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Maddie News August 7
http://www.mccannfiles.com/id79.html
Maddie shock, 07 August 2008
Maddie shock The Sun
Published: Today, 07 August 2008
The Sun says
IT'S the news Kate and Gerry McCann always dreaded.
Little Maddie may have been snatched on the orders of a sick gang of Belgian paedophiles.
The shocking claim is made by a British vice cop.
An email from John Shord of Scotland Yard's elite clubs and vice intelligence unit reveals that a ring of child abusers made an order for a young girl just THREE days before Maddie was snatched.
Her photo was passed to the gang and the chilling deal concluded.
Within hours, Maddie had vanished.
This bombshell email was passed to Portuguese police.
Yet despite its explosive contents, the shambolic inquiry continued to focus on Kate and Gerry. As a result, the monsters who may have abducted Maddie have evaded justice.
The Portuguese police must reopen their inquiry immediately and examine this dramatic evidence.
But if the Met believes Maddie was snatched by a Belgian paedophile gang, they should start working with the police in Belgium.
Perhaps then our skilled officers can help the long search for Maddie make some real progress.
It's the very least Kate, Gerry and their missing daughter deserve.
Why were the senhors deaf to Kate's cries of despair?, 07 August 2008
Why were the senhors deaf to Kate's cries of despair? Daily Mail
By Jan Moir
Last updated at 10:56 PM on 07th August 2008
Seven months after her daughter went missing, Kate McCann wrote a letter to the Portuguese detective leading the investigation into her disappearance.
It is a shattering document, written at a point when the McCanns' relationship with the police appeared to have reached rock bottom.
By then an official suspect, Mrs McCann's letter was a plea to be kept informed as to how the investigation was progressing, even if in only the 'broadest terms'.
Just a hint! Give us a clue! Any news, senhor?
That was all she was asking, nothing more. Yet despite her careful sentences and softly, softly tone, a mother's anguish hammers behind every single word.
I hope you do not mind me writing to you, she begins. Are you a parent? I am appealing to you as a fellow human being.
She uses words such as grateful, victim and torture to describe her situation.
Humane, blame and culture outline the ongoing situation.
Please, please help us is the unmistakable message. Yet despite her plangent pleas, that help was never forthcoming.
Kate McCann's screams of despair were silent on the page, but the police chiefs still affected not to hear them.
She never did receive a proper reply, only a curt note of acknowledgement some months later that her request had been filed.
I suppose we should be grateful that the wretches didn't just bin it, along with any real hope of ever finding Madeleine McCann and the person or persons unknown who snatched her.
Their conduct throughout this entire investigation has been utterly shameful.
Mrs McCann's beseeching letter was part of the Madeleine case files, released by the Portuguese police to the public for the first time this week.
Among the crackpot 'Maddie' sightings, the dead ends, the cadaver dogs, the leaks, smears and famous e-fits of boiled eggs with hair, it is obvious that the Portuguese police took against the McCanns from the beginning.
To find out why, you have to turn your mind back to those dreadful days in May last year, when chaos and belligerence heralded the beginning of the Maddie hunt.
'We are not magicians,' huffed the officer leading the investigation at the time, in a snit because he didn't like the type of questions being lobbed at him by international journalists at the very first press conference.
Meanwhile, news crews filed reports uncomfortably close to the McCanns' apartment, further tainting a crime scene that had already been contaminated.
There were no missing posters, no details of what she was wearing and no officials to co- ordinate the haphazard public searches.
There was nothing except the narrowed eyes of the local police, focusing more and more on Kate and Gerry McCann.
From the start, the Cluedo cops were convinced that Mum and Dad had done it, in the bedroom, with a bottle of maxi-strength Calpol.
Nothing would ever dissuade them from this point of view. For the McCanns' guilt, real or imagined, was the only option available to them to camouflage their chronic ineptitude.
The publicity blitz launched by the couple was also anathema to Portuguese officials.
Yet even if one allows for cultural differences and the heavy burden of the Portuguese secrecy laws - which prohibits even the parents of missing children being given details of evidence collected - something darker and more inexplicable lurks in the shadows of this awful case.
Certainly, Gerry McCann is a decent man, if difficult to like. While his wife shirked away from publicity, seeing it as a necessary evil that might help bring their daughter back, he seemed to enjoy it just a little too much for comfort.
The fury and energy he ploughed into the campaign to find his daughter was also a convenient channel in which to assuage his own feelings of guilt. Sometimes it even felt that it was our fault, not the McCanns, that Madeleine had gone missing.
However, if the only way forward for the Portuguese police is sullen recrimination, the only way forward for the McCanns is to try to wrest something positive from their ongoing nightmare.
Alongside the continuing campaign to find their lost child, the McCanns are supporting a Europewide alert system for snatched children. This is very admirable and worthy of them, but the terrible truth is that once a child has been snatched by perverts, it is almost always too late to get them back.
Paedophiles see nothing immoral or wicked in what they do.
They are organised and energetic, with an ability to hide in society and molest at will that is truly frightening.
British police now believe that Madeleine McCann was snatched to order by a paedophile ring, and it certainly seems the most plausible, if chilling, theory of all.
One that the Portuguese police overlooked in their apparent enthusiasm to fit up the McCanns.
Yet while amber alerts and increased border checks may help locate missing children, the truth is that only increased vigilance at home can keep them safe.
Madeleine revelations offer few facts, 07 August 2008 Madeleine revelations offer few facts BBC News
By Steve Kingstone
Page last updated at 17:55 GMT, Thursday, 7 August 2008 18:55 UK
There was no shortage of compelling lines of inquiry to emerge from the Portuguese police files on the abduction of Madeleine McCann released this week.
One possibility was that Madeleine was abducted by a loitering stranger, whose description was not circulated by police.
Another claim was that she was seen being carried by her own father, shortly before 10pm on the night of her disappearance.
Madeleine may have told a woman in an Amsterdam fancy dress shop that she was abducted while on holiday.
And she could have been kidnapped to order by a Belgian paedophile gang.
