With friends like these...

We trust our friends implicitly...

A strange thing to say under the circumstances?  Friends, some of whom you've known for only 6 months?  Wouldn't you trust only yourself and your nearest and dearest?  Viewing from the perspective of wholly innocent parents pining for their child, just who would you trust?

Matthew Oldfield?  According to the bouncing timeline, supposedly the last person to check on the McCann children before Madeleine's disappearance was raised at 10pm.  Possibly the last person to see Madeleine, although he claims he never actually saw her...

David Payne?  According to the official statements of Yvonne Martin, her suspicions were drawn upon Mr Payne immediately.  Mrs Martin was sure that she recognised him from her 25 years working in Social Services and Child Protection, and on her return to Britain was compelled to contact the British police to check whether Mr Payne was included in any paedophile or child abuse registers.

More suspicions of Mr Payne occur in the statements of Katerina and Arul Gaspar, doctor friends of the McCanns who holidayed with them in Majorca, 2005.  The Paynes were also on this particular holiday and Mrs Gaspar tells of further detailed paedophilia suspicions involving Messrs Payne and McCann.  In fact, when she heard the news of Madeleine's disappearance, one of her first thoughts was whether Mr Payne was on the same holiday.

Russell O'Brien?  Absent from a lot of things including the Tapas table, the High Court steps and also absent from the life of the McCanns, it seems...

"At most the house is visited by close family and three others of the group of friends who were with them in the Algarve when Maddie disappeared, that is David and Fiona Payne and Jane Tanner, as they are connected with them."

Flash Magazine 2009

"As they are connected with them?..."  In what way, I wonder... in a different way from the rest of the friends?

The women in this sad tale seem to be taking a back seat, although would you trust Dianne Webster who thought that your cries for help were just 'another of your silly games?'

Jane Tanner?  A friend who thought she may have spotted your daughter being carried away to her fate by the bad man.  But she didn't bother to mention it, incase it increased your burden?  Most unhelpful.

Would you trust Rachel Oldfield?  A friend who wouldn't check on any of the children, never mind her own sick daughter - it was just too dark and scary.  She came with the knowledge however, that with all those medics in the party, the resuscitation of a child was possible.  Very handy that...

Your beloved child in one hand, your friends in the other - where do your priorities lie?  There really is no choice, is there?  Yet with all these doubts, suspicions and much more, the McCanns trust their friends implicitly.  Even after their refusal to aid the investigation and return to Portugal for the police reconstruction - a virtual all round slap in the chops and massive failure for the one person who counts - Madeleine.

The McCanns trust their friends implicitly.  The question is... why?

With thanks to the McCann : PJ Files, please click to visit and view the translated files for yourself...

The Kate McCann Gallery

Who can say what the mum of a missing child should look like?

Relieved?...

Blasé?...

Contented?...

Flippant?...

Tickled pink?...

Flagrant?...

Chavtastic?...

Bricking it?...

Or just plain weird...?

Curiously, there are plenty of photographs that could come under the heading of 'weird'.  Plenty of happy smiles with their other children, but none of them searching, asking, looking...  This is what we see, it's out there in the public domain for us to draw our own opinions on. 

So what should the mother of a missing child look like?  My expectations would be a devastated wreck, but who can say? We can question whether it's normal to function and show all the wrong emotions.  Calm, beaming smiles from a woman who managed to co-ordinate her personal grooming from day one - right down to putting her earrings in.

After watching her husband storm off set during the Spanish interview pictured below, I did think Mrs McCann acted as cool as a cucumber, which certainly opened my eyes.

However, to date I've never actually viewed her as 'cold'.  Not until it was so succinctly put by Mrs McCann herself, and pictured by the Express... Instead of raging yet again at the unknown, perhaps she should question why people hold this view...

And perhaps, just once, the headlines could be about her missing daughter and not herself.

Help Find Ben

Official Campaign website to help find Ben

 Facebook Pages -

Help Find Ben Needham

ΒΟΗΘΗΣΤΕ ΝΑ ΒΡΕΘΕΙ Ο BEN NEEDHAM

Ayuda Buscar Ben Needham

Twitter

Please click here to sign the petition

Good luck and all the very best to Kerry and family, you have a lot of support behind you.  Let's hope you get the genuine response you deserve from the Prime Minister.

A Rainy Day Fund?...

Reporter : Tell me Brian, all the people who have been coming up to you today, just literally stuffing money in your hand.

Brian Kennedy : Yes, they have.  Yes, they have.

"Even if you send a cheque or anything in an envelope to Kate & Gerry in Rothley, it'll get there. People from around the world are doing that.

We will maintain the use of that money fully for the finding of Madeleine and to bring her back home where she belongs."

Kate McCann speaking in the Liverpool Echo, May 2011

~o0o~

Four years later, generous donations from ordinary members of the public still being thrust into the hands of the McCanns and their entourage?  Did these people get a receipt for their kindness?  A mention on their website?  A free wristband?

Was and is this money being used fully for the finding of Madeleine, as stated by Mr Mitchell?  Or used to pay for the likes of top notch lawyer Isobel Duarte in their various legal disputes.  What about their mortgage or even their fresh strawberries from Marks and Spencer?

