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Gerry and Kate's timeline for 03/04 May 2007 |
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Madeleine and her two-year-old twin siblings, Sean and Amelie, were placed in the resort's Kids Club,
where Ms Baker worked, at around 10am while their parents took a stroll...
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CHARLOTTE PENNINGTON (Nanny): "On May the third, it was just Madeleine I was reading a story to.
I later saw them around lunchtime. That's the last time I saw them together as a family."
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...their parents took a stroll before collecting them (Madeleine and the twins) at 12.30pm for lunch
back at the apartment.
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The 'last photo' is allegedly taken at this time. It is widely reported that the digital time
on the camera was incorrectly set to 01:29, however there have been no versions of the photograph released to confirm
this. The photo shows Gerry sitting at the poolside, in casual shorts and t-shirt, with Amelie and Madeleine.
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In the afternoon, the McCanns played tennis while Madeleine went back to her nanny at the children's
club...
(Time of returning to nanny based on the quoted 6 hours i.e. 2.5 hours a.m. and 3.5 hours p.m. to 18:00
when it is said that Madeleine and the twins were 'picked up by her parents')
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BRIDGET O'DONNELL: 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.
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Gerry had knocked up at the start of the 4.30pm tennis-drills session, but had decided not to exacerbate an injury to
his Achilles tendon, so had dropped out and waited around by the courts until the children came back from the kids’
clubs at 5pm for tea.
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We've produced this model of the Ocean Club to clearly show the key areas and where people were.
The tennis courts and pool area, the Tapas Bar and here apartment 5A where by 5.30 in the evening the McCanns say the
children have been picked up from their kids' clubs and they were all back together.
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In the afternoon, the McCanns played tennis while Madeleine went back to her nanny at the children's
club, who gave her tea at 5.30pm.
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At 6 Gerry McCann has his third tennis lesson of the day so he leaves the flat. He says as a family
they talked about bringing the children back out to play in the area by the courts.
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Madeleine, Sean and Amelie were picked up by their parents at 6pm. |
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At 6.30 Gerry McCann asks a friend, David Payne,
to pop in on Kate to see if the children are coming down (to the tennis courts). He goes to the flat, he says all is well,
but the children are too tired and are already in their pyjamas.
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The first identified 'window of opportunity' begins
at 6.30pm when Mr McCann was on the tennis court and his wife was alone in the apartment with Madeleine and two-year-old twins
Sean and Amelie.
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At 6.40pm one of the McCanns' friends, David Payne,
went to their apartment and saw Mrs McCann playing happily with the children.
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At 7, lesson over, Gerry McCann goes back to
the apartment.
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Gerry was in his apartment at 7pm, had a glass of water, then a beer, while the children sat with Kate on the couch having
stories with a snack. The children were clearly shattered – the last thing any of them needed was a sedative and, anyway,
it was not something the McCanns ever did. They put them to bed after a last story. The twins were asleep virtually the moment
they lay down, Madeleine not far behind them.
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Madeleine and the other children were put to bed. Reports of when she was last seen before this vary,
with some accounts putting it as early as 6pm. This would be crucial as the police might put forward a theory that the McCanns
killed Madeleine and hid her body before they went for dinner.
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By 7pm Mr McCann returned from playing tennis and the couple bathed their children... |
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...and put them to bed by 7.30pm. They spent an hour together in their
apartment and then joined their friends in the apartment complex's tapas bar.
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He (Gerry) says he reads the children a story and all three are asleep by 7.30. |
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At about 7.30pm, Kate and Gerry showered and changed and sat down to have a quiet glass of the sauvignon blanc. |
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That evening, Thursday, May 3, at just after 8pm, by their account, Kate and Gerry McCann were having a glass of wine
together in apartment 5a on the ground floor of Block 5 of the Waterside Village Gardens at the Ocean Club.
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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.
GERRY: We ate in the open air bit of the tapas and when we went in there was I think one or two other
couples.
KATE: And then it was just us, you know, and it wasn't late, you know, it was half eight we were
there.
GERRY: One couple we played tennis with and we chatted to them, and then some of the friends started
arriving and they left shortly after that. And I think at that point we might have been the only table.
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BRIDGET O'DONNELL: 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.