The fact is, though, that while all of these lines of inquiry featured in the files, the documents also showed that none of them produced meaningful results when investigated further.
'Not credible'
Specifically, Portuguese police decided the loitering "stranger" was, in all probability, a local musician.
Detectives accepted that Gerry McCann could not have been carrying Madeleine through Praia da Luz shortly before 10pm because other witnesses placed him at the Ocean Club's tapas restaurant.
Portuguese sources have told the BBC that the richly-detailed sighting of Madeleine in a Dutch costume shop was judged "not credible".
And the Belgian kidnap-to-order theory stemmed from an anonymous phone call, the significance of which is being played down by the Metropolitan Police.
The documents, released to journalists on Monday as a CD-Rom, contain 11,223 pages of witness statements, photographs, e-mails and expert testimony.
On their own, the myriad potential sightings of Madeleine - from Spain to Serbia, Mexico to Indonesia - take up a 14-volume annexe, stretching to 2,550 pages.
Unsurprisingly, the police have not given details of every single outcome. Instead, a foreword to the sightings annexe states that, although well-intentioned, many witness accounts were "of little substance and purely speculative."
Wryly, the police report points out that "Madeleine" was sometimes seen "on the same day, in places 4,000km apart."
Eager media
Having been starved of hard facts about the case for 15 months, in line with Portugal's judicial secrecy laws, journalists are now eagerly sifting through the files and unearthing genuinely insightful details.
But it's worth bearing in mind that these revelations are "new" only to reporters and the public.
In most cases, the sensational lines of inquiry were dismissed long ago by Portuguese or British police or both.
There is also a fierce war of interpretation, with different media outlets assuming opposing positions.
For example, one Portuguese tabloid, which still harbours suspicions surrounding Kate and Gerry McCann, has focused on the "possible compatibility" (a phrase from the final police report) of Madeleine's DNA with samples taken from the couple's hire car.
By contrast, UK newspapers have highlighted the more cautious tone taken by Britain's Forensic Science Service, which warned that the results were "too complex for meaningful interpretation."
Likewise, Portuguese media have used police photographs of the McCanns' apartment to allege that the couple and their friends somehow altered the scene of the crime - an allegation which is vehemently denied.
Back in Britain, tabloid newspapers have seized on apparently unresolved sightings of Madeleine to denounce the Portuguese police as incompetent.
Interpretation
In the days ahead, there will be more revelations, and they will no doubt help sell newspapers.
One Portuguese editor told me that since 3 May last year, his tabloid had carried 170 front pages related to Madeleine, and sales had leapt by 25%. I imagine a similar effect has been seen in Britain.
However long these intriguing stories run, the epic police files really boil down to three basic facts.
They are: Madeleine McCann went missing on the night of 3 May 2007; there are no certainties about what happened to her; Kate McCann, Gerry McCann and Robert Murat have all been explicitly cleared of involvement in her disappearance, after prosecutors found "no proof that they committed any crime" (press statement by the attorney general).
And if you want one paragraph which sums up the tragedy of these events, turn to volume 17, page 4,647, in which the Portuguese public prosecutor outlines his conclusions.
"No element of proof was found... as to the circumstances in which the child was taken from the apartment (whether alive, whether dead, whether the victim of negligent homicide or wilful homicide, whether the victim of kidnap-to-order or an opportunistic kidnap).
"We can't even make a consistent prognosis of her fate, including... whether she is alive or dead."
Curiously, the prosecutor then adds that "it seems more probable" that Madeleine is dead.
But like so much of what we are now seeing and hearing, his words are interpretation rather than fact.
Madeleine case 'lead' played down, 07 August 2008
Madeleine case 'lead' played down BBC News
Page last updated at 17:03 GMT, Thursday, 7 August 2008 18:03 UK
Police sources have played down the significance of an intelligence report suggesting Madeleine McCann might have been kidnapped by a paedophile ring.
The Metropolitan Police got a tip-off from an informant earlier this year and passed it onto Portuguese counterparts.
That line of inquiry was one of thousands of leads detailed in Portuguese files on the disappearance.
It will be followed up by the McCanns' private investigators who are looking at 11,000 pages of evidence.
The Metropolitan Police received the tip-off in March this year - 10 months after Madeleine's disappearance, aged three, in May 2007 while on holiday in the Algarve.
Lack of detail
An anonymous caller claimed that a Belgian paedophile ring had placed an order for a young girl - and that Madeleine was kidnapped in Portugal three days later after a paedophile had 'approved' a photograph taken secretly during the child's holiday.
That information was passed on to Portuguese investigators who, in turn, sought the help of the Belgian police.
Faxes and e-mails in the police files suggest that officers in all three countries found it difficult to pursue the lead because of a lack of detailed information.
Metropolitan Police sources have played down the line of inquiry, stressing that the intelligence was second- or even third-hand and impossible to corroborate.
A spokesman for the Belgian police told the BBC they had received dozens of calls about Madeleine - with varying degrees of credibility.
He added there was not a "shred of evidence" that the country was the base for an international paedophile ring.
Many sightings
Family spokesman Clarence Mitchell said he could not comment on sensitive case files which were in the hands of the McCanns' private investigators.
Those files include a 14-volume annexe of reported sightings of Madeleine - from Spain to Serbia, Mexico to Indonesia.
But Portuguese police concluded most were "of little substance and purely speculative".
On 21 July Portuguese prosecutors announced they were shelving the case, although it could be re-opened if credible new evidence came to light.
At the same time the McCanns and Algarve resident Robert Murat were told they were no longer "arguidos", or formal suspects, in the investigation.
They have always strongly denied having had any involvement in what happened to Madeleine.
[b]The Policia Judiciária reconstruct the footsteps of Maddie on her last two days in Praia da Luz 24horas [/b]07 August 2008
Thanks to 'astro' for translation
Nursery
The McCann couple left little Maddie and the twins in the care of the nannies of the Ocean Club. This was where Maddie spent the day of her mysterious disappearance. She still went out for lunch with her parents.
