Madeleine
McCann: The Abduction of the Truth
Whether it be the Tooth Fairy,
Father Christmas or the tangled web of ghosts, ghouls and witches that haunt each Hallowe'en, our childhood imagination embraces
them all.
Ethereal beings that can fly
in and out of our home, with no greater chance of detection than a moth-hole in the Emperor's new clothes.
Everything happens under the
cover of darkness. Everything happens without being seen. Everything happens without evidence being left at the scene. But,
as children, we believe it. Without question.
So, as adults, how do we marry
our logical sensibilities with the disappearance of Madeleine McCann? In particular, the McCanns assertion that an abductor
came in the night, took Madeleine from her bed – without waking her or her twin siblings – and vanished into the
night leaving behind, what would appear to be, not a single shred of evidence.
For those who have the temerity
to question this intricately woven and worryingly metamorphosing tale there lays a swift and instant response. Discipline
by virtue of the swishing PR cane of the McCanns' spokesman, Clarence Mitchell.
'Unhelpful', 'hurtful', 'ludicrous'
and 'ill-informed' are the stock-in-trade official responses that one has come to expect. Whilst at the other end of the social
spectrum slither the base, schoolyard responses: 'poison', 'scum', 'hope you rot in a prison cell' and 'do you eat children?'
being some that can be repeated over the breakfast table.
Oh yes, it's not just the McCanns
that have need for a cardboard 'nutty' box. Their devoted and well-drilled followers are more than adept at using their poisoned
fingers to hit the Caps Lock button on their keyboards. What the Guardian referred to as
'hate-filled moralists' are liberally buttered on both sides of the bread.
But however much they huff and
puff, the fact remains: there are questions to ask about the McCanns' abduction
theory and we, as adults, have a right to ask them in a civilised manner.
After all, what have the innocent
to fear from a few innocent questions blown their way?
No
sign of a break in
In
early September, The Sunday Times spoke to a detective from the Guarda Nacional Republicana (GNR), the local Portuguese 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.
The
McCanns had spent much of the night of May 3rd not out searching for their daughter but ringing their closest family
and friends to recount what had happened. Those accounts, breathlessly relayed to the media later that day, were identical,
unwavering and delivered in the form of a mantra.
Madeleine
had not wandered off, she had been abducted. The apartment had been locked. Someone had 'jemmied' or 'smashed' the shutter
of the bedroom to gain entry to the apartment, abducted Madeleine from her bed and made good their escape by the front door,
which was found open.
At
this point, there was no mention of an unlocked patio door. That was to come later when it became clear that there was no
evidence to support the McCanns' story that the apartment had been broken into.
Indeed, in October, speaking
to RTE's Prime Time show, the McCanns spokeman Clarence Mitchell was forced to admit that "There was no evidence of a break-in".
Yet, curiously he claims Madeleine could "easily" have been kidnapped by an abductor who did not leave the trail of a break-in
and that "Kate and Gerry are firmly of the view that somebody got into the apartment and took Madeleine out the window as
their means of escape, and to do that they did not necessarily have to tamper with anything. They got out of the window fairly
easily."
However, On Martin Brunt's documentary 'The Mystery of Madeleine McCann, aired on 24 December 2007,
Prof David Barclay, one of Britain's top forensic consultants
said: "I think it's impossible for somebody to get in and out, through that window without leaving a forensic trace.
Apart from anything else, the window sills in that area are covered in green lichen. The minute you try and scrape over
the window sills you would have left marks and we know that the scenes of crime lady, the next morning, was
looking for exactly that."
Interestingly, Clarence Mitchell's
statement about the McCanns reversal of their 'break in' story, came one week after Channel 4: Dispatches aired the
documentary 'Searching For Madeleine' on 18 October 2007. In that documentary,
it was effectively proved that it was impossible to break into the apartment and leave no forensic trace or damage to the
aluminium shutters, which are covered with a fine coating of polyurethane paint which marks extremely easily.
They also tested the thumb prints,
which showed up under the red dust of the forensic fingerprint powder, and proved the prints came from somebody moving the
shutter from inside the apartment.
Again, Prof Dave Barclay said:
"We must be very careful that we're not saying this is actually staging but it's difficult to see how anybody could have interfered
with those shutters, from outside, without leaving some trace. In fact, having looked at them, I think it's almost
impossible."
