Misunderstood or just a plain devious bunch of villains

Let the Tapas speak please, and without interruption...plenty of time to ask awkward questions about what they got up to later on...thank you for your patience.

 The Tapas 9 - How Could They?!!

Hindsight, they say, is a wonderful thing.  If the reader can just place themselves at the Tapas bar in the Mark Warner Holiday resort for a moment please, go on, close your eyes! Thank you.

It's May 1st 2007 and there you are, having a quiet beer and just people watching; looking around at those dining al fresco, until your gaze rests upon a large group laughing and joking among themselves.  You decide they are a well heeled middle class bunch who must know one another pretty well; seemingly relaxed, old buddies and definitely not people befriending on the holiday itself.

Turning back to your beer, you think no more of it, then, one morning a few months later, taking a sandwich at lunch at your desk you casually pick up a newspaper and catch an article about a little girl who disappeared while on holiday at the same resort as you were, and not only that the same time as you.

Intrigued, you take a look at the pictures in the paper accompanying the article and, you have a vague feeling you saw them yourself while you were there.  The article tells you they were all senior medical professionals and the like; heart surgeons and such, and the little girl went missing while she was left alone in her apartment for an entire evening, every evening, unsupervised.  How could they, of all people, do such a thing?

It's a question often asked of these people.

So who exactly were they? Well, first off, let's introduce them. This summary from the gerryccannsblogs.co.uk website and elsewhere.

Kate McCann: Mother of three. Studied medicine at University of Dundee, initially Gynaecology, then Anaesthesiology.  Family commitments led her to become a part time G.P.

Gerry McCann: Studied medicine at Glasgow University, initially specialising in sports related medicine, then splitting his time as a Cardiologist between a private consultancy with BUPA and The University Hospital Leicester.

David Payne: Held a temporary post as a Senior research Fellow in Cardiovascular Sciences Leicester University unitl 2003, then a surgeon at Leicester Royal Infirmary specialising in strokes.

Fiona Payne: Mother of two. From her rogatory interview on 10th April 2008 with Leicester Police we learn she is an anaesthetist working at Leicester working in obstetrics, on the labour ward doing epidurals and caesarean sections, in ICU and theatres and resuscitation.

Jane Michelle Tanner: Mother of two, and a marketing manager by profession.

Russell James O'Brien: A Consultant working with Gerry McCann.

Matthew David Oldfield: Previously a work colleague of Gerry McCann at Leicester, he moved to Kingston Hospital in Surrey working as an Endocrinologist ( a specialty of diagnosis and treatment of diseases related to hormones).

Rachael Oldfield (nee Mampilly): Mother of one and qualified solicitor worked as a tax lawyer and now employed as a 'head hunter' specialising in placing Finance Directors.

Dianne Webster: A credit controller by profession, mother to Fiona and grandmother to the two Payne children.  Apart from her blood ties she doesn't appear to have much in common with the rest of this high flying group which is reflected in the author's, and many others, view with her independent outlook to holiday activities, gravitating only when necessary back into the collective fold.

Tomorrow I'll take a quick look at the dynamics of the relationships inside this group, nothing in depth though, just scene setting is all.

Madeleine herself

Before I start, happy new year world!!! May the year bring all you wish for you and yours.... Now lets continue with the Madeleine mystery.....

You are reading these words because you are interested in the disappearance of a little girl by the name of Madeleine Beth McCann, while asleep, on holiday in Apartment 5A at the Mark Warner Holiday Complex in Praia Da Luz, Southern Portugal on 3rd May 2007: That or your internet browsing experience has taken a rather odd turn and you are about to hit the browser back button.  Of course I'm interested too, enough to write a blog on the subject that will explain how the state of affairs we are at now has evolved, for the benefit of new recruits to the mystery.

Apt 5A showing the steps leading from the
balcony onto Rua Dr Fransisco Gentil Martins

The more pertinent question, however is why are we so interested.  People disappear every day and are never seen again, many of them children.  Sometimes the disappearance makes it into a national newspaper, footnoted alongside adverts for deaf aids and competing with reports of World Conker/Bungee jumping competitions.  So why has Madeleine McCann become a global news story?

Putting a face to this little girl is easy, for images of her abound throughout the internet.  What we see is a pretty, but otherwise physically unremarkable young girl. She was not even special as a personality, how could she be? Not even four years old; a personality is still embryonic; evolving, and therefore generic in terms of any other little girl; nothing to point her out in a crowd.