Route
On Thursday morning, the day of the disappearance, the nannies took Maddie to the beach, between 10 and 11am, along this path. The nannies assert that they didn't see anyone strange.
Nanny
Nanny Catriona Baker walked the route with the PJ. This is another spot where little Maddie and the other children from the creche walked by. Again, nothing strange happened.
Arcades
Maddie and four or five other children walked always behind Catriona, holding on to the 'summer snake' (a long snake-shaped object) and walked through the arcade on the side of the resort's reception building.
Travessa
The 100-metre walk to the beach passed through the Travessa das Redes. The nanny stated to the PJ that she didn't see any strangers or any suspicious looking person.
Casa Ortiga
Just like on the day before, the group of children passed through Rua do Nordeste, towards the beach front. They walked by a residence called 'Casa Ortiga'. Again, all was normal.
Walkway
After crossing Travessa das Redes, the children arrived at the road that leads to the beach front. The children didn't contact anyone apart from the elements of the group and the nanny who was responsible for them.
No suspicions
The PJ marked the entire route that the children walked from the creche to the beach. Although the photos are in the process, there are no indications that any strangers followed the girl or approached her.
Quiet
The ambience at the Ocean Club has always been quiet. Mainly frequented by British guests and employees, the manager only notes small thefts that have registered in the area. Nothing more serious.
Beach
After arriving at the beach, little Maddie's group walked along the beach walk until an area where a red parasol and several sunshades were located. The children were prepared for a boat ride.
Kate
Hours after Maddie's ride, Kate went jogging on the beach. She told the PJ that she met her friends with the children, and she was very sad - because nobody had told her that they were all going to the beach. Maddie and the twins were at the creche.
Boat
For approximately one hour, Maddie and her mates rode in a small yellow catamaran, always under the attentive eyes of two employees. They both guarantee that the children had no contact with anybody.
TV star in phone tappings, 07 August 2008
TV star in phone tappings 24Horas
Journalist criticised police work and gave Murat advice
07 August 2008
Thanks to 'astro' for translation
Robert Murat had his home telephone under surveillance. Martin Brunt, from Sky News, didn't know. He even advised Murat
The phone tappings that were carried out by the Polícia Judiciária confirm the suspicion of complicity between British journalists and the English people who are involved in the process. One flagrant case is that of Sky News' "star", Martin Brunt, an expert in crime-related issues, who heavily criticised the Portuguese police's work and who, during a phone interception, was "caught" giving Robert Murat some advice. With the "hot" detail of the recording having been made on the 15th of May, the day after Murat was made an arguido.
On that day, Brunt was in England when he decided to call house "Liliana", the Murat family's residence, metres away from the Ocean Club. He was greeted with a warm expression by Jennifer, Robert's mother, who seized the opportunity to show her distress about the fact that Sky was using the expression "arguido" to refer to her son.
Jennifer did not consider it was a nice attitude and Martin justified himself by arguing he had not seen the news and was not updated with the terms that are used by Portuguese justice.
Then the telephone is passed on to Robert Murat, who greets Martin Brunt in a familiar manner – he calls him "boy" – denies any involvement in the case and states that he is fed up with being pointed out as a suspect.
During the phone call, that lasts 7 minutes, the Sky "star" counsels Murat about the expressions that he should use in an interview to the media.
McCann report intelligence 'flawed', 07 August 2008
McCann report intelligence 'flawed' WalesOnline
Aug 7 2008
Secret intelligence claiming Madeleine McCann was snatched to order by a Belgian paedophile ring is flawed, sources said.
Private detectives working for the girl's parents are urgently following up the report from an informant disclosed in Portuguese police files.
The tip-off was recorded by an intelligence officer working for Scotland Yard's CO14 clubs and vice unit. But sources said the information was second or even third-hand and impossible to corroborate with forces in the UK or abroad.
It is believed to have been one of dozens of similar reports passed to the unit in the wake of Madeleine's disappearance.
The informant said a photograph of the child on holiday in Portugal was taken and passed to a "purchaser" in Belgium days before she vanished.
The confidential report read: "Intelligence suggests that a paedophile ring in Belgium made an order for a young girl three days before Madeleine McCann was taken.
"Somebody connected to this group saw Maddie, took a photograph of her and sent it to Belgium. The purchaser agreed that the girl was suitable and Maddie was taken."
Portuguese police pursued the lead with Interpol, which gathered further reports from Belgium, the UK, Finland and Germany. But detective Paulo Rebelo, head of the Madeleine inquiry, ruled that all but the German intelligence showed "lack of credibility".
As a result, the Scotland Yard tip-off was added to the massive file of evidence considered during the hunt for Madeleine. A Metropolitan Police spokeswoman said everything possible was done to follow up the snippet of information.
Belgium is less than 100 miles from Amsterdam where there have been two possible sightings of the missing youngster.
Latest From the Madeleine Files, 07 August 2008
Latest From the Madeleine Files Sky News
2:01pm UK, Thursday August 07, 2008
Sky News is continuing to plough through the 30,000 pages of files released by Portuguese police that make up their investigation into Madeleine McCann's disappearance.
Refresh throughout the day to hear what they say.
:: The case files show was another sighting of a girl resembling Madeleine in Belgium on May 27 last year. A Briton contacted police after seeing the child asleep on a train from Brussels to Antwerp, concluding she could have been drugged. She was accompanied by a balding 6ft white man aged about 40 who was wearing sports clothes. Leicestershire Police made a formal request through Interpol for the relevant train stations and surrounding areas to be checked for CCTV footage.
:: A lawyer in Guatemala accused the UK Government of intending to kidnap his daughter after the local British Consul told police he suspected she might be Madeleine McCann, the case files reveal.
Based on the Consul's tip-off, officials stopped a man with a young child resembling the missing girl in a shopping mall in Guatemala City in June last year. It turned out, though, he was her bodyguard and had been tasked with looking after the youngster while her mother shopped and had coffee. The Consul apologised for the mix-up but the child's family demanded a formal written apology from the British Embassy in Guatemala.
