Re: MATTHEW, I HAVE A COUPLE OF QUESTIONS FOR YOU RE: YOUR BEDROOM CHECK...........

by plebgate 28.04.17 9:10

Okeydokey wrote:Dead right Phoebe...how many partners caught out in adultery have claimed not to quite remember something or other! lol

The confusion strategy was apparent from the start.

Are we really supposed to believe that not one of these highly educated professionals (involved in medicine, health and law) didn't understand the importance of preserving the crime scene and preventing all and sundry tramping through it...especially since we know the McCanns claim they knew immediately that their daughter had been abducted and had not wandered off?

Let's be fair - did any one ever think that the statements would have been seen by the world wide general public and picked over by people from all different professions who are willing to give up their time to try and get to the bottom of it all.

Who would have thought that there were people in Portugal who would translate the files for FREE and thus allow the World to see what was said?

by Mirage 28.04.17 9:22

skyrocket wrote:@Verdi - I have to disagree with your overall conclusion:

'The rogatory interviews have never been, nor will ever be, of any value to a bona-fide official investigation. In short they are worthless - good sport for general criticism and comparison but that's where the value begins and ends'.

This general statement concerns me, particularly the word 'sport'. I accept that the answer to the question, 'What happened to Madeleine McCann?' will never be gleaned from the rogatories, but 'of no value' and 'worthless' is entirely incorrect, IMO (and note that I add that).

Let's just think about this for a moment. Say we have 7 educated people, who we will assume for now have involvement in, or knowledge of, a missing child case. For whatever reason they have agreed to help cover up whatever happened. They know they are going to be interviewed as witnesses. @Verdi, what you have proposed above is that in the 6 months prior to the interviews, instead of using the time to get their false stories in line with each other, someone with influence persuaded all of them to use the time to actually make sure that their still false stories were out of line with each other - to create false leads with different paths, you say.

The mind boggles at the complexity. Were/are the tapas 7 that good at acting/remembering? And, beyond that, the overall question for me anyway is, why would anyone with more than 2 brain cells agree to a course of action which would draw attention to the fact that one or more of the group was lying? You could argue that they, for what ever reason, were entirely confident that their statements were never going to reach court, but still it would be huge ask of anyone.

Whatever the truth, the facts are:

- the rogatories are in the public domain (was this ever envisaged by those involved?)
- the statements of each of the tapas 7 are not only inconsistent with each other, but also internally with themselves
- if Madeleine had been abducted on 3 May 2007, between 9pm and 10pm shall we say, there would be no reason at all for there to be such inconsistencies
- inconsistency in itself makes the rogatory statements critically important to any genuine official police investigation, irrespective of the value of the actual content

Beyond that, I actually believe that 7 brains (or 1 for that matter) are incapable of leakage when subjected to questioning, particularly with a skilled interviewer who allows the interviewee to waffle on to their hearts content. The 3 men seem particularly prone to this. In other words, IMO, there are truths in the rogatories; there are more untruths; and there are some irrational actions. It may be difficult to weed out the truths/untruths, but the irrational actions are glaringly clear (as highlighted by this post).

The rogatory statements are far from worthless - fact (IMO!).

I agree, @skyrocket.The rogatory interviews are revealing on many levels.

For example, most people dismiss Dianne Webster as someone on the periphery of this event. Someone who was persuaded to remain at the tapas table and look after bags as a major brouhaha erupted and everyone headed for 5a. As a grandmother my first thought would be, hell....damn the bags. I'm off to check my own grandchildren are ok.

Webster was asked specifically by the PJ in May 2007 if she had passed anyone when going down to the tapas bar that night. She said no. Yet in April 2008 she made a point of telling Leicester police she had since recalled passing Matthew Oldfield.

Any officer knows a change of statement is a red flag. And yet she was not pressed on this.

by qwertybartfast 28.04.17 10:53

For the avoidance of doubt I have no view on a cover up or the involvement of any party, and no one knows what happened. Any comments are simply observations based on publicly available material and I hope the appropriate authorities determine what actually happened.

