What happened to Madeleine McCann? - No. 4 50 ridiculous stories the British media "ARE" telling you

PLEASE COPY THIS LEAFLET OR PASS IT TO OTHERS WHEN YOU’VE READ IT.  THANK YOU

This is our fourth leaflet in this series. The three previous ones featured facts about the reported disappearance of Madeleine McCann that the British media have not been telling you about. This leaflet is different.

While the British mainstream media have for years denied the British public the facts that might help us to better understand what happened to Madeleine, they have, at the same time, shamelessly produced many ridiculous, unbelievable stories about what might have happened to Madeleine, mainly to sell more newspapers and make more money. Some of these stories were even generated by the McCanns’ chief publicist, Clarence Mitchell, former Head of Tony Blair’s  Media Monitoring Unit. He once boasted that his job was ‘to control what comes out in the media’. Many stories featured in this leaflet could have harmed Madeleine, if she really had been abducted, was still alive and being held by an abductor. Suppose even one of these ‘sightings’ and ‘claims’ was true? What would be the effect on any abductor? What would he be likely to do? Many of the stories could have put Madeleine, if still alive, at great risk, by causing an abductor to take steps to evade the police.   

Our first leaflet examined the main facts of the case. You can watch a video of this leaflet on YouTube, in 4 parts, at this link:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnXtYSeXSiw   Our second looked at the main members of the ‘McCann Team’, examining their activities, focusing on the controversial individuals (some of them criminals) and detective agencies they used - for what they said was their search for Madeleine. Our third leaflet discussed Operation Grange, the 6-year-long Metropolitan Police review and investigation into Madeleine’s reported disappearance. We have numbered our points from No. 151 onwards, this being a continuation of our first three leaflets.

British media stories about the disappearance of Madeleine McCann

We present below a selection of some of the most bizarre claimed ‘sightings’ and stories about Madeleine’s disappearance printed in the British media, some more ridiculous and unbelievable than others. A very useful website on the internet which gives further details about many of these stories is:

http://www.gerrymccannsblogs.co.uk/SIGHTINGS.htm  …and many of them are discussed in detail on this popular Madeleine McCann discussion forum: http://jillhavern.forumotion.net/

In 2017, the Sun published a list of 8,685 different ‘sightings’ of Madeleine.  The initial claim by the McCanns was that Madeleine had been abducted by a paedophile or a group of paedophiles. A bewildering variety of ‘sightings’, theories and claims about what really happened to Madeleine followed. We add comments on some of the stories, which we list in the approximate chronological order on which they were first published:

151. Madeleine seen in a taxi by Mr Cardosa on the day she was reported missing (3 May 2007) COMMENT: The taxi-driver claimed he had had a young blond-haired girl in his taxi, with two adults. But his story unravelled when he got muddled about which day this happened. He was dismissed as an attention-seeker.

152. Robert Murat’s girlfriend Michaela Walczuk handed Madeleine over to someone near the Spanish border (May 2007) COMMENT: This curious story emerged months after Madeleine had been reported missing. Moreover, when it did emerge, it was via the controversial, corrupt Spanish detective agency used by the McCanns, Metodo 3. On 13 November 2007, the man who ran the McCanns’ investigation into Madeleine’s disappearance, businessman Brian Kennedy, met with the Portuguese Police, bringing with him two Metodo 3 detectives (one of them, Antonio Giminez Raso, was arrested three months later and spent four years in prison on serious drugs and corruption charges). At the November 2007 meetings, the Metodo 3 detectives said they had been contacted by a truck driver who saw a blonde woman handing over ‘a package wrapped in a blanket’ to a man on a camp site near the border with Spain. The Portuguese Police followed this up, but it was another false lead.    

153. Maddie in a Dutch shop owned by Anna Stam (6 May 2007):  COMMENT:  This sighting was not made public for a full 15 months. It finally surfaced in the British media on 7 & 8 August 2008, after Anna Stam had flown to London to meet the McCann Team and help to draw up an artist’s sketch of the couple she said she’d seen with a young girl in her party shop in Amsterdam on Sunday 6 May 2007, three days after Madeleine had been reported missing. Ms Stam claimed the girl had spoken to her and said: “My name is Maddie. She is not my Mummy. They took me from my holiday”. Ms Stam did not report her sighting for a month. Dutch police interviewed her, drew up computer e-fits, and sent them to the Portuguese police on 18 June. The Portuguese police declined to follow up the information, besieged as they were by the intense work of their initial investigation and the presence of hundreds of international media journalists in Praia da Luz.  Ms Stam said: “I didn't like the man, he didn't look like a nice person…most people smile when they come in to buy things…he didn't smile back at me when I smiled at him. He had no sparkle in his eyes. He seemed angry”. She added: “The woman seemed stressed and uncomfortable. The man spoke in Portuguese. I know because I have Brazilian friends. The woman spoke in French while the little girl spoke English. It didn't seem like a real family”. The story was revived in August 2008 when the McCanns became aware that the Portuguese police had not travelled to Holland to follow up Ms Stam’s claims.  The McCanns’ PR spokesman Clarence Mitchell told the Mirror: “Anna did the right thing in contacting the Dutch police. But I find it shocking that the Portuguese police weren't even in touch, either with her or with us. I'm grateful to the Mirror for bringing her to us. Her evidence could be very significant. Our investigators will interview her in the next few days”.

154. Madeleine seen near a petrol station in Marrakesh, Morocco, asking to see ‘My Mummy’(9 May 2007) COMMENT:  A witness was sure she saw Madeleine with a man near a Marrekesh petrol station, next to the Hotel Ibis, on May 9, 2007. She said the girl ‘looked very distressed’ and said: “Can we go see Mummy now?’  The Daily Star revived this story as recently as 17 April 2017, as the 10th anniversary of Madeleine’s disappearance neared:  http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/606677/madeleine-mccann-sightings-maddie-2017-morocco

155. Madeleine seen asleep on a Belgian train (May 14, 2007)   COMMENT: A British man claimed he saw a child asleep on a train from Brussels to Antwerp and thought she looked drugged. The girl was with a balding, 6ft white man in his forties, who got off the train at Mechelen carrying her.

156.  Sightings in Geneva, Switzerland (16 May 2007)  COMMENT: A man reported seeing Madeleine in   Geneva on 16 May. In June, there were two separate sightings of a girl seen at Geneva Airport with a blonde woman in her 50s. Fifty police officers were called to search the entire terminal building, while all the pilots were asked to search their planes for the child:   http://www.pressreader.com/uk/daily-mail/20070623/281621005920288

157. Police looking for a red van with false number plates near Lisbon (17 May 2007) COMMENT: This story was reported by SKY News.

158. GCHQ hunt for Madeleine after they intercept messages in Arabic referring to "the little blonde girl" (29 May 2007) COMMENT:  Yes, even GCHQ in Cheltenham were involved in the search for Madeleine, in a story covered by Fox News on 29 May: “Brits Follow Cell Phone Signals in Hunt for Madeleine".

159. Three sightings in Belgium, two in Tongeren (May and June 2007): COMMENT: There were three more reported sightings in Belgium. The first was in May 2007 in Liège. Then, on 27 June, Jessica Beem said she had seen Madeleine in her flower-shop in Tongeren. A third claimed sighting, also in Tongeren, occurred on 28 July on a café terrace, where children’s therapist Katleen Sampermans said Madeleine was with a ‘strange-looking’ Dutch man and an Englishwoman. An artist’s sketch of the Dutchman was compiled. However, the girl turned out to be the 4-year-old daughter of a Belgian man. The Portuguese newspaper Correia da Manha in August 2008 reported that Interpol had received reports from 107 people that they had seen Madeleine. See here:

http://madeleinemccann.org/blog/2014/04/20/correio-da-manha-reports-august/ 

160. Two sightings in Zaio, Morocco (late May/early June 2007) COMMENT: A Spanish tourist said she saw a girl resembling Madeleine as she drove through the town of Zaio in northern Morocco at the end of May. Later, another Spanish tourist, Isabel Gonzalez, said she saw a girl fitting Madeleine’s description being ‘dragged across a street’, also in Zaio, by a North African woman on 15 June.

161. Madeleine seen in Hong Kong (14 June 14  2007)  COMMENT: A woman claimed that she had spotted  Madeleine in a Hong Kong shopping centre. The ‘sighting’ was ruled out after police studied CCTV footage

162. 28 sightings in Malta (17 to 29 June 2007)  COMMENT: There was a spate of alleged sightings of Madeleine in Malta, see e.g. here http://www.standard.co.uk/news/11-sightings-of-madeleine-in-malta-but-police-investigations-draw-a-blank-7237853.html  She was seen several times with a man, once with a woman. Another claimed to have seen her boarding a bus in the capital, Valetta. Elsewhere a Maltese man used his mobile ’phone to take a photo of a child he believed to be Madeleine at a parish festival in Zejtun on 17 June. A man from north Wales  said he saw a girl in the north-eastern town of Sliema wearing a jet black wig who was being told: "Get up, little girl”, by an Arab-looking man. Nothing came of any of these sightings: yet more police time wasted. 

163. Madeleine seen in Dubrovnik, Croatia (19 June 2007) COMMENT: She was allegedly seen in Dubrovnik, Croatia, laying on the floor ‘kicking and screaming’ and yelling: “I’m never going to see them again”.