Some may argue that the 'social status' of the parents, being professional people to whom we would trust our well-being, even our lives, is part of the fascination.  Personally, I disagree, if only because, in my opinion, their perceived complicity in the girl's disappearance - or not, has shallow roots in the chattering classes who inhabit internet forums:  They are a subset to the mystery; the tail of the dog, and we all know the tail never wags the dog.

This is no reason, though, to ignore what little information we have about her short life up to the point of her disappearance.  To do so would relegate her to a debating point devoid of any personality; any humanity, however much it may be a mere work in progress for one so young. So let's, out of respect take a look at what we do know, little as it is, to reinforce our understanding that she did have an effect on those she came into contact with, however superficial that may be.

Whatever the reader may feel personally about Kate McCann, as Madeleine's mother she knew the little girl best.  We have a few of these recollections from Kate in her book. Madeleine suffered from colic and cried for much of the first 4 months.  In 2006 Kate tells us of a little girl on a visit to Stonehurst Farm who loved feeding the sheep, talking to donkeys and swinging on a rope in the Barn, and chatting away to the farmer.  She was a confident independent little girl who at 3 was incredibly bright and perceptive.  She loved Harry Potter, introducing an imaginary Harry, Hermione and the rest to her mum one at a time.  Some insight too can be found from others.

From Karen McCalmen's Rogatory interview with Leicester Police on 16th May 2008.

"I never saw Madeleine ill and I consider her a healthy child. I never saw changes in her behaviour.

Madeleine never made complaints about anybody. She never showed bad behaviour, in fact she was almost the perfect child. We could hear her reason [talk/discuss/argue] like she was an adult.

She never seemed scared. She was not hyperactive.

Regarding the sleep habits of Madeleine, Kate told me that when they lived in Queniborough Madeleine used to wake in the middle of the night and come to bed with the parents for the rest of the night. When they moved to Rothley she began to do this less often and the parents used to give her stickers as a bonus to sleep all night alone.

I remember that many of these stickers were there at home, by night she slept the night all alone. The stickers were stuck on the door of the refrigerator.

Kate and Gerry never seemed tired and never argued about how to handle the children.

I have no knowledge of Madeleine at any time to have been subjected to medication. I only remember her being given paracetamol once when she had a cold.

I think the behaviour of Madeleine appropriate for her age. She was very energetic, but a model child. She liked to swim, play tennis and ride a bicycle and attend kindergarten."

Also from Hayley Plummer in her Rogatory interview with leicester Police on 6th May 2008

"Madeline was a very polite and affectionate girl, particularly in respect to the twins. At the nursery she was a very popular girl and it was a pleasure to have her near.

She seemed to be a very alert girl and she always adapted well. The only time I remember her feeling a little intimidated was when she changed classroom for the first time and she was placed with more children who were a bit older.

She would show some shyness when she was left by her parents but she adapted rapidly so that they would leave after she finished her breakfast.

Madeleine made many friends at the nursery but her best friend was Sophia. I think that Kate and Sophia's mother (Sally) became good friends based upon the friendship between their daughters."

And from Sharon Lewin, a teaching assistant in her Rogatory on 21st April 2008

"I always think of Madeleine as an alert and affectionate girl who liked to live. She was very advanced for her age and independent. She liked to dance and to dress up."

Not much I'm afraid, but at least we can remind ourselves she was a living breathing little human being with it all in front of her.

The Complete Mystery of Madeleine McCann Forum (CMOMM) some facts and figures

Any stats I come up with here are to be taken at face value when you decide whether such Forums are of any use to you.  I don’t know whether they are good or bad because I have not compared them to any other Forum.  In any case, the personality of the Forum is probably more important, and whether this is a place you will love, or wouldn’t be seen dead in.  There again, looking at the structure of CMOMM does no harm and might be informative.

As I speak this morning there are 118 users on-line, 111 of them guests. The total number of registered users (members I guess) is 3,206, up from 2084 in November 2012 which tells us this Forum continues to grow at a healthy rate.  How much of the increase is due to a drive to enlist in October 2013, following the BBC Crime-watch re-enactment is not known but could be significant…who knows J  In any 24 hours there may be around 200 registered users popping in for a look-see.

The Forum owner ‘joined’ on 25^th November 2009 so we can take it that is when the Forum came on-line.  Interestingly, Tony Bennett, their most high profile member joined on that date too; I will leave you to make your own assumptions here. More peculiar, given his ‘national’ status, is his pervasive and very influential presence in the running of the Forum while not appearing to hold any official status.