:: A Belgian woman reported seeing a young girl who looked "very much" like Madeleine with an Eastern European couple on a tram in Brussels 12 days after she disappeared, the files say.
:: Private detectives are investigating claims that Madeleine McCann was snatched to order for a Belgian paedophile ring. Scotland Yard passed on a report from an informant who said a photo of a child on holiday in Portugal was taken and passed to a "purchaser" in Belgium days before she vanished.
:: Two police sniffer dogs picked up the same scent leading around the McCanns' apartment block after Madeleine went missing, the case files show. An aerial photograph included in the dossier shows that both animals followed identical routes from the front of apartment 5A in the Ocean Club resort. Portuguese police took the search dogs out on May 8 last year, five days after Madeleine vanished, after letting them sniff a towel used to dry Madeleine.
:: When they were taken out of the complex, the animals separately followed the path marked on the photograph. Experts concluded, though, it was difficult to make a "precise evaluation" as to whether the dogs had definitely picked up Madeleine's scent.
:: British sniffer dogs were brought at a later date.
:: Dutch shop worker Anna Stam, who said she may have seen Madeleine McCann in her shop has accused detectives of neglect.
:: The files show the FBI were also involved in the Madeleine case. They ran DNA tests when the body of a girl was washed up in Galveston Bay, Texas. The body turned out to be two-year-old murder victim Riley Ann Smith.
:: In Kate McCann's witness statement made to the police on September 6 last year she says she slept in her children's bedroom the night before Madeleine's disappearance after a row with husband Gerry. The statement, from the files, adds Madeleine slept in the same room as her parents on May 1.
:: A letter from the McCann's lawyer was sent to the Portuguese police on January 31 asking for information. The request was denied because of Kate and Gerry's arguido status at the time.
:: The files have revealed a letter written by Madeleine's mother Kate McCann to the head of the Portuguese police to keep the family informed about what was happening in the investigation.
:: A little girl calling herself "Maddy" and claiming to have been taken from her mother on holiday was seen in Amsterdam at the time Madeleine McCann disappeared, the case files show. The family's private detectives are pursuing the report.
:: A document contained within the file from Portuguese police details why the McCanns were made Arguidos.
:: When police raided the McCann's rented villa in Praia a Luz they seized a bible and press clippings showing an advert for children's drug Calpol and an article about the McCann's "wall of silence"
:: Between 1 and 8 of August Portuguese police used sniffer dogs, trained to find human blood as well as people, to search five apartments at the holiday complex; Robert Murat's property in Praia Da Luz; the McCanns' new occupancy at Praia Da Luz; clothing from the McCann residence; Western beach in Praia Da Luz; Eastern beach in Praia Da Luz; 10 vehicles screened at Portimao.
:: Of the five apartments, the only report came from apartment 5a, the reported scene. The report said the dog alerted the rear bedroom in the immediate right-hand corner; the living room, behind the sofa; the veranda outside the parents' bedroom; the garden area directly under the veranda.
:: Nothing was found in Robert Murat's apartment or the McCanns' new apartment.
:: The Enhanced Vicitm Recovery dog (EVRD) did indicate one set of clothing. The report's author, though, says there are no further details.
:: The EVRD indicated a "scent" emitting from the right door of the McCann's car. It was then subject to a "full and physical examination and "no human remains were found."
:: The dog used to smell human blood was then tasked to screen the vehicle and alerted police to the "rear driver's side of the boot area". Forensic samples were taken and sent to a laboratory in the UK.
:: People from countries including Holland and Malta rang to inform police they had seen Madeleine. There was one "sighting" on a flight from New York to Brussels.
:: The files detail all kinds of other so-called sightings from people all over Europe and beyond.
:: Sky News has also found an email in the police files that was sent to Gerry McCann from a man claiming to know what happened to Madeleine. Police tracked it down to the Netherlands and found a cyber cafe with no CCTV. He/she asks for 2 million EUROS as a reward for the information, asking for an advance of 500,000.
:: The files show efits of two men based on descriptions from witnesses at the time. The files were sent to Interpol. Crucially, they were not given to the media.
:: Receipt from the "Tapas nine's" meal on the evening show that there was only two bottles of wine drunk between them.
:: Sky News has found a CCTV photocopy of Repsol petrol station on 4 May 2007 (day after Maddy disappeared) were a child matching Madeleine's description was spotted
Police have written "negativo" on it showing it wasn't Madeleine. There are several other pictures in different locations.
:: The files quote Portuguese public prosecuters who ruled their was "very little" conclusive in the police investigation with detectives failing to prove if Madeleine was dead or alive.
:: Sky News has translated a timeline by police taken from the files released yesterday showing events from when Madeleine's disappearance was reported to them and how the investigation took shape.
:: Among the pages of the Portuguese Madeleine file were a list of questions put to Kate McCann which she refused to answer.
:: The dossier shows a list of questions that were sent to British police to ask the so-called "Tapas seven."
Madeleine Paedophile Ring Theory, 07 August 2008
Madeleine Paedophile Ring Theory
Aug 7, 2008
There are claims that Madeleine McCann could have been 'snatched to order' by a paedophile ring. The theory is contained in an email from Scotland Yard which has just been made public. Jessica Le Masurier reports.
(00:01:24)
Madeleine McCann 'spotted in Brussels' after paedophile ring reports, 07 August 2008
Madeleine McCann 'spotted in Brussels' after paedophile ring reports Telegraph
Madeleine McCann was apparently spotted in Brussels days after she vanished.
By Caroline Gammell in Praia da Luz
Last Updated: 1:56PM BST 07 Aug 2008
Details of the sighting emerged after official documents showed that British police were tipped off about a Belgian paedophile ring who allegedly stole the girl to order.
The Metropolitan Police's vice squad passed on the information – which suggested that Madeleine's photograph was taken and approved before she was abducted – on to Portuguese police and Interpol earlier this year.
The three-year-old went missing from her family's holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Algarve, on May 3 last year.
Belgian Line Compere, 31, told police that she saw Madeleine on a tram in Brussels on May 15 - 12 days later.
