Thursday, March 10, 2016

A Nightwear Job by Dr Martin Roberts

I have my own twopenn'orth added at the bottom of the page. Ed.

Update: Tania Cadogan: Ponderings On Those Famous Pajamas And That Stain

Tania Cadogan blogspot


A Nightwear Job
By Dr Martin Roberts
March 9, 2016



As published in the Telegraph

Author unknown


In the very nearly nine years since the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, and the eight since the parents had their arguido status formally withdrawn, one simple question has passed publicly unanswered, probably because the answer appears obvious and the question therefore not worth the asking. I shall ask it nevertheless:


Who took the McCanns' 'official photograph' of Madeleine's pyjamas?


The image in question was 'released' to the world's media in the late afternoon of 10 May, 2007, following a press conference that day. It was no doubt assumed by many that, since the PJ released the photographs (there is more than one), the PJ themselves must have taken them. Yet a film distributor who arranges the release of a 'blockbuster' is hardly likely to have spent the previous months/years actually doing the filming.


With this seed of doubt in mind, one might consider what the PJ did with their photograph(s), adhering all the while to the worldwide practice, among law enforcement agencies, of 'continuity', whereby the progress of evidence through the system, in whichever direction, is recorded at each step along the way. Whereabouts, then, did they file this particular 'diligence' of theirs?


Within the relevant Forensic report (23 November 2007) are references to the following images, together with cognate views of a pair of pyjama trousers:



A far cry from earlier publicised representations you will admit.

Why on earth should the PJ have seemingly undertaken the same photographic work twice, involving two quite different sets of pyjamas?

The forensic record (of garments correctly pictured alongside a scaling reference, i.e. a ruler) is that of a pair of pyjamas supplied on request by M&S (UK), afterwards forwarded to the Forensic Laboratory in Lisbon by Goncalo Amaral, together with a covering letter dated 7 June. It has nothing whatever to do with the official photograph released in early May. In fact the clothing pictured has more in common with that featured in the retailer's own contemporary stock photograph, a copy of which was sent to the Algarve Resident, again on request, and which the 'Resident' published on 8 May - two days before the official release.



As published by the Algarve Resident


During a press call at the Amsterdam Hilton, on 7 June, Kate McCann took pains to explain that the pyjamas being exhibited at that time were in fact Amelie's, and that Madeleine's were not only bigger but did not feature a button-fastening t-shirt. Only a couple of days earlier the same pyjamas, again described as 'Amelies' and 'a little bit smaller', were presented on 'Crimewatch', but without reference to the button discrepancy.

It stands to reason of course, that, Madeleine McCann's pyjamas having been abducted, a surrogate pair would have been required for photographic purposes, in the event of there being no extant photographic record of the clothing in question. But appropriate photographs were to hand. They already existed. One version, as we have seen, was published by the Algarve Resident, another by the BBC. The McCanns' 'official' version was consistent with neither of these. With the PJ yet to physically access a representative set of pyjamas, why should they have been called upon to photograph anything else for immediate release?

There is no record of their having done so. Ergo they did not. So who did? And where did the pyjamas come from that enabled them to do it?

Addressing the second of these questions first, the garments featured in the PJ release cannot have come from M&S locally, since all their Portuguese branches had been closed years before. Had they come from M&S in the UK they would obviously have resembled the pair sent to (and genuinely photographed by) the PJ. A pointer to their origin is, however, to be found within the case files.

Alongside a suite of photographs taken at Lagos Marina by Kate McCann is an introductory memo, written by DC Markley of Leicester Police on or about the 8 May and headed up, 'Information from the Family'. Here also one finds the only copy (in black and white) of the McCanns' official photograph of Madeleine's pyjamas (Outros Apensos Vol. II - Apenso VIII, p.342). Rather than its being a PJ production, afterwards passed to the McCanns, it seems the photograph was actually a McCann production fed to the PJ, an observation wholly concordant with the fact that it was actually the McCanns who first revealed this photograph to the press, on Monday 7 May, three days before the PJ released it (as reported by Ian Herbert, the Independent, 11.5.07).

Any illusion that the image in question was the result of a McCann representative's commissioning their own studio photograph of 'off-the-shelf' UK merchandise may soon be dispelled. It is an amateur snapshot. Taken in ambient (day) light, against a coloured (as opposed to neutral) background, it is slightly out of focus and displays detectable signs of parallax. It is not something even a journeyman professional would admit to.

And yet, bold as brass, it represents 'information from the family'.

Perhaps it was produced by a member of the McCann entourage that descended on Praia da Luz over the long weekend 4-6 May? Then again, perhaps not. As Kate McCann explains in her book, 'madeleine' (p.109):

“Everyone had felt helpless at home and had rushed out to Portugal to take care of us and to do what they could to find Madeleine. When they arrived, to their dismay they felt just as helpless – perhaps more so, having made the trip in the hope of achieving something only to discover it was not within their power in Luz any more than it had been in the UK.”

On Kate McCann's own admission, to a House of Commons committee no less, neither she nor husband Gerry were any more capable of keeping cool under fire during this time. Having earlier (August 2007) told her Pal, Jon Corner, "the first few days.…you have total physical shutdown", she went on to advise the House that, despite being medically trained, she and her husband "couldn't function" (John Bingham, the Telegraph, 13.6.2011).

Well someone on the McCann side of the fence managed to function in time for the parents to appear before the media on 7 May with a photograph that, so far, no-one seems to have taken, and of clothing which, other things being equal, ought not even to have existed anywhere inside Portugal, except, perhaps, in the clutches of a fugitive abductor. But, of course, other things are anything but equal.

Non mihi, non tibi, sed nobis

A month after the world's media were first shown a picture of something resembling Madeleine McCann's 'Eeyore pyjamas', a real set was being touted around Europe. Described by Kate McCann as 'Amelie's' and being 'a little bit smaller', they were held aloft for the assembled press brigade, without any one of them questioning the pyjamas' origins either. Being 'Amelie's' was quite enough, apparently, to justify their also being in the McCanns' possession at the time. Since when though? Gerry McCann did not return home to Leicester from Praia da Luz until 21 May, time enough for him to have raided his daughter's wardrobe for something he might need on his European travels, but way too late to have met any 7/10 May deadlines.

It seems, then, as if the two ingredients required to achieve an earlier photograph of 'Madeleine's' pyjamas (the photographer and the subject) were both missing. So how was it done?

What at first appears to be a riddle is soon solved when one realises that the pair of pyjamas which accompanied the McCanns around Europe was the very same pair that starred in their 'official photograph' taken earlier. Kate McCann took public ownership of them before the television cameras the moment she referred to them as 'Amelie's'. On close inspection these pyjamas (Amelie's) are revealed as identical to the pair previously pictured in both the Daily Mail (10.5.07) and the Telegraph (see top of page here), down to the stray threads dangling from both upper and lower garments. This means that 'Amelie's pyjamas', for want of a better description, were also present with the McCanns since the start of their Algarve holiday.



As published by the Daily Mail


Suddenly the question ceases to be 'Who photographed a representative pair of Eeyore pyjamas?' and becomes, instead, 'Who photographed Amelie's pyjamas?' Furthermore, if everyone was feeling so shell-shocked as to render them incapable from the Friday, when did they have the presence of mind to take the requisite pictures?

We begin to edge toward a sinister conclusion once we take particular account of the literal background against which these particular pyjamas were photographed.


A coarse woven tale

Unlike the various studio renditions of Eeyore pyjamas to which we have been introduced, the McCann's official photograph(s), versions of which were published by both the PJ and the UK media, present the subject laid out against a blue textile, rather than the more customary piece of artist's board. This blue upholstery, for that is unquestionably what it is, helps define who, among the Tapas 9, might have been the photographer.

The Paynes, the Oldfields and the O'Briens can be ruled out. Only the Payne's apartment incorporated any soft furnishings in blue, but of a different quality to the plain open-weave material on display here. During the early morning of Friday 4 May, 2007, the McCanns were re-located to alternative accommodation in apartment 4G - another in which blue soft furnishings were conspicuous by their absence (it was appointed in beige throughout).* Added to which the concern, lest we forget, is with photography involving a pair of pyjamas known to have been in the McCanns' possession from the outset.

In his statement to Police of 10 May, Gerry McCann as good as exonerated himself of all blame concerning picture taking:

‘Asked, he clarifies that:
apart from the personal photos already delivered by him to the police authorities after the disappearance of his daughter MADELEINE, he has no others in his possession. 

He adds that it is:
his wife KATE who usually takes pictures, he does not recall taking any pictures during this holiday, at night.’

Notwithstanding accounts of how, from the Friday onwards, the McCanns, their nearest and dearest, all fell mentally and physically incapable (of anything save visiting the pool, the beach bar, and the church on Sunday morning), Kate McCann early on made a very telling remark, concerning photography, to journalist Olga Craig:

"I haven't been able to use the camera since I took that last photograph of her" (The Telegraph, May 27, 2007).

That statement alone carries with it a very serious connotation. However, we still have a distance to travel.

The more contrastive of the two images reproduced here displays what appear to be areas of shadow, when in fact there are no local perturbations at the surface of the fabric to cause them. Similarly, the dark bands traversing the t-shirt appear more representative of what is actually beneath it. These visible oddities suggest the material is in fact damp and 'clinging' to the underlying upholstery.

There is, as we know, an anecdote of Kate McCann's, which sees her washing Madeleine's pyjama top on the Thursday morning. As re-told in her book, she does so while alone in the family's apartment:

"I returned to our apartment before Gerry had finished his tennis lesson and washed and hung out Madeleine’s pyjama top on the veranda."

Size matters

As previously stated, Kate McCann was careful to bring the attention of her Amsterdam Hilton audience, to Madeleine's pyjama top being both larger and simpler than the version she was holding in her hands at the time. She was inviting them instinctively to associate garment size with complexity - the larger the simpler in this instance. It would mean of course that Madeleine's 'Eeyore' pyjamas, purchased in 2006, would not have been absolutely identical with those of her sister Amelie, purchased whenever (but obviously before the family's 2007 holiday on the Portuguese Algarve).

On 7 May, the Sun reported that:
"The McCann family also disclosed that on the night of her disappearance Madeleine was wearing white pyjama bottoms with a small floral design and a short-sleeved pink top with a picture of Eeyore with the word Eeyore written in capital letters.
"The clothes were bought at Marks and Spencer last year."
In his 7 June covering letter to the Forensic Laboratory in Lisbon, Goncalo Amaral conveys the following specification in relation to the pyjamas he was intent on sending for examination:

"The Pyjamas are from Marks and Spencers, size 2 to 3 years -97 cm.
"The pyjamas are composed of two pieces: camisole type without buttons"

Since these items could only have been supplied to the PJ in mid-07, they must have represented that year's style, as it were, for 2-3 year olds. Madeleine would have been four years old by this time. However, Kate McCann would have people believe that 'Amelie's' pyjamas, sporting a button, were designed to fit an even younger child. Had Kate purchased the appropriate pyjamas for Amelie in 2007 of course, they would not have had a button at all.