The forum is policed and supported as follows.

Forum Owner

Co-Admin

Moderator

Forum Support

MM research Group

Knutsford Research Group

Fund and Private Tecs research Group

Madeleine Foundation.

All pretty impressive eh?  Well maybe, we’ll see.

Let’s take a look at these pretendy research groups.

The Madeleine McCann Research Group appear to be behind a publication entitled “50 facts about the Maddie case that the British Media are not telling you” At least according to one pro-McCann blogger I have found on the ‘net. (I told you it would be like this didn’t I?). It is manned by Forum members such as ‘Tigger’ and ‘PeterMac’ What is the poor, uninformed, prospective Forum member to make of this?

The Madeleine Foundation is a vehicle for Tony Bennett, publishing such titles as “The Madeleine McCann Case Files Volume 1” and “What really happened to Madeleine McCann? 60 reasons which suggest she was not abducted” A visit to the site has piqued my interest in Bennett and I shall be taking a closer look at him at some point.

The Knutsford Research Group enforcer.

Of course you've heard of them. They're big
in Research and Investigation don't you know.

The Knutsford Research Group draws a blank I’m afraid.  It may be something to do with the David Edgar/Arthur Cowley investigation into Madeleine’s disappearance set up by Brian Kennedy, a wealthy McCann supporter, which operated out of Knutsford.

The Fund and Private Tecs Research Group maybe is just that, somebody somewhere is looking into matters relating to the McCanns considerable No Stone Unturned fund, and maybe into the shenanigans involving the antics of the sometimes farcical private investigators Kate and Gerry have employed over the years.

All in all this offering  to prospective members by the Forum of serious research by research groups which sound like respectable bodies of integrity is a bit of a sham.  For research read propaganda maybe.

NOW IS THE TIME TO REMIND AND REASSURE PEOPLE ONCE AGAIN I HAVE NO BIAS!! Just a wish to inform!!

Tomorrow I want to continue with some stats, look at the Forum members who are officers assigned with responsibilities, and maybe start taking a peek inside what gets discussed in discussion groups.

And it all kicks off.....

Introduction

It's the 28th April 2007 and Gerry McCann,a Cardiologist at Glenfield Hospital in Leicester, his wife Kate a part time GP,  their eldest little girl Madeleine, almost 4 years old, and her sibling twins board a plane at East Midlands Airport looking forward to a week in the sunshine on the Algarve in Portugal.   Travelling with them are Fiona Payne, a friend of Kates from their time as Anaesthetist Registrars at Leicester General ICU since 2000, her surgeon husband David and their two children, and Fiona's mother Dianne Webster.

On their arrival the party transfer to the Mark Warner Holiday Resort based in the small seaside village of Praia Da Luz, a few miles to the west of the old capital of Lagos where they meet up with the remainder of the party comprising Jane Tanner, her partner Russell O'Brien and their children, also doctors, and finally Matthew and Rachael Oldfield and their child, all of whom are friends of the Paynes. The holiday appears to unwind in an uneventful and relaxed manner until the 3rd of May when, in the course of just 12 hours a series of extraordinary events take place which sow the seeds to forever change the lives of all concerned and bring about fierce debate on the internet and elsewhere that has still has not abated over six years later.

According to the files of the Policia Judicaire, Madeleine McCann is last seen by an independent witness at around 5:30 in the afternoon of 3rd of May.  David Payne recalls seeing her and her siblings around 7:00 pm in their apartment with Kate, after which she is never seen again.  At around 10:00pm Kate checks on her children, left in the apartment while they dined, and discovers that Madeleine is missing. In the following pages you will come to understand both the events of the holiday and intervening years, and the reasons why this disappearance, above all others has become so contentious and all embracing.

Involved in this web of intrigue are Governments, political leaders, diplomats, Official Secrets denials of information, and some of the finest and most expensive legal minds in the world, not to mention millions of pounds of taxpayers money and Fund donations from the wealthiest in our society down to the pocket money of small children.

This blog seeks to take an objective look at both the mystery itself, and the quite sensational international fallout from Madeleine's disappearance and the subsequent, often bizarre consequences for the holiday group, later to become known as 'The Tapas 9', Chronicling events up to the Scotland Yard review commissioned by the current Prime Minister David Cameron and the imminent £1 million libel suit against Goncalo Amaral over his book 'The Truth Of The Lie', in particular his conclusion that Madeleine died in Apartment 5A sometime on the 3rd May 2007. 