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Around this time, witnesses agree, the McCanns arrived at the tapas bar near their apartment, meaning
there was a "window of opportunity" of up to 2hrs 40 mins for them to kill Madeleine and hide her body - a scenario dismissed
as "ludicrous" by their family.
The couple then settled down to dinner and take part
in a quiz organised by the Ocean Club's aerobics teacher, Najova Chekaya.
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Mr and Mrs McCann arrived at about 8.30pm and were joined by the rest of the so-called Tapas Nine.
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They were first to the table at the restaurant at 8.35 and spent some minutes talking to a couple from Hertfordshire
– two more tennis players – at the next table, who were eating with their young children... The McCanns sat
down after a few minutes and then ordered some wine. The Oldfields were next to arrive, then Russell O’Brien and Jane
Tanner and, finally, always last, Dave and Fiona Payne with Dianne Webster.
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They had just ordered starters when the routine of checking began. Matt Oldfield went first at 8.55 to check his own
apartment and to hurry up the Paynes, who had still not arrived.
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JANE TANNER: I think the starters were about to arrive so I thought oh, I'll go and do a check in
sort of 20 minutes or so before last check.
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Gerry McCann says he went at just after 9 to check on his children. He says that their bedroom door
was more open than usual so he goes in. Gerry McCann has told Panorama he remembers looking down at Madeleine. He spent a
moment thinking how beautiful she looked and how lucky he was. He says this was the last time he saw his daughter. He closes
the bedroom door and leaves through these unlocked patio doors. A stair gate since removed is shut, this gate is on the latch
not locked.
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He (Oldfield) was followed by Gerry, who entered his apartment at about 9.05 through the patio doors to the lounge. Earlier
that week the McCanns had used a key to go in through the front door next to the children’s bedroom but, worrying the
noise might wake the children, they began using the patio doors, leaving them unlocked.
When he entered the apartment, Gerry immediately saw that the children’s bedroom door, which they always left just
ajar, was now open to 45 degrees. He thought that was odd, and glanced in his own bedroom to see if Madeleine had gone into
her parents’ bed. But no, she and the twins were all still fast asleep.
Gerry paused over Madeleine, who – a typical doctor’s observation, this – was lying almost in ''the
recovery position'' with Cuddle Cat, the toy her godfather, John Corner, had bought her, and her comfort blanket up near her
head, and Gerry thought how gorgeous, how lovely-looking she was and how lucky he was. Putting the door back to five degrees,
he went to the loo and left to return to the restaurant. That, of course, was the last time he would see his daughter.
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Gerry McCann left the table to check on his children, who were all sleeping soundly, he says. Returning,
he bumped into another British tourist, Jeremy Wilkins, with whom he had played tennis.
They chatted for several minutes, as Mr
Wilkins has confirmed.
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As the adults dined, Gerry went to check on Madeleine and the twins Sean and Amelie at just after 9pm,
perhaps at 9.05pm. He says all the children were safely asleep.
As he was returning to the table he encountered Jeremy Wilkins, an English fellow holidaymaker whom
Gerry had befriended at the resort’s tennis courts. They chatted for a few minutes in the street outside the McCanns’
apartment.
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Mr McCann, 39, was then said to have returned to the apartment at 9.05pm to check on Madeleine, Sean and Amelie. He has
since said he believes the abductor could already have been inside.
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This is the second "window of opportunity" allegedly identified by detectives, but Mr McCann left the apartment by 9.10pm.
He met another witness, television producer Jeremy Wilkins, who confirmed that he stood and chatted with the consultant
cardiologist near the apartment's staircase.
The pair were stood by the gate near the apartment's unlocked patio doors - where the intruder is thought to have gained
entry - so the abductor would have been forced to flee through the bedroom window, on the other side of the apartment.
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Returning to the tapas bar he meets Jeremy Wilkins who he'd played tennis with that afternoon. He
crosses the road to talk to him.
GERRY McCANN (Speaking in August): I bumped into one guy I played tennis with in the street when
I'd gone in to check, and that was the first time I think of any of the nights that I'd been going up and down that I saw
anyone else really - five, six nights, and it was incredibly quiet.
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As he walked down the hill, Gerry saw Jes Wilkins on the opposite side of the road pushing a child in a buggy. Gerry
called hello and crossed over to talk. Wilkins and his partner were eating in their own apartment that night, but their youngest
still wouldn’t settle.