They must therefore have been purchased in the same epoch as Madeleine’s own, i.e. during 2006, when Amelie would have been a year younger and somewhat smaller even than when the family eventually travelled to Portugal the following year.

The significance of all this becomes apparent once we consider those photographs which show how the pyjamas held aloft by the McCanns at their various European venues encompassed half Gerry McCann's body length at least. Photographs of the McCanns out walking with their twins in Praia da Luz, on the other hand, illustrate, just as clearly, that Amelie McCann did not stand that tall from head to toe. Even In 2007 she would have been swamped by her own pyjamas, never mind the year before when they were purchased.

In conclusion, the McCanns' 'official photograph', first exhibited on 7 May, appears to be that of a damp pair of pyjamas, too big to have been sensibly purchased for Madeleine's younger sister that Spring, and most certainly not the year before. The subject is set against dark blue upholstery of a type not present in any of the apartments occupied by the McCanns or their Tapas associates immediately after 3 May. Kate McCann has explained, over time, how she was alone in apartment 5A that morning, in the company of a damp pyjama top (having just washed it) and how, from that afternoon by all accounts, she 'couldn't bear to use the camera', an automatic device (Canon PowerShot A620) belonging to a product lineage with an unfortunate reputation for random focussing errors.

Madeleine was not reported missing until close to 10.00 p.m. that night. If Madeleine McCann's pyjamas were not in fact abducted, then nor was Madeleine McCann.

Martin Roberts

*See the extended search videos here: http://www.mccannfiles.com/id167.html

Grateful thanks are due to Nigel Moore for collating a number of highly relevant photographs and media reports in connection with this topic.








1) Forensic photograph of couch in apartment 5A
2)Pyjamas belonging to the McCanns

 Not definite, but . . .

H/T Grande Finale


If a fellow thought that the Metropolitan Police Service was a functioning entity, he might call for the arrest of the McCanns based on what is written and depicted here. Ed.


Comments Full, Please Click Here

199 comments:

Anonymous said...

Many thanks, Dr Martin Roberts!

Martin Roberts said...

Anonymous @ 14:46

You are very welcome. It's thanks to 'Himself' that the fox is at last in the chicken coop.

Anonymous said...

“It's thanks to 'Himself' that the fox is at last in the chicken coop.”

Many thanks, Himself!

Anonymous said...

Martin R./Himself

This is a brilliant piece of writing, well-illustrated. Thank you both.

In addition: Press conference on June 6, 2007 in Berlin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQ3ForLXJT0

1:35 Kate McCann:

"So these are actually, apart from the size and the button on the back which Madeleine's doesn't have, these are actually the pyjamas that Madeleine was wearing when she was taken."

It's all in the details.

Regards,

Maren

Martin Roberts said...

Maren @19:20

Thank you. I hadn't forgotten that 'moment'. I recognised its importance when you brought it to the fore previously.

I don't know if Tania C. would agree with me, but the disclaimer regarding size and buttons is a phrase in parenthesis (both written and spoken), subordinate to the crux of the statement, which Kate is even good enough to re-iterate for effect. That clause alone tells us all we need to know.

Had the pyjamas been 'identical to' the pyjamas Madeleine was wearing then Kate should have said so. She did not. Instead she tells us they were actually the pyjamas Madeleine was wearing. So how did they end up in Berlin?

Statement analysis, as practised by Tania and others, has, in my opinion, a very considerable role to play in arriving at the truth of things. I just felt in this instance, and with all the obvious visual clues available, that digression was unnecessary. It certainly supports the argument though!

May I add that the other quote you filtered out ("I returned to the apartment before Gerry...") was/is of singular importance. I had genuinely overlooked its significance in the past when putting together her ladyship's various utterances. In the present context it represents the stopper on the bottle.

Thanks and regards

M.R.



Anonymous said...

What is there to add but thanks to Martin - Himself and Maren for sticking with this. And of course Nigel Moore.

The "Ed's" comment says it all.

Agnos

Anonymous said...

Thanks all, it's always afterwards that I say to myself, "that's fecking obvious" ,but I never seen it! I've said before t here before and it never tires of being said,they always give us the answer,it's as if they willing us to know the truth......it's surely coming.

Anonymous said...

Hi,22.09 here😜

I said it better elsewhere .....so I bring it here

I believe that the McCanns always tell the truth,with a twist to take your eyes off of it. We see it so often in this mess. She says it herself " these are actually the pyjamas that Madeleine was wearing when she was taken".
So they had a missing button,wasn't abducted and the only question remaining is who took her?

It's all linguistics

Anonymous said...

I must be missing something here.
Why shouldn't the pj's have existed in Portugal in '07? If they were Amelie's why not use as an example?

Also why wouldn't Amelie be in size 2-3? Surely that is the exact size for a child of her age at the time of the holiday?

I don't read too much into Kate's remark ( mentioned in comments above), 'these are the exact pj's Madeleine was wearing'. Haven't we, when out shopping and seeing an item we own said the very same thing? ''look! It's my dress/shirt''.

I'm sure the Mccanns are responsible for their daughter's disappearance but how the above confirms it has, as I said, lost me.

Martin Roberts said...


Anonymous @ 00:31

"I must be missing something here"

Several things actually.

"Why shouldn't the pj's have existed in Portugal in '07?"

At the point in the narrative where that statement is made it is a deliberate 'straw man'.

'Eeyore' pyjamas could not have been purchased in Portugal (M&S had closed their outlets) and the 'abductor' had carried off the only set we were supposed to have known about. It's only when Kate McCann acknowledges 'Amelie's' pyjamas that the prospect of TWO pairs owned by the McCanns arises.

"Why wouldn't Amelie be in size 2-3? Surely that is the exact size for a child of her age at the time of the holiday?"

'At the time of her holiday' - just:

"On the afternoon of 1 February 2005, Sean and Amelie made their appearance in the world" (Kate McCann in 'madeleine')

Parents buy clothes to fit I believe. Had 'Amelie's pyjamas been bought in 2007 they would have looked like the pair in the PJ photograph - NO BUTTON

But they HAD a button and were 'a little bit smaller'. So were they for a child 18 months - 2 years and bought at the turn of the year?

Can you not see how unlikely that is given their obvious size?

Or they were right for a 2 -3 year old and bought the year before. Oh hang on. So were Madeleine's. And, according to Kate, they didn't have a button.

"I don't read too much into Kate's remark (mentioned in comments above)"

That doesn't matter. What matters is not which child the pyjamas should ultimately be attributed to but WHEN THE PHOTOGRAPHS WERE TAKEN.

Madeleine was not noticed missing, apparently, until 10.00 p.m. So what would anyone be doing taking photographs of Eeyore pyjamas at any time beforehand? Those pictures served only one purpose - one that should not have come into play until the child had disappeared.

Tania Cadogan said...

Great job Martin.

Clothes based on a specific age range can be a bit hit and miss as children rarely follow a sizing norm.
As Martin rightly points out, when it comes to buying clothes for children, parents buy to fit and allow for a little extra growing room in order that the child gets to wear it for more than a couple of weeks.More so when money is a bit tight

Some may be wearing clothes are are a couple of ages bigger, IE, a 3 year old wearing clothes meant for a 5 year old or clothes for a 3 year old wearing clothes meant for a 2 year old.
Clothes sizes can also vary due to type of material, how they are cut (as with adult clothes some can be cut giving a generous size and others can be a smaller size and less forgiving.
M&S are generous in their cuts so a size 14 lady can perhaps get into a a size 12 or even a 10 (very good and a happy lady) whereas, a designer item could be skimpy on the cut and a a size 14 lady would need an 18.(very bad and an unhappy lady) These things matter to us ladies.

"So these are actually, apart from the size and the button on the back which Madeleine's doesn't have, these are actually the pyjamas that Madeleine was wearing when she was taken."
So is used to explain why something is/happened.
It answers an unasked question the subject expects will be asked.

Kate slips up here by not telling us these are identical or similar to the pyjamas Maddie was wearing, she instead tells us the pyjamas are the ones Maddie was wearing when allegedly abducted.
She uses the word actually which is a word indicating comparison between 2 or more items.

IE, I like vanilla ice cream, actually i like chocolate more.

This is also a sensitive statement since she uses the word actually twice.

The problem kate has is she twice tells us these are Maddie's pajamas whilst at the same time contradicting herself and telling us apart from the size and the button on the back

As has been rightly pointed out, how can these be the pajamas Maddie was wearing when she was abducted when, presumably, said self same pajamas would have been abducted along with Maddie since she was wearing them.

Either Maddie was wearing them the night she was allegedly abducted, in which case: How did the mccanns come across her pajamas?
When did they come across them?
Where did they find them?
Why were they not immediately handed to the PJ for testing and a fingertip search of the area conducted?

Or.

Kate and gerry removed the pajamas from Maddie's corpse before disposing of her.

Or kate and gerry are outright lying about what Maddie was wearing that night, in which case why the need to lie about something trivial unless. of course, there is something which was seen or found that would incriminate them.

With the mccanns it is always look over there not here, or look over here not over there.
There is a need to distract.

Martin Roberts said...

Tania C @09:54

Many thanks for confirming my own and Maren's suspicions yesterday regarding the 'actual pyjamas' (up-thread @19:51).

I spent some time with a tape measure inside an M&S branch (and elsewhere) a few years ago.

When it comes to toddler/infant pyjamas, there is scarcely any difference in size between the tops. It is the trouser component that grows in length - along with a child's legs!



Anonymous said...

Ecce Martin Roberts

I had just glanced over the essay when I thanked you and Himself yesterday for its publication. Got down to perusing it late in the evening and…

A stunning peace of research, masterful presentation, compelling conjectures by a wonderful teacher “with a Flemish eye for detail” who has once again reached that which reasonable doubt can not reach.

Having left nothing bigger that a grain of sand unturned in his trail, the fox must have smelt the “small floral pattern” of the pjs bottoms’ to have found his way into the chicken coop!

Credit and gratitude are due to Maren.

Many thanks to Himself, Agnos, and to everyone else involved in this endeavour.

And thanks are also due to Mr and Mrs McCann for their generosity in letting us have so many valuable clues to what did not happen to their daughter, Madeleine Beth McCann, bless her.

Unknown said...