164. Antonia Toscano, a Spanish journalist and professed ‘expert in Satanic cults’, said he knew Madeleine had been abducted by a French paedophile - on orders from wealthy organisers of a European child sex ring (27 June 2007)  COMMENT: A false claim by a man with a vivid imagination (see also No. 200).

165. Madeleine seen twice in Bosnia (8 July and 10 November 2007)  COMMENT: A British tourist believed he had seen Madeleine at the Roman Catholic shrine of Medjugorje. He said the little blonde girl he saw with a couple was ‘agitated and sobbing’. Police traced the girl, who was a local. In November, an Irishman visiting the same shrine contacted McCann detectives Metodo 3 to tell them he heard a little girl cry ‘I want my Daddy’ as she was driven away (10 November 2007).  This story was apparently backed up by a shop assistant. The Irishman had seen the car’s number plate, details of which were reported by the media before the police had chance to find the owner.    

166. Two women reported seeing a child who looked like Madeleine with a man at a petrol station near Cartagena, Spain (21 August 2007) COMMENT: This alleged sighting was thoroughly investigated by both the Spanish National Police and Civil Guard, using up hundreds of valuable police man-hours: Press Association, 23 August 2007, ‘Madeleine Spain sighting' probed’; also in the Guardian, 26 August 2007.

167. Madeleine was being carried on a peasant’s back in Morocco at Zinat near Tangier. The girl was actually Bushra Binhisa, the daughter of the woman who was carrying her (seen on 31 August, reported 20 September 2007)  COMMENT: This case received huge publicity in the British press, including the broadsheets, in September 2007. A European-looking girl of about Madeleine’s age was photographed as a Moroccan peasant woman carried her on her back. The girl’s face didn’t look like Madeleine at all, yet the British press ran banner headlines: ‘IS THIS MADELEINE?’ It turned out that this photo had first been seen by the McCanns, who passed it to the press. They must have known that it was not their daughter. Yet they let millions of British newspaper readers think that this might be Madeleine. Police and even journalists were sent out to Morocco and soon found the peasant family. The parents were shocked and distressed to have been accused of abducting Madeleine.         

168. Naoula Mahli claimed to have seen Madeleine in Fnideq, Morocco. Later, Lord Leveson was told at the Leveson enquiry into press standards that the Daily Express paid her £500 for her story (November 2007) COMMENT: This alleged sighting by Naoual Malhi occurred (she says) on 21 August 2007, but was not reported to the Spanish police until 6 days afterwards. Mrs Malhi claimed she was told by police that over 100 people had reported seeing Madeleine McCann in the same mountain area. She then reported her claims to Metodo 3 at the end of October. Naoual Malhi is a Moroccan doctor who lives in a British expatriate community near Malaga, Spain. She is divorced and at the time had a 4-year-old child. The blonde girl identified in the city of Fnideq as Madeleine McCann turned out to be a Moroccan child living with her parents, according to the director of the Moroccan Judicial Police. Naoula Mahli wove a superficially believable story about having discovered where Madeleine was being held. But her story didn’t stand up. Did she make it all up just to get £500 from the Daily Express?

  

169. Dunedin, New Zealand: Madeleine was seen in a supermarket in New Zealand with a man (5 December 2007) COMMENT: CCTV footage from New Zealand showed a girl like Madeleine being led into a supermarket by a portly man in shorts. The man’s behaviour aroused the suspicions of a female security guard in the Dunedin shop on South Island. She approached the girl who said her name was ‘Hailey’. But the security guard remained  convinced the girl was Madeleine and reported the matter to police. The CCTV footage of the man and girl was repeatedly shown on New Zealand TV, and in Britain. Interpol in Wellington was also called in to investigate. Of course, it was not Madeleine McCann but a young girl out shopping with her father. 

170. A man who looked like Beatle George Harrison may have abducted Madeleine (January 2008) COMMENT: This was a major front-page story on Sunday 30 January 2008 in the now-defunct News of the World. It was heavily prepared in advance by the McCann Team with the active help of Leicestershire Police. The entire story was woven by the McCann Team around a real individual who was often seen around Praia da Luz. One strange feature of the case concerned McCann friend Jane Tanner’s involvement in the story. She was the friend of the McCanns who claimed she had seen a man carrying a young blond child near the McCanns’ apartment at 9.15pm on the night she was reported missing. In all her descriptions of this man, she admitted that she never saw any part of his face. Brian Kennedy, head of the McCanns’ private investigation, had used a lady by the name of Melissa Little (said to be an F.B.I.-trained forensic artist) to draw a sketch of the man Jane Tanner said she had seen in May. In the sketch, released in October 2007, the man’s face was not seen. Later, in January 2008, Jane Tanner was shown the sketch of the man drawn to look like Beatle George Harrison. It was of his face, and he had a moustache. Despite never having seen the face of the man she said she had seen on 3 May, she now said she was ‘60 to 80% sure’ that ‘George Harrison man’ was the same man she’d seen in May! It emerged later that Jane Tanner had done an identification parade on 13 May 2007, when she said she was ‘adamant’ that Robert Murat was the man she had seen on 3 May. But the subsequent sketch she approved in October 2007 looked nothing like him. Hardly surprisingly, the Portuguese Police dismissed everything Jane Tanner said as wholly unreliable.        

171. Madeleine seen at a service station on the A9 motorway near Montpellier, France (21 February 2008) COMMENT: The claim that Madeleine had been seen in a service station on the A9 motorway in France was taken so seriously by the British press that even broadsheets devoted long articles to the alleged ‘sighting’. Even the Daily Telegraph’s respected Chief Reporter, Gordon Rayner, wrote an extensive piece on the subject, solemnly reported as follows: “Madeleine’s parents were facing further heartache today when it emerged that CCTV footage of a little girl playing in the south of France is ‘almost certainly not her’. Hopes of finding the missing four-year-old were raised when a Dutch student said she spotted the child at a service station close to the city of Montpellier last Friday. Melissa Firing, 18, said the child was with a ‘tall, swarthy’ man who bundled her away in a car. French detectives spent ‘hours’ examining the footage at the nation’s Criminal Research Institute in Rosny-sur-Bois, near  Paris. Police even tracked down the owner of the car in which the little girl was driven away, after the number plate appeared on the video footage. A ‘source close to the McCanns’ said: “The owner has provided a plausible explanation of what he was doing with a young child in a motorway service station”. French police at the time said they were also investigating allegations that young children, including babies, were being ‘sold’ at impromptu auctions in car parks along the Mediterranean coast. 

172. A Portuguese couple with Madeleine in tow knocked at the door of a retired civil servant in Dorset (25 February 2008)  COMMENT: Reported in the Daily Telegraph, 24 February 2008.  This is believed to be the first reported sighting of Madeleine in Britain. It occurred in Dorset, where civil servant Alan Cameron had retired. He told police that Madeleine was with a Portuguese couple who came to the door. Yet another false claim.

173. Madeleine seen on a plane to Brazil, one of six ‘sightings’ in that country (14 May 2008)  COMMENT: A traveller claimed to have seen Madeleine travelling on a plane to Brazil. Interpol’s chief Jorge Pontes said: “This sighting is still under investigation so we cannot reveal details. We have a witness insisting they saw the child on a flight to Sao Paulo”. Clarence Mitchell, the McCanns’ PR spokesman, said: “The couple’s privately hired detective agency, Metodo 3, are looking into the latest claim”. There had been five other ‘sightings’ in Brazil, one in Rio de Janeiro. Brazilian police chief Marilia Moreira Marques said that a man called Mark claimed to have seen Madeleine at a book fair in Cinelandia Square, Rio de Janeiro, on 11 May 2007. The sighting had been reported to a foreign embassy in the capital, and was referred to Interpol, who were said to hold a ‘40-page dossier’ on Madeleine.  On 7 June, a man said he spotted Madeleine in an Ipanema cafe sitting with a man. He said she looked ‘sad’ and was not speaking to her male companion. See:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/madeleinemccann/1954397/Madeleine-McCann-spotted-on-plane-to-Brazil.html

174. Madeleine spotted on a Venezuelan island (18 May 2008)  COMMENT: A British businessman and yacht skipper, Trevor Francis, said he saw Madeleine in the company of two or three women on the island of Margarita in Venezuela. He claimed this happened several weeks previously, but says he didn’t approach her because he was ‘too fearful of causing a spectacle’: “I wanted to grab her and shout out her name and see what reaction I would get," he told the News of the World. Mr Francis claimed he noticed an identical eye blemish to that of Madeleine.   

See also:  http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/sailor-maddie-mccann-article-1.316136

175. Croatian national footballer’s two-year-old son mistaken for Madeleine (18 August 2008) COMMENT:  Two British tourists spotted a woman leading what they thought was a young girl with long blonde hair along a beach on the Croatian holiday island of Krk. They both immediately thought it was Madeleine McCann. They secretly took photographs of the child. The British woman seized a chance to grab the child’s arm, intending to take her to the police. Only then did she realise that the child was not Madeleine as it was a boy. The boy’s mother turned out to be well-known Croatian model Nives Drpic, while the father was a footballer for the Croatian national team and for Dinamo Zagreb. They were described as the ‘Posh & Becks’ of Croatia. See: http://www.gossiprocks.com/forum/news/79834-british-couple-tried-rescue-madeleine-mccann-lookalike-little-croatian-boy.html  and  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1046405/British-couple-tried-rescue-Maddy-lookalike--Croatian-football-star-model-wife.html

176. Madeleine seen in Algeria with a suspicious-looking family (September 2008) COMMENT: A man said he had seen a Madeleine look-alike blonde girl, with a British accent, with an Algerian family who were ‘acting suspiciously’.

