MADELEINE MCCANN AND THE TWO NARRATIVES

In her book Madeleine, Kate McCann accuses the Portuguese police of focusing their investigation on them [the parents] to the exclusion of all other options available.  I am not sure that is true, because we all saw the scale of the Police search for Madeleine - the largest in Portugal’s history. So convincing was her ‘Roxanne Pallett’ account of the treatment she and her husband received at the hands of the Portuguese police, the entire British establishment and media stood behind her. Inherent racism, probably. And probably the first time the British Government has sided with suspects against the Judiciary of another nation.  

 

But all that aside, Gerry and Kate have fought tooth and nail to ensure the British public, only gets to hear their side of what happened during the summer of 2007 in PDL.  As yet, no publisher or media mogul has picked GA’s book and no newspaper has serialised it. It’s possible of course that the entire publishing industry is under some sort of ‘D’ notice with regard to publishing alternate theories to an abduction, or it could simply be, that the McCanns are so litigious, no-one can arsed.

 

There has been a subtle change, in that the MSM now refer to Madeleine’s disappearance rather than abduction, but they are still plugging Team McCann press releases and the idea that the McCanns were cleared when the original investigation was shelved.  They weren’t, but it wasn’t until the Portuguese Supreme Court pointed it out, that it began to sink in with British journalists.  I’ve just had a read of Tracey Kandhola’s latest article in The Mail. The English is of course appalling, she doesn’t know the difference between their and there, and claims The Fund’s sole objective is to find Madeleine, support the Family and bring the abductor to justice. That’s 3 objectives Tracey - do you not know what sole means? I normally ignore bad English, but she is getting paid for that crap.

 

All Gerry and Kate’s efforts to silence Goncalo Amaral, have proved futile. There are just too many forms of communication now, to keep bad stories out with borders. Anyone who looks beyond the tabloid headlines and the mind numbing gibberish of Lorraine Kelly, can see for themselves that there is lot more to Madeleine’s disappearance than has been made public.

 

The official line in the UK, is that Madeleine was abducted. However, equally compelling, are the findings of the original investigation and Goncalo Amaral.  In his book, The Truth of the Lie, GA theorizes, based on the alerts of the dogs, that Madeleine died in the apartment and her parents hid her body.  That is, he reaches the same conclusion as the original investigation.

 

The McCanns claimed the original investigation was flawed and the UK media have gone with that ever since. Gerry and Kate are innocent, the Portuguese police got it wrong. And that’s basically been the state of play ever since Operation Grange began their Review.  

 

The other narrative, the theory of Goncalo Amaral however, has never gone away. No other pieces fit the very carefully aligned spaces in the jigsaw puzzle. A cover up has never been possible! It may be in the next couple of weeks we will hear the results of OG’s investigation.  It has been too public, and publicly funded to be locked away in a vault with nothing said. The minimum I expect will be, ‘we have done as much as we can and are passing our files to the PJ, oh, and no further comment’. Then again there could be a major revelation, we can only wait and see.

GERRY TO GIVE AN INTERVIEW AND WHAT THE PAPERS SAY

Once again, my comments box is overflowing so time for a new blog!  Thank you to T and others for bringing latest news to my attention.  In response to T's are the Mailonline taking the piss.....

 

I've just had a read of it T, and I suspect they might be!  Why a picture of Gerry with this tongue poking out? The article is written of course by McCann superfan Tracy Kandhola - I guess she doesn't get to choose the accompanying pictures.  Her reference to 'The Bacon' sounds about right.

 

But dear oh dear, what can Gerry talk about that is so emotional?  The hundreds of hours he spent scouring the wastelands of PDL searching for his daughter? How he didn't sleep, didn't eat, wouldn't rest from the physical search?  Or how he took to his laptop asking others to search, not in the vicinity of where his daughter vanished, but globally.

 

He has hidden his pain very, very well up until now, that is, the only emotion we have seen from him is anger, and we've seen that quite a lot. No memory of Madeleine or even the age enhanced pictures provoked a tear.  Will he vent his frustrations at the PJ? Will he vent his frustrations at Operation Grange?  A seven year investigation that has provided no results, would be frustrating for anyone.

 

Gerry probably did have a close and special relationship with Madeleine, as most fathers do with their daughters.  It is a special bond because Dads can lavish unreservedly all the love and praise they hold back from the mother.  All dads become protectors, gallant knights in armour, their daughters the princesses they swore to protect. In the eyes of their little girls they are heroes.