Didn't the dogs alert to another item of Maddies clothing? Which would of course mean they were in contact with her her body, therefore more than likely wearing them at the time of death. I think the pyjamas are just a prop to convince us she disappeared at night.

Martin Roberts said...

Rebecca Lenaghan @12:41

What the pyjamas were and whose they were is really not the issue here.

The question being addressed (and which yet requires an answer, although it's not that difficult) is, 'Why would anyone take a photograph of their daughter's pyjamas before their eldest daughter is even abducted?

It is not one for the family album. Its only purpose could be to support and encourage a search for the missing child. BUT THEY DIDN'T KNOW SHE WAS MISSING UNTIL 10 o'clock THAT NIGHT. OR did they?

If Kate McCann could not bear to use her camera after taking that 'last photograph' (on the Thursday afternoon, or so it is said) then any other photography in which she might have been engaged MUST have preceded her daughter Madeleine's disappearance.

I respectfully suggest you read the article again - carefully.

Anonymous said...

Dr. Roberts - are you suggesting that the photo released 10th May and published by The Telegraph was taken on a plain blue open weave sofa and could have been still wet, having just been washed? As suggested on Candyfloss form, this maybe explains the upper case print seen above Eeyore`s back - an .ALKT.. and the rows of lower case print below. You have to enlarge the photo to see it. Is that also the tea stain shown at the neckline, that KM is supposed to have tried to wash out one morning (I forget which morning).
Gertrude

Martin Roberts said...

Gertrude @14:04

"Dr. Roberts - are you suggesting that the photo released 10th May and published by The Telegraph was taken on a plain blue open weave sofa and could have been still wet, having just been washed?"

Yes I am.

"this maybe explains the upper case print seen above Eeyore`s back - an .ALKT.."

I've been aware of these for a long time also. I shouldn't care to speculate wildly but the U/C letters MIGHT spell MADD...with the second 'd' reversed (as with a stencil).

"and the rows of lower case print below"

I hadn't noticed any lower case print before. (I'd better get my magnifying glass out!)

"Is that also the tea stain shown at the neckline, that KM is supposed to have tried to wash out one morning"

It could well be. It is definitely NOT a shadow, for reasons explained above. I suspect it's a liquid mark of some kind.

If you compare the Telegraph picture with the Daily Mail version you might just notice two small spots lying on a diagonal in the middle of the t-shirt, and which appear in the brighter (Telegraph) view, but not in the darker (DM) picture.

I suspect they dried out in-between exposures (maybe while the photographer was figuring out why the flash had just gone off and whether they really needed it!).

Anonymous said...

Whether it's pyjamas, McCann verbal semantics or holiday photographs etc. Going over the data in any shape of form, now some near nine years old, is a hiding to nothing. And there certainly is no shortage of updated blogs at the moment. Big Q is WHY? Why currently so much activity.

As for the pyjamas, younger children's clothing often have neck\shoulder openings, since their heads are bigger than there bodies (pro rota) and they don't like tight items pulled over their heads and faces - so a button here and there doesn't mean much, other than confirm the size & openings are commensurate to age.

The way McCann's were able to activate and achieve, I personally always thought that M&S probably sent them post haste a box of freebies! in all shapes & sizes.

The only thing I find peculiar, as nightwear always seems to shrink\or tighten up, that the ages were not older, but then, it was M&S .... known for their generous size allowance.

Richard Hall has gone down the same path, to some degree - looking at depth as a certain aspects. You can feel yourself nodding in agreement.

So, on that score, one might ask if the McCann children seem to spend the largest part of their day in night attire, that there isn't an actual photo of them at bed-story time in the pyjamas!

But then, photos are a minefield in their own right with this saga.

Anonymous said...

I'm sorry if the point I'm about to make isn't relevant, but it was a few days when I read all the detail of this blog. But the two photos of the pyjamas on the blue background, with the apparent loose threads, are in fact the SAME. With of course the exception of the PA on the bottom of one. Whatever process the photos of been put through, changing format ? has altered the colour and clarity. One is merely out of focus with a lighter blue background, the other magnified or original. IMHO therefore, one of the same.

Martin Roberts said...

Anonymous @ 14:41

Why not cut to the chase? The BIG Q is this one:

How and why would anyone take several pictures of their daughter's pyjamas on holiday; pictures which, quite coincidentally of course, come in rather handy when one of their children is FIRST noticed missing LATER ON.

Your point about data being nine years old is specious. Only the other night I watched a docu-drama based on a 'cold case' being solved after 30 years!

"I personally always thought that M&S probably sent them post haste a box of freebies! in all shapes & sizes."

I think you were wrong on that score.

As to the upsurge in activity, others may have their reasons, but I suspect the new financial year may have some bearing on the continuation, or not, of Operation Grange.

Martin Roberts said...

Anonymous @15:03

With respect, you are mistaken.

The pictures represent two different exposures (photographs) of the SAME subject, which is not quite the same thing as their being the same photographs.

One is out of focus. One is clear. They each incorporate visible elements which the other does not.

Changing the 'format' as you put it (landscape to portrait, or vice versa) would not introduce such discrepancies

Martin Roberts said...

Gertrude @14:04

I'm terribly sorry. I replied to your ? earlier but for some reason it seems not to have registered. Never mind.

"are you suggesting that the photo released 10th May and published by The Telegraph was taken on a plain blue open weave sofa and could have been still wet, having just been washed?"

In a word 'Yes'.

As to the other matter of U/C letters, I am aware of that also.

Tania Cadogan said...

Something to ponder.

According to kate's statement

10-PROCESSO 10 VOLUME Xa (Pages 2539 to 2551)
Kate Marie Healy's statement 06/09/07 @ 3.00pm

TRANSLATIONS BY CARMERINA32

KATE MARIE HEALY ' STATEMENT
(from DVD)

September 6/2007 3pm at Portimao

On May 3 they all woke between 7;30 and 8:00 AM; doesn't know who woke first. They washed the children and had breakfast at the apartment between 08:00 and 08:30 AM. Food bought by her and Gerry at Baptista supermarket. Previously they'd had breakfast at the Millenium, but as it was so far they'd decided to have breakfast at the apartment. During breakfast the 'crying episode', already described, took place. She noticed a stain, supposedly of tea, on Madeleine's pyjama top, which she washed a little later that same morning. She hung it to dry on a small stand, and it was dry by the afternoon. Madeleine sometimes drank tea; the stain did not appear during breakfast, maybe it happened another day, as Madeleine did not have tea the previous night and the stain was dry.

The important little bit is this

During breakfast the 'crying episode', already described, took place. She noticed a stain, supposedly of tea, on Madeleine's pyjama top, which she washed a little later that same morning.
Now this was allegedly what happened during breakfast may 3rd.

Looking at the picture of the pajamas, there is a clear stain on the neck of the pajama top which could be from spilled tea.

Now, as pointed out above, why would someone, nay anyone, take a photograph of a pair of pajamas showing a 'tea stain'
What parent sees a stain on the clothing of their child and decides
"Oh i must photograph it for posterity. Another one for the family album"

Unless it is something spectacular perhaps forming the face of a dead family member, jesus or anything else relating to people, known as face pareidolia
Perhaps she took the photo in order to make a claim on a faulty item and demanding arefund, although why not take said item back to the store on discovering the stain on arrival at home?

There is simply no reason to take a photo given the above scenarios.

On the other hand, there is ample reason to take a photo if it will later be presented as an exhibit to the media and public.
There is ample reason to take a photo if there is an intent to deceive.

Why though would innocent parents go through all the rigmarole if they had no involvement in the disappearance' of their daughter?
The thought wouldn't even cross their mind.

Guilty people however do things like this to either show evidence they could not have done such a crime, to mislead those investigating the alleged crime, to muddy the waters.
They would do so to preempt something else.

It could be claimed that these were not in fact Maddie's rather they were Amelie's.
How then would both Maddie and Amelie have tea stains on their pajama tops?
Kate told us that on the morning of may 3rd she noticed a tea stain on Maddie's pajama top.

She makes no mention of a similar stain being on Amelie's top.
However tells us "these are actually the pyjamas that Madeleine was wearing when she was taken."

Now if kate is telling the truth, and i have to assume she is, how could they be Maddie's since she would have been wearing them when 'abducted'.

Tania Cadogan said...

cont.

If Maddie had been wearing a different pair of pajamas then the question would not have arisen since kate and gerry would be holding up a different pair of pajamas, the ones similar/identical to the ones Maddie was wearing when she was 'abducted'

If these were Maddie's why were they not 'abducted' along with Maddie since she was wearing them?

Did the alleged abductor waste precious seconds taking her pajamas off?
If so, where were they located when kate 'discovered' Maddie was missing?
How come no one noticed these pajamas lying in situ?
How come these were not handed over as evidence to the PJ who could then do all the usual forensic tests to find out what happened and perhaps who did it?

Were these actually abducted and the pink blanket left behind and said abductor managed to sneak back into the apartment which, presumably would be filled with police, the family and anyone else remotely involved, remove Maddie's pink blanket and return her pajamas all without being seen, heard or leaving any evidence of their existence?

I agree Ed, out of their own mouths comes ample evidence that Maddie is dead, they knew she was dead from the get go of the 'alleged abduction, they were involved in her death as were possibly one or more of the tapas men since no mention has been made of the ladies doing the alleged checks on the children.
This also means they and at least one or more of the tapas 7 took action to conceal Maddie's body and then file a false police report.
In the following years, the mccanns and chums have also committed fraud on a grand scale in relation to the fund and also to claiming and winning damages against various media.

Keep talking chums, the more you speak the more you leak.
The more you leak, the closer the PJ will be to nailing you for homicide, concealment of a corpse and filing a false police report.
The PJ may also press charges against the group and the various family members who showed up and made full use of the amenities at little to no cost to themselves, obtaining money and services by deception.

In the meantime SY would and should go ahead with prosecuting the mccanns and chums as well as clarrie for fraud, obtaining money and services by deception and anything else to do with the fund.
Those involved in creating the fund (seriously £37000?)and running it.
I would also be interested to know if the States could also join in the fun and charge them with wire fraud, money donated to them via their website (darn that $ PayPal button

Tania Cadogan said...

final cont.

I then wonder that when the stuff hits the fan and the tapas 6(i don't think Diane Webster was awarded damages)are facing prosecution regarding the damages and are required to pay it all back along with interest and court costs if they will demand the mccanns return the money the group so generously donated to the fund in order to make their own repayments along with court costs etc.

It could get quite interesting as well as messy once the infighting and blame game starts.

As an aside,Eddie did react to a child's red t shirt.
Why would a child's t shirt be contaminated with cadaverine?
Cross contamination perhaps if it was packed with other clothing (kate's pants) contaminated with cadaverine.
Why then only that item and not other items in the case?

