INTRODUCTION
23rd April 2017, and with the 10 year anniversary since the reported disappearance of Madeleine McCann looming, Australia's Channel 7 aired a show on their Sunday Night programme titled 'Gone'. The show promised to give a balanced report into the case of Madeleine - what they delivered was something far from balanced, and even further from the truth. Split into 5 parts, the show was presented by Rahni Sadler, and seemingly sellotaped together snippets of interviews in the most unethical manner. Over the next two days we will be dissecting the documentary, and exposing it for the blatant McCann PR piece it was.
PART ONE
7m 34s: Presenter - Rahni Sadler "The front door was locked, but the sliding patio doors at the back were left unlocked to allow easy access to check on their children"
Rahni conveniently makes no mention of the McCanns' original claims that the apartment was locked. We covered this in the following blog:
http://laidbareblog.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/more-mccann-lies-crock-of-locked-v.html
In the above link are several quotes from the McCanns' friends and family, who all stated the apartment was locked. There is also a diagram (duplicated below) that shows the routes the McCanns claim to have taken to check on the children. In the programme Rahni states that the patio door - it being the closest by some distance - was left unlocked to allow easy access to check on their children. As you will see from the above blog - which contains links to the McCanns' statements - the McCanns claim that they entered the apartment using their key, and that they didn't use the sliding door. Why would the McCanns walk twice the distance to use a locked door, if they had left another, closer door unlocked? Rahni of course, fails to mention any of these anomalies, and more.
Tellingly, Rahni also neglects to tell the viewers, that in the McCanns' original version of events, they told friends and family that someone had 'smashed', 'jemmied', and 'broken the shutters to the apartment to gain access. This was a complete lie; it was proven that their was no sign of forced entry.
9m 56s: Kate describes, how 'the curtains, which had been closed, swung open', an amazing feat given that it was a still evening, and one of the curtains - as can be seen on the photograph below - was tucked down between the wall and the bed.
Kate then tells a tale of how the shutters 'were all the way up, and the window had been pushed right across'. This is a version of events that - had this been an honest interview - should have been challenged. The shutters were designed in such a fashion, that the only way they would have stayed up, is if they had been locked in that position from the inside of the apartment. Given that there was no forced entry, it is hard - if not impossible - to believe, that had an intruder entered through an unlocked door, that they would then leave through a small window (which as can be seen by the diagram below, was adjacent to the front door), having clambered over furniture carrying Madeleine, raised a set of shutters - that made a lot of noise -, and done so without waking the twins who were sleeping in the same room.
PART 2
1m 09s: Rahni claims police didn't join the search for some 2 hours; this is a blatant lie. They weren't even contacted until 41 minutes after the alarm was raised. The first call was received at 22H41 and the GNR arrived at 23H00 a mere 18 to 19 minutes, the journey time to arrive from Odiaxere to PDL. The Statements from GNR officers Nelson Da Costa and Jose Roque are there for all to read, yet are seemingly ignored by the production team:
1m 16s: Reporter Paul Luckman - editor of The Portugal News - is next up with more misinformation; he states that police were looking for a child who had wandered away, and that 'the whole focus was on a little girl that had got lost'. If that were true (it isn't), then the police must have thought Madeleine could 'wander' at speeds equivalent to that of a motor vehicle, given that before midnight a control post had been set up on the Guadiana bridge, connecting Portugal and Spain, all police in Portugal had been informed as well as Interpol.
CCTV was requested from the two main motorways in the area. Spanish customs at two ports with links to Morocco, Tarifa and Algeciras were also alerted. Contact was made with all marinas, and video recordings, as well as registers of all boats leaving and entering within the last few days were requested.
2m 24s: Rahni Sadler claims that 'from the start, the police investigation had significant failings. Instead of closing off the apartment as a crime scene, dozens of people came and went, trampling through the rooms, and the yard, searching for any sign of Madeleine. In the process recoverable evidence was destroyed, vital clues lost forever'. Rahni then asks Paul Luckman; 'So it was not at the beginning, considered a crime?'
Luckman: 'No'.
Sadler: 'Or a crime scene?'
Luckman: 'No, no, it really wasn't...in the first few days...nobody even considered this could be something else'
Firstly it has to be said that the crime scene had already been compromised by the McCanns, their friends, and staff from the Ocean Club, as described by Goncalo Amaral:
"The search and examination of the scene were carried out in difficult conditions: when they arrived, the police were met with a large number of people coming and going - family, friends, resort employees, including dogs and members of the National Guard. The contamination of the premises risks bringing serious prejudice, as a consequence, to the investigation. We must ask ourselves if that contamination was deliberate or not - it can make the search for clues particularly complicated. The Lisbon scenes of crime technicians come as reinforcements to start the examination of the residence, which is from now on empty."
The window and the shutters, that the McCanns had claimed were the point of entry, had been interfered with by Gerry McCann, and others, as can be seen from Dianne Webster's rogatory statement:
“Yeah I mean I can remember going out there and in fact there was me and somebody else, I don’t know who else there was, to see if it could be raised from, from outside, I didn’t spend too long err trying it.”
As for Luckman's totally untrue claims, that in the first few days 5a wasn't treated like a crime scene, I wonder if he could explain why during the night and into the next day, forensic testing took place:
"The fingerprint inspection was only carried out on the inside of the window because it was night time, the location was sealed and preserved so that light conditions would permit the inspection of the residence to be finalised."
Interestingly, the only prints found on the inside of the window, belonged to Kate McCann, no wonder Rahni lied about forensics not being taken:
"VESTIGES COLLECTED
5….. Fingerprints….Inside interior window of the children’s bedroom…..DBT…..Suf
1. Methodology and means of operation:
2. Established number of supposed authors:
3. Abandoned objects:
4. Objects or values that were the target of the crime:
5. Importance of the damage incurred:
Observations: The fingerprint traces collected are identified as being the middle finger of the left hand (3x) and forefinger of the left hand (2x), of the missing girl’s mother.
The fingerprint inspection was only carried out on the inside of the window because it was night time, the location was sealed and preserved so that light conditions would permit the inspection of the residence to be finalised."
"On 4 May 2007, at 15:30, a Crime Scene team from the Police Science Laboratory, comprising the undersigned, went, at the request of DIC PJ Portimao, to a dwelling situated at Apartment 5A, of Block A of the tourist accommodation building, "Ocean Club" - Praia da Luz, Lagos, in order to perform a specialist examination of the location."
On the subject of forensics:
"After 00.00 a team from this police force arrived at the scene and immediately began diligencies, namely fingerprint inspection which only revealed the collection of prints from people who had legitimate access to the apartment. The bedroom was also examined by Scientific Police Laboratory, which collected numerous vestiges for continuous examinations, which up until now have not contributed to a full clarification of the facts."
"After 00.00 a team from this police force arrived at the scene and immediately began diligencies, namely fingerprint inspection which only revealed the collection of prints from people who had legitimate access to the apartment. The bedroom was also examined by Scientific Police Laboratory, which collected numerous vestiges for continuous examinations, which up until now have not contributed to a full clarification of the facts."
Goncalo Amaral discussed the forensic testing in his book the McCanns tried, and failed to ban 'The Truth of The Lie'
"Inside the apartment, police forensic specialists proceed to lift finger and palm prints, a job that is preferably carried out during daylight hours. Others look for traces of blood, samples of fibres and hair."
Yet, the documentary fail to mention any of this, instead preferring to lie, and portray the police as bungling amateurs.