 

True, my views are mostly based on my own experience, but as a people watcher I often observe the interaction of dads and daughters when I am out and about.  It makes me smile to see big strong men being bossed around unashamedly by cute little girls in ribbons! Most of us know, boys as well as girls, that our dads would lay down their lives for us.  We could not for one moment imagine our Dads not looking for us if we went missing.

 

I said in a post recently, that Gerry and Kate have a lot of front, and this latest interview by Gerry will be on the day before the funding for OG runs out.  Coincidence?  Probably, but it should garner sympathy for the family if Operation Grange declare there was no abduction.  In my opinion it is odd that Gerry McCann is the father chosen as a spokesman for men’s mental health issues, the comparisons to Prince Harry, bizarre. Are the McCanns preparing to relaunch themselves and The Fund, should OG not produce the result they want?  Mens’ mental health is a very serious and real issue. Those bringing it to public attention have a moral obligation to speak about the subject honestly. Given the last 11+ years, how much honesty are the producers of this programme expecting from Gerry McCann?  


Ps.  I have just read the Sun article by Gerard du Cann (yeah, I know), which is of course totally sympathetic to Gerry and Kate claiming they were cleared by the Portuguese police in 2008..  However, the article is accompanied by the infamous Sun video of the dogs alerting, and a man who had the urge to dig up his garden.  Just saying.

A BARREL OF RED HERRINGS - more funding for OG?

I have been checking out the latest news on Madeleine this morning and it's hard to tell what is going on. This case, as always, is a barrel of red herrings. Eg. It has been shelved indefinitely by Scotland Yard, more money has been requested, no it hasn’t, the parents still remain hopeful of finding Madeleine alive, etc, etc. The contents of the annual flurry of speculation and quotes from ‘sources’ are much the same every year, and all covered by the heading ‘nothing to see here’.  

 

Out of this year’s nothingness however, it is significant that Officers from OG have been visiting Portugal. This, from a Freedom of Information request, though I don’t know who from (please don’t let it be Bennett, lol). That to me suggests they are liaising closely with the PJ, which of course is essential if they are working together to bring a prosecution. One trip would suggest, 'yeah it was nice working with you, ta ta and all the best'. Several trips suggests conferences with Counsel, prosecutors, etc, all the steps necessary to tie the two investigations together.

 

And significant, yet again, is the silence from the McCann camp. Significant because they went to so much effort to have an independent Review. They launched a Petition and fundraiser amid a blaze of publicity and appeared on a multitude of news programs to plead directly to the government and the public to support them. At the time, they didn’t get what they wanted, I’m not sure they even got the 100,000k signatures they were aiming for. Their wish wasn’t granted until 7 months later via the front pages of the Sun.  

 

Why then are they so accepting of Operation Grange dragging on for so long without any results? Most parents in such a position would be literally going insane with their need to know what happened to their child.  Either OG are being horribly cruel, or the parents do not accept their findings.  I suspect the latter, which is why the McCanns are not knocking on the doors of Scotland Yard demanding results.  

 

Unfortunately, for the McCanns, neither the Review or the Investigation have given them the innocent stamp they so desperately need.  That validation of 'no involvement'' to wave in the face of the Goncalo Amaral, or the green light to re-launch the Madeleine Fund.  But worse, how can they continue a search for a living child that the police believe to be dead? And these are not just Portuguese police, these are British police.  It is ironic that two tabloids reporting this week are using videos of Gerry and Kate speaking about hope, Kate reassuring the interviewer and audience that ‘real progress’ is being made in the investigation. If she believed that, not sure if the interview was this year or last year, then why is she so accepting of it’s pending closure?

 

As many of my regular readers know I watch (too many) real crime documentaries, and it is heartbreaking to see the pain of those who have lost loved ones.  They never give up and they never stop chasing the police for results. Their need to know overwhelms them, which is why the public were so generous to Kate and Gerry.  In many cases, it completely takes over their lives. Winnie Johnson is the first mother who comes to mind. Other than Kate and Gerry, I have never seen a single case where the parents, loved ones, of the missing refuse to accept the missing person is dead. They need to know one way or the other. Winnie Johnson for example, insisted on being present when the police dug up The Moors in their search for her son’s body.

 

But returning to the continuation of Operation Grange. If their agenda was to lull those watching the case into apathy and disinterest, they have achieved a great result.  Even if Gerry and Kate were partying with Sir Cliff, Clement Freud and Ray Wyre on the evenings of 1st and 2nd May, it wouldn't knock Trump off the front pages.  Although, fly in a top tory politician and you might have a case. 

