone in the apartment, would ever be heard.

From Gonçalo Amaral's book, 'The Truth of the Lie', page 60:

Thanks to 'Nana' for translation

'At night, with the existing vegetation, in a restaurant with a lateral
opaque plastic cover and with the group of friends sat with their backs to the apartments, they weren't seeing anything and any person could easily have had access to the apartment without being detected, coming in and calmly and deceptively coming out.'

Maddie World Exclusive: First pictures and video in flat, 11 May 2008

Maddie World Exclusive: First pictures and video in flat News of the World

(video since removed from the NOTW site)

How fiend could have kept out of sight

By Keith Gladdis & Dominic Herbert

Sunday, May 11, 2008

For the first time the News of the World takes you right INSIDE the holiday flat where Madeleine McCann was snatched one year ago.

We are the ONLY media organisation in the world to be invited in to take these exclusive pictures which reveal startling new evidence and insights into the crime mystery that has shocked millions.

Our detailed survey of the flat reveals a host of places Maddie’s abductor could have hidden when it’s most likely he was almost caught in the act by dad Gerry as he checked on her and twins, Sean and Amelie, at 9.05pm on May 3 last year.

But our on-site reconstruction proves that if the kidnapper was already in the flat, as the McCanns fear, he had a full TEN SECONDS to conceal himself after hearing Gerry open the patio doors and enter the apartment.

And he had no fewer than FOUR boltholes to choose from—behind Madeleine’s BEDROOM DOOR, inside her roomy WARDROBE, in her parents’ nearby BEDROOM or in the family BATHROOM.

Our poignant picture at the top of the page also reveals the view into Madeleine’s bedroom that must haunt family friend Matthew Oldfield.

It highlights the tragic but innocent error he made when he checked on the children at 9.30pm while the McCanns were at the nearby tapas bar with the other adults in the party.

There was room for the kidnapper to hide inside Maddie's fitted wardrobe.

From the hall, where he looked into the room, our pictures show that Matthew could only see the bottom corner of Madeleine’s bed.

The twins’ travel cots were beyond on the floor in full view. Seeing them sleeping, he assumed—most probably wrongly—that all was well.

The telltale sign that the kidnapper could already have struck was the open bedroom door—for Gerry had closed it just 25 minutes earlier.
Culprit

Our photos heartbreakingly spell out that if Matthew had only walked a few feet further into the room he could have raised the alarm 35 minutes earlier, giving the police a real chance of catching the culprit.

And our photograph of the room, above right, shows the scene that confronted mum Kate when she arrived at 10pm—her three-year-old daughter Madeleine gone and the rolldown window shutter OPEN.

Tellingly, she had found the bedroom door now closed, blown shut by the draught from the open window looking out on to the road below.

Standing on the very spot, it was not hard to imagine Kate’s shock as the horrible truth sank in after three seconds of disbelief.

The view of the wardrobe in Maddie’s room, right, shows the spot where controversial forensic “evidence” was found——a bloody footprint which was visible to the naked eye.

Inconclusive lab tests found there was a “moderate” chance the blood was Madeleine’s.

There was a report that this footprint matched another in the McCanns’ hire car—although there has never been any confirmation of this.

As we were led through the front door to apartment 5A at the Mark Warner Ocean Club in Praia da Luz on Portugal’s Algarve coast it was like turning back the clock.

The rooms are now eerily silent but it is easy to imagine the excited chatter and kiddies’ laughter that filled the flat right up until the night Maddie vanished last year.

LITTLE Maddie's bed, where she slept on holiday, is on the left in this photo—covered with a simple blue-check sheet. Only one bottom corner of it could be seen by the McCanns’ friend Matthew Oldfield as he glanced through the door. Next to Maddie, on the floor, the twins’ travel cots were placed in the empty space between the single beds. The bed below the window was empty. This window was originally thought to be the point of access where the abductor broke into the room while the three children were sleeping. Our evidence shows this was unlikely.

ERROR: Matthew Oldfield

If one year on, the News of the World found clues, surely the detectives could have established more AT THE TIME? Crucial DNA evidence could have been lost during those early hours. The abductor must have touched windows, doors, shutters, particularly if he was disturbed and had to stay longer than he planned.

It is hard to accept that absolutely no telltale fibres or hairs were left behind.

The stillness and silence of the apartment now is just as it would have been after the McCanns left the children asleep in bed that fateful night.

And our team heard for themselves how much noise an intruder would have made— reinforcing the theory that this was not an opportunistic snatch but carefully planned.

When the bedroom shutter is opened by a pull-cord it makes a loud piercing creak that could easily have woken the youngsters or alerted Pamela Fenn, the woman living upstairs.

This is crucial evidence as it shows the difficulty of entering the property by the window and suggests the likelihood that the kidnapper gained access by the front door or even the rear patio doors.

It also underlines theories that the abductor probably had crucial inside knowledge of the apartment’s interior. Even walking across the ceramic tiled floors in the wrong sort of footwear could have raised the alarm.

After the police finished their investigations inside the bedroom, the walls were painted white.

Pictures (left to right): Fiend's bolthole? The McCanns' bedroom, Holiday kitchen: Where Kate cooked for the kids, Lounge: Where Maddie and the twins played

They were said to have been spattered with small traces of blood, but police investigations into that, as into so much else, came to nothing.

Now the rest of the flat has been redecorated and is ready to welcome more holidaying families to Portugal.
But it will take more than a lick of emulsion to remove the terrible images seared into every parent’s mind just one year ago.

Help

Someone, somewhere has information about Madeleine that could be the breakthrough the family have been waiting for.

Anyone with information is urged to contact:

The family investigation hotline on +44 845 8384699
or email investigation@findmadeleine.com.