The Webster 11 May 2007 account states:

She adds that that night, and after the occurrence of the facts under investigation, have been in the the apartment on two separate occasions. At the time described above she remained about 10 minutes in the apartment. After this time she returned to the restaurant to get her handbag as well as the camera of the couple McCANN and "baby monitor" of her daughter, and was soon back again in the apartment.

-----

If she went back to get her handbag, this implies quite a rush to leave the table and go to the apartment. In the rush she forgot her handbag, perhaps.

Compare this to the event as described in her rogatory statement. There appears to be a mismatch.

Another snippet from her PJ statement:

- However, she wants to stress that immediately afterwards, she went outside the apartment in order to ascertain whether she would be able to raise the shutters by hand from the outside, and found it was impossible for her. Consequently she infers that at the time of her arrival at the apartment the window would have been closed.

===

And this is the critical discrepancy. If Diane Webster had been at the apartment from the beginning then how can the accounts of the state of the window and shutters be reconciled.

In the Rogatory interview her position is vague about when she went to the apartment - this weakens the evidence on the state of the shutters because someone could claim they lowered them as part of the tests to determine whether they could have been opened from the outside.

by Verdi 28.04.17 12:03

BlueBag wrote:Matthew was quite specific in his interviews about the bedroom visit.

Regardless of what people think of the worth of rogatory interviews generally, Matthew's story doesn't make any sense.

Someone needs to pick him up on it.

You would think OG would have a few questions if they were an honest investigation.

It's not just Matthew Oldfield though is it - the McCann friends rogatory interviews are all riddled with contradiction and descrepency - it's a joke. The interview transcripts are there for all to see, whilst I appreciate the temptation to scrutinize them to the ninth degree (often use them myself for purposes of comparison), my point is they have no value as regards any official investigation, past present or future.

The rogatory interview process (quite uncommon occurence I believe) was initiated at the McCanns request, after they returned to the UK I might add - the process was not part of the PJ investigation per se. A more pertinent question would be how, and/or why, this apparent double dealing was allowed to proceed, coordinated and conducted by Leicestershire Constabulary !?!

IF Operation Grange is a bona-fide, no holes barred, investigation, the way forward in my view would be to interview each and every one of the group, including the McCanns themselves - preferably under caution! I can't see anything to be gained by Operation Grange (or any other operation) using a McCann initiative as constructive material for advancement.

by suespeaking 28.04.17 12:14

But of course the McCann's refuse to answer basic questions and sue anyone who tries to delve further into their actions that night

by skyrocket 28.04.17 16:01

Whilst the rogatory process was initiated by the McCanns in October 2007, with a series of specific questions to be asked of groups of witnesses, it is clear that the PJ took the opportunity to question many of the main witnesses again themselves by including a whole range of extra questions in the rogatory request, sent in December 2007. Details in the links below.

http://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/MCCANNS-WANTED.htm

http://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/RESPONSE-ROGATORY.htm

I believe that I am correct in saying that the statements arrived in Portugal after the final PJ Report had been published on 20 June 2008.

So despite the rogatory statements having been the McCann's idea in the first place, the majority of the questions asked of witnesses, and in particular of the tapas 7, came directly via the investigation in Portugal, so the resulting statements can not be classed as a 'McCann initiative'.

The group need to be re-questioned - but after 10 years, memory loss is a real or convenient obstacle particularly if working from a blank sheet. The rog statements would surely have to form the basis of any new interviews, and I fail to see why they wouldn't be used when they are legal documents. The fact that much of their content may be complete fabrication has no bearing on their value; in a way it adds to their value. The point is that 7 people, under no form of duress (quite the opposite in fact), gave statements to the police. If those statements can now be pulled apart and proven to contain deliberate misdirects and false information (lies) then the whole abduction scenario crumbles. Almost forgot to add the all important caveat - IMO.

by Doug D 28.04.17 19:35

Whatever happened to the videod 'testimony for the future' or whatever it was called that was going to be taken and sealed away?