In a police interview dated June 1 last year, she said she spied a young girl with a couple on tram 18, heading from Anderlecht to Midi in the centre of the city at about 8.45am.
She said she had been curious because the Eastern European couple did not resemble the blonde-haired, blue eyed girl accompanying them.
At this stage Miss Compere had not seen a picture of Madeleine, but when she saw her photograph on the television later that day, she said she instantly recognised her.
"What immediately leapt out to me was there was a big resemblance between the little girl on the tram and Madeleine," she said.
"She was dressed in pink, like most young girls, had blonde hair and blue eyes and about four years old.
"I can't tell you what language they were speaking but I think they were speaking different languages.
"The couple did not seem to be familiar to each other."
Miss Compere called a child protection group in Belgium who reported the sighting to police, but the couple or child were never traced.
Her witness statement appeared in the extensive Portuguese police dossier into the investigation into Madeleine's disappearance.
The case was closed last month and her parents were cleared of all suspicion.
According to an email sent by the Metropolitan Police a child abduction ring based in Belgium placed an order for a "young girl".
Met officer John Shord wrote to Leicestershire Police on March 4 and the email was passed on to Operation Task – the British end of the investigation into Madeleine McCann.
It said: "Intelligence suggests that a paedophile ring in Belgium made an order for a young girl three days before Madeleine McCann was taken.
"Somebody connected to this group saw Maddie, took a photograph of her and sent it to Belgium. The purchaser agreed that the girl was suitable and Maddie was taken."
The email, which was forwarded to the Portuguese police and Interpol, is now being investigated by the McCann's own investigators.
Their spokesman Clarence Mitchell said: "Their private investigators will be pursuing this line as an absolute priority to establish if it has been fully investigated and properly ruled out."
A Scotland Yard spokesman said: "Unsubstantiated information was received by CO14 relating to the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.
"This was passed on to Leicestershire Police on 4th March 2008. The information was further discussed with Leicestershire Police verbally and all possible lines of enquiry were conducted.
"Leicestershire Police passed the information on to the Portuguese authorities."
A Belgium Federal Police spokesman said: "Our police, our missing person team, paedophile unit, are not aware of this information. We are checking with the British police.
"We find it all a bit strange. We are not aware and we have never found a paedophile network in Belgium that could order, sell or buy children like this."
"Belgian Police normally should have been involved via Interpol, I am told, and officials are asking UK Police what is going on."
Daily Mirror pays for Anna Stam to fly to England to meet the McCanns, 07 August 2008
Anna saw Maddie, meets McCanns parool.nl
JASPER KARMAN
07-08-08 11:30
Thanks to 'Cudlycat' for translation
Anna Stam, from Amsterdam, flew to London last night, to meet the parents of Madeleine McCann, who dissapeared last year. British tabloid The Daily Mirror is paying for the trip so she can tell the parents that she 'maybe' saw Maddie.
Last year a British girl of around 4-years-old asked Stam, an employee of a party shop in Amsterdam east, "if I knew where her mummy was" says Stam. When she pointed to the woman with whom she came in, the girl shaked her head and said:, "That's not my mummy, she's a stranger".
According to Stam the girl said the woman took her away from her mother while on holiday but she couldn't say where. Stam: "Then I asked her name. I first thought she said Maggie but she said 'No, my name is Maddie'."
The news of the kidknap of Madeleine from the apartment in Portugal hadn't reached The Netherlands and when a week later Stam saw a picture of the little girl on TV, she contacted the police. Stam: "I'm not sure if it was really Maddie. But I hope it is of any use for the parents and that they will keep hope to find her back again."
Warning from British police Madeleine was 'stolen to order' by Belgian paedophile ring took SIX WEEKS to reach Portuguese, 07 August 2008
Warning from British police Madeleine was 'stolen to order' by Belgian paedophile ring took SIX WEEKS to reach Portuguese Daily Mail
By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
Last updated at 10:49 AM on 07th August 2008
(This is an update/addition to yesterday's 11:13pm article)
An e-mail from British police warning that Madeleine McCann could have been abducted by a Belgian paedophile ring took six weeks to reach detectives in Portugal, it emerged today.
The Metropolitan Police in London received a tip-off 10 months after Madeleine vanished that she had been stolen to order after a 'spotter' saw her on holiday in the Algarve and sent her photograph to the gang's leaders.
Details of the confidential e-mail were revealed in the secret police files made public this week.
But the documents contain no explanation as to why the message sent on March 5 this year by the Met's vice intelligence unit to Leicestershire police, who were co-ordinating the British end of the investigation, was only passed on to officers in Portugal on April 21.
Inspector Ricardo Paiva, one of the detectives working on the case, then sent it to Lisbon Interpol a week later asking them to investigate the claim as a matter of urgency.
More than a month later, Interpol replied that some of the information gathered from around Europe was not credible.
On May 27, Lisbon Interpol sent a further urgent message requesting information but received an undated fax claiming there was nothing to add.
The revelation of a possible link to Belgium – the scene of several notorious child sex cases - came as a second woman claimed to have seen the missing girl in neighbouring Holland.
The message from Scotland Yard read: 'Intelligence suggests that a paedophile ring in Belgium made an order for a young girl three days before Madeleine McCann was taken.
'Somebody connected to this group saw Madeleine and took a photograph of her. The purchaser agreed that the girl was suitable and Madeleine was taken.'
The dramatic development, and the horrific picture it draws, will bring fresh agony to Madeleine's parents Kate and Gerry McCann.
It would fit with two claimed sightings of their daughter across the border in the Netherlands, where Belgian paedophiles could hide their victims.
But what prompted the tip-off is unclear, and it seems highly odd that if someone had abducted Madeleine to take her to Belgium, they would let her be seen in Amsterdam.
The McCanns' spokesman Clarence Mitchell said: 'Their private investigators will be pursuing this line as an absolute priority to establish if it has been fully investigated and properly ruled out.
'They have got some of the information already, from their lawyers and investigators, and they are waiting to hear from them what is legitimate, what is promising, and what is not.