 

The massive gag 'order' or whatever it is that has protected the McCann camp from the mainstream media thus far,  cannot last forever.  Something's got to give.   The parents' loss of their libel actions against Goncalo Amaral has disarmed them in the Civil Law arena.  They have, metaphorically, had their designer (Carter Ruck) legal claws removed.  We haven't quite reached the stage where British publishers are clamouring for GA's book (we will), but at some point the tabloids, or a hungry journalist (moi, lol) will dip a toe.  Should the proverbial sh*t hit the fan, always a possibility, any tabloid carrying serialisation of Truth of the Lie will have a  scoop.  Just saying. 

 

The public's level  of apathy is probably as great as it will ever be, the world has moved on.  The Madeleine case is not the talking point it once was.  Announcements of more  funding for Operation Grange mean little to most of us, but I would imagine, are excruciatingly painful for those responsible for Madeleine's disappearance.  Their best result would be no more funding and the files archived, they cannot relax all the while the investigation(s) are live. 

 

Meanwhile I toy with the idea of the opportune moment for Operation Grange to announce their results.  At the end of their investigation, one would assume, but given all the VIPs involved, that day could be a)when Trump is marched out of the WH in handcuffs, b)when Theresa May twerks during PM's Questions, c)Boris breaks down and admits he's a racist and also he sold the UK to Vladimir (who can  resist those eyes?) Putin. 

 

I lean towards a)that visual strikes a note, and has for some reason become lodged  in my memory bank, when it happens it will feel like deja vu.  But I digress, for those still fighting for justice for Madeleine, that the police won't give up is a positive sign.  For the parents too, it should be a positive sign, but they're not saying.  Is it possible 11+ years on the police are looking at new leads? And that these leads evaded the Portuguese police and 8 (yeh, I know, but what I read somewhere this morning) firms of private detectives?  Is it possible British detectives based in London, are regularly flying to Portugal to tell their Portuguese counterparts about leads they missed? Seriously?

 

How do the number of flights of officers from OG to Portugal compare to the number of flights from previous years?  Are they more frequent? or less?  More, suggests something's brewing. How many conflabs do you need before you both accept it's  finally over?  Filing a case away with no further action, is a one meeting scenario, keeping in touch only prolongs the agony. 

 

If the objective of Operation Grange was to clear the parents of any involvement in their daughter's disappearance, then they have failed.  If anything they raised more suspicions.  First with their Crimewatch documentary that saw membership of online anti groups, triple, if not quadruple.  Largely in part, because the main suspect looked exactly like Gerry.  Perhaps Gerry should have changed the colour of his hair for that appearance, or at least grown a moustache.  The Crimewatch telephones were of course inundated with callers shouting 'behind you' to DCI Redwood and the presenters. 

 

Operation Grange then upped the ante by digging in PDL, err, within the vicinity of  the McCanns' apartment.  This was explained by Martin Brunt suggesting the abductor stopped to bury the body immediately after leaving the apartment?  As whoppers go, or shall we call it farce, MB was going out of his way to create a scenario that did not involve the parents. Impossible under the circumstances, and shame on him for trying. 'It's possible the (downgraded) burglar/abductor brought a shovel with him. Really Martin?  To top it all, man of few words, DCI Redwood stated Madeleine may not have been alive when she was taken.  Headline stuff for the online forums, but brushed under the carpet by the MSM.

 

As far as I remember the McCanns didn't comment at all on the digs, even though they were in Lisbon fighting a libel case against Goncalo Amaral at the time.  When asked, Gerry fielded a question with 'all areas are being investigated'.  He didn't express any fears nor did he offer or ask for any prayers during what must have been a very difficult time.  The digs, not the libel actions.  Now, that's cold.  Again, I remember Winnie Johnson, and all those mothers and fathers pleading with murderers for the return of their child's remains.  Gerry and Kate were a few miles up the road, not in a Church, but in a Court room. 

 

If the suspects in this case are the McCanns, then police and those in the know, are keeping it very close to their chests.  Both investigations appear to be ruled by Portuguese Judicial Secrecy laws, they have rarely spoken and when they have it has been ambiguous.  DCI Redwood's statement that 'neither the McCanns or their friends are suspects', reminds me of Bill Clinton waving a finger and stating 'I did not have sex with that woman'. Intended to put the armchair detectives off the scent, but effectively just adding to the speculation and research of odd bods who haven't stopped talking about the Madeleine case for 11 years. 