The obvious conclusion is that the t shirt came into direct contact with the cadaver.
Either Maddie injured herself and died accidentally and for whatever reason happened to land on said t shirt or, and i am taking a big leap of judgement here, Maddie was actually wearing said T shirt.

Why though was it removed from Maddie's corpse?
Was she wearing it as a pajama top perhaps?
Or, more likely, was she wearing it during the day and died due to nefarious deeds of a dastardly nature?
Since the claim Maddie was abducted at night from her bed, questions would be asked why she was wearing a t shirt as opposed to pajamas?
Yes, they could have claimed she liked it so much she wore it at night, however, muddled and panicked thinking may have been they have to show she died at night, thus claiming she was wearing pajamas.

Martin Roberts said...

Tania Cadogan @16:48

Tania, if I were to tell you that my written versions of what you've just articulated extend well into double figures you probably wouldn't believe me (I'll send you copies if you're desperate (lol).

More seriously, you have it in a nutshell. The pyjamas had to become 'Amelie's' because they couldn't possibly be presented to the media as 'Madeleine's' once they'd been abducted. As you say, only the one set was ever washed.

Why, when Jane Tanner had seen Madeleine being carried off, did she not later exclaim once inside 5A: "I've just seen a man carrying a child in pyjamas exactly like those!" (pointing immediately to Amelie lying asleep in her own version of same)? Didn't happen, did it?

And David Payne, who saw all three children dressed 'predominantly in white', whereas, with two sets of Eeyore pyjamas on the go, they should have been predominantly in pink.

Then there's John McCann's jocular little reference to Kate's dressing her younger daughter in Madeleine's pyjamas, whereupon the toddler says, 'Maddie's jammies'.

Very touching. But, for a barely two-year-old to recognise 'Maddie's jammies', there had to be something distinctly recognisable about them, which there would not have been if the only difference was a v. small one of size, plus a missing button!

No regular two-year-old would be so astute as to say, "Maddies jammies", while thinking, 'I know, because mine have a button - hers do not.'

It would take a lot for me not to believe those photographs were taken for the very reasons you describe. That there are good grounds for believing they were taken before Madeleine adds a sinister dimension.

Kind Regards

M.R.

Martin Roberts said...

Rebecca Lenaghan @12:41, 15:35, 15:36

I owe you an apology.

You are quite correct in what you say and just as correct in repeating it.

Please forgive me for misinterpreting your purpose.

Kind regards

M.R.

Martin Roberts said...

Tania Cadogan @16:56

A propos the red t-shirt, Rebecca L (12:41) is correct. We have Katie to thank (once again) for confirmation that whatever occurred took place during the daytime:

"I know that what happened is not due to the fact of us leaving the children asleep. I know it happened under other circumstances."

As Rebecca was determined to point out, you can't really expect an infant abducted at night to be dressed in anything other than pyjamas !

Himself said...

Nicola

Are you taking all this in? It doesn't bode well does it?

Now I know you work for the Met, which you must know by now is not exactly an accolade, but I'm sure you didn't chose a career in policing to be part of such an obvious cover-up in the death of an innocent little girl, not then four years old.

Of course, it is true to say that I have no idea why you chose such a career path, but you must have some ethics, some ideals regarding truth and justice, that the guilty are punished and the innocent go free.

But when you did have ideals and ethics, as I am sure you must had at one time, but I don't necessarily afford you them now, how could I?

But back then, when innocence was abroad, you could never in your wildest imagination think you would ever become part of anything so deplorable as that which you are involved in now. And believe me you are.

Give it up lass, you know this is all going to end in tears.

Do the honourable thing while you have the opportunity.

Is your career swansong going to play to the same tune as Redwood's?

I did as I was told.

Madeleine who?

Martin Roberts said...

Himself @19:01

For someone so adept at the occasional acerbic graphic you can sure turn the knife with a word or two.

Ouch!

Anonymous said...

http://bit.ly/1RVjUq4

Anonymous said...

Himself @19:01

Thank you, Himself, your post is appreciated. You’ve said what needed to be said.

Martin Roberts said...

To quote Tania (@16:56), whilst acknowledging Rebecca (@12:41):

"muddled and panicked thinking may have been they have to show she died at night, thus claiming she was wearing pyjamas."

Similar reasoning may have under-pinned the 'open window' - the only aperture on the far (obscured) side of the apartment that an abductor could have appealed to when faced with a locked front door.

Anonymous said...


Freedom of Information Request Reference No:

I note you seek access to the following information:

How many Police officers and civilian staff were on this operation [Operation Grange] on 30/11/2015 and 31/12/2015, respectively.

DECISION

I have today decided to disclose the located information to you in full.

1 Detective Sergeant and 3 Detective Constables are dedicated to Op Grange, they are attached to, and under the supervision of, a full Murder Investigation Team, these numbers did not change for the time period you specified.

Information Rights Unit

http://www.met.police.uk/foi/pdfs/disclosure_2016/march_2016/2016010001047.pdf


"....under the supervision of, a full Murder Investigation Team"

Today CMOMM

Tania Cadogan said...

Thank you Martin for the high praise.

When you listen to the actual words used by the mccanns and chums, rather than interpret what you think they meant, the truth of what happened is obvious.
They tell you what happened.

Kate told the world is was a murder, gerry wrote a mea culpa

"I know that what happened is not due to the fact of us leaving the children asleep. I know it happened under other circumstances."
right there kate tells us what happened took place when the children were awake, which unless they were night owls and stayed awake at night, meant that what happened took place during the day time which, right there, blows their abducted from their shared bedroom whilst the mccanns and chums were wining and dining.

This promptly shows the whole charade for what it is, a desperate attempt to avoid the consequences of their actions.

Had this been accidental they could and should have begun CPR and called 911, parental instinct, especially in moms takes over, even when their child is clearly long dead, they deny the reality, clinging to the last faint hope that a miracle will happen.

Since they didn't do the expected and, instead, set about creating a charade, one has to wonder happened to Maddie that was so bad an accident could never have explained it away, an autopsy would have condemned them all.
Kate tells us it was a murder, i believe her, whether it was premeditated or the result of some other crime being committed, i don't know.
I do know that the mccanns will tell me.

Martin Roberts said...

Anonymous @22:27

'attached to' - 'under the supervision of' - 'a FULL Murder Investigation team'

This has the appearance of a 'loaves and fishes' answer, or how to make 1 DS and 3 DCs appear part of a larger enterprise. The respondent does not say the 4 officers are themselves investigating a murder.

Years ago the CEO of Coca Cola queried the company's advertising strategy with their agency. The agency boss said he'd 'put ten of their best writers on it immediately'. To which the CEO replied - 'How about one good one?'

It's not all about numbers you see.

Martin Roberts said...

Tania Cadogan @23:21

Hi Tania

With you all the way.

"...whether it was premeditated or the result of some other crime being committed, I don't know.

"I do know that the McCanns will tell me."

I trust that you will, in turn, inform the rest of us (unless we happen to overhear it for ourselves - you never know).

Kind Regards

Martin R.

Anonymous said...

http://bit.ly/1V0kRjY

Anonymous said...

From: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_Investigation_Team

MITs investigate cases of murder, manslaughter, attempted murder where the evidence of intent is unambiguous…They also undertake investigations into missing persons or abductions where there is a reason to suspect life has been taken or is under threat and other investigations identified for specialist needs.

It reads to me as though any such investigation would be under auspice of the MIT supervisory structure. There is no telling “mystique,” only a formal acknowledgement of the structure (be it for better or worse).

Agnos

tigger said...

Apart from all that: didn't Kate explain also that Maddie's pyjamas were long- sleeved?
Iirc that is.

On top of that in 'Dormant issues' which you wrote some time ago, you established that the McCann narrative reveals three separate sets of pyjamas.
The ones she was abducted in
The ones - ready and clean on the bed in 5G - in case she was found - as told/ shown to a journalist
The ones - dirty - they chucked in the back of the car together with her equally dirty sandals, which explained the presence of Maddies DNA.

Now we have the ones that were photographed allegedly after lunchtime on the 3rd and as you also pointed out earlier in another post, when the photographs were given to the LP, 8/5, there had been no period of time in which Kate could have had the time to take them.
Just a suggestion, not a bad idea to add those two posts here too? Driving it home so to speak?

Martin Roberts said...

Agnos @07:11

Genuinely knowledgeable as ever. What would we do without you?

I sincerely hope you'll be around to see where this goes.

Regards

M.R.

Martin Roberts said...

Tigger @08:05

Pleased you've looked in.

"didn't Kate explain also that Maddie's pyjamas were long-sleeved?"

'Her long-sleeved 'barbie' ones' was the phrase I think she used.

"you established that the McCann narrative reveals three separate sets of pyjamas."

'suggests' rather than 'reveals' perhaps. If we believed everything they said they would have taken NINE pairs of CHILDRENS pyjamas on holiday with them! (fair's fair - same number of sets per infant. Clearly ridiculous for a single week's vac.)

"Now we have the ones that were photographed allegedly after lunchtime on the 3rd"

Correction: BEFORE lunchtime. ("They were dry by the afternoon" and "I haven't been able to use the camera since I took that last photograph of her" - KM).

For reasons I needn't elaborate, I have been 'drip-feeding' info. on this subject for some considerable time, always with a view to delivering up what you see today.

I thank you for your contextual awareness. Links to Nigel's site are a matter for the blog host, Himself, whose judgement on such matters is as sharp as anybody's.

Regards

M.R.

Anonymous said...

Dr. Roberts - dare I ask how you know what quality/type of fabric covered the furnishings in the Payne`s apartment ?

You wrote -

"Only the Payne's apartment incorporated any soft furnishings in blue, but of a different quality to the plain open-weave material on display here."

Gertrude

Martin Roberts said...

Gertrude @11:13

Of course you dare.

If you watch the extended search video covering the visit of Martin Grime and his dogs to ALL the apartments, including the Paynes', you will see that the sofa etc. in their apartment has a lustrous 'sheen' to it.

That reflective effect would not be achieved with the plain flat-weave that we see in connection with the pyjama photos (the fibres are a step up from 'hessian').

Hope that helps

Regards

M.R.

Anonymous said...

H @ 10:20,

Indeed. And as far as I'm concerned there is a stark choice:

To keep reiterating "untenable" to pinch your word, or to be left thanking SY for their best efforts on behalf of "Madeleine....who?"

If there is even the faintest chance of a different outcome, then I'd rather put my "twopenn'orth" in before such chance is lost.

Thanks, as always,

Ag.