177. Maddie seen in the company of a big, fat gypsy woman (September 2008)  COMMENT:  A British woman, Mrs Jean Godwin, aged 56, from Widnes, Cheshire, was sure she had spotted Madeleine McCann in the company of two fat women at Carvoeiro, about 30 miles from Praia da Luz, and rang the McCanns’ ‘investigation hotline’. Mrs Godwin described a ‘gaunt, very thin, malnourished’ young blonde girl wearing a black, shiny wig being dragged by ‘gipsy women’. One of the women, she said, was an ‘obese’ size 30, in her mid-to-late 40s, with ‘dirty and unkempt’ red hair. She added: “The girl’s eyes were wide open and my attention was drawn to the large irises. I am 100% sure it was Madeleine”.  This sighting, said the McCann Team’s investigators, matched an earlier account of a fat, red-haired woman, now known to be Yvone Albino, a cleaner, who had been seen by another British tourist, Jeni Weinberger, from Salisbury, Wilshire, acting suspiciously outside the McCanns’ apartment on 3 May 2007, the day Madeleine McCann was reported missing.  The McCanns’ investigators traced her -  she has two grown up sons but no young children - and followed her to a small, run-down farmhouse on an orange grove, near Silves, not far from Praia da Luz. They then began a surveillance operation at the farmhouse, fearing that Madeleine was being held prisoner there. In the following months, Yvone Albino paid several visits to the property, a holiday home owned by a teacher and his partner, whom the investigators deemed to be ‘suspicious’. Their concerns were raised when they discovered a white Citroen Berlingo with a child’s doll on the back seat and a child’s drawing among rubbish bags - even though the couple did not have young children. Mrs Albino, who has two grown-up sons but no young children, used to visit teacher Jorge Martins and his partner Maria Silveira (traced through their car), at their run-down farmhouse in an orange grove. Portuguese police confronted Mrs Albino, who said she knew nothing about either sighting and denied any contact with young children. Officers found the house deserted. The woman with Mrs Albino in Carvoeiro was never identified. Mr Martins and Miss Silveira have never been accused of any crime by police. He told police the doll was given to him by his students several years earlier. Nothing came of all this effort, but it made it look as though the McCann Team were doing a real investigation.                         See: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/madeleinemccann/7364631/McCanns-detective-searching-for-girl-in-a-wig-seen-with-two-gipsies.html

178.  Madeleine spotted in Majorca by British tourist (28 September 2008): COMMENT:  Two British  holidaymakers were convinced that they saw Madeleine on a beach at Cala d'Or, Majorca. She was reportedly ‘in the company of two women’, but they also added: “We saw the girl was on her own under a parasol on the beach with a colouring book, which struck us as odd…later in the week we saw the girl again and the woman was trying to drag them down to the beach, although it was dark, which she again found odd”. Spanish police combed dozens of hotels and holiday apartments to try to locate the girl. One police spokesman said: “We are aware of the numerous previous sightings all over the world that have turned out to be false and it could well be that the couple have made an honest mistake”.  See here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/madeleinemccann/3086959/Police-investigate-claimed-Madeleine-McCann-sighting-in-Majorca.html  …and in the Daily Mail

179. Madeleine seen with a Portuguese child trafficker in the United States (9 October 2008) COMMENT:     On October 9, 2008 it was reported that Madeleine was living with a Portuguese man in the U.S. He allegedly was a child trafficker, smuggling children from his homeland, Mexico and Greece.

180. Madeleine asked for a chocolate ice-cream from an ice-cream seller whilst with a French family in Brussels (October 2008)  COMMENT: A North African-looking woman with a young girl in tow was picked up on CCTV footage by a security guard at a branch of the Belgian bank KBC. Later, an ice cream vendor, Antonio Migliardi, came forward, describing the woman as being ‘very severe’ with the child, adding: “She held her hand firmly and kept pulling her closer. When I gave the ice cream to the child she stood frozen. The lady took it in her place. Normally a happy child always takes the ice. This was not a normal situation”.  The security guard said: “I will bet everything I own that the child I saw was Madeleine McCann”. Clarence Mitchell, the McCanns’ spokesman, commented: “We take this information seriously”.  See: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/madeleinemccann/2544450/Madeleine-McCann-seen-again-in-Brussels.html

181. Maddie seen in a Spanish restaurant in Maryland, U.S.A. (May 2009) COMMENT: An unnamed woman spoke to the Sun newspaper in June 2013, saying she thought she saw Madeleine in a Spanish restaurant in Montgomery County, Maryland, accompanied by a blonde woman and two men, one of whom was ‘scruffy-looking with a foreign accent’. She added: “I’ve never felt so strongly about something”. She said that Operation Grange was now following up the alleged ‘sighting’.

182. Madeleine was abducted by British paedophile Raymond Hewlett (2009 and 2010)  COMMENT: This was a long-running story in 2009 and 2010. Raymond Hewlett was a convicted British paedophile who had been travelling around Europe in 2007, when Madeleine was reported missing. Another traveller, Peter Verran, had met with Raymond Hewlett in June 2007 in Morocco. The two men discussed Madeleine McCann, and Hewlett admitted that he had been staying about 30 miles away from Praia da Luz at the time Madeleine went missing. He also said he knew of the apartment block where the McCann family had been staying in May 2007. Hewlett denied he had been in Praia da Luz that week and there was no evidence that he was. Yet the McCann Team kept the story of Hewlett being a suspect going for months. They made repeated attempts to interview him, having located him at a hospital in Aachen, Germany, where he was being treated in hospital (see also below).     

183. Madeleine was taken on a yacht to Australia by an Australian woman who looked like Victoria Beckham and wanted ‘a new daughter’ (6 August 2009) This was another major news story promoted by the McCanns. Their PR spokesman, Clarence Mitchell, held a news conference where he paraded a sketch of what the woman looked like. He said she looked like Victoria Beckham (‘Posh Spice’). The whole story was said to have come from a British man, said variously to have been a ‘businessman’ or ‘banker’. The McCanns didn’t give the man’s name, so his story couldn’t be checked. It was claimed that the man told the McCann Team that on Sunday 6 May 2007, he had been drinking all evening in some of the numerous bars around Barcelona docks. He said that at 2am that night, a young woman with an Australian accent came up to him and asked: ‘Have you got my new daughter?’ He said ‘No’, and the young woman went away. Despite Madeleine’s disappearance being front-page news around the world at the time, he had delayed reporting this incident for over two years, claiming he had ‘agonised’ all that time over whether or not to report it. It was claimed that Madeleine may have been taken by boat from Praia da Luz to Barcelona (a journey of hundreds of miles), and that the woman with an Australian accent had arranged to ‘buy’ her at Barcelona docks three days later and board a large yacht bound for Australia which was leaving the next day. Amazingly, the British press once again fell for this most unlikely story. It made the top story  on TV and mainstream British newspaper bulletins. It caused an extensive police search for the woman in Australia. A month after this story, the Mail on Sunday exposed the fact that the McCanns’ detectives who had researched this story had neglected to contact any of relevant Barcelona agencies, such as the police and the port authority, and had failed to do the most basic of checks with owners of pubs around the port.  On 9 August, a  Sydney Morning Herald article: ‘Madness in the search for Maddie’, reported that, following the McCanns’dramatic press conference, the search for Madeleine ‘swept across at least four Australian states’, with ‘a string of sightings’ by people who said they had seen a woman looking like ‘Posh Spice’ A 53-year-old Australian woman, Judith Aron, was ‘forced to deny’ that she had abducted Madeleine. She had a fair-haired five-year-old daughter. It was thought that a neighbour had reported her because she ‘spoke Spanish’. Also, an elderly Sydney woman went into Burwood police station claiming that a friend she had met in Spain, and travelled with in Portugal, was the woman in the identikit picture. She was later identified as Nelida Martinez and was soon ruled out. The McCanns said they had received over 600 e-mails after issuing the ‘Posh Spice lookalike’ appeal, mostly from Australia. See: http://www.smh.com.au/national/madness-in-search-for-maddie-20090808-edj3.html ...and http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/madeleinemccann/5981579/Madeleine-McCanns-parents-to-trace-Victoria-Beckham-lookalike.html

184. Madeleine seen with man at petrol station in Devon - arrested (4 September 2009)   COMMENT: A fire protection officer, Jon Hazlehurst  was questioned over Madeleine McCann after being spotted in a petrol station with his step-daughter, Lauren, aged eight (Madeleine would have been six at that time). The man was traced by police, visited by police, driven to Kingsbridge police station and taken into custody. The witness had noted down Mr Hazelhurst's car registration plate and contacted the police. Mr Hazlehurst said: “I was surprised more than anything. I thought it was…a prank, before I realised that they were quite serious. The police were very polite and I understood that they had to follow up the lead, even if it didn't come to anything”. See:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/madeleinemccann/6137830/Man-questioned-over-Madeleine-McCann-lookalike-step-daughter.html

185. Madeleine is alive but being kept in an underground lair within a few miles of Praia da Luz (September 2009)  COMMENT: In 2009, the world heard the extraordinary story of Natasha Kampusch, from Austria - the young girl kept captive for years by a paedophile, until she escaped from his clutches at the age of 18. A similar story of a paedophile keeping his victims locked up involved Fritzl from Germany. Later, Jaycee Lee Dugard, who had been abducted by a paedophile from a bus stop in the U.S. at the age of 11, was found alive and rescued at the age of 29. When these stories began to receive publicity, the McCann Team quickly capitalised on them. Their lead detective at the time, Dave Edgar, exploited these news stories in the Belfast Telegraph and the Independent, stating that his new theory was that Madeleine was likewise being held in an ‘underground lair’ within a few miles of Praia da Luz. This was purely for the press - in order to maintain public perception that Madeleine had really been abducted. Whilst professing that they believed that Madeleine could be hidden near Praia da Luz, the McCann Team made no effort whatsoever to initiate any official or unofficial search for such a lair.