Did these interviews ever take place?

by Doug D 28.04.17 19:53

The procedure, known as "memory for the future", is similar to a mock trial in which the friends would give evidence as witnesses now against a future defendant.

‘Around 10 British people, including the McCanns and their friends, have been re-interviewed to clarify their statements in recent days.

This week the group are set to appear in court behind closed doors to record their evidence for any future trial before they go back to the UK.

The procedure, known as "memory for the future", is similar to a mock trial in which the friends would give evidence as witnesses now against a future defendant.

Local lawyer Artur Rego said the procedure was used only in exceptional cases such as this where a large group of witnesses are foreign.

"It is recorded by video and kept sealed then released during the hearing," he said.

"If somebody is ever charged then this statement can then be unsealed and disclosed for the judge who is going to hear the case.

"It has the same value as witness statements delivered live in the trial."

But the McCanns themselves are not expected to be asked to take part.’

http://steelmagnolia-mccannarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/procedure-known-as-memory-for-future-is.html

by Mirage 29.04.17 0:54

qwertybartfast wrote:For the avoidance of doubt I have no view on a cover up or the involvement of any party, and no one knows what happened. Any comments are simply observations based on publicly available material and I hope the appropriate authorities determine what actually happened.

The Webster 11 May 2007 account states:

She adds that that night, and after the occurrence of the facts under investigation, have been in the the apartment on two separate occasions. At the time described above she remained about 10 minutes in the apartment. After this time she returned to the restaurant to get her handbag as well as the camera of the couple McCANN and "baby monitor" of her daughter, and was soon back again in the apartment.

-----

If she went back to get her handbag, this implies quite a rush to leave the table and go to the apartment. In the rush she forgot her handbag, perhaps.

Compare this to the event as described in her rogatory statement. There appears to be a mismatch.

Another snippet from her PJ statement:

- However, she wants to stress that immediately afterwards, she went outside the apartment in order to ascertain whether she would be able to raise the shutters by hand from the outside, and found it was impossible for her. Consequently she infers that at the time of her arrival at the apartment the window would have been closed.

===

And this is the critical discrepancy. If Diane Webster had been at the apartment from the beginning then how can the accounts of the state of the window and shutters be reconciled.

In the Rogatory interview her position is vague about when she went to the apartment - this weakens the evidence on the state of the shutters because someone could claim they lowered them as part of the tests to determine whether they could have been opened from the outside.

The publicly available material also includes Fiona Payne's rogatory version of leaving her mother at the tapas table after Kate raised the alarm .....

Quote
So everyone was just sort of still for what seemed like, sort of five seconds or so. Gerry jumped up and went 'She can't be gone' and raced off with Kate. And obviously we all followed, bar my mum, who I had said, I had the baby monitor, our baby monitor, and, plus, at that point, I just thought well, you know, the assumption was that she must have just wandered off, so I said to mum, you know, 'You stay put here just in case Madeleine comes down to the pool area' and gave her the monitor, our baby monitor, and said 'You you listen out for our kids'.

by mezzyd 29.04.17 8:32

Did Diane Webster know Madeleine well enough to be able to recognise her? The McCanns had not eaten lunch with the Paynes as everyone else had. Fiona Payne's comment doesn't seem to ring true to me.

by skyrocket 29.04.17 9:04

@DougD - I can find no reference to the 'memory for the future' interviews having actually taken place. Would be interesting to know if further statements exist, locked away somewhere.