And so the patios doors opened.
Initially, we were told the doors
were left open 'for fear of fire'. However, that would be a
very serious admission to make. For it would show that the McCanns accepted there was a risk of fire and, more
significantly, they were aware of this risk. Yet, they continued to
leave their children alone and unattended, despite being aware that they were placing them at risk. This may well have
added considerable support to any possible neglect charges.
However,
that particular story, like a marriage in haste, would have led to the McCanns repenting at leisure. So, like so much in this
case, the story changed. It has now been reported that the McCanns left the patio doors open for fear the sound of the key
in the front door would wake the sleeping children. But more of that later.
The
crucial questions remain unasked: Why did the McCanns tell all their closest family and friends that the shutter had been
'jemmied' or 'smashed' when it clearly hadn't?
Why
did they tell everybody that the apartment was locked and then change their story when it became evident the apartment had
not been broken into?
Why
did they say the front door was open and why has this never been mentioned since?
If,
as we have been led to believe, all the friends operated the same checking system, then why did their friend, Jane Tanner,
walk all the way round to the front of her apartment, to enter by the locked front door, when her patio doors were open and
easily accessible from the rear which faced the tapas restaurant?
What do the McCanns closest family and friends think about the fact that everything the McCanns told them in those
first crucial hours has since been shown to have no grounds in truth?
The Policia Judiciaria investigation
Less than 24 hours after the
alleged abduction, the McCanns had embarked, through the enlistment of their relatives and friends, on a concerted effort
to attack and undermine the Portuguese investigation.
Speaking to the BBC on the 4th
of May, family friend, Jill Renwick, said: "I spoke to them this morning and they said the police had done nothing overnight
and they felt as if they'd been left on their own. They just don't know where to turn."
However, the manager at the Mark
Warner resort, John Hill said the police had been doing all they could. He said around 60 staff and guests at the complex
had searched until 4.30am while police notified border police, Spanish police and
airports.
It is ironic that the McCanns
should choose to criticise the police search when they had themselves done very little. Kate, as we know from her BBC interview
with Jane Hill on 25th May 2007, did not extend her own search
beyond the four walls of their holiday apartment, deciding she would best serve her missing daughter by staying inside and
spreading the word of the abduction by phone. And praying.
The Portuguese scenes of crime
team were working in the apartment at first light that following morning. As we know, it was already clear to the first two
GNR police officers on the scene, and to Mark Warner staff, that there was no evidence of a break in or a kidnapping.
If any evidence of an intruder
had subsequently been discovered, then we would seen evidence of this in the way the Policia Judiciaria (PJ) conducted their
investigation, both then and since. We would have seen a consistent approach and a concerted effort to try and find the abductor,
or abductors, of Madeleine. Yet, as we know, that has not been the case.
With the eyes of the world scrutinising,
and in many cases criticising, their every move, it is inconceivable that the PJ would abandon the search for Madeleine without
compelling and damming evidence to the contrary. The PJ officers have continued their investigation diligently and with great
fortitude in the face of almost continual attack from the McCanns' spokesman and the McCanns' team of unnamed sources and
anonymous 'friends', whose comments are dutifully lapped up by many UK
newspapers.
In October, Alipio Ribeiro, speaking
to El Pais, was asked about the strong criticism of the PJ by the spokesperson of the McCanns. He replied: "Yes, but they talked with the family and the press, not with the police. And it must be
understood that the British press also works in this way. They made unfair remarks but we cannot react to this on a daily
basis and play ping pong, the PJ against the British press. We are not interested in this game: We have a different tradition
to theirs, one of less communication and the judicial secrecy that restricts us."
The decision to declare the McCanns
arguidos, or 'official suspects', would never have been considered, or supported, if there was any real evidence that Madeleine
had been abducted.
It is also worth remembering
that when Goncalo Amaral, the first co-ordinator in the case, was removed from the investigation in October last year, his
replacement, Paulo Rebelo, is reported to have started the investigation from scratch again. He looked afresh at every aspect
of the case, including the abduction theory. Root and branch.