'They are frustrated by the delays and the mistakes that were made. They have learned an awful lot about this kind of thing and God forbid she has fallen foul of any of these types.'
Earlier this week it was revealed that Amsterdam shop worker Anna Stam told police within days of Madeleine's disappearance in May last year that she thought she had seen her.
(article continues as before)
Warning: The e-mail sent by Scotland Yard to Portuguese police
Photofit was identified Correio da Manhã (no online link, appears in paper edition)
Suspects - Portraits by Lance Purser and Derek Flack
07 August 2008
Thanks to 'astro' for translation
His name is Barrington Godfrey Norton, he is a music teacher and at the time resided inside a white van next to Praia da Luz, in the Algarve
The two photofits that are included in the process concerning the disappearance of Madeleine McCann are of the same person, and according to Gonçalo Amaral, the former coordinator of the case, belong to an individual who was identified as Barrington Godfrey Norton a few days after the witness statements from Derek Flack and Lance Purser.
These two English citizens told the Portuguese police that they had seen a suspicious man near the Ocean Club, in Praia da Luz, where Madeleine McCann disappeared from. "We identified the person and discarded the information", Gonçalo Amaral told CM, referring to Flack and Purser.
The first portrait appeared with Derek Flack, aged 64, who described a man of Caucasian race, dark complexion, around 1,75 metres and aged between 25 and 35, according to the deposition that was collected by the Portuguese police. In the same document, it can be read that Derek stated he could not identify the individual if he saw him again. The second portrait originated with Lance Purser, who saw a man in the surroundings of the same location where Derek saw the suspect. The description that was made mentions a Caucasian man, of dark complexion, aged approximately 35 and 1,70 m tall.
Based on these statements, the Portuguese police managed to identify the suspect, and questioned Barrington Norton on the 8th of May 2007. The music professor admitted to having been in the area of the Ocean Club, where he delivered a curriculum and picked up dinner.
English press
'The Sun' – 'Why did the police hide the two portraits?' is the title of the English paper, which cites the two citizens concerning the testimonies.
'Daily Mail' – This newspaper also presents the two portraits, and it can be read that the Portuguese police never revealed them to parents Kate and Gerry.
'Guardian' – Apart from the photofits, the newspaper mentions the testimony of a Dutch woman who reportedly spoke to an English child, aged 2 or 3, who supposedly was named Maddie.
Musician – The two photofits picture Barrington Norton, an Englishman who had been in Portugal for five years and slept in his white van. The GNR inspected his vehicle and didn’t find anything out of the ordinary.
.....................................................................
Direct speech – Gonçalo Amaral, former coordinator of the process
"Description without value"Correio da Manhã – Why did you never reveal these two photofits?
Gonçalo Amaral – We didn't divulge those photos because we cannot go on revealing photofit after photofit. Even more so because we identified the person and it was a musician who was perfectly known in the area. It made no sense.
But were the testimonies by Derek Flack and Lance Purser credible?
There is the testimony from two English persons who reportedly saw a suspect in the surroundings of the Ocean Club. That person was identified by us. The description by one of them ends up being of no value, because at a certain point he says he could not identify him if he saw him.
There is now a witness in Holland who says that she spoke to Maddie in a shop?
I think it is strange that persons spoke to the child and she said her name was Maddie. To us, the parents always said that she did not answer to Maddie, but only to Madeleine.
The McCann Case: Home Office refused information about Gerry's credit cards Gazeta Digital
Duarte Levy and Paulo Reis
07 August 2008
A request sent by the PJ to British authorities, asking for details about Gerry McCanns' credit card transactions for a period of six months, starting on April 1, six weeks before Madeleine's disappearance, was considered disproportionate by Frances Kennah, the Head of the UK Central Authority - a Home Office department.
The PJ asked for those details on March 2008 and justified the request with the necessity to identify if there were any unknown motives behind the disappearance of Madeleine. Officers from Leicestershire police had previously informed the Home Office that Portuguese detectives told them they decided to ask for that information after Gerry was seen at a cash machine, talking on his mobile phone, Ms. Frances Kennah referred, in a letter to the PJ, included in the investigation files.
Considering that the request for information for such a long period was not fully justified by the Portuguese police and was disproportionate, the Head of UK Central Authority said that the PJ needed to provide further detailed information about the reasons for that period of time, or reduce it to the period of time immediately before and after Madeleine's disappearance In this case, Ms. Frances Kennah promised to look again at the request.
McCanns and friends were afraid of new allegations Jornal de Notícias
Refusal to participate in the reconstruction was related to fear they would all be accused of negligence
ALEXANDRA SERÔDIO E RITA JORDÃO
07 August 2008 - 00h30m
Thanks to 'carilina' for translation
Kate, Gerry and their friends did not want to come to Portugal for the reconstruction of the night when Madeleine disappeared because they were afraid of being formally charged. The revelation was made this Wednesday by the spokesman of the McCanns.
Clarence Mitchell explained that the McCanns and the friends who spent holidays with them in Praia da Luz were advised by their lawyers not to return to prevent the nomination of new arguidos in the case. According to Clarence Mitchell, the PJ had refused, about a year earlier, a proposal from BBC program Crimewatch, to make a reconstruction program that would be aired on TV.
"Kate and Gerry put forward some conditions because they thought that a reconstruction made only for purposes of the investigation wasn't useful. On the other hand, lawyers in Portugal advised the group not to return to PT because the likelihood of having to face the Portuguese justice for negligence was high," said the spokesman.
The "refusal" to participate in the reconstruction led the Prosecutor of Portimão to consider, in order to close the case, that the McCanns "lost the posibility to prove what they, since their nomination as arguidos have been protesting: their innocence in reference to the fatal event".
Clarence Mitchell disagrees with the Prosecutor and says that Kate and Gerry "have nothing to prove." "They are innocent in the eyes of the law and do not have to prove their innocence. It is the role of the police to prove the suspects are guilty, and in this case the police failed to do so," he concluded.