 

If I had a gift (like Sally Morgan, lol),  I would foresee a truck load of grief landing on many doorsteps (simultaneously) in the very near future.  True Operation Grange are not being pressurised by, well, anyone, not by politicians, the parents, not by the media, not even by the gobby Carole Malone, to carry on, or give up and archive what they have.  No-one is pressing them for answers. Again, not even the parents, politicians etc or the usually inquisitive media. 

 

Those insisting that Operation Grange is a cover up have the lack of anything happening as further proof that no-one will ever be charged and the findings of OG and the PJ will never be revealed to the public.  That is a myth among the more loony side of several forums and facebook pages, but it doesn't stand up to any reality checks.  Like how do you get 30+ homicide detective to swear allegiance to the abduction story? Each officer knowing the jeopardy they would be placing on the future careers.   Imagine a future interviewer; 'so you spent almost a  decade working on the Madeleine McCann case - how did that go?

 

We can for now only guess at what the two police forces have in mind.  They have given nothing, well almost nothing, away.  The digging in PDL is a visual that cannot be spun as a crime committed random abductor.  Those familiar with the facts of this case, will find it unbelievable that a burglar broke into Apartment 5A, immediately killed a child whilst two others slept, cleaned up and escaped with the child's body. Only to remain in the vicinity, holding the child, and digging a hole while a massive search was underway.  

 

It is possible this case will end with the blame being placed on a hapless burglar, who may well now be deceased.   And the chances are that no-one (other than Tony Bennet) will make a fuss.  But I don't think that will happen.  An £11m or is it £12m? police investigation cannot be swept under the carpet.  Operation Grange was launched in a blaze of publicity, and a statement from DCI (ManOfFewWords) Redwood 'Madeleine is either alive, or she is dead', go eat your heart out Shrodinger.  One day he, or rather his successors, will have to open that box.  I suspect they already have, and the cat was dead.   

 

SO EXPLAIN HOW THEY DID IT

LOL Ziggy (spokesman for the McCanns)* you want me to compile a believable narrative to the McCanns and Tapas statements. I'm flattered that you would turn to me for such a plotline (and yeah, it would be a piece of cake), but I'm not doing it.  As a writer, plotlines are kinda my thing, I once spent an entire weekend figuring out how to get a character off the Titanic as it went down, my ‘new’ storyline was seamless and quite brilliant, lol.

 

But back to the topic.  You want me, a mere blogger, to provide an answer to all those anomalies in the tapas group story and succeed, where all those dozens of police detective who have access to all the information, have failed.  And indeed all the McCanns’ own writers (Summers and Swan, Tigerloaf, Ziggy Sawdust etc) and batshit crazy online supporters have also failed.  Quite spectacularly I might add.   

 

So everyone’s failed Ziggy, on that we probably mutually agree.  No-one, thus far, has come up with a definitive storyline that clears the parents and their friends and lifts all clouds of suspicion away from them. They haven’t passed lie detector tests, they haven’t been ruled out by reason of rock solid alibis, they are each others’ alibis.  Their alibi is collective, if anyone deviates from the script, they will all have a lot of explaining to do.  Ergo, none of them have been able to speak about the events on that holiday for 11+ years. 

 

Given that suspects, witnesses, etc, once lawyered up, cannot legally be coerced or forced into giving additional statements, there is nothing the collective Law (no pun intended) can do about it.  That’s why so many suspects seem to walk away, even if they do live forever with that cloud of suspicion over them knowing they are on borrowed time.  Advances in technology are seeing cold cases, some decades old, being brought to justice.  

 

It is clear I think, that the police, both British and Portuguese are not looking for a live Madeleine, or indeed an abductor. It is unlikely all those leads they have mentioned are ongoing.  No police force would leave an active paedophile, predator, child trafficking gang to carry on with their crimes all these years without arrest.  It would in fact be criminally negligent of them, if they did. What if another child were stolen?

 

So given that the police are no longer looking for an abductor, from all appearances, and no longer looking for a live child, why is Operation Grange still live?  Why do Scotland Yard still have such a strong influence on the the investigation of what is, essentially, a Portugese case, falling under Portuguese jurisdiction. Logically it is down to the Portuguese to issue arrest warrants and pursue a prosecution.  