Anonymous said...

Hello Martin Roberts,
I am the poster You responded to on Pat Brown's comment section, I wrote on the 7th March that I love reading your blog posts. And I really do. Since I became interested in this extremely odd case, I always held your insights as the most relevant and logical. One blog I frequently refer to when discussing this case with others, is "The X factor". People in general don't pay attention (or are too brainwashed in one direction) to all those details you so thoroughly explain. But they do make sense (a lot of sense!!j in the over all picture. Just like a huge puzzle, and You've finally found the missing pieces. Just breathtaking and impossible to "explain away"! THANKYOU

Anonymous said...

Forgot to say; this latest one is of course no exception. In my opnion, those left who still believe in "something" happened on the 3d, need to do some rethinking. Can't believe how blind (or should I say stubborn) some are....

Martin Roberts said...

Anonymous @11:50

I am deeply touched by your compliments, for which I must thank you.

I cannot recall exactly whether it was something I first heard on the broadcast news or read in a newspaper, but from the very moment Matthew Oldfield described the McCanns' apartment as having TWO windows on the same side of the street I knew something was wrong. Like a good many others I have wrestled with this subject ever since.

As you say, people in general do seem to arrive at interpretations/conclusions which are uniquely their own, forsaking the overall context, overlooking things which others notice, and vice versa (a clear example of that is the comment elsewhere that I 'claim to have solved the tea stain riddle', when in point of fact I use neither the word 'tea' nor the word 'stain' at all!).

I am glad that one person at least (of course I know there are others) can grasp the overall. At the end of the day the puzzle cannot be considered solved until it accommodates all of the pieces. Theories about 'this, that and the other' are ultimately of no value unless they all hang together.

Kind regards

Martin R.



Martin Roberts said...

Anonymous @12:04

An 'addendum' to your 'addendum.'

It is doubly difficult to dislodge a consolidated perception from someone's mind. In both animal and human learning, 'correcting' a learned habit or skill takes longer than it would to acquire such habit/skill in the first place.

That is what propagandists understand so well. In the case of criminal propagandists, the bigger the splash they make of their 'innocence' in the media, the harder it is to take them successfully to court.

In cases such as the one under consideration, the idea of an abduction at night was deliberately inserted/ingrained from the outset. As you say, it's only when one makes the serious effort of discarding pre-conceptions that an alternative interpretation suggests itself. But that is exactly what people find difficult to do.

M.R.

Martin Roberts said...

Tania Cadogan 11.3 @16:56

"In the meantime SY would and should go ahead with prosecuting the mccanns and chums as well as clarrie for fraud, obtaining money and services by deception and anything else to do with the fund.
Those involved in creating the fund (seriously £37000?)and running it.
I would also be interested to know if the States could also join in the fun and charge them with wire fraud, money donated to them via their website (darn that $ PayPal button)"

Hi Tania (if you're watching). To judge from a recently 'tweeted' graphic of Teddy's, the (international) case for compensation could be bigger even than that which brought Erin Brokovich to our attention!

@23:21

"Kate tells us it was a murder, I believe her, whether it was premeditated or the result of some other crime being committed, I don't know."

We have another source: Gerry, who was quite sure the police were looking for a live Maddy not a 'murdered' one.


Anonymous said...

The interview in Australia (?) is indeed another 'clue finder'. Don't know if Tania or anyone else has analysed that. Gerry's answer (the emphatic no....) is more like a speech of a defence attourney than a simple and straight-forward answer. As for the non verbals, just watch Kate's look when she turns her head to Gerry the second he starts talking.
Gerry is by the way absolutely right when he says there wouldn't be any time at all to get rid of a body wiithin that short time span on the Thursday evening. So true. Pity the interviewing lady didn't ask about the previous days....

Tania Cadogan said...

The page showing the photo of Maddie's pajamas and the credit can be found here

http://www.elperiodicodearagon.com/noticias/sociedad/ofrece-millon-libras-alguna-pista-nina-desaparecida-portugal_320318.html

The credit line says this
Un pijama igual al que vestía Madeleine McCann. - Foto: EFE/LUIS FORRA

Hi Anon @ 12 March 2016 at 14:02
I saw the interview where he said no, and it;s an emphatic no.
I have commented on it somewhere pointing not only all the qualifier words,he also goes outside the boundries of the question.
He also doesn't make a strong first person singular , past tense, event specific reliable denial

I DIDN'T/DID NOT KIL MADELEINE
If he can't say he didn't kill her, i can't say it for him
The question was extremely sensitive to gerry as revealed by his langauge

Anonymous said...

I took it to mean that Luis Forra took a photo of the one displayed by the police.

That is exactly what it means, anon @2125.

I wonder if by claiming these pj's belonged to Amelie prevented the police from conducting a forensic examination of the garment, which had conveniently been hand washed anyway?

Dr. Roberts, I wanted to thank you for your calm refutation of Pat Brown's seriously erroneous and unfair 'analysis' of Richard D. Hall's latest video. I'm afraid I can no longer engage with Ms. Brown because I find her absolutely determined to ignore the implications of certain evidence simply because the implications are beyond her ability to comprehend. Anything that even hints at a dreaded 'conspiracy' angle is discarded. Rather than allowing the evidence to lead her in the direction she needs to go, she tosses out or ignores or twists the possible significance of evidence that challenges her very narrow paradigm. The involvement of pedophilia in MBM's disappearance is out of the question in her mind simply because such a thing necessarily veers off into the realm of conspiracy and 'Occams razor' says nothing is ever a conspiracy, ever. This is no way to conduct an amateur inquiry, much less a professional investigation.

cheers
whodunnit

Anonymous said...

The back of the sofa'd make a good canvas for photographing pyjamas, don't you think? http://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/V/08_VOLUME_VIIIa_Page_2194_b.jpg

Anonymous said...

SynOnymph! You are so thoughtful! I'm sure Dr. Roberts will be along shortly to thank you personally for proving Mr. Forra was taking photographs of photos the McCann's had already taken.

teenmother1 said...

Could the pj's have been photographed against Gerrys large blue golf holdall that dissapeared from the apartment?

Himself said...

Syn0nymph 13 March 2016 at 01:00 I'll deal with the rest of your rubbish tomorrow evening.

If you don't change your attitude, you won't be dealing with anything further here.

Dr Roberts and researchers behind the scenes have proved Dr Roberts' argument.

The article is good, everything stands.

In fact don't come back, you are not welcome.

Anonymous said...

Hello Tania @ 12 March 16.54
Thanks for Your reply. Yes he certainly went outside the boundaries of the question....Interesting how truthful information is leaking, as if the truth itself is struggling to come out of the brain.
Many of the earlier interviews are so full of these "errors".

Martin Roberts said...

Teenmother @1:40

"Could the pj's have been photographed against Gerrys large blue golf holdall that dissapeared from the apartment?"

No. Too small and probably canvas in any case.

Martin Roberts said...

Tania Cadogan 12.5 @16:54

Thanks for that contribution. Sorry for the delay here but as you may have gathered the guerrillas have been active.

Didn't KM say on the courthouse steps in Lisbon, "I know what happened. I was there"?

(the Luis Forra nonsense has been sorted btw.)

Kind regards

Martin R.

Martin Roberts said...

Anonymous 12.5 @23:32

Yep.

Martin Roberts said...

Whodunnit 12.3 @22:03

Hello Mrs W.

"I wonder if by claiming these pj's belonged to Amelie prevented the police from conducting a forensic examination of the garment, which had conveniently been hand washed anyway?"

There is that to it.

No need to thank me for the PB exchange. I did what I felt was right and proper. As I commented to someone else earlier it is doubly difficult to shake out a preconception (which is why the McCann PR team were so fleet of foot installing them).

I wouldn't care to comment on the EXACT relationship between the JBR case and that of Madeleine McCann but it sure looks like there is one. It's almost like a pair of simultaneous equations, behaviourally speaking.

Regards

M.R.

Anonymous said...


Hello Martin Roberts

In awe of your findings, your invaluable expertise in uncovering, layer by layer, the evidence that lawless scoundrels were at work.

And the participation of Himself, Tania C, Maren, Agnos... adds to this amazing experience. Thank you.

Himself said...

Today being a cool day in Hell, I am borrowing a comment from a place where I normally wouldn't.

Basically it is Dr Roberts' article in a nutshell, which may be of help to those who are somewhat unsure about said article's content.

Grande Finale wrote

OK *allegedly*

The Pyjamas were Purchased from M&S
They were purchased in the UK
The Pyjamas (with button) style were Purchased in 2006
In 2006 they were far too large for Amelie
So they must have been Maddies

M&S Had closed down in portugal
M&S UK supplied a new set to the PJ
In 2007 though the style had changed (they had NO button)
So again the original Pyjamas must have been the 2006 (with button) style

The WET pyjamas were photographed after washing
They were photographed on a blue fabric sofa
So only apartment 5A had such a blue fabric sofa

KM was the only one who took their photographs
KM took NO photographs after the last Photo (2.59 3rd May) allegedly!
So the Pyjama photograph must have been taken by KM in 5A before they dried
They were washed on 3rd May morning but were dry by Afternoon

So they were photographed by KM in 5A on the blue couch in the Morning 3rd May

If the above is correct ? then why photograph Maddies pyjamas in the morning on 3rd May 2007.
(Answers on a postcard please to Ms Wall Operation Grange SY)

Martin Roberts said...

Anonymous @14:02

"The interview in Australia (?) is indeed another 'clue finder'. Don't know if Tania or anyone else has analysed that. Gerry's answer (the emphatic no....) is more like a speech of a defence attourney than a simple and straight-forward answer."

See: "So Now We Know" (28.7.2011) here (scroll down page):

http://www.mccannfiles.com/id356.html

Anonymous said...

Thankyou so much @ Martin Roberts for the reference to "So Now We Know". Yes indeed we know. An accident is an accident and parents react upon that in different ways. But not that different. So neither abduction nor sudden accident while being alone in the Apt. Yeah what's left pretty much fits the bill. Sadly.

Anonymous said...

Hello Dr Roberts

I have followed this case on and off for years and have found your analysis to be highly persuasive.

May I ask a couple of questions?

You say that essentially everything has been shunted forwards 24 hours. Does this mean that the "accident" must have taken place sometime during the night of the 2nd rather than the 3rd?

Does this then mean that the crying heard by the neighbour was in fact "the accident"

Does this then line up with the flurry of text messages?

Why would the photo of the pyjamas have been taken?

Reggie said...

An excellent, interesting piece, Dr Roberts, and one that has occupied my time for (way too) much of the weekend. You do have a knack for finding interesting new angles, and while I may not agree with all of what you have written, I'm probably only nitpicking. However, there are a couple of things I thought I'd mention ....