Still pending explanation are the reasons why the couple did not answer the questions that the investigators thought relevant and that led to their appointment as arguidos, as well as "the disagreements and lack of harmony, and also differences", found in the analysis of all the offered evidence, which would have needed further testing and to be connected with the actual place of occurrence, "said the MP.
The "strange behaviour" of the couple was the subject of an information sheet, written by the investigator responsible for maintaining the link between the McCanns and the PJ. On the document that is now made public, you can read that the inspector saw "a number of strange behaviours in the couple" who were "gradually reacting quite negatively to the increasing research activity" of the PJ, particularly the one connected to the use of British dogs for the detection of dead bodies and blood odours.
On the document addressed to the coordinator of the investigation, the inspector wrote that the McCanns, said "several times", that "the attention of the police should be maintained and targeted on the fact of the abduction," which in their opinion, "was the only thing that took place," and that "the police should not forget to continue to investigate Robert Murat."
And when Kate was given the notification to go to the premises of the PJ to testify, she "instantly reacted negatively." According to the inspector she even said that the government would put pressure on the investigators. "The Portuguese police will be pressed by the government to quickly end the investigation." The inspector copied this sentence in the file, while Gerry insisted on giving him the letters and emails that he kept receiving.
The dogs’ work as described by their own handler Jornal de Notícias
07 August 2008 - 00h30m
Thanks to 'astro' for translation
They were the main entities responsible for the turnaround of the process, at a point in time when the Polícia Judiciária was already leaving behind the possibility of Madeleine having been kidnapped.
The cadaver detection dog "Eddie" and the blood detection dog "Keela" showed themselves as "very excited" when they entered apartment 5A of the Ocean Club, the one that had been occupied by the McCann couple during their holidays.
Despite the fact that the images can only be viewed in September, the process includes the verbal report from Martin Grime, an expert in dogs that are used in investigations and an FBI advisor, who says that he "noticed in the first instance", as soon as he entered the apartment, that the dogs "are very excited" and how the handler can "pick up the body language".
He then explains that Eddie (one of the dogs) was the first one to get into action. When he entered the house "he caught up with an odour that he recognises". Martin tells that the animal walked through the apartment in an attempt to locate the odour, and that he discovered it behind the sofa in the living room. At that moment, he started to bark. Keela was the second to go into action. "She will only give me the indication when she finds human blood, only human blood", the expert says, asserting that "there has to be something there, physically, for her to be able to alert me".
In the dispatch, the prosecutor reminds that "any trace, even if invisible to the naked eye, which is collected through the use of this type of dogs, has to be subject to a forensics test, in a duly accredited laboratory".
MADDIE IS STILL ALIVE Daily Star
By Jerry Lawton
7th August 2008
MADELEINE McCann could be with a travelling circus, according to a Dutch shop worker who is convinced she has seen her alive.
Anna Stam said last night she was "certain" a girl who came into her Amsterdam store a month after Madeleine vanished was the missing child.
She said the girl, who looked just like the missing youngster,– said her name was "Maddie" and told her: "They took me from my holiday."
A woman with the girl told the party shop worker they were attached to a small circus from France.
Last night the McCanns' private eyes appealed to Europe's travelling circus community for help in tracking down the missing girl, who would now be five.
Their spokesman Clarence Mitchell said dozens of witness sightings like Anna's, which had been locked away in police files for 15 months, had given the family fresh hope of finding their daughter alive.
They are now planning to make a new BBC1 Crimewatch appeal using information from the case files made public this week.
He said: "Given that we have a lot of new information it may be something that we revisit. I'm talking to the BBC."
Anna, 41, did not report her sighting to police until last June – a month after it happened – because she had not heard before then of Madeleine's disappearance from her holiday apartment in Portugal.
Her statement lay locked away in police files for over a year.
It was unearthed this week after Portugal's Attorney General cleared Maddie's parents Kate and Gerry, both 40, of any involvement in the disappearance and archived the case as unsolved. He ordered the evidence to be made public.
Last night Anna said she felt it had been "stupid" of police not to follow up her sighting.
She said: "Madeleine could be somewhere in the world performing with the circus. Who knows? It may have just been a story.
"But I certainly think she could still be alive. I am certain the girl I saw was her."
She added: "I made a statement to Dutch police but was told that the Portuguese detectives thought the girl’s parents were involved.
"I never spoke to anyone from Portugal and never heard another thing. I just hope it’s not too late.
"I think it's stupid of the police. They could have done something more at that time and maybe now it’s too late to find any clue."
She said the girl had dark-brown hair in a ponytail, a pallid face which showed "little or no emotion" and "huge" green-brown eyes, which were very noticeable.
Anna said the girl entered the shop with a man, woman and two other children, according to her statement to Dutch police.
The man – who "did not look like a nice person" – appeared to be speaking Portuguese but the woman spoke in English and told Anna they had a small circus in France.
Anna was at the back of the shop when the girl approached her and asked in unaccented English: "Do you know where my mummy is?" On being told that her mother was a little further back in the store, the child replied: "She is not my mummy."
She added: "She is a stranger. She took me from my mummy."
Yesterday Anna said: "The girl said she was looking for her mummy ... and not for her mother ... she called herself 'Maddie'.
"At first I thought it was 'Maggie', that's why I remember, but she made clear it wasn't Maggie, it was Maddie."
The McCanns' private investigators were last night on their way to Amsterdam to quiz Anna.
They believe the youngster was snatched in her sleep by a people trafficking gang.
A source close to the investigation said: "It is perfectly possible that Madeleine has been sold into a circus community."
They will also investigate a second possible sighting of her in the Dutch city.
McCANN ROW LED TO KATE MOVING
KATE and Gerry McCann had a row the night before Madeleine disappeared and slept in separate rooms, police files revealed.
And 24 hours later the pair were not sitting next to each other at the tapas bar dinner table when their daughter vanished, according to a seating plan drawn up by Kate.
The police dossier of evidence includes Kate's witness statement from September 6 last year – the day before she was made a suspect in the case.