 

It could of course be that the British police and the Portuguese police have reached different conclusions, though that, I think, is the least likely scenario.  Two police forces are not going to be funded by two countries, to act in opposition to each other. Good diplomatic relations between the UK and Portugal supersede the plight of two British doctors.  At least in David Cameron’s book, who not only took a family holiday in Portugal, but gave the go ahead for the opening up of a Scotland Yard investigation.  Knowing, I am sure, the full story, that is, the Portuguese interrupted investigation and the full findings of the British secret services.  Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, said as much when Operation Grange opened in a fanfare of publicity all those years ago. From what I remember it sounded as though those 130+ suspects they had in their sights, were British.  Which of course would make sense, British detectives do not have the language skills, the local knowledge, or the resources to carry out any meaningful investigation in Portugal.  Imagine Portuguese police, trying to carry out a similar investigation in Leicester and you get the picture.

 

Regardless the case is still open Ziggy, albeit with a much reduced skeleton staff to keep it going.  Why? In 2008, the Portuguese Police were not prepared to continue with an investigation that was going nowhere. And it was going nowhere because the parents and their friends would not return to PDL to a reconstruction, or answer further questions. They hit that wall that I am sure is all too familiar to many detectives. They did not have enough evidence to bring a prosecution.

 

In 2011, the Portuguese police and the British police had enough evidence to re-open the shelved filed and for the British, to start a whole new investigation from scratch.  Those of us who have been around a while remember how adamant the Portuguese were about not re-opening their files. Their attitude ‘we have been led on a song and dance, enough!’, perhaps even, ‘the parents of this child is your [British politicians and police] problem, we wash our hands of it’.  That would be the logical, rational conclusion.  The PJ, had via the Team McCann global campaign, been led off on a multitude of wild goose chases courtesy of the proactive family, and, quite understandably, had had enough.  But in 2011 when Operation Grange got the go ahead, something changed for the Portuguese too. 

 

It is bizarre, that it was Gerry and Kate picking away at the scab as it was healing, or at least fading from public memory, but as usual, their appearance in any headlines can usually be traced back to their now enfeebled media monitoring machine.  Their determination to stay on the front pages is difficult to understand, given the amount of risk it involved. Every time they spoke, all those 'nasty internet trolls and forums' were revitalised.  The control they had over the MSM never extended to the internet, where freedom of speech still prevails. 

 

Despite all the efforts of Team McCann, many of which were sordid and abhorrent, they have never been able to silence those of us on the internet who simply do not believe them.  True, they succeeded in convincing the world that their critics were haters, pitchforkers and minions of Satan, but their twisted ideology began to wear thin.  When I gave an interview to the Sun newspaper, under the headline of being a troll, lol, I didn't receive any criticism from the public whatsoever.  All of the hate mail, and suggestions to kill myself, came from the hardcore 'antis'. 

 

The tactics of the Team McCann Media Monitoring Machine, will, I am sure, be discussed at great length in the future.  Social media is now the battlefield of choice, for just about every situation, and the missing Madeleine case could be said to have laid the groundwork and not in a good way.  That is, step one, demonise your enemy, claim not believing the god fearing, church going McCanns is a sign of inherent evil and mental deficiency.  Step two, name, shame and inform neighbours, friends, employers, customers, book publishers, of their target's 'online behaviour'.  All standard practice for the anonymous group of concerned citizens who selected Brenda Leyland for full public retribution.  Retribution that never came, because the public were appalled not with Brenda, but with the cruelty of all those who took part in such an outrageous publicity stunt.  Tragic that Brenda did not live long enough to have realised that.

 

But I have digressed Ziggy, you want me to give you a blow by blow account of how the parents of Madeleine were involved in her disappearance, you are saying to me, what you have been saying to Goncalo Amaral, and every detective who has investigated this case.  Prove it.  If not shut up.  End of. Period.  Lol.  For a blow by blow account, I would refer you to GA's Truth of the Lie, and of course the interrupted original investigation.  The theory of GA, and the interrupted investigation, is the only one that fits the facts and circumstances.

 

I'm not a detective Ziggy, more an amateur psychologist, or people watcher.  Gerry and Kate's reaction to their newly found fame intrigued me.  So too the idea that this couple, who so loved the limelight, could in fact be hiding a terrible secret.  Gerry’s need to ‘seize the day’, was in itself gripping to watch. My thoughts at the time, this is a man who never lets an opportunity pass him by.  That of course is the secret behind every successful person, but bizarre that the day in question is the one on which your daughter disappeared. 

 

*in reply to a post on last blog.