Firstly, why do you think they (the McCanns) bothered? I mean .... the pyjamas were supposed to have been 'abducted' with Madeleine. Surely it would have been simpler to say "A photo of the pyjamas? Nope .... I can't help you there, I'm afraid." Had they been, say, describing the pyjamas using words like "Eeyore" and "floral design" only for an officer to chirp up "What like those over there, on the back of the sofa?" "Aaaah, yeah, erm, tut .... actually, they're Amelie's , but yes".

And secondly, those "dark bands traversing the t-shirt". My thoughts are that the photo that appeared in the Mail (as you say, the McCanns' official photo), may be a photo of a photo that's been printed by a not-very-good printer. The "dark bands" remind me of times when I've printed something colourful, when the printer cartridge is beginning to give-out. Any thoughts?

Anyway, thanks again for such a thought-provoking piece. Keep 'em coming (please).

Reggie

Reggie said...

Actually, while I think of it (and feel free to tell me to do my own research), you mention the pair of pyjamas that "accompanied the McCanns around Europe" and say they're identical to those pictured in the Mail, stray threads and all. Could you point me at your best picture that illustrates this.

thanks

Reggie

Anonymous said...

Hi Regie

That is my thought as well. Why bother with the photo at that time?

For me what is highly convincing is the existence of the photo taken together with the existence of the "2nd pair"

There ought to be a forensic photo of this "2nd pair" in the police files on or before 7 may

Instead as we see in the press coverage of 7 May the Police were not the ones publicising the photo - indeed the opposite.

So why did the police never receive this crucial "evidence"

Reggie said...

Re my previous request, this photo looks pretty good.

http://www.mccannfiles.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/mccannspyjamasberlin.jpg

The only thing I'd say is that would all garments of a particular design have stray threads in the same place? (And before you ask, no - I'm not going round M&S Childrenswear department to check LOL.)

Reggie

Martin Roberts said...

Anonymous @20:35

In answer to your questions:

'You say that essentially everything has been shunted forwards 24 hours. Does this mean that the "accident" must have taken place sometime during the night of the 2nd rather than the 3rd?'

Not exactly. Whatever provoked 'the abduction that wasn't' occurred before 3 May in my opinion, but when exactly remains to be determined. There is, as I'm sure you're aware, a case to be made for something dire to have happened very early in proceedings.

If I remember correctly my observation regarding the time shift was in relation to those incidents we are told about, the tennis photo and the crying for instance. What we need to be sure about though is the point in the calendar at which the forward shuffling began.

'Does this then mean that the crying heard by the neighbour was in fact "the accident"'

Not necessarily. We don't really know who was crying when all's said and done.

'Does this then line up with the flurry of text messages?'

The batch of texts that McCann denied receiving is a subject all on its own. The pattern of his behaviour in response to them was the same on days following 3 May, which rather suggests that he was following instructions in much the same way before his daughter had even disappeared.

Why would the photo of the pyjamas have been taken?

They could just have asked M&S for one couldn't they? But they didn't. They couldn't wait to get the 'correct description' out there, first via the media THEN via the police. Not exactly the order one might choose if assisting in an investigation.

Martin Roberts said...

Reggie @20:49

It would have been far easier to conceal a pair of pyjamas than a body. I doubt very much that they would have been left exposed for others to see before the time was ripe.

I know what you mean about those printer bands. I toyed with that idea for a while a long time ago, until I realised they only appear across the t-shirt, not all the way down the page. Their 'regularity' even led me to suspect the window shutters at one stage, but once I'd understood the 'shadow that isn't' at the base of the right sleeve and other (v.small) indications of the drying process, the 'wet t-shirt' effect made for a more convincing interpretation.

@20:54/21.45

That's the picture you want. You'll need to look VERY closely, but you should just make out the two threads in question - one at the base of the t-shirt, just beneath the label, the other at the foot of the left leg.

"would all garments of a particular design have stray threads in the same place?"

I doubt it. It represents a fault when all's said and done. They possibly arose as a result of wear and washing.

Martin Roberts said...

Anonymous @21.04

'why did the police never receive this crucial "evidence"'

Why, indeed.

Instead they had to wait weeks for a set to arrive from the UK and which they photographed themselves before sending them for fibre analysis - a pointless exercise when you consider that they had no reliable physical connection, either with the pair that was supposedly abducted or the pair the McCanns put on display.

Anonymous said...

Can anyone explain why in the first photo the top of the pyjamas across the shoulders appears faded - also the bottoms of the trousers ?
Cheers, Gertrude

Reggie said...

@ Anonymous@23:22

Both Mail and Telegraph photos show a green tinge very top, and very bottom in the Mail's. I can only guess it was something to do with the light present in the room. It wasn't a studio with the sort of lights a photographer would have.

Assuming anyone editing the photos would keep cropping and other adjustments to a minimum, it appears the Telegraph's photo is different to the Mail's. The Mail's is fine - nicely framed pretty-much 'vertical'. The Telegraph's however has cropped-off the inner legs and is leaning slightly to the left. It doesn't have the stripes of the Mail's, or the discolouration. In my view, it's a different photo of the same subject, maybe taken with a long exposure rather than a flash (which would account for the poor resolution).

Reggie

Anonymous said...

Morning.

The apparent discolouration of the neck and shoulders area is due to the reflection of the light from the back of the blue sofa, common in pictures of light-coloured objects taken on dark coloured sofas. (Try this yourself to confirm if in doubt. Think how the camera must have been positioned in relation to both the pjs and the sofa.)

The pjs were positioned on the sofa with the neck side of the top pointing towards the back of the sofa.

The picture was framed and/or cropped such that the back of the sofa would not show.

The camera was pointing at the area at the top of pj bottoms, that’s where the flash is brightest (it was photographed with a flash).

The camera must have been quite close (no zoomming-in) to pjs for parallax to become noticeable and for the subject to be lit the way it is in the resulting photo.

Perhaps comment later on the horizontal bands across the pj top.

Martin Roberts said...

Reggie 13.3 @23:52

"It appears the Telegraph's photo is different to the Mail's.

"It's a different photo of the same subject."

Agreed. There are in fact THREE versions of the view, each one distributed by a different agency (Getty/AFP, EPA and the Press Association).

"..something to do with the light present in the room. It wasn't a studio with the sort of lights a photographer would have."

I was told (by a local pro years ago) that the example I showed him was taken in ambient (day) light. If you look carefully you'll see a strip of shadow down the left-hand side of the t-shrt, which tells us there was a light source off to the right.

Martin Roberts said...

Just in case anyone should be wondering about Mr Luis Forra and the lady who "proved categorically that Forra took that photo for the PJ", the same gentleman is on the data record as:

1. Taking pictures at different locations, but at EXACTLY the same time.

2. Taking daylight photographs - at 11.00 p.m.

3. Taking photographs at an event FIVE DAYS before it actually took place.

And

4. Photographing Madeleine McCann (age 2)!

The man's not a photographer, he's a magician. (He also copies other peoples images btw).

Reggie said...

Thanks for your replies Anonymous (@7:02) and Martin (@8:38).

I think I may be getting too hung up on the photos, interesting though it is.

I think the key point is that the jim-jams the McCanns were taking around Europe were Madeleine's, not Amelie's. And you have to wonder why they would do that.

Re Mr Forra, I'm guessing he had some hand in the cataloguing process for whatever agency, but as for standing in front of the pyjamas with his camera at the ready, then maybe not.

Reggie

Martin Roberts said...

Reggie @09:51

"I think the key point is that the jim-jams the McCanns were taking around Europe were Madeleine's, not Amelie's. And you have to wonder why they would do that."

The media response answers that question.

"Re Mr Forra, I'm guessing he had some hand in the cataloguing process for whatever agency, but as for standing in front of the pyjamas with his camera at the ready, then maybe not."

'Most likely' in answer to (a). 'Most likely NOT' in answer to (b)

Martin Roberts said...

Furthermore, Reggie...

The Police do not invite members of the Paparazzi in to record EVIDENCE for them.

Anonymous said...

Reggie @09:51

Thank you very much for you acknowledgment and for sharing your observations and thoughts.


Martin Roberts @10:03, 11:37

Agreed.


Martin Roberts

As far as one can see, your ‘blue sofa’ conjecture still stands as strong as it did at the time of publication.

It is however a pity that Syn0nymph has been served with an injunction (Himself 13 March 2016 at 09:04) preventing them from letting us know their views. The injunction is inappropriate for at least two obvious reasons: (1) it might be deemed as indicative of a view that you would have been unable to defend your position yourself; (2) it arbitrarily restricts the freedom of exchange of ideas and discoveries and therefore is contrary to the ‘No Censorship’ sign on this blog.

I have extensive experience of dealing with clothes similar to the pjs under discussion (washing, ironing, photographing on sofas in particular) as well as with photography, in various circumstances, of artworks on white and light-coloured base materials (paper, primed canvas etc.) In general, the colour of any object(s) proximate to what is being photographed alters the colour rendition of the object(s) in the resulting photograph. Distance between the objects, their respective orientation, and the positioning and quality of light source(s) have to also be taken into consideration.

Your conjecture that the pjs were photographed on a blue sofa in the McCans' apartment is overwhelmingly convincing. Unless the photographer themselves comes forward to convince us of something different, or some astonishing new fact/s is/are discovered, you conjecture seems so far very likely to stand in perpetuity.

Regards

Martin Roberts said...

Anonymous @11:53

Hallelujah! (close quote)

I am not the blog host, as you know, nor is he my 'lapdog' as others elsewhere have suggested. I can only add that 'Himself' is entitled to manage his blog as he sees fit. I am answerable only for whatever words of mine he might choose to publish (and by no means does he admit all of them regardless!).

My sincere thanks for your support, as welcome as that of other contributors here, who have also been extremely helpful of late.

Regardless of the unfortunate 'tittle-tattle' (which I suspect will ultimately prove of more embarrassment to its originators than to either Himself or myself) I am quietly confident that those among us who walk upright will have grasped the significance of my observations and those, such as your good self, who have added to them.

kind regards

Martin R.

Reggie said...

Thanks for your thoughts, Anonymous @ 11:53 (and Martin). Nice to hear from someone with some relevant experience. Mine's a bit superficial, I'm afraid. I've dabbled with photography and photo editing, but not to the extent I'd be prepared to stand up and be counted.

I'm afraid I'm a mug for this sort of thing, like the "The Last Photo", so always keen to hear others' views. I've learned quite a lot since May 2007. It's an ill wind, and all that.

thanks again

Reggie

Anonymous said...