186. Madeleine seen in a Swedish photograph (10 October 2009) COMMENT: This story was first brought to the British public by Antonella Lazzeri of the Sun, which has produced many of the most absurd stories about  alleged Madeleine ‘sightings’. A girl was photographed in Sweden, with claims that ‘after computer-matching’, she could be Madeleine. She was seen at a car show, and was said to have an ‘identical jawline’ and ‘eyes the same colour as Madeleine’. The photo appeared on a website, after which Swedish police were ‘inundated’ with calls from the public, some of them saying they had seen Madeleine at the car show, where she was heard to speak in English. ‘Face-mapping technology’ used by British police was said to have identified the girl as a possible match. Madeleine’s parents Kate asked for ‘an urgent investigation’. The McCanns’ official spokesman Clarence Mitchell said: "Kate and Gerry are liaising with the relevant authorities”. This excellent website carries this Swedish story:

http://www.gerrymccannsblogs.co.uk/press/30OCT9/SUN_10_10_09.htm 

187. Madeleine was seen on TV at a school concert in Canada (5 March 2010) COMMENT: The continued appearance of Madeleine McCann’s appealing photograph in newspapers around the world led to an extraordinary incident in Canada. Distressed viewers inundated a Canadian TV station with calls after a blonde girl looking identical to Madeleine was shown singing with a school choir on a news show. The Canadian police had to contact the school and carry out checks to make sure the girl was not Madeleine.  See: http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/124974/MADDIE-SEEN-ALIVE-ON-TV

188. Madeleine was seen in Dubai (20 January 2011)  COMMENT: Madeleine was reported to have been in a Dubai shopping centre. By this time, she would have been nearly eight years old. The sighting was by ‘an unnamed 35-year-old businessman’. The man with Madeleine was said to be ‘very skinny’ with a moustache and a ‘scary appearance’ – and some commented that he looked very similar to a previous artist’s sketch of a possible suspect [see sighting No. 170, above]. He was accompanied by two women, one of whom was black and wore a veil and the other who was ‘also very thin’, according to the Sun.  See also:   http://metro.co.uk/2011/01/20/madeleine-mccann-seen-in-dubai-630478

189. Madeleine was abducted by vicious paedophiles who took her to the United States, according to  a basketball-playing Angolan amateur sleuth whose front teeth were knocked out by the paedophiles (18 February 2011)  COMMENT: The Sun headed this story: ‘Madeleine McCann is in America - and I know who took her’. This story, once again strongly promoted by the McCann Team, was based on the outrageous and completely unbelievable claims of Marcelinho Italiano, a 6’ 4”, an Angolan-born ‘amateur detective’. He claimed that in the course of his sleuthing in Portugal, he had contacted a group of vicious paedophiles. This brutal group - who, he said, had knocked out two of his teeth in the course of his sleuthing - had supposedly spirited Madeleine away to the U.S., where they were holding her. Italiano claimed he had to flee Portugal and had gone to ground in  Spain in fear for his life. However, when the story broke, a search on the internet soon located him. His name came up as a regular member of a team playing in a Spanish basketball league. Once again, nothing came of this story, which appeared to have been manufactured by the Sun with the help of ex-pat Olive Press editor, Jon Clarke.

See:  https://www.thesun.co.uk/archives/news/379292/madeleine-mccann-is-in-america-and-i-know-who-took-her/

190. Madeleine was seen in India (29 June 2011):  COMMENT: The alleged sighting of Madeleine was made by a British woman on holiday in Jammu & Kashmir, in the northern Indian Himalayas. She raised concerns with other tourists, one of whom, an American, was so sure the girl was Madeleine that he tried to snatch her from the couple she was with. The parents, a French woman and her Belgian husband, were spoken to by the police who insisted they produced their passports. A spokesman for Leh police told the Chandigarh Tribune: “It all depends now on the evidence like DNA for which we need help from Madeleine's parents and the British police”. The McCanns’ PR spokesman, Clarence Mitchell, said: “We remain grateful for people's vigilance around the world. Madeleine is still out there and the search for her very much continues”. This was another Sun story, also reported in the Daily Mail:  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2019698/Madeleine-McCann-Hopes-dashed-sighting-India.html#ixzz4mXTqmWYV

191. A drunk gypsy told British paedophile Raymond Hewlett that he organised Madeleine’s abduction; Hewlett then wrote a letter on his death-bed to his long-estranged son Wayne, who promptly burnt the letter and then told the Sun all about it (1 September 2011)  COMMENT: Many rate this as the most preposterous story of them all. Raymond Hewlett (see sighting No. 182 above) died in December 2010. He had been estranged from his son Wayne for more than 20 years, because his son had turned against him after learning of his sexual abuse of young children. The story Wayne told to the McCann Team and to the Sun was a strange one. He claimed that a ‘mystery man’ had travelled from Germany with a letter his father had written to him on his death-bed. In this letter, Wayne said, his father explained how he had got to know the leader of a criminal gypsy gang. One evening, they had both had a lot to drink, and the gypsy gang leader had confessed that he and his gang had abducted Madeleine and handed her to a wealthy North African family for money. In the letter, he identified the gypsy gang leader by name. Wayne said he had been upset by the letter and burnt it. However, having burnt it, he apparently then approached either the McCann Team, or the Sun directly, with his story. He could not now remember the name of the gang leader. Despite the obvious unsoundness of the story and the fact that Wayne could not remember even the name of the alleged gypsy gang leader, the Sun put this ridiculous story on their front page - and reported that the British police were taking his information seriously.  Nothing ever came of it.     

192. Madeleine was abducted to Brazil (31 August 2012) COMMENT: Pictures appeared in several newspapers of a young white girl who looked vaguely like Madeleine, in a crowd of people leaving a plane in Brazil. Who developed this story is not clear. But an alert Madeleine McCann researcher, known on the internet as ‘Reggie Dunlop,’ matched the photo of the crowd leaving the plane with a photograph of people seen leaving a plane in Ibiza, several years previously. The photo had been ‘reversed’ (left-to-right) in the newspaper pictures. Whoever developed this story for the press was engaged in a very deliberate deception of the press and the public. 

193. Madeleine was seen in a car leaving a campsite with a Swiss family (9 May 2012) COMMENT: See:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2141774/Madeleine-McCann-sighting-Swiss-father-says-mystery-man-seen-driving-blonde-girl.html

194. Rose Johnson saw Madeleine playing on Penoncillo beach, Spain (3 May 2012)  COMMENT: This was yet one more absurd story reported by the ever-dutiful Jon Clarke, Olive Press Editor. He reported in May 2012 that an ex-pat pensioner, Rose Johnson, believed she had seen ‘eight-year-old Maddie’ playing outside Merendero restaurant on Penoncillo beach, between Nerja and Torrox, the previous summer (2011). She had said: “We were quite taken aback…this Maddie look-a-like walked off the beach and joined a table of what we would describe as a party of Spanish people or similar. They were completely different to her. The whole family was dark skinned, whereas she had fair hair and pale skin and obviously was northern European. It was very, very strange. She was about eight and seemed really airy-fairy, in a world of her own”. Clarke also claimed that Portuguese police, just a fortnight previously, had asked their Spanish counterparts to investigate other sightings in Nerja, and that Rose Johnson had only spoken after reading an Olive Press article. A lady called Karen commented in the Olive Press article, claiming she had seen Madeleine on 6 May 2007 (three days after she was reported missing) “with a family in Cabopino Campsite, near Marbellam who had a dark blue people carrier. Clarke responded: “Hi Karen, we would love to talk to you about this…we have now had at least half a dozen very good ‘sightings’ of Maddie on the Costa del Sol…I really hope somebody can produce the killer fact! Give our newsdesk a call”.  See:

http://www.theolivepress.es/spain-news/2012/05/03/i-saw-maddie-at-costa-del-sol-beach-restaurant/penoncillo-beach-looking-towards-nerja-where-rose-johnson-saw-madeleine-mccann-playing-2/

195. Madeleine spotted in Queenstown, New Zealand on New Year’s Eve, 2012   COMMENT:  A girl was spotted in Queenstown on New Year’s Eve by a retailer. A police investigation began, which discovered that the girl had once previously been identified as Madeleine McCann. See:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/8141833/Report-revives-hunt-for-British-girl

 

196. New Zealand school pupil ‘frequently mistaken for Madeleine’ given DNA test (7 February 2013) COMMENT: A New Zealand schoolgirl repeatedly mistaken for missing Madeleine McCann had to give police a DNA sample so that Scotland Yard could confirm that she is not the youngster. Several New Zealanders had thought she was missing Madeleine McCann, who was said to have a mark on her right eye similar to the distinctive one on the British girl's iris.                                See:  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2274826/Madeleine-McCann-New-Zealand-girl-DNA-sample-prove-missing-Maddie.html#ixzz4mq6RAjwd

197. Madeleine may have been snatched by six people seen in a white van (2014) COMMENT: This was a story possibly leaked by Scotland Yard’s investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann - Operation Grange. It was claimed that Scotland Yard detectives were trying to trace six people, thought to be British, who had used a white van in Praia da Luz at the time the McCanns were in Praia da Luz. There was nothing about it in the Portuguese Police files, and no more has been heard about this since. But, again, it made for a good headline.  