@mezzyd - Dianne tells us that she knew the Mc's reasonably well before the holiday, so presumably she had met the children on several occasions. She also states that she travelled over to Portugal with them. Perhaps she would struggle picking MBM out from a group of blond 3 year olds all dressed in pink but bear in mind she was supposedly watching out for a single 3 year old wandering around on her own in pyjamas! yes

by Philip Anders 29.04.17 9:17

Matthew, when Kate McCann ran into the Tapas Bar your group said she was shouting that Madeleine had been taken so why didn't the group, which included forensically aware doctors, ensure that no one entered the apartment & keep it forensically preserved until the police arrived.

by qwertybartfast 29.04.17 12:56

The public statement of Dianne Webster states:

Therefore, she can only say with precision that, at 22.00 Kate McCann returned to the restaurant, seemingly in panic, communicating to others the fact that of Madeleine's disappearance. Asked about the reaction of other members of the group when they heard the above from KATE, the witness says that everyone, except the witness, left the restaurant and went to the apartment of the couple McCANN in order to find out what was going on.
In turn, as relates to her, the witness says she stayed at the restaurant for about five minutes, then, noting that the remaining members of the group had not returned, she followed in the direction of the apartment McCANN.

====

My opinion, based on the statement of Dianne Webster, remains that she left in a rush, as evidenced by leaving her handbag, and as indicated earlier my opinion is that she was at the scene of the apartment in time to form a valid view of the state of the shutters. I give this statement from Dianne Webster, significant weight, although obviously other people may disagree.

Over time it is possible for confusion to set in, especially when conflicting accounts may have be discussed, and this is why I have given more weight to the contemporaneous statement as compared to the rogatory statement.

This is simply opinion, I do not know what the state of the shutters actually was. There is no attempt to determine why the other accounts may differ, eye witness accounts may differ for entirely innocent reasons and human error is always a factor.

I have formed a theory about the shutter incident, but I've have not decided whether to publish it.

It should be noted that access to the apartment was possible through the sliding doors, and, therefore, whether the shutters were up or down does not materially impact the investigation of the missing child: an abductor could have gained access through the sliding doors. However, (this might seem cryptic) the issue of the sliding doors is potentially the key to understanding the shutter incident.

by **Jill Havern** 29.04.17 13:18

mezzyd wrote:Did Diane Webster know Madeleine well enough to be able to recognise her? The McCanns had not eaten lunch with the Paynes as everyone else had. Fiona Payne's comment doesn't seem to ring true to me.

In this video it looks like Diane Webster was sitting opposite Maddie on the airport bus.

by Philip Anders 29.04.17 13:31

qwertybartfast wrote:The public statement of Dianne Webster states:

Therefore, she can only say with precision that, at 22.00 Kate McCann returned to the restaurant, seemingly in panic, communicating to others the fact that of Madeleine's disappearance. Asked about the reaction of other members of the group when they heard the above from KATE, the witness says that everyone, except the witness, left the restaurant and went to the apartment of the couple McCANN in order to find out what was going on.
In turn, as relates to her, the witness says she stayed at the restaurant for about five minutes, then, noting that the remaining members of the group had not returned, she followed in the direction of the apartment McCANN.

====

My opinion, based on the statement of Dianne Webster, remains that she left in a rush, as evidenced by leaving her handbag, and as indicated earlier my opinion is that she was at the scene of the apartment in time to form a valid view of the state of the shutters. I give this statement from Dianne Webster, significant weight, although obviously other people may disagree.

Over time it is possible for confusion to set in, especially when conflicting accounts may have be discussed, and this is why I have given more weight to the contemporaneous statement as compared to the rogatory statement.

This is simply opinion, I do not know what the state of the shutters actually was. There is no attempt to determine why the other accounts may differ, eye witness accounts may differ for entirely innocent reasons and human error is always a factor.

I have formed a theory about the shutter incident, but I've have not decided whether to publish it.

It should be noted that access to the apartment was possible through the sliding doors, and, therefore, whether the shutters were up or down does not materially impact the investigation of the missing child: an abductor could have gained access through the sliding doors. However, (this might seem cryptic) the issue of the sliding doors is potentially the key to understanding the shutter incident.

The fact that you seen unable to grasp the significance of the shutters doesn't mean that it's not significant.

The fact that the McCanns phoned family & friends & told them that the shutters had been forced is not human error, it's a deliberate lie.