I hope you will always keep in mind that widespread criticism, where it is discussed in the following days and weeks, reflects the views of persistent and vocal sceptics and will be presented as such in a 3rd party arm's length manner.  Often with legitimate justification it can be said the criticism levelled at various members of the Tapas 9 has been the result of their own deeds and words; a kind of infamy earned not bestowed.

The Complete Mystery of Madeleine McCann Forum

Intro

As I said, I’m interested in the dynamics of Forums, and the disappearance of Madeleine Beth McCann.  I guess the Forums bit is not something that would interest everyone, but for a student of the McCann mystery it could provide a guide as to their usefulness to researchers as well as a social home from home to discuss all things Maddie.  It all depends on whether it is possible in the first place to be neutral and open minded in your chosen Forum when interacting with others. Even when a person has a predisposition or bias that initially draws them to a Forum of, well superficially at least, like minded individuals.  Do you want debate or reassurance?

Banned again dear? Stop recommending Kate McCann
for a Dame in the New Years Honours, you know
they don't like it.

This Forum has a kind of mission statement along the lines of

 "What really happened to Madeleine McCann? Why not join our forum and help search for the truth?"

So does it actually do what it says on the tin?

The Forum itself has around 30 discussion groups, however many are are just subsets of a set (group) called 'The Latest News'. These "subsets" mostly concentrate on  such things as the recent Crime Watch reconstruction, the libel tribulations of Tony Bennett for pushing his views when told not to by due legal process and Amaral, the Portuguese detective, for having the temerity to conclude Madeleine McCann died in the holiday apartment the family were staying at in Praia Da Luz.

There are also, strangely discussion groups set up to promote books by Amaral and Paul Cristavao a former Portuguese police inspector who worked with Amaral at the time.  There is also a group dedicated to a free E-Book by Michael McClean, a former detective with no first hand experience of the case.  these groups have little activity in terms of views or replies within the group and I feel they have no merit in a 'discussion context'.  There are effectively just two important discussion groups.

•  Debate Section - for purporting theories
• McCann Case: Latest News

It is these two groups I will be taking a closer look at.

Lets make a start then....

Madeleine McCann Forum World

As far as Forums go my interest in society and technology make these creatures irresistible because in many ways they have a structure that pretty much mirrors what we might find in the real world. What I sense with Madeleine McCann (MM) Forums though are societies a little in the mould of totalitarian states. No Knitting Circle/Model Making Forum democracies here!! For sure their structures are identical to any other Forum, but with one exception; the Forum owners are akin to fundamentalist despots.  How so? It's because, in my view, their Forum only came into existence as a result of their preconceptions and to make sure the Forum stays on message the owner employs his own Stasi of members, promoting them to officers with the power to silence and evict those foolish enough to go 'off message'

There are two ways of expressing yourself on here,
My way and the wrong way

It would be impossible for me, as an individual with a life of my own to live, to look at all the MM Forums on the internet.  Indeed there are a lot of crackpot discussion sites with very entertaining theories on the disappearance of this little girl, but edifying and educational they ain't.  So how to go about selecting just one to start with, an important one.  Because I have done previous research on this mystery I have already visited Forums, and Google knows my preferences so I have asked my brother, who has no interest in the subject at all to Google MM Forums on his computer.  The results show a high profile for 'The Complete Mystery of Madeleine McCann' so this is the site I have chosen to take a look at.  It is an anti McCann site, which is no surprise as such Forums have a preponderance on the net. It also has a VIP member, Tony Bennett, a retired solicitor who has made national news having been sued by the McCanns over public statements he has made and written. Will my own preconceptions be proven right?  Who knows, but we'll see.

The Mystery Itself

So let's leave Forums for a mo' and take a look at the mystery itself.  Sadly there are no literary works available in the UK that will provide a balanced view on what happened to Madeleine; no wealth of literature from scholarly ivory towers of considered opinion is universally available to you to seek your own truth when it comes to what you are allowed to read regarding this mystery; the objectivity of literature available here in the UK is a double headed coin forged by the McCanns; their truth alone, circulated through the medium of litigation making all of us the poorer for it.