@ Anonymous 7:02 today in reply to Gertrude re discolouration

You say "The pjs were positioned on the sofa with the neck side of the top pointing towards the back of the sofa."

Initially I thought the sofa seat cushion wouldn`t be deep enough to accommodate the length of the pjs. However, I`ve just measured my own sofa (which has deep seat cushions) and they are 25 cms deep - plenty deep enough to accommodate said pjs.
Gertrude

Himself said...

From my big desk.


"That was terrible for them," says John McCann, Mr McCann's elder brother, who has also travelled to Portugal to help search for his niece.

"Kate dressed Amelie in her sister's pyjamas and the baby said: 'Maddy's jammies. Where is Maddy?' But she is too young to understand. And how do you explain? All we know is that Madeleine needs her family. She loves us, we love her. It is time for her to come home."


Now, if your precious child had just disappeared, would you dress another child in her pyjamas? Very strange behaviour. And which pyjamas is he talking about? The Eeyore jammies? A different set of jammies? The McCanns are holding up a set of pyjamas, which are supposed to be "like," the ones Maddie was wearing when she disappeared. I think it was assumed that those belonged to Amélie. If you look at the size of the pyjamas the McCanns are holding up and observe how small Amélie was in May 2007, would those pyjamas have fitted her?

I don't think those pyjamas would have fitted Amélie: too big. So, did Maddie have more than one pair of Eeyore pyjamas? If M&S had sent another pair to the McCanns, that's not them, because you can see by the stretched neck that those have been washed quite a few times. OK, so if they have been washed quite a few times, they must be quite old and therefore would have tripped little Amélie up at the time they were bought.

So, those must be Maddie's pyjamas and if Maddie was wearing pyjamas just like those when she disappeared, then she must have had more than one pair of the exact same pyjamas on holiday. Or what?

http://frommybigdesk.blogspot.co.uk/2009/05/madeleine-mccann-those-pyjamas.html

Which is where I found the link to the original.


As the family waited fearfully for news, they faced the agonising reality of trying to explain to their toddler twins why their big sister was no longer there.

"That was terrible for them," says John McCann, Mr McCann's elder brother, who has also travelled to Portugal to help search for his niece.

"Kate dressed Amelie in her sister's pyjamas and the baby said: 'Maddy's jammies. Where is Maddy?' But she is too young to understand. And how do you explain?


http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/anguished-parents-struggle-in-sea-of-despair/2007/05/14/1178995077373.html?page=3

Anonymous said...

M @12:11

"It is only but one step from being a fool to being a saint" goes the saying. I don’t know Denise ‘from Eve’ but I would be prepared to give her a shot of goodwill in the hope that one day, she take that step.

Martin Roberts, Himself

I understand ‘the score’ and mean no disrespect to anyone. I was reflecting, as one does in the privacy of one’s thoughts, on what I have recently encountered on this blog and, rather pensively, articulated what was ‘on the tip of my tongue’. Were it felt apologies were due, apologies I would gladly offer.

As you yourself have remarked in passing elsewhere, you are “almost the last man standing.” Let no man partaking of Chinese takeaway lose his standing!.

“My sincere thanks for your support, as welcome as that of other contributors here, who have also been extremely helpful of late.”

You are “too kind”, I’m not deserving but most grateful nevertheless.

My sincere thanks to ‘Himself1' for being himself and to all those who support you in this endeavour.

Madeleine Beth McCann is my “priority”. Always.

Agnos

Another (meaningful?) coincidence (your post on a neighbouring thread). I’ll get my notes (one day) and tell you of a quite recent other. Most interesting.

Reggie @12:36

Many thanks. You are, kind, thoughtful and courteous. I am sure everyone here would join me in welcoming you to this blog.

Gertrude @14:23

Many thanks for your comments. Please kindly allow me to comment later, for it’s time I was gone.

My gratitude and kind regards to all.

Martin Roberts said...

Agnos @16:10

I thought I recognised you!

"I don’t know Denise ‘from Eve’ but I would be prepared to give her a shot of goodwill in the hope that one day, she take that step."

See link recently added to the new comments dump (above - this page).

Cheers my good man. More soon.

Martin Roberts said...

Tony Bennett has commented elsewhere that I 'claim to have solved the 'tea stain' riddle', when I made no such claim. I did not even use the words!

However, maybe, just maybe, we've been staring all this time at the real answer to what that 'tea-stain' nonsense was about. Maybe the stain wasn't tea (or blood, or other DNA laden fluid) but INK.

If you plan to photograph and display a pair of pyjamas you propose to call Amelie's, the world won't be terribly convinced if they can read 'Maddie' across the front of them!

Now that we can be reasonably sure the McCanns were responsible for the pyjama photographs and, whether by proxy or on their own initiative, planned the media exposure, there would have been every reason for seeking to wash out an inappropriate name stencilled on the t-shirt (in just about the position supposedly occupied by a large brown stain).

Anonymous said...

Martin @16.17,

Not me! Though in full agreement (rtgr I think? We do have a similar turn of phrase!)

Regards

Agnos

Himself said...

Anonymous 14 March 2016 at 16:10

Noted and thank you.

Himself said...

http://l-azzeri-lies-in-the-sun.com/Hand-Me-Down_.html Rabbits on for half her article about hand-me-downs and all the rest . . .

From the Australian article:

"That was terrible for them," says John McCann, Mr McCann's elder brother, who has also travelled to Portugal to help search for his niece.

"Kate dressed Amelie in her sister's pyjamas and the baby said: 'Maddy's jammies. Where is Maddy?' But she is too young to understand. And how do you explain?


http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/anguished-parents-struggle-in-sea-of-despair/2007/05/14/1178995077373.html?page=3

So I think we can put whose pyjamas they were, safely to bed.

There is no facility to leave comments on her blog.

Martin Roberts said...

Pseudo Nym @22:27

Forgive my butting in. 'Himself' is perfectly capable of speaking on his own behalf. I do not speak for him, nor he for me, but since the original exchange of views to which you refer was primarily between Denise Thomson and myself, I think I am justified in commenting here.

"It matters not, what is done is done" you say. And yet it matters sufficiently for you to mount your soapbox.

"Syn clearly had a very valid argument, with some excellent explanations." Did she now?

Like so many anonymous individuals who sit in remote judgement on such things as this, you do so without full knowledge of the facts - just as did Denise.

You'd have to approach her to gain any real understanding of her motives. I cannot. What I can say is that for someone who announced: "We are both on the same side here", she went to quite extraordinary lengths to locate the one obscure reference upon which she could base her negative observation, spurred on by seeing, so she claimed, "minsinfo being posted".

(Before I go any further, may I invite you to read the article, if you have not already done so, and report back to me any statement of 'information' not supported by a corroborative reference of some kind).

To continue: Following her original declaration and the link she was keen to share, our exchanges were perfectly civil. However, unlike Denise, I was not prepared to take the data on view at face value, primarily because the photograph at the heart of it was timed at 23.00 and the sun does not shine at night (the photograph having been taken in daylight it exhibits left-leaning shadows).

Further exploration of the EPA library site at which the image resided turned up some very peculiar results indeed - all associated with the work of Luis Forra, the gentleman Denise was convinced had taken the contentious picture. I have listed them elsewhere but will happily do so again here. Forra is credited at EPA with:

1. Taking different pictures at different locations, but at EXACTLY the same time.

2. Taking daylight photographs at night (11.00 p.m).

3. Taking photographs at an event FIVE DAYS before it actually happened

And

4. Photographing Madeleine McCann (age 2)!

When these irregularities were put to her, courteously I might add, Denise responded with a hissy fit and a caption to the very picture which proved the point (not hers but mine).

Martin Roberts said...

Continued.....

Forra was credited with having taken a portrait of a very young Madeleine McCann wearing her polka dot dress, on 4 May, something he can only have achieved by copying an image that existed beforehand (on missing person leaflets being distributed in Praia da Luz as it happens). No other explanation is possible.

For whatever reason, the data in relation to Luis Forra's initial efforts regarding the McCann disappearance, and represented at EPA, are TOTALLY UNRELIABLE. Being hoovered up by EXIF, or whatever other analytical tool does not camouflage the fact.

The safer conclusion by far therefore is not that 'Luis Forra took the (original) photograph on 5 May' but that he registered a COPY of an original with the agency (EPA) on some indeterminate date, the original of course being in existence already.

Denise then proceeded to let emotion get the better of her. I/we was/were 'clutching at straws', 'giving Madeleine supporters/anti McCanns a bad name' and 'seeing conspiracies in absolutely nothing at all' (How an attempt at the identification of a lone photographer represents 'seeing a conspiracy' beats me, but hey ho). She also offered to return so as to 'deal with the rest of your rubbish' as she so graciously put it.

At which point the blog host decided he had had enough and deleted, not the 'argument against' (because there wasn't one) but a naïve and impetuous attempt to contradict what, after all, was an inference invited, not an accusation made.

"In quite ironic fashion, by silencing the truth, and in effect not allowing others to make their own mind up, I fear you may have presented your posterior in such a position, that it leaves itself open for a rather nasty bite mark."

As I said at the outset, Himself takes care of Himself, and you will no doubt get very short shrift from him, but if I may just anticipate his response to this, your closing pomposity, it is not I (or he) who is 'silencing the truth' in this instance but Denise Thomson who has seen fit to ignore it, here there and everywhere as it happens.

You speak of hypocrisy. She talks of misinformation. Perhaps you should marry!

Martin Roberts said...

Nuala @00:19

Not another one!

Have you read my explanation above, or do you think 'validity' is like turning up at Wimbledon without a ticket and expecting to be given a seat because you've 'come a long way'?

Denise became gratuitously obnoxious once it was pointed out to her that the information she had unearthed was unreliable. She even produced her own evidence of that (Read the photo caption for yourself: "Photo released by Portuguese police 4th May 2007 of the three year old British girl Madeleine McCann...blah, blah EPA/LUIS FORRA EDITORIAL USE ONLY").

She has since been quite full of herself as having 'proved' that Forra took the photograph in question, for the PJ no less, without giving a moment's thought to the obvious - that NO police force would invite a freelance paparazzo to record EVIDENCE for them.

If you're that concerned with getting at the truth, perhaps you, Denise, and whoever it is who signs themselves as 'Pseudo Nym', should stop being irrational and look more carefully before you leap in future.

Unknown said...

I love reading your writings and that of himself I find your work out standing personally
What I do believe and always have is Madeleine was dressed after death in whatever Kate choose for her to be buried in and if her body is ever found this is what will also be found no pjs
Now obviously they'll say the "abductor" dressed her but I'd imagine that could easily be debunked with lack of his/her dna.
When we lose a loved one we all send a certain outfit chosen for said loved one to be buried in and I've no reason to believe the McCann's didn't do just that
So it goes without saying they still had Madeleine's pjs

Unknown said...