The relevance of the shutters lies in the word 'forced'.

Also during these phone calls in which the McCanns also said that Madeleine had been taken, they had absolutely no way of knowing that this was the case.

by Okeydokey 30.04.17 1:05

Can we not agree the rogatories were less illuminating than they should have been! Way too cosy and hardly ever picking up on the waffle and inconsistency. But they nevertheless have exposed the Team McCann position as being very, very far from what we would expect from consistently truthful accounts.

I would recommend everyone reads Matthew Oldfield's statements under questioning...how can you fail to have follow up questions of a very, very serious nature?

by qwertybartfast 30.04.17 17:22

Imagine a hypothetical situation:

A small child, in a house, is asleep in the afternoon. The parent decides to pop to the local shops 50m away, but has not locked the back sliding doors. The parent returns to find the child is missing.

Two possibilities emerge (the police establish that the parent has a cast iron alibi):
1) A stranger broke into the house and abducted the child, and the parent is positive one of the windows has been interfered with,
2) The child woke up and exited through the unlocked back door looking for the parent, and unfortunately an opportunistic stranger abduction took place.

Which possibility would be psychologically easier for the parent to bear (obviously both options are not good)? In which possibility would it be more likely that the child may still be alive?

These are questions that might go through someone's mind and, potentially, lead to biases and preference for one chain of events over another, especially in the face of intense scrutiny.

In the above hypothetical case I do not think the state of the window is important to the fate of the child, and were I investigating the case I would have an open mind about whether the child was abducted inside or outside of the house (in this hypothetical case the parents have been conclusively eliminated from the investigation).

I am not trying to persuade anyone to any particular point of view: I'm just explained my position. I also respect everyone's viewpoint and their right to hold their own opinion.

All the best.

by Casey5 30.04.17 20:50

BlueBag wrote:Let's be honest.

Matthew's story is a load of rubbish.

I wonder if he reads this stuff?

I'm not sure if Matthew was privy to the "abduction" story or not but I am sure that when he realised that he would be the last person to see Madeleine alive he made very sure that he told the police that he hadn't seen her. The bedroom door opened from left to right so he couldn't have missed seeing Madeleine's bed if, as he says, he saw the twins' cots.

by Verdi 30.04.17 20:58

qwertybartfast wrote:Imagine a hypothetical situation:

No can do! I can however see a hypocritical situation.

by Casey5 30.04.17 21:00

qwertybartfast wrote:Imagine a hypothetical situation:

A small child, in a house, is asleep in the afternoon. The parent decides to pop to the local shops 50m away, but has not locked the back sliding doors. The parent returns to find the child is missing.

Two possibilities emerge (the police establish that the parent has a cast iron alibi):
1) A stranger broke into the house and abducted the child, and the parent is positive one of the windows has been interfered with,
2) The child woke up and exited through the unlocked back door looking for the parent, and unfortunately an opportunistic stranger abduction took place.

Which possibility would be psychologically easier for the parent to bear (obviously both options are not good)? In which possibility would it be more likely that the child may still be alive?

These are questions that might go through someone's mind and, potentially, lead to biases and preference for one chain of events over another, especially in the face of intense scrutiny.

In the above hypothetical case I do not think the state of the window is important to the fate of the child, and were I investigating the case I would have an open mind about whether the child was abducted inside or outside of the house (in this hypothetical case the parents have been conclusively eliminated from the investigation).

I am not trying to persuade anyone to any particular point of view: I'm just explained my position. I also respect everyone's viewpoint and their right to hold their own opinion.

All the best.

The parent in question can't have a cast iron alibi since the parent left the child and also left the house. Immediately that parent would be under suspicion by the police as most child disappearances (that is a very young child) happen because of a family member.
Of the two scenarios you quote the parent would rather the child had left the house voluntarily so could have been saved from harm by a member of the public. An abduction, on the other hand, is always tragic whether the child survives it or not.
Moral : - don't leave young children on their own, but if you do make sure you lock the doors and windows.

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