198. Skeltal remains of a fair-haired young girl, found in a suitcase in Australia, ‘could be Madeleine’ (26 July, 2015)  COMMENT: A suitcase containing the skeletal remains of a fair-haired young girl was discovered near a motorway in Wynarka, near Adelaide. Pathologists said she would have died in 2007. There was speculation that the body was Madeleine’s after a police spokesman said that the remains did not match descriptions of any missing children in Australia. But after forensic examination, the DNA did not match Madeleine’s,

199. Former Scotland Yard detective Colin Sutton says that ‘Madeleine was stolen to order for a wealthy North African family who wanted a white child’ (April 2017)  COMMENT: This story appeared just two weeks before the 10th anniversary of Madeleine being reported missing, as the British media geared up for another frenzy of anniversary articles. According to the Press Association, former Met Police Detective Chief Inspector Colin Sutton, who had been to Praia da Luz several times for various newspapers, the most likely hypothesis for what happened to Madeleine McCann was that she had been “stolen to order by slave traders or people traffickers and smuggled into Africa for a rich family who wanted a white child”. A Daily Mirror article claimed that “Gangs are thought to sell children to rich Middle Eastern families while operating out of Mauritania, West Africa”.

200. False claims made by ‘psychics’ and mediums   It is estimated that thousands of assorted mediums, psychics, dream interpreters and others, who claimed knowledge of what happened to Madeleine, contacted the police or the McCanns with their ideas, impressions and theories. Mostly these were vague, e.g. “I see a white cottage on a hillside” or “I see a boat on the sea”. Tens of thousands of valuable police hours were wasted investigating this nonsense. These  mediums and mystics just relied  on their vague impressions and ideas, because no two of them were ever the same.  .        

If you’ve found this leaflet of interest, please pass it on to those you know  >>>   thank you

Published by ‘The Madeleine McCann Research Group’, 14 July 2017.   Further reading/watching:

Recommended discussion forum   >>>   http://jillhavern.forumotion.net/      

Recommended internet library       >>>   www.gerrymccannsblogs.co.uk

Watch the Portuguese detective’s documentary:    www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxGhlYTNisw

Watch Richard Hall’s five Madeleine McCann films  >>  

1. True Story of Madeleine McCann ---- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIjPcvmVzUo

2. The Phantoms ------------------------------- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dL0-ePd3FCU

3. When Madeleine Died? ------------------- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70oo2-Sj7to949

4. McCanns’ Embedded Confessions ----- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slziMpXYjJo&t=59s

5. Madeleine: Why The Cover-Up? ------- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQgmtrOeDLM

50 more facts about the case that the British media are not telling you No. 3 - Operation Grange, 2011 to 2016

What happened to Madeleine McCann?

No. 3 - Operation Grange, 2011 to 2016

50 more facts about the case that the British media are not telling you

PLEASE COPY THIS LEAFLET OR PASS IT TO OTHERS WHEN YOU’VE READ IT – THANK YOU

 

In this leaflet: Scotland Yard’s Operation Grange under the microscope”

 

·       Why was Operation Grange set up?

·       The role of Rupert Murdoch and Rebekah Brooks

·       What Operation Grange can and cannot investigate

·       Who is running Operation Grange?

·       Operation Grange: The story to October 2013

·       The Crimewatch McCann Special, 14 October 2013: An analysis

·       The mystery of Operation Grange, two e-fits, and the Smith family

·       The cost of Operation Grange

·       The criticisms of Operation Grange

·       Recent developments up to August 2016

 

This leaflet is the third in our series of ’50 Facts’ leaflets about the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. The first, titled ‘50 Facts about the case that the British media are not telling you’, has been read by tens of thousands and is now on YouTube videos (link at end of leaflet). The second, ‘Meet the McCann Team’, exposed the series of criminals, ex-MI5 officers and assorted controversial detective agencies employed by the McCanns, allegedly to look for Madeleine.  In this leaflet we reveal 50 more facts - this time about one of the most controversial police investigations in British history - Operation Grange, the Met Police’s investigation into Madeleine’s disappearance. We tell you why it was set up,  explain what it can and cannot do, and tell you what it has - and has not - done.

 

SECTION A.   Why was Operation Grange set up?

   

101. The McCanns were never cleared - In July 2008, the Portuguese Police shelved their investigation into the reported disappearance of Madeleine McCann. The Portuguese Attorney-General ruled that there were two possibilities as to what happened to Madeleine: (1) - that she died in the McCanns’ apartment, and that her parents hid her body to avoid an autopsy, or, (2)- that she may have been abducted. He ruled that there was insufficient evidence to charge anyone. The McCanns’ status as ‘formal suspects’ was ended - but they were not ‘cleared’ as they have claimed. The police said they would consider any ‘new and credible’ evidence of the McCanns’ guilt.

 

102. Documents made public - At the same time, the Portuguese Police made public some 85% of the police investigation documents in the case. (See: http://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/) This would not happen in Britain, but is part of Portugal’s criminal investigation procedures. The documents disclosed by the police suggested Madeleine had died in the McCanns’ apartment and that they had covered up her death by faking an abduction. The evidence included 17 alerts of two British police sniffer dogs - 12 to the odour of a corpse and five to blood or body fluids - found in 12 locations or on items related to the McCanns and their apartment. There was also evidence that the McCanns and their friends had contradicted themselves and changed their stories on many occasions.     

 

103. The McCanns tried to see all the police files - The McCanns had frequently tried to get their hands on the  Portuguese Police files. They claimed this was because the police files might reveal vital clues as to who had abducted Madeleine. In fact in 2007 they went to the High Court to try to get hold of them. But they lost their case; The court gave them access to just 11 out of the hundreds of documents they wanted to see. They also failed in another court application in 2008 to try to see the files which the Portuguese Police had not released. 

 

104.  The McCanns’ campaign for a review - In 2009, the McCanns began a long campaign to get a British police force to conduct a ‘review’. They complained that no police force was looking for Madeleine any more. They badgered then Labour Home Secretary, Alan Johnson, who agreed to meet them. He told the McCanns he would explore possibilities. Approaches were made to West Yorkshire and other police forces. Then Alan Johnson commissioned Jim Gamble, the controversial head of CEOP ( the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre)  to carry out a ‘scoping exercise’ about the practicalities of holding a review. Labour lost the General Election in May 2010, and the Conservative MP Theresa May (now Prime Minister) became Home Secretary.

 

105. A meeting with Theresa May - The McCanns demanded - and got - a meeting with Theresa May, but she refused their request for a review. The McCanns, friends with Jim Gamble, then complained publicly about her refusal. Theresa May decided to reorganise key police services and put CEOP under the control of a new, top-level National Crime Agency. Jim Gamble, who had supported the McCanns from the start, and the McCanns, protested loudly about these plans. Jim Gamble threatened to resign. and then did. Theresa May immediately accepted Gamble’s resignation.

 

SECTION B.   The role of Rupert Murdoch and Rebekah Brooks

 

106.  Rupert Murdoch’s connection with the McCanns - Rupert Murdoch owns the Sun, Times, Sunday Times and SKY News. He used to own the News of the World. In 2008, the McCanns’ spokesman Clarence Mitchell stopped working for the McCanns full-time and went part-time. Rupert Murdoch’s son-in-law, Matthew Freud, then offered him a job in his Freud Communications PR company. In 2009, Rupert Murdoch met David Cameron on his yacht in the Mediterranean. Soon after, Murdoch ordered his newspapers to back the Conservatives instead of Labour. Murdoch asked Cameron to give him control of BskyB in exchange for helping him win the General Election ( which he did)..

 

107. David Cameron appoints McCann spokesman to his staff -  Cameron immediately made Andy Coulson, former editor of Murdoch’s News of the World, his Director of Communications. The two men then chose McCanns’ spokesman, Clarence Mitchell, as Coulson’s Deputy. Coulson had been in a long-term, on-off relationship with Rebekah Brooks, CEO of Murdoch’s News International empire. Murdoch’s newspapers have, over the years, published very large numbers of unlikely stories of alleged ‘sightings’ of Madeleine. Each front page story about Madeleine was estimated to increase readership by tens of thousands.

 

108. Kate McCann’s book is published - In 2010, Dr Kate McCann decided to write a book. She published it in May 2011 on the 4^th anniversary of Madeleine’s reported disappearance. It was serialised in Murdoch’s Sun newspaper for a fee of around £1 million. Still Theresa May refused to set up a police review of the case.