No-one though ever seems to learn the lesson that suppression never quenches flames, just ignites them.  Suppression of facts is different to the suppression of truth, or lies for that matter; another lesson the McCanns never turned up for in the University of Life and Hard Knocks.  Truth and its antithesis, lies eh?; you pays your money and takes your choice. What really pisses people off though is the suppression of facts. Where can we turn then, in our search for these facts? As rare as hen's teeth I'm afraid and only available on the internet once you have read, and put to one side, Kate McCann's book 'Madeleine'

Also on the internet is the book by Goncalo Amaral 'The Truth of the Lie' which may be read as an antidote to Kate's book.  Does Amaral have an agenda? Of course he does, he was taken off the investigation and subsequently sacked.  Is his version of the facts the real one?  It probably benefits from a lot more factual information than Kate's effort, but not provably so, otherwise the McCanns would be languishing on a different kind of holiday at the Queen's expense.

The wellspring of all factual information may be found on the mccannpjfiles.co.uk/ website.  It is ironic that though the translation of the Policia Judicaire files to be found here are the facts of the case, the truth of what is contained therein during interviews with witnesses is THEIR truth and not necessarily THE truth.  It might well be, probably is, that the real truth may not be found even here.

But we have to start somewhere.  It is my distillation of the facts that you may draw upon to form an opinion which may then allow you to explore the mystery independently or in Forums, of what happened to Madeleine McCann.  If you are looking for something new to be written or said by me about this case, the internet Forum veteran perhaps, please go no further as you will be wasting your time.

What's the point of it all?

Hi everyone, anyone.... welcome to the blog. We all like a mystery I guess and only time diminishes how personally we view a mysterious disappearance. We may shrug our shoulders at what happened to, say, Glen Miller, Jimmy Hoffa, or Amelia Earhart because they are long gone. Hey, but even when a disappearance is still 'live', where there is the possibility those who vanish might still be found, people like Lord Lucan for instance, then the reaction might still be so what, who cares anyway? They were architects of their own fate, after all, they had a choice in how they lived their future or met their demise.

But let's set famous personages aside for a moment, after all most folk who go missing are, on the surface at least ordinary Joe's. Here we somehow recognise a tragedy, feelings are stirred within us, doubly so when it is a child. In the UK a child is reported missing every 3 minutes, and an article in the Independent Newspaper tells us that between 16,000 and 20,000 people have gone missing from family and friends for more than a year.  Sometimes, though, the public imagination is caught, as in the case of Ben Needham.  A quick look at Wikipedia tells us Ben went missing on 24th July 1991 at just 21 months old from the Greek Island of Kos and despite numerous reported sightings over the years no trace of the British child has ever been found.  But historical context has done it's bit and 1991 is a long time ago and though we are talking about a child who may well still be alive and living his adult years among us, can we still care today in the same way as we still seem to care about Madeleine McCann?  Will she, in her turn, fade away into history the way Ben Needham did, and anyway what's so important about her; why is she any different from the 16-20,000 other unfortunates who leave a trail of desolation in the lives of those who cared for and about them?

An iconic (and occasionally

disputed) image of Madeleine

taken poolside at the Mark 

Warner Holiday Resort in

Praia Da Luz May 2007

What makes Madeleine's disappearance remarkable are the antics of her parents and indeed the holiday group as a whole, their actions and words, in turn bizarre, exasperating, inconsistent, controlling, occasionally seemingly uncaring even, raised the hackles and suspicions of many as to the complicity of the parents themselves in her disappearance.

But what about the Forums?

Having said all of that, there is another prong to this blog, and that is to look at the remarkable world of Madeleine McCann Forums and their part in keeping the mystery alive almost seven years later. Madeleine McCann Forums are curious animals that allow themselves no compromise; there is no half way, no balance in the way they have evolved. There are only pro and anti McCann Forums, and within each Forum is often an internecine battle between members, usually fundamentalists and free thinkers or in other words long term members and transients.  In my view, this bloody and eternal struggle through the length and breadth of the internet has been so bitter the focus has long since shifted from the disappearance of Madeleine Beth McCann and she has become forgotten, an afterthought in the whole saga as the focus of bile or ingratiation (depending on your own personal beliefs) now rages around the parents and the holiday group of which they were a part. Poor little Madeleine I say.

So that's what I am going to do, examine both the mystery itself in as neutral a way as possible, and evaluate just how a typical Forum works, it's organisational structure and ethics.  It matters little whether the Forum is pro or anti McCann for this purpose, the only concern being one of its usefulness and reliability to the general understanding of a student of this mystery. In doing so a little levity will be had along the way.

 As I said at the beginning...What's the point of it all?