Detectives asked Madeleine's mother whether she ever slept in her daughter's room in the family's apartment in the Ocean Club resort in Praia da Luz, Portugal.
She confirmed this happened part way through their holiday – on the night of May 2 last year – after she argued with Gerry because he had ignored her at the tapas bar.
The next night Madeleine vanished as her parents ate at the bar with their friends.
The witness statement went on: "She does not know whether Gerry was aware that she slept in the other room as he was already asleep when she left."
Kate also told police that Madeleine had slept in the room she and Gerry occupied the night before.
The police files also reveal the couple did not sit next to each other at dinner on May 3 – when Madeleine vanished.
Kate drew a plan showing where the McCanns and their friends were sitting at the tapas restaurant.
The diagram reveals that Fiona Payne sat between the couple.
The friends on holiday with the McCanns when Madeleine went missing – who have become known as the "Tapas Seven" – were crucial to the investigation.
They were moving around the Ocean Club complex throughout the evening checking on their children.
TAKEN BY 'SEX RING'
Brit cops received intelligence suggesting Madeleine McCann could have been snatched to order by a Belgian paedophile ring.
Someone took a snap of her on holiday in Portugal and forwarded it to a "purchaser" in Belgium.
The intelligence is in an email dated March 4 this year and sent to Leicestershire Police and forwarded to Portuguese detectives.
It was included in the dossier of evidence in the Madeleine case made public this week.
Shame of cops The Sun
Published: Today, 07 August 2008
The Sun says
WE already knew that the hunt for Madeleine McCann was a shambles — but the sheer scale of police incompetence beggars belief.
Thousands of documents, CCTV images and photographs prove that they systematically ignored or trampled crucial evidence.
Chances to catch Madeleine's abductor were missed, likely sightings downplayed and trails allowed to run cold.
Police were so focused on pinning the blame on Kate and Gerry McCann they refused to publish crucial e-fit images of suspects.
Eyewitness sightings are gold-dust in any kidnapping investigation.
This fiasco leaves a stain on Portugal’s image as a modern, crime-fighting society.
It can only be erased with an official apology to Madeleine's tormented parents.
I saw 'Maddie' too The Sun
By LUCY HAGAN in Amsterdam
and VERONICA LORRAINE in Praia da Luz
Published: Today, 07 August 2008
A SECOND possible sighting of Madeleine McCann in Amsterdam was revealed last night.
Pensioner Hannie Wiechmann said she saw a little girl with an anxious woman near her home in the Dutch city days after Maddie vanished from her family’s holiday apartment in Portugal.
Hannie, 71, believed a crude attempt had been made to disguise the child by cutting and dyeing her hair, giving her a badly-trimmed fringe and some red locks. But she said: "Those eyes . . . I knew it was her."
Hannie spoke 24 hours after released police files revealed Amsterdam party shop worker Anna Stam spoke to an English girl who called herself Maddie.
She was with an odd couple and told 41-year-old Anna: "They took me from my holiday." She said of the woman with her: "She is not my mummy."
Hannie's sighting was in the centre of the canal city near Weteringsplantsoen at around the same time in May last year.
She said: "I saw a woman aged 30 to 35 continuously walking up and down the waterside. You could see by the way she handled the kid that she was not used to children. The woman had brown curly hair. She spoke English with the girl.
"Maddie wore a pink woollen coat that reached her calfs. I know because she reminded me of my own daughter when she was that young. Maddie was delighted by my dog diving into the water."
Favourite
The lost girl was in pink pyjamas when she was snatched in Praia da Luz just before her fourth birthday. And pink was her favourite colour.
Hannie said she called cops, who arrived to challenge the woman. The pensioner said: "She told the police she was a tourist and was babysitting the little girl. That was it. They didn't ask for any name — not mine nor hers."
Hannie claimed she saw the girl again the following week. She said: "She came to me to pat the dog. Then I let her go. It was stupid of me but I thought that since the police were so convinced it wasn’t Maddie, it didn't matter."
Dutch police refused to comment on Hannie's story last night, referring all queries to Portuguese cops. But it WILL be followed up by private detectives acting for Maddie’s parents Kate and Gerry.
They will also talk to Anna, who yesterday revealed a string of further clues that could boost the hunt for the child.
The Sun took Anna back to the shop where she saw the Maddie lookalike.
She told how the child was wearing a distinctive PINK top bearing the English wording "Little Beavers".
Anna said the child was never called by name by the couple with her.
They said they had a small circus in France and addressed her as La Petite — French for Little One.
The assistant added she had green eyes and an expressionless face identical to a picture of Maddie she saw after the girl’s disappearance became news in Holland.
Anna reported her sighting to Dutch police, who passed the information to Portuguese detectives. But she never heard from them — and they never informed the McCanns of her story.
Anna said: "The Portuguese certainly could have done more, which I think everyone believes. Now I just want to do anything I can to help. I want to speak to British detectives and to Kate and Gerry McCann."
More details from the released Portuguese police files emerged yesterday.
They revealed Kate and Gerry slept in separate beds after having a row the night before Maddie vanished.
A file written by three inspectors said of Kate: "When asked if she ever slept in Madeleine's room, she said that happened on Wednesday because she had fallen out with Gerry after he ignored her after dinner when they went to the tapas bar.
"She decided to retaliate by sleeping in another room."
The files also show a table plan drawn by Kate, showing she was not sitting next to Gerry at dinner on the night Maddie went missing. She was between pals Rachel Oldfield and Fiona Payne, while Gerry was on the other side of Fiona.
Another document revealed expat Robert Murat was made a suspect because he showed an "unusual curiosity" in the case while acting as an interpreter.
Property developer Mr Murat, 34 — cleared last month of any involvement — was also said to have had "enormous knowledge" of the McCanns' holiday complex and their routine. The report added: "He also tried constantly to influence the direction of the investigation."
THE McCanns are planning a Crimewatch reconstruction on TV to revitalise the search for Maddie. They are in talks with the BBC to see if a re-enactment can be carried out including the swathes of new information emerging from the released files.
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