 

109. Rebekah Brooks becomes involved - At this stage, Murdoch’s CEO, Rebekah Brooks, became involved. According to insiders at No. 10 Downing Street, and as reported on BBC’s Panorama programme at the time, Brooks contacted Cameron and told him that she would ‘run a week of bad headlines about Theresa May’ if he did not agree to a review. Cameron was very friendly with Brooks. They lived near each other in the Cotswolds, and went horse-riding with each other. They went to each other’s parties. Cameron gave way and agreed.

 

110. Cameron orders a review - The way this was actually presented to the public happened as follows. The McCanns wrote to the Sun. The next day the Sun published the letter and begged the Prime Minister to grant a review. The day after, David Cameron said he would make sure there was a review. He had told Theresa May to set one up. Theresa May said that she had decided to do this all by herself. She then told Sir Paul Stephenson (then the Metropolitan Police Commissioner) to set up a review. In the next few days he did so, calling it ‘Operation Grange’.  It was clear to many observers that these moves had been carefully choreographed well in advance  The review, it was later said, would ‘for the first time’ comprehensively examine files from the Portuguese Police, from Leicestershire Police, and from the controversial Spanish detective agency, Metodo 3, employed by the McCanns from 2007 to 2009. Metodo 3 investigators who worked on the Madeleine McCann case were later arrested for crimes unconnected with Madeleine’s disappearance and after further arrests, the agency was closed down in 2011. 

 

 SECTION C.   What Operation Grange can and cannot investigate

 

111.  The review team draws up a ‘remit’ - Every police review or investigation has an official brief, known as its ‘remit’. Seven months after it was set up, senior Met Police officers agreed the review’s remit. It was drawn up by Detective Chief Superintendent (DCS) Hamish Campbell (see Section D). It said: The investigative review is intended to collate, record and analyse what has gone before. It is to examine the case and seek to determine, (as if the abduction occurred in the UK) what additional, new investigative approaches we would take and which can assist the Portuguese authorities in progressing the matter…” The McCanns were delighted with the remit.

 

112. Only the abduction theory can be investigated  -That remit meant that the 40-odd police who were engaged on the review team could only investigate an abduction. Their job, then, was to find who the abductor was. Yet when the case was shelved in Portugal, the Portuguese Police and Attorney-General said that there were two equally plausible theories:  Madeleine was abducted – or Madeleine had died in her parents’ apartment and the McCanns had hidden her body. Scotland Yard’s review, therefore, went against the Portuguese decision. They said that either theory could be reopened if there was ‘new and credible’ evidence. The decision by D.C.S. Campbell meant that Operation Grange have not been allowed to investigate the parents, or their ‘Tapas 7’ friends.   

 

113. The review is to ‘help the family’ The very day that Prime Minister David Cameron announced the setting-up of a review, his spokesman told the media: “The purpose of the review is to help the McCann family”.

 

114.  ‘The parents and their friends are not suspects’ - Moreover, during his review and investigation, Detective Chief Inspector (DCI) Andy Redwood (see next section) made this even clearer, by stating: “Neither her parents nor any of the members of the group that were with her [the Tapas 7] are either persons of interest or suspects”.

 

115. Outcome of the review ‘a secret’ - The Metropolitan Police answered a Freedom of Information Act request about whether the outcome of the review would be published. The Metropolitan Police said ‘No, it will be secret’.

 

SECTION D.   Who is running Operation Grange?

 

116.  A review set up at the request of Rebekah Brooks - Operation Grange, as we’ve seen,  was set up by the Prime Minister at the request of Rebekah Brooks, CEO of Murdoch’s News International empire. The Home Secretary, Theresa May, ordered the Met Police Commissioner to set up Operation Grange. This is therefore like no other police investigation - ever.  It is controlled from the top by those at the heart of our political establishment. 

 

117. Jill Dando blunder cop put in charge - The man put in charge of Operation Grange was DCS Hamish Campbell. He was answerable to Commander Simon Foy. Campbell was a very strange choice, due to his blunders during his investigation of the murder of Jill Dando. Campbell was in charge of that investigation, responsible only to Brian Moore, the Senior Investigating Officer. Moore had been sharply criticised by three Appeal Court judges in the case of another man, clearly ‘fitted up’ for a shooting offence. In that case, judges suggested that on Moore’s instructions, gun residue matching the crime weapon had been placed in the wrongfully convicted man’s pocket.

 

118.  Why was Campbell chosen? - It was exactly the same forensic evidence that sent Barry Bulsara, better known as Barry George, to prison for 8 years for murdering Jill Dando. Soon after Campbell took over the Dando investigation, he made public statements that her killer was probably ‘a loner’ - yet all the evidence suggested that the killer of Dando was a professional. Later, shotgun residue was ‘found’ in Bulsara’s coat pocket and a jury declared him guilty of murdering Dando. Three Appeal Court judges later freed him. So, we must ask, why was the senior detective, whose main claim to fame was prosecuting the wrong man, put in charge of Operation Grange?

  

119.  38 officers appointed - Campbell’s second-in-command was DCI Andy Redwood. He was within 3 years of retirement. His deputy was Detective Inspector Tim Dobson. They appointed a team of 38 officers, based in Belgravia Police Station, London. The weekly cost of Operation Grange has been about £50,000 a week, including many trips by Operation Grange officers to Portugal. The overall cost up to August 2016 was around £13 million. It is not known if that includes charges to be made by the Portuguese for helping Grange’s officers in their 2014 search (see below).    

 

120. Wall replaces Redwood - During its 4-year-long investigation, there have been several changes at the top. DCI Andy Redwood was replaced in December 2014 by DCI Nicola Wall. DCS Hamish Campbell left in May 2013. Deputy Assistant Met Police Commissioner Martin Hewitt now appears to be overseeing Operation Grange.

 

SECTION E.  Operation Grange: The story to October 2013

 

121. The first 2½ years...two e-fits handed over - Below we list the main events during the first 2½ years of Operation Grange. Early on, just weeks after Operation Grange was set up, the McCanns visited DCI Redwood and handed over two e-fits of a possible suspect, allegedly seen by an Irish family. These two strange e-fits formed the centrepiece of a BBC Crimewatch Special on Madeleine McCann in October 2013 (see Section F).

 

122.  Files collected from a discredited detective agency - On14 December 2011, the Met very publicly collected  30 boxes of documents from the discredited Barcelona detective agency, Metodo 3. Photographers were tipped off to record the scene for the British mainstream press. It was very unlikely that their material would help any genuine police enquiry. Their boss, Francisco Marco, had publicly lied by claiming, in December 2007, that his men knew where Madeleine was being held and that she would be ‘home by Christmas’. Despite this outrageous boast, ther McCanns’ PR agent announced that the McCanns would continue to employ Metodo 3 and still had complete confidence in them. In February 2008, his top detective, Antonio Gimenez Raso, former inspector in the Catalonian Drugs Squad, was arrested on suspicion of helping a 27-strong gang to steal millions of pounds worth of cocaine from a boat in Barcelona harbour. Antonio Giminez Razo was also caught paying bribes to people in Morocco to falsely claim that they had seen Madeleine there - and then contacting journalists to report the sightings.

  

123.  A new pic of what Madeleine might look like - On 25 April 2012, DCI Andy Redwood unveiled an ‘age-progressed’ picture of Madeleine as she might look aged  9 or 10. It was done by a forensic artist in close collaboration with Kate McCann. At the same time, Redwood said: “We genuinely believe there is a possibility Madeleine is alive. Evidence to support that view stems from the forensic view of the timeline. There were opportunities for Madeleine to have been taken as part of a criminal act”. Some 18 months later (see below), DCI Redwood would announce that he had shifted the time frame when Madeleine was abducted from 9.10- 9.15pm to 9.10-10.00pm. So he cleverly widened the time frame for Madeleine’s alleged abduction from 5 minutes to 50.

 

124. Police following 195 lines of enquiry - It was at this time that DCI Redwood began a practice of blinding the public with endless statistics. He spoke of his ‘team of 35’. He had made 7 visits to Portugal. He was pursuing 195 lines of enquiry. His team was ‘analysing every single scrap of paper’. TV journalists were very impressed.

 

125. DCI Redwood talks to an Irishman, Martin Smith - Sometime during 2012, DCI Redwood met a Mr Martin Smith from Drogheda, Ireland. He and several other members of his family had claimed they had seen a man carrying a child through the streets of Praia da Luz at about 10.00pm the night Madeleine was reported missing. There are numerous good reasons (see Section G) for believing that the Smiths fabricated their claimed  sighting. The Smiths had been working closely with members of the McCann Team since December 2007.  Redwood met Smith again in 2013 as the Met and the BBC planned their Crimewatch Special on Madeleine.

 

126. A ‘soothing couple’ sought - On 13 May 2013, the Express reported that Operation Grange were trying to trace a middle-aged couple who ‘soothed’ Madeleine on the night she was reported missing. There was no reference to this anywhere in the Portuguese Police files. The Express relied on ‘a source’ for this unlikely claim.