The McCanns continued arguido
status and the Portuguese state attorney's agreement to continue to extend the period of judicial secrecy suggests that Mr
Rebelo has reached the same chilling conclusion as his predecessor, Mr Amaral: That the investigation to find out what happened
to Madeleine should not be focussed on searching for an abductor but should remain focussed on studying the actions and words
of the McCanns and their holiday friends. And the recovery of Madeleine's body.
Since he was removed from the
case, Mr Amaral has maintained a dignified silence in the face of many libellous and defamatory comments. He broke that silence
when he sent a message to me and agreed that I could display it on this website.
The final paragraph of that message
read: 'Soon, very soon the world will know the "Truth
about the Lie" and we will gain truth and justice for a little girl who has no voice, dead on the evening of May 3rd at apartment
5A, Ocean Club, Praia da Luz, Algarve, Portugal'.
Sleeping
through
We know that Madeleine had a
star chart in the kitchen of the family home in Rothley to mark the times when she slept well in her own bed. The existence
of such a chart would clearly imply she was a light sleeper prone to waking and wandering in search of her parents.
Madeleine's twin siblings, asleep
in the same apartment room, did not wake throughout the entire commotion. Yet, we are told the reason the McCanns had decided
to use the patio doors to gain entry, from earlier in the week, was due to their fear that the sound of the key turning in
the lock of the front door would wake the children up!
The
same GNR officer that spoke to the Sunday Times said: "The thing we found really weird was the twins not waking up," he continued.
"We couldn't believe it, there were maybe 20 people coming in and out of the apartment, there was crying and lights going
on and off. We kept looking at them. They must have been sedated."
Talking in the BBC Panorama documentary 'The Mystery of Madeleine McCann', in footage recorded in August
of last year, Gerry McCann said, when talking of the twins: "they slept very
soundly until we moved them out of the cots into their own apartment which does make me wonder about whether there was any
substances used to keep them asleep".
Eileen
McCann, Gerry's mother, talking of Madeleine in September said: "I really believe they (whoever
took her) gave her a drug. There is no way they carried her out of there without her awakening. If she was taken when she
was sleeping by somebody she did not know, she would have screamed the place down."
For an abductor to administer sedation to three small children in such a 'short window of opportunity' would seem extraordinary.
Gerry has stated that he saw both Madeleine and the twins sleeping soundly at 9:10pm. Yet, 5 minutes later,
we are asked to believe Madeleine was being carried off, sedated, in the arms of her abductor.
For
the sedation to have taken immediate effect, the children would almost certainly have needed to be sedated intravenously or
by the use of some other fast-acting sedative. The use of tablets or drops would surely have woken them from their sleep.
Whichever method used would have left obvious and distinctive evidence. Yet, there has been none reported by the McCanns,
either then or since.
One of Gerry McCanns specialities, as a lecturer in sports medicine at the Centre for Exercise Science and Medicine
at Glasgow University, was the use of drugs and their concealment in sport. One would have expected him to
be expertly placed to assess whether his children had been sedated at the time it occurred – not for it to suddenly
pop into his thoughts three months later.
British
government
It would be extraordinary if
the Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, and Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, had not been briefed with most, if not all, of the evidence
so far collected by the PJ.
Jacqui Smith has gone on record
to say that she is happy with the way the PJ investigation is going and, significantly, she said this after the McCanns had been declared arguidos. She is also reported to have snubbed the opportunity of a meeting
with the McCanns.
Gordon Brown offered his assistance
in the early stages of the investigation, most notably by applying political pressure to the Portuguese government to force
the PJ to release a physical description of the abduction suspect.
But Mr Brown has since become
rather more reticent in his support. In December, it was reported that the McCanns had requested a high-level meeting between
Gordon Brown and their team of lawyers and millionaire supporters. The request was turned down and they were instead offered
a low level consular meeting.
Foreign Secretary, David Miliband,
also became involved with the McCann case in June of last year. In September, following the McCanns arguido status, family
friend David Hughes said: "Both Gerry and Kate have been in touch with Mr Miliband, and Gerry once spoke to him for more than
an hour about the situation."
Another friend of the couple
was reported to have said they were urging Mr Miliband to give "any help he can".
However, since the McCanns were
declared arguidos, Mr Miliband has remained silent, without officially withdrawing his support. He has been quoted as saying:
"This is an independent judicial process we fully respect. Consular services are being provided. Above all, this is about
a little girl."