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They spoke for a few minutes. At this time around 9.15 Jane Tanner thinks about checking on her children.
JANE TANNER: So I thought I'll go and do a check before the food arrives. So I just walked out of
the restaurant, up the hill, I passed Gerry who was talking to one of his tennis friends at the time.
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Jane Tanner told police that at this
time she went to check on her daughter, who was ill, and recalled seeing Mr McCann talking to Mr Wilkins. As she went into
the apartment, she saw a man aged around 35 carrying a little girl wrapped in a blanket.
She thought nothing of it but is now convinced
this was the kidnapper. The child's pyjamas matched the description of those Madeleine was wearing. Mr Wilkins apparently
saw no such man, and does not remember seeing Miss Tanner. He has told police: "It was a very narrow path and I think it would
have been almost impossible for anyone to walk by without me noticing."
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At 9.15pm another of the Tapas Nine,
Jane Tanner, said she saw a man carrying a child away from the apartment and she now believes this was the abductor taking
Madeleine.
But Mr Wilkins said he did not see Ms Tanner or the mystery man and that it would have
been impossible for them to be there without him seeing them.
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One of the party, Russell O’Brien, was away from the table for much of the evening, caring for
his sick child. At about 9.15pm Jane Tanner, his girlfriend, went to their apartment to see how things were. As she did so
she passed, right on the street corner by the McCanns’ apartment, a man carrying a child wrapped in a blanket.
The man was crossing the road, walking away from the apartment complex. At the time Tanner thought
nothing of it; it seemed a perfectly normal spectacle in a family resort.
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According to the McCann timeline, at about 9.30 Matt Oldfield is the next to check on the children.
Remember Gerry McCann says he had closed the bedroom door, but Matt Oldfield says he finds it open. He doesn't go in the room,
he sees the twins but can't see Madeleine's bed. Because there's no noise he assumes everything is okay.
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At 9.30, Kate got up to make the next check on her children, but Matt Oldfield was checking too, as was Russell O’Brien,
and Matt offered to do Kate’s check for her, which she accepted. Gerry teased that she would not be excused her turn
at the next check.
In the McCanns’ apartment, Oldfield noticed the children’s bedroom door was again open, but that meant nothing
to him, so he merely observed all was quiet and made a cursory glance inside the room, seeing the twins in their cots but,
agonisingly, not directly seeing Madeleine’s bed from the angle at which he stood. Afterwards, he could not say for
sure if she had been there or not. Nor could he say if the window and shutter had been open. |
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Dr Matthew Oldfield left the table and offered to check the McCann children. In his first police
statement he said he merely listened at the door of apartment 5a but later said he had gone in and noticed that the room seemed
lighter than the others, as if the shutters had been opened. He cannot be certain whether Madeleine was there.
Gerry McCann invited Miss Chekaya to join
the party at 9.30. Her account apparently contradicts Mr Oldfield, as she claims that no one left or returned to the table
in the half-hour she was there.
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BRIDGET O'DONNELL: Jes returned to our apartment just before 9.30pm. We ate, drank wine, watched
a DVD and then went to bed.
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Detectives are probing claims that Mr McCann sent and received 14 text messages between 9.30pm and
11.40pm, which they believe are suspicious.
At 9.30pm the time-line says another of the group, Matthew Oldfield, went to the apartment to check
on the children, but did not go inside. He said he saw Sean and Amelie sleeping but did not see Madeleine, whose bed was not
visible from the patio doors.
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At 9.30pm Kate was due to check on her children, but another of the party, believed to be Matt Oldfield,
was getting up from the table to make his own check. Oldfield said he would look in on the McCanns’ children, according
to a source close to the McCanns.
When Oldfield reached the corner apartment he entered through the closed but unlocked french windows
and checked on the sleeping children. Afterwards, with the terrible agony of hindsight, he could clearly recall seeing the
twins lying there, but could not say for sure that he had seen Madeleine.
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Finally, at 10pm, it was Kate's turn to check the apartment. She only became alarmed when she reached out to the children's
bedroom door and it blew shut. Inside the room the window was open, the shutter was up and Madeleine's bed was empty. Kate
quickly searched everywhere and ran back down the hill and into the resta |