 

127. The review becomes an investigation - In July 2013, over two years after the review was set up, the Met Police announced that Operation Grange had now become a formal ‘investigation’. The Met also announced it had set up an office in Faro, Portugal, staffed by a team of six detectives.  But British Police have no jurisdiction in Portugal - and they later said that they were merely ‘assisting’ the Portuguese investigation. 

 

128. A blizzard of new statistics - On 4 October 2013, just 10 days before the BBC Crimewatch McCann Special, the British mainstream press was filled with a blizzard of new statistics supplied by DCI Redwood. He told the media that he and his detectives had decided to call for ‘tens of thousands’ of mobile ’phone records from 30 countries to be examined. In addition, he boasted that Operation Grange had:

·        identified 41 ‘persons of interest’ from 5 countries (previously it was 38), of whom 15 were ‘UK nationals’

·        ‘processed’ 21,614 of the 39,148 documents from the various police and private investigations, and

·        completed 2,123 of a total of 4,920 ‘actions’ which had been identified as being necessary.

 

129. ‘Peeling back layers from an onion’ - On this occasion DCI Redwood made one of his many memorable and bizarre statements about his investigation: “We are working backwards from the moment Madeleine went missing to understand what happened to her. It's like peeling back the layers from an onion”. 

 

SECTION F.  The Crimewatch McCann Special, 14 October 2013: An analysis

 

130. 7 million people watch Crimewatch - On 14 October 2013, at 9pm, the BBC screened a much-publicised ‘Crimewatch Special’ on Madeleine McCann. The BBC and the Met conceded that they had worked on this for at least six months, probably longer. The BBC said the programme, which included a reconstruction of the events of 3 May 2007 (the day Madeleine was reported missing), cost them over £1 million. Audience figures suggested that  7 million people watched it. It had been hugely hyped in the mainstream press, with extravagant promises of ‘dramatic revelations’ and ‘imminent arrests’. The programme identified a new chief suspect, a man said to have been seen by an Irish family, the Smiths, around 10pm the night Madeleine was reported missing (see next section).

 

131. A biased reconstruction - The programme included a reconstruction of the evening Madeleine was reported missing. It was based entirely on the McCanns’ account of events. Hence it was not neutral. It failed, for example, to mention any of the following: (a) the McCanns’ changes of story about their apartment being broken into by an abductor (b) their changes of story about which doors they used to access their apartment that night(c) whether or not they locked all their doors (d) the 20 contradictions about an alleged visit by Dr David Payne to the McCanns’ apartment at around 6.30pm the evening Madeleine was reported missing and (e) similar contradictions about whether or not Madeleine had had ‘high tea’ with her parents and a creche ‘nanny’ at about 5.30pm that evening.

 

132. A suspicious find - For 6 years, the McCanns and the British police had asked the public to identify a man that the McCanns’ friend Jane Tanner claimed to have seen carrying a child at around 9.15pm the night Madeleine was reported missing. There were numerous indications that this so-called ‘sighting’ was fabricated. Yet on the Crimewatch programme, DCI Redwood claimed that a man had now come forward - after 6 years - to say that he was the man seen by Jane Tanner. There were several reasons for doubting Redwood’s word, including:

a)  The man was not named; only a blurry ‘photograph’ of the man was shown,

b)  He was claimed to have been wearing clothes on holiday uncannily similar to those described by Jane Tanner,

c)  Had he really kept these items of clothing, including his child’s pyjamas, for a whole six years?

d)  He was said to have put his child in the ‘night creche’ at the Ocean Club, but there was no explanation as to where the child’s mother was, why he was carrying the child instead of using one of the buggies available at the Ocean Club, nor why she was uncovered, dressed only in pyjamas, at 9.15pm on a cold early May night (13 deg C),

e)  If he was walking in the direction claimed by Jane Tanner, then he was clearly not using the shortest way back from the night crèche to his home/apartment, as a map of the route he is supposed to have used, makes clear.  

 

SECTION G.  The mystery of Operation Grange, two e-fits, and the Smith family

 

133  Doubts about the e-fits - At the heart of the BBC Crimewatch Special were two e-fits of a man - said to have been seen carrying a child on the night Madeleine was reported missing - by members of the Smiths family, from Drogheda, who were in Praia da Luz at the time. There are several  reasons for doubting the authenticity of these e-fits:

 a) The BBC Crimewatch team used a clever, but evasive, form of words, saying that the e-fits were produced by ‘two of the witnesses’. Why did they not simply say ‘by two members of an Irish family’?

 b) The two e-fits are of very different-looking men. The shape of their faces, the style of hair, the size of their chins, the length of their noses and several other features differ. It is highly unusual for the police to show two quite different faces of suspects when they really want the public’s help to trace someone.

c) The Smiths admitted they did not get a clear sight of the man they say that they saw. It was dark, there was only ‘weak’ street lighting, they only saw him for a few seconds, and didn’t see his face properly because his head was down and the child was said to be covering his face. In addition, all the three Smith family members - Martin Smith, his son and his daughter - who made statements said they would never be able to recognise him again.

 d) The Smiths did not report their sighting until 13 days after it - despite the international media storm.    

 e)  If the e-fits were drawn up by the Smiths (which is doubtful), they were not drawn up until at least a year after they say they saw the man - by which time any  recollections they might have had of the man would have faded

 f) The e-fits were drawn up on the instructions of men employed by the McCanns.

 g) The man who drew up the e-fits was Henri Exton, formerly the Head of MI5’s Covert Intelligence Unit, and later employed for several months by the McCanns. He was sacked by MI5 after being caught stealing a bottle of perfume from Manchester Airport. That raises questions about whether his word on this matter can be trusted.

 h) The e-fits were given to the McCanns in summer, 2008. They say they delivered these to Leicestershire Police and the Portuguese Police ‘by October 2009’, but don’t say why they didn’t do this before.  Neither police force took any action about them. The McCanns handed the e-fits to Operation Grange in spring,  2011. Yet they were not used by Operation Grange until the BBC programme in October 2013. DCI Redwood said on Crimewatch that these two e-fits were now ‘the centre of our focus’. Why had they been kept under wraps by everyone for 5½ years?   

 

134.  Strange actions of the Smith family - The actions of the Smiths in this matter are baffling. For example:

* The Smiths only reported their sighting the day after Robert Murat was made the first suspect in Madeleine’s disappearance. Martin Smith admitted he knew Murat for two years already and told the police that the only thing he could be sure of was that the man whom he said he had seen was not Robert Murat.

* Martin Smith made evasive statements about how well he knew Murat, firstly saying that he’d only met him twice, but later admitting that he’d seen him ‘several times’ over a ‘period of two years’.

* In September 2007, 4 months after his alleged sighting of the man, Martin Smith told the Irish Police he thought the man could be Gerry McCann. He said he’d seen Gerry McCann on a TV news bulletin, carrying his son Sean down the steps of a plane, and said ‘the way he carried his son reminded me of the man I’d seen in Praia da Luz’. But Gerry McCann was merely carrying Sean on his left shoulder, as nearly all right-handed men do with a tired or sleeping child. Later Martin Smith changed his mind and now agrees that Madeleine was abducted by a stranger.

* Once again, Martin Smith did not report his claim about the man looking like Gerry McCann immediately. It took him 11 days after seeing the broadcast to make the ’phone call to the Irish Police.

* In his police statement he gave the age of the man he said he’d seen as ‘about 40’, then changed  it to ’35 to 40’. But he changed this again to ’34 to 35’ when the McCanns added his claims to their website in early 2009

      

SECTION H.  The cost of Operation Grange

 

135. An open chequebook  - Operation Grange has given out information from time to time on its overall cost, sometimes in response to Freedom of Information Act questions. At the date of publishing this leaflet (August 2016), the cost was estimated at around £13 million - averaging over £6,500 a day, or £50,000 a week. 

 

SECTION I. The criticisms of Operation Grange

 

136. Lord Harris’s criticism - The decision to set up Operation Grange in the first place, and the decision to give it an unlimited budget and unlimited time were critcised at the outset. Labour’s Lord Toby Harris was on the Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA) when Operation Grange was first announced. He said: “What we are looking at is a case where the Met has no direct responsibility. There is clearly an issue about the resources being used. It's not just a question of direct costs - it's a question of opportunity costs too”. Later, the Daily Telegraph ran a headline: ‘David Cameron is accused of meddling in the Madeleine McCann investigation’. It included further strong comments from Lord Harris, who said, correctly: “The Prime Minister has driven a coach and horses through operational independence and had forced the Metropolitan Police to work outside its jurisdiction”. (See http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/madeleinemccann/8513574/David-Cameron-is-accused-of-meddling-over-Madeleine-McCann.html)

 

137. Liberal Democrat and Green Party criticisms - The Green Party member of the Authority, Jennie Jones, also commented: “As a member of the MPA, I have to look at how resources are responsibly used. There are many serious crimes in London, and it is the job of the Met Police to investigate crimes on a fair and impartial basis. Tying up vast amounts of police time and resources on one case does not instil confidence that each crime will be investigated on its own merits. For example, the forensic service unit has been closed. Many will wonder what the Prime Minister's motives were, and whether he understands how difficult policing is in this economic climate. I believe that the Prime Minister was wrong to allocate Met Police resources to [the Madeleine McCann] investigation. He appears to have been swayed by the Sun newspaper, and it is wholly wrong to capitalise in this way and try to win popular support for what is fundamentally a Portuguese investigation”. Liberal Democrat peer Lord Bradshaw added: “The decision is a PR exercise. Chief Constables are desperately worried that their operational independence will be compromised”.