PORTUGESE POLICE - 0035 1282 405 400
CRIMESTOPPERS - 0044 1883 731 336
NEWS OF THE WORLD - 0044 207 782 1001 or Newsdesk@notw.co.uk

You can't see McCann patio from tapas bar, 11 May 2008

You can't see McCann patio from tapas bar News of the World

Inside Maddie flat: How the fiend could have got in and out

By Keith Gladdis

Sunday, May 11, 2008

OUR chilling pictures show how shockingly EASY it would have been for a kidnapper to escape with Maddie unnoticed by ANYONE on the night she disappeared.

We have uncovered new evidence at both the BACK and the FRONT of the McCanns' holiday apartment that sheds new light on the four-year-old's disappearance...including new information about the KEY to the flat revealed here for the first time.

At the back our astonishing pictures prove THERE IS NO CLEAR VIEW either way from the balcony and the rear patio doors of the McCann apartment to the tapas bar where her parents Kate and Gerry were having dinner.

The abductor would have had the cover of TREES in full foliage as he crept around the Praia da Luz flat that night.

And at the front we have discovered that the key the McCanns were given at the start of their holiday is almost certainly a COPY of the original that could possibly point to the kidnapping being an inside job in the complex.

Whichever routes in and out were used by the monster, the risks of him being discovered on his entrance and escape were tragically slight.

Our pictures above show the view both ways from the McCanns' balcony to the tapas bar.

From the balcony all that is visible of the restaurant 50 yards away is part of an orange parasol at one of the tables because of the density of the trees.

From the restaurant, foliage blocks the view of the balcony to such an extent that a man of average height could have stood in the middle of it next to the wall holding a child in his arms and still NOT have been seen by the McCanns or any of the Tapas Nine at the restaurant.

So the kidnapper could have used the patio door to go in and out, safe in the knowledge that no one would spot him.

Escaped

That was made even easier because it was left UNLOCKED by the McCanns who wanted quick access to the flat from the tapas bar side.

The patio door could only be bolted from the inside which would have meant them having to walk around to the front every time they wanted to check on their children. The abductor's access to the balcony from the back was also well sheltered—through a side-street gate where Gerry McCann would later meet fellow tennis player Jeremy Wilkins as the doctor returned from his last check on the children.

The gate opens on to steps that lead straight to the balcony and in through the patio door. The kidnapper could easily have escaped this way too with Maddie.

But Portuguese police have always believed any intruder would have used the FRONT DOOR to enter, knowing the McCanns would never use it that night. He could also have escaped through the shuttered front window to the children's bedroom. For this he would have needed a KEY to the front door. The one the McCanns had for the Ocean Club apartment is known in the locksmiths' trade as a "crucifix key" - and is very unusual because it has four sides. Experienced British locksmith John Reeder told us the key used to take us into the flat yesterday is almost certainly a copy. He said: "Most locksmiths would not be able to copy it without great difficulty. The one in the picture is almost certainly not the original."

Supporting the theory that the kidnap could be an inside job, he added: "I would say it is most likely there is at least one other key in circulation as most locks come with at least two spares when they are cut. But there are not many keys aroun like this one."

From our investigations inside the apartment it is possible the abductor left through the back. But it is also possible he used the window in the bedroom to check the coast was clear at the front and either passed Madeleine through the window to an accomplice or left through the front door.

Blood

There is also the evidence of a "partial footwear mark" found just outside Madeleine's bedroom which had traces of blood in it visible to the naked eye, according to a forensics report.

Laboratory tests in Birmingham were inconclusive but found there was a "moderate" chance the blood was the youngster's. There were also specks of blood said to be on the walls of the bedroom, but forensic results have been inconclusive.

The evidence of witness Jane Tanner, one of the Tapas Nine, also backs the FRONT DOOR theory. She was on her way back from her flat and saw a man walking quickly across the top of the road, away from the apartments and towards the outer road of the complex.

A little girl wrapped in a blanket hung limply from his arms. She was wearing pink and white pyjamas.

Whichever way Maddie was taken, her abduction was far too easy—and out of sight of anyone who could have helped save her.

First reaction

In early September, The Sunday Times spoke to a detective from the Guarda Nacional Republicana (GNR), the local police, who was called to the apartment on the night Madeleine disappeared. "What we found did not seem to be the scene of a kidnapping," he said.

"There were no signs of forced entry, the shutters had not been forced from outside and the apartment had clearly not been broken into."

This, he said, was why they did not seal it off immediately.

Interior of 5A bedroom where Madeleine slept

This is the only known picture to show the interior of Madeleine's bedroom, from where she was allegedly abducted.

The picture was taken through the front window after the police had completed their forensic investigations. It was released to newspapers on 12 November 2007.

It shows Madeleine's bed, with sheets, but does not show the cots where the twins slept. Presumably the cots went back to Mark Warner for issue to other guests.

Also worth noting that there does not appear to be any 'high shelf' that Kate McCann described seeing Cuddle Cat on. She said that was the reason she knew instantly that an 'abductor' had been in their apartment and taken Madeleine. It may be that the PJ removed the shelf for forensic testing, although this has never been reported.

Floorplan of Apartment 5A (Version 1)

This floorplan of Apartment 5A is not entirely accurate, as the walls to the front and side were staggered.

There were also windows in the kitchen and living area, to the side of the apartment, not shown on this diagram.

The 3D diagram, derived from the same plan, repeats these errors.

The door to the children's bedroom has been the source of much debate as it plays an important role in the events of the evening of May 3rd.

Martin Brunt's documentary, aired on 24 December 2007, confirmed that the door was hinged on the right, as a person enters the room, and swings into the bedroom - not the living area as detailed in this diagram.

Note: What looks like a wall, on the left of the photograph released 12 November 2007, is actually a wall-length wardrobe.

Click to enlarge

Click to enlarge