The 'transparent' accounts that Mr McCann talks about are not so.  The last return of accounts included hidden pages... perhaps a tongue in cheek reference to the deliberate errors in Goncalo Amaral's name?  Very transparent.  It should be reiterated that the 'fund' is not a charity, yet the British media still refer to the 'charity' and it's 'charitable donations'. The fund is the McCanns' own private limited company of which they themselves sit at the helm as directors... they decide just how to spend those cash donations thrust at them.

Nine directors... down to six due to resignations.  Consisting of Mr and Mrs McCann, family and friends - all regulating the Madeleine fund and deciding where and how that money is spent.  Including the very large umbrella that is point 3...

A quote from Clarence Mitchell from the Jon Gaunt interview...

"The fund is independently controlled.

Every penny is being spent properly... in terms of finding Madeleine."

FACT OR FICTION - YOU DECIDE

Muddied Waters

Many have said there were and still are deliberate attempts to muddy the waters surrounding Mrs Fenn's statement.

For those of you who don't know, Mrs Pamela Fenn lived in the apartment above 5A and claimed that on the night of 1st May 2007, she heard a child cry alone, for over an hour.

"She refers to the day of the 1st May 2007, when she was at home alone, at approximately 22.30 she heard a child cry, and that due the tone of the crying seemed to be a young child and not a baby of two years of age or younger. Apart from the crying that continued for approximately one hour and fifteen minutes, and which got louder and more expressive, the child shouted “Daddy, Daddy”, the witness had no doubt that the noise came from the floor below.

At about 23.45, an hour and fifteen minutes after the crying began, she heard the parents arrive, she did not see them, but she heard the patio doors open, she was quite worried as the crying had gone on for more than an hour and had gradually got worse.  When questioned, she said that she did not know the cause of the crying, perhaps a nightmare or another destabilising factor.  As soon as the parents entered the child stopped crying.

That night she contacted a friend called E*** G***, who also lives in Praia da Luz, after 23.00, telling her about the situation, who was not surprised at the child’s crying."

The waters were muddied when news broke of Madeleine questioning her parents as to why he/she/they didn't come when her and Sean were crying.  I say muddied, because the McCanns claim this crying episode took place on the 2nd of May, contrary to what Mrs Fenn claimed.  Could she have been mistaken and confused the dates?  

Well as it happens, Mrs Fenn did recount the day and date quite correctly.  For, four years later on the Late Late Show we hear from Mr McCann himself that on the night of 1st May, it was Amelie who had woken up.

"The next morning, she (Madeleine) said "Mummy", can't remember if it was Mummy or Daddy now... "why didn't you come when Sean and I were crying last night?"  And we both looked at each other and thought "that's odd... crying?"  We didn't hear anything and we had been back checking and so we asked "When did you cry?"  You know sometimes when we first put them to bed, they cry and she just dropped it and as we were saying, Madeleine is very articulate and we kind of looked at each other and thought, did they wake up or was it the night before when Amelie had woken up?"

So by the McCanns' own admission, the children had woken on the 1st and 2nd of May, but dismiss any suggestion that Madeleine could have woke and wandered on that fateful night.  By stark contrast, none of the children woke on the 3rd May despite the hullaballoo happening in and around the apartment and being physically moved and carried by strangers to another apartment.

Recollections of the night of 3rd May also differ...

"During the day nothing unusual happened, until almost 22.30 when, being alone again, she heard the hysterical shouts from a female person, calling out “we have let her down” which she repeated several times, quite upset. Mrs Fenn then saw that it was the mother of little Madeleine who was shouting furiously.

Upon leaning over the terrace, after having seen the mother, Mrs Fenn asked the father, Gerry, what was happening to which he replied that a small girl had been abducted. When asked, she replied that she did not leave her apartment, just spoke to Gerry from her balcony, which had a view over the terrace of the floor below. She found it strange that Gerry when said that a girl had been abducted, he did not mention that it was his daughter and that he did not mention any other scenarios.

At that moment she offered Gerry help, saying that he could use her phone to contact the authorities, to which he replied that this had already been done. It was just after 22.30.  She said that after the mother’s shouts, she had seen many people in the streets looking for the girl."

In her own 'version of the truth', Kate McCann gives an altogether different account of the neighbourly encounter...

"At about 11pm, a woman appeared on a nearby balcony and inquired of Kate: "Can someone tell me what all the noise is about?"  Kate told the woman that her daughter had been stolen from her bed to which the woman responded: "Oh I see" as though, Kate writes, she had been told a can of beans had fallen off a kitchen shelf."

Could these two differing accounts describe the same moment?  Sadly Mrs Fenn has passed away, her statement in effect is etched in stone.  I would hate to think that Kate McCann has taken liberties when the lady in question is unable to defend herself.


Muddied waters?  I think with the publishing of Kate McCann's 'version of the truth', a lot of things are suddenly becoming clearer.

Please do what Scotland Yard are going to do... read the Portuguese investigation for yourself by visiting the Maddie Case Files.  Thanks to the hard work of many posters, all translated into English... for free.