 

SECTION J.  Recent developments

 

138. Man who died in 2010 tractor accident becomes lead suspect - In early November 2013, just three weeks after the BBC Crimewatch programme, stories surfaced in the British mainstream press that the Portuguese Police’s main suspect was Euclides Monteiro, a 40-year-old black African from the Cape Verde Islands, who was said to have killed Madeleine. However, he had died in tractor accident in 2010. His widow was furious at suggestions he might have been involved in Madeleine’s abduction or death. This suspect, of course, looked nothing like the two e-fits of ‘Smithman’ and nothing like the 4 white men whom Redwood had earlier (on the BBC Crimewatch Special) claimed had been hanging around near the McCanns’ apartment the week before Madeleine was reported missing.

 

139. False claims of ‘imminent arrests‘ - On 29 January 2014, the British mainstream press reported that four Operation Grange detectives had flown to Portugal ‘to arrest three suspects’. Newspapers reported that ‘mobile phone evidence has revealed that the suspects repeatedly called each other in the hours after Madeleine was reported missing’. Operation Grange officers met with Luís Mota Carmo, Co-ordinator of the Portuguese Police investigation. It was claimed that he ‘heads up a team of six Faro detectives who have been carrying out work on behalf of Scotland Yard’. Eventually seven ‘persons of interest’ were interviewed on a voluntary basis. The article was inaccurate. No-one was arrested. On 24 April 2014, the Daily Star promised ‘new arrests within weeks’. This didn’t happen. Many other press reports also promised ‘imminent arrests’

 

140. ‘Five British flat-owners wanted for questioning’ - On 19 April 2014, the Daily Mirror front-page story told its readers that Grange officers wanted to question ‘5 British holiday flat-owners’, said to have been in their flats  at the time Madeleine was reported missing. The newspaper alleged that all 5 were ‘refusing to co-operate’. This was one of many stories probably leaked by Operation Grange to the press. Nothing has come of this. 

 

141. The search for a smelly, pot-bellied intruder’ - On 23 April 2014, Operation Grange updated their appeals for information. They were now focusing on a 'smelly, pot-bellied' intruder (now known as ‘smelly bin-man’).  They had had ‘500 calls’ and claimed to have heard of a 'new sexual assault’- on a 10-year-old British girl - which allegedly took place in Praia da Luz in 2005. This case had not previously been reported to police.. Grange officers also claimed to have information about ‘18 break-ins’, of which ‘9 involved sexual assaults on British girls aged 6 to 12’. These were said to have taken place at various locations along the Algarve: 3 in Praia da Luz, 9 in Albufeira, 5 in Carvoeiro, and one in Vilamoura. Martin Hewitt, the Met’s Deputy Assistant Commissioner, said that suspect was ‘tanned, with dark hair, spoke English slowly with a foreign accent, had a pot belly, was sometimes bare-chested, may have worn a burgundy-coloured top with a white circle on the back, tended to smell badly and carried out his attacks around dawn, suggesting he might be doing early morning rubbish collections’. The Portuguese Police never confirmed these claims.          

 

142. A lack of police co-operation –

On the same day (23 April), news emerged that the Portuguese Police had refused Operation Grange’s request to set up a ‘joint investigation team’ This confirmed earlier reports that suggested a complete lack of co-operation between the two police forces. One report said they were ‘at war’.

 

143. ‘Police closing in on a man with a burgundy top’ - On 28 April 2014, the Daily Express reported that former Scotland Yard detective Peter Bleksley had been to the Algarve and discovered that the burgundy-coloured top, said to be worn by ‘smelly bin-man’, was ‘a rare design produced by beer company Super Bock, given away free to loyal customers’. He claimed that police could trace who was given one. Again, nothing came of this, although some time later, the Daily Star, sister paper to the Express, made the sensational - but, once again, false - claim that ‘Police are closing in on the prime suspect in Madeleine McCann's disappearance’.

 

144. A search in Portugal with helicopters, sniffer dogs and pickaxes -

On 6 May 2014 the British mainstream press announced that the Portuguese Police had given permission for a team from Operation Grange to carry out search operations in Praia da Luz. Later that month, a large team of Met Police officers and support staff conducted, over a period of weeks, in conjunction with some Portuguese Police officers, two highly publicised searches of two areas of waste ground in Praia da Luz. Journalists and camera crews from around the world sent back reports, pictures and live broadcasts. During these searches, which lasted two weeks, the world witnessed the following:



· Met Police, Portuguese Police and Portuguese military officers flying in a top Portuguese military helicopter, a Mark III Alouette, over various patches of waste ground in Praia da Luz



· Met Police officers using sniffer dogs from Wales - they were said to be using four of them



· Met Police support staff using spades, pock-axes, shovels and augers to dig out parts of the search areas



· Met Police support staff placing bones and soil samples in plastic bags, for later forensic analysis.



After the second week-long search, in June, DCI Redwood reported that during these searches they had found a few rabbit bones, but nothing else of interest. As far as we know today, this search was waste of time and money.

 

145. DCI Redwood resigns -  On 5 December 2014 it was reported that DCI Redwood had resigned. As many top police officers pointed out, no senior police officer would resign if there was a reasonable prospect in view of a person or persons being charged with the offence he was investigating.  DCI Nicola Wall replaced him.

 

146. The smelly bin-man might have broken in ‘28 times’ - On 2 May 2015, the Daily Telegraph reported that writers Summers and Swan had written an update to their book ‘Looking for Madeleine’. The book included a sensational new ‘revelation’ that there were now 10 more reports of a burglar/child molestor/intruder along the Algarve coast, making the total number of alleged break-ins 28, not 18. It appeared, once again in their careers, that Summers and Swan had been given privileged information by official sources, to cover up the truth, rather than to reveal it. This confidential privileged information was probably provided to Summers and Swan with the deliberate intent of helping sales of their book, which promoted the idea that an intruder might have abducted and murdered Madeleine. Summers and Swan wrote that ‘a source’ had told them:  “The offences are not all the same. Some involve not little children but teenagers or young women…But there are similarities. We’re seeing a sort of consistent theme. Perhaps there is a burglar, a thief, who’s also got a weakness for this sort of thing. We don’t know. We’re not saying all these offences are definitely linked, but there’s potential here. If we dig down into those incidents and find out who’s responsible, if we find that a single person is responsible for a number, if not all, of the events…Who knows, that same person may have been responsible for Madeleine McCann’s disappearance”. This news came well over a year after Operation Grange had suggested that ‘smelly bin-man’ had committed several break-ins with a sexual motive. The Telegraph suggested the police were no nearer finding out if all these reported incidents were the same man and, if so, who it was.  Over a year later, there is no indication that Summers and Swans’ theories were correct.

 

147. Operation Grange team cut to 4 officers - On 28 October 2015, the Met announced that the team of officers  working on Operation Grange had been cut from 29 to 4, adding: “The vast majority of our work into Madeleine's disappearance has been completed”. In addition: “No conclusion has been reached, but we are following a small number of focused lines of inquiry”. The McCanns said: “We are reassured that the investigation to find Madeleine has been significantly progressed and the Met has a much clearer picture of the events in Praia da Luz leading up to Madeleine's abduction in 2007. Given that the review phase of the investigation is essentially completed, we fully understand the reasons why the team is being reduced”. Their PR spokesman, Mitchell, said “The investigation into her disappearance is not drawing to a close. Kate and Gerry are far from disillusioned. This is no way the end of Operation Grange. If anything it will now continue on a newly-focused, smaller yes, but focused basis that will hopefully lead to Madeleine being found somewhere in the near future”. The Met’s Assistant Commissioner, Mark Rowley, said: "The Met was asked to take on this exceptional case as one of national interest. We were happy to bring our expertise to bear only on the basis that it would not detract from the policing of London; and the Home Office have additionally funded the investigation above normal grants to the Met. That will continue at the reduced level”.

 

148. More statistics from the Met - The following statistical details were also given by the Met in October:: 1,338 statements taken; 1,027 exhibits collected; 60 persons of interest investigated; 8,685 potential sightings considered; 560 lines of inquiry identified, and 30 requests made to other countries asking for work to be carried out.

 

149. Operation Grange extended for a ‘final’ 6 months - On 3 April 2016, the then Home Secretary Theresa May announced that she had allocated a further £94,592 to Operation Grange ‘until October’. This was said to be for ‘a further 6 months’ work. The Daily Mirror, commenting on the report, said: “When the money runs out, the Yard will then be poised to ditch the five-year inquiry which has yet to unearth any new clues”.


150. McCanns’ friend, the late Sir Clement Freud, investigated by Operation Grange - Just as Operation Grange was coming to a close, there was a spate of media reports that the late Sir Clement Freud, who twice (at least) entertained the McCanns in his Praia da Luz villa, was a serial paedophile, having abused or raped girls as young as 10 years old. Acting surprised by this news, Operation Grange said they would ‘look into’ the close relationship between Clement Freud and the McCanns.

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Published by The Madeleine McCann Research Group - 1 August 2016   SEE:  http://jillhavern.forumotion.net/

>> The work of the Madeleine McCann Research Group features on the ‘Complete Mystery of Madeleine McCann’