I love reading your writings and that of himself I find your work out standing personally
What I do believe and always have is Madeleine was dressed after death in whatever Kate choose for her to be buried in and if her body is ever found this is what will also be found no pjs
Now obviously they'll say the "abductor" dressed her but I'd imagine that could easily be debunked with lack of his/her dna.
When we lose a loved one we all send a certain outfit chosen for said loved one to be buried in and I've no reason to believe the McCann's didn't do just that
So it goes without saying they still had Madeleine's pjs

Martin Roberts said...

Lorraine @10:01

Thank you.

I shan't make the mistake of dismissing your comment as 'spam' on this occasion (easily done when it appears in duplicate).

Anonymous said...

I agree with Lorraine.

The McCann's wouldn't have dressed Maddie in tea-stained pyjamas. They would have dressed her in something special, along with her 'missing' pink blanket. What happened to the 'Last Photo' outfit that Kate made special mention of in her bewk, for instance, was that given to the PJ or the sniffer dogs?

Maddie was supposed to have been abducted in pyjamas so how were they left behind?

Great thread 'Himself' and Martin Roberts.

Anonymous said...

Martin Roberts (before and after midnight)

You’ve done us all proud! Hard work some people are. Your midnight oil bill (or is it candles?) must be hitting the roof! If you need help with the bill, I’ll be queuing to contribute. Meanwhile have some Chinese on me please.

Many thanks to you and to Himself for his patience.

Regards

Anonymous said...

Himself 14.3 @15:20

The Telegraph link

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1551438/The-burden-of-loss.html

13 May 2007

[John McCann]

"Kate dressed Amelie in her sister's pyjamas and the baby said: 'Maddy's jammies. Where is Maddy?' But she is too young to understand. And how do you explain? All we know is that Madeleine needs her family. She loves us, we love her. It is time for her to come home."

How to explain? M

Martin Roberts said...

For Anonymous and Whodunnit (12.3 @12:04/22:03)

More by accident than design I found myself watching an episode of the OJ Simpson drama series currently playing on UK TV.

At the very beginning almost, one of the characters (a defence attorney) said something very much along the lines of:

"It's not about the evidence. It's about the story. We just have to make sure we tell our story better than they tell theirs".

The parallel with the McCanns is glaringly obvious. All the while peoples' attention is focussed on what they are being subtly coerced into understanding as 'the story' by the McCanns and their allies, they will be distracted from seeing the way things actually line up.

Yesterday (16:26) I volunteered a speculation regarding the tale of the 'tea stain'. I might extend that just a touch and suggest that, instead of washing the pyjama top BECAUSE it was 'stained', Kate McCann fancied she could see what might be described as a stain AFTER she had washed them.

"Look at the photograph. There it is at the neckline. I didn't all/quite come out."

Thus fixated on what appears to be a blemish at the neck, we are invited to overlook any revealing smudges beneath.

Just a thought.

Martin Roberts said...

Anonymous @13:42

PYJAMA DATA (acquired 2010) as requested (I bet you never expected that!) (LOL)


ASDA : GEORGE children’s wear (Friday 19 March, 2010)

A typical cotton T-shirt type garment

Age 1 - 1.5 yrs. (height 81 - 86 cm.) = 39 cms. long (measured from shoulder to hem).

Age 1.5 - 2 yrs. (height 86 - 92 cm.) = 40.5 cm. long

matching 'dungaree' type trouser

Age 1 - 1.5 yrs. = 47 cm. (full leg length from top of waistband to bottom edge).

Age 1.5 - 2 yrs. = 53 cm.


Top to bottom ratios: 1. (1-1.5) 82.98% 2. (1.5-2) 76.42%


‘Tinkerbell’ Girl’s twin-set

Age 1.5 - 2 yrs. (height 86 - 92 cm.) Top: 40.5 cm. Trousers: 47 cm.

Age 2 - 3 yrs. (height 92 - 98cm.) Top: 41.5 cm. Trousers: 51 cm.


Top to bottom ratios: 1. (1.5-2) 86.17% 2. (2-3) 81.37%


M & S (Thursday 18 March 2010)

‘Autograph’ pyjama sets (children’s)

Age 1.5 - 2 years (height 90 cm.) Top: 42cm. Trousers: 46 cm.

Age 2.0 - 3 years (height 98 cm.) Top: 42 cm. Trousers: 52 cm.

Age 3.0 - 4 years (height 104cm.) Top: 44 cm. Trousers 55 cm.


Top to bottom ratios: 1. (1.5-2) 91.3% 2. (2-3) 80.77% 3. (3-4) 80%


M & S (Friday 19 March, 2010)

‘Autograph’ pyjama sets (children’s)

Age 12 - 18 months Top: 40 cm. Trousers: 41 cm.

Age 1.5 - 2 yrs. (height 90 cm.) Top: 41 cm. Trousers: 48 cm.

Age 2 - 3 years (height 98 cm.) Top: 44 cm. Trousers: 52 cm.


Top to bottom ratios: 1. (1-1.5) 97.56% 2. (1.5-2) 85.42% 3. (2-3) 84.61%



Disney ‘cuties’

Age 12 - 18 months (height as previously given) Top: 36 cm. Trousers 45 cm.

Age 1.5 - 2 yrs. (height as previously given) Top: 37. Trousers 50 cm.

Age 2 - 3 yrs. (height as previously given) Top: 40 cm. Trousers 53 cm.


Top to bottom ratios: 1. (1-1.5) 80% 2. (1.5-2) 74% 3. (2-3) 75.47%



NOTES

1. The ‘cuties’ design incorporates a full-length trouser whereas ‘autograph’ does not. The top is also less substantial, hence the larger percentages overall for the latter type.

2. In M&S garments there is a clear shift in proportion at the 1.5 yr. mark, after which there is a degree of constancy.

3. The ASDA (George) range appears to be more continuous in its changes of proportion

Anonymous said...

M.R. @17:49

I'm not Anonymous @13:42 but that's really impressive!


@18:15

ROFL, so to speak.


Back to the tale of the 'tea stain'. M

HKP said...

So it's either look a the stain and don't look elsewhere or the stain was tea and not anything else. What would be your view on the stain being spilt 'medicine' perhaps one that shouldn't have been given. Another excellent blog btw.

Anonymous said...

BBC article from 07/05/2007 mentions the jammies

Anonymous said...

Giggling here at the thought of Dr. Roberts in Marks and Spencers.

I made a mistake up thread when I said my sofa was 25cms deep - I should have said 25inches, which is only about 64 cms, so those pjs would not have fitted laid out on a sofa cushion with the neck nearest to the back cushion and the legs towards the front edge. However someone has said if the sofa had been flipped forward, for whatever reason, it could have been the back of the sofa.
Gertrude

Martin Roberts said...

Hello there (it's been a while).

I don't believe in a 'tea' stain. Of course, a stain can result from a multitude of liquid possibilities, including medication.

To be honest (as Kate McCann would say) I have not given the stain issue very much thought in the past, there being no visible confirmation available to us - only Kate's claim that it existed, which is a guarantee of nothing at all.

However, when looking at those pyjama photos (as I have many a time), the natural inclination is to suppose that the uppermost visible blemish (i.e. the one at the neck) has some connection with what might have been a stain of some kind. A dark 'blotch', it is clearly the product of a liquid, because it cannot be a shadow.

That leaves only two possibilities - wet or dry.

If we suppose 'dry', why photograph a soiled item of clothing? Surely Mrs Fastidious would have washed it first?

If we suppose 'wet' (i.e. in the process of drying) then the garment must have been washed prior to the photography.

It is literally over the past few days that I have begun to suspect that:

(a) Kate did not wash the pyjamas on account of a spillage at all, but to eradicate a different sort of mark entirely, the 'tea stain' suggesting itself as a post hoc explanation for the washing.

(b) The idea of the stain as a retro-fit justification came to her in exactly the same way it might anyone else seeing those pictures, i.e., she saw the result and thought "yeah, that looks like a tea stain" (She did not mention the stain in evidence until September that year btw).

The really odd thing is that the whole idea of stains and washing pertains exclusively to Madeleine's pyjamas (according to the story). It cannot be transferred to 'Amelie's pyjamas without giving the game away (Amelie did not drink tea and see her pyjama topped washed as a result).

And yet, if Madeleine's pyjamas had genuinely left the apartment with her, why should it have been important to convey the impression that they were perfectly clean at the time? In case someone should find Madeleine and her pyjamas? I think it very unlikely (going on impossible) that they'd have found either. So what was going through Kate's mind?

As daft as it may seem, I can imagine her thinking up an explanation, not in relation to departed pyjamas, but for the 'iffy' characteristics of the photographs (the stain washing story accounts for all the visible blotches). It may simply not have occurred to her that someone might ask how it was that a stained/washed pyjama top should be abducted one minute and return for a photo-shoot the next.

That may appear a rather bizarre supposition, but it is strangely in keeping with what I suspect was HER thinking behind the original open window story.

Bottom line - I don't believe there ever was a stain (of the spillage variety at least).

Anonymous said...

Retro fitting - it`s something KM is good at, or thinks she`s good at, but merely comes across like a child trying to fool her parents. Sometimes one thinks `now why did she, or he, have to go into so much detail about such an inconsequential thing`, so it wouldn`t surprise me if the washing of the pjs is just another retro fit as you quite rightly suggest MR.
Gertrude

Martin Roberts said...

HKP 20:07

Sorry. I neglected to include an identifier in my response to your question

Please see answer above (21:59)

Regards

M.R.

HKP said...

MR@21:59
Yes it has been a while, it seems wayback :-)

This could very well be another poorly thought out excuse for something that needed an explanation, they've done it many times before with sea bass, Sun glasses, buggies etc. This (as in many other times) has been seen straight through (eventually by a good bit of sleuthing by yourself)but unfortunately not by OG it seems.

Anonymous said...

HKP

Hi, HKP, Wayback indeed:-) Good to see you back, I wish you‘d pop in more often.

I used to read your comments elsewhere now and then, post the WBM adventure, but you seemed to have gone under the radar several months ago.. I post only here, so couldn’t greet you where you were.

Kind regards

Anonymous said...

Anon @21.15,

Thanks.

This is from the BBC May 8th? Another M&S. Getting the story "out there".

Madeleine's family have confirmed she was wearing white pyjama bottoms with a small floral design and a short-sleeved pink top with a picture of Winnie the Pooh character Eeyore when she disappeared.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6635463.stm

Ag

Anonymous said...

HKP @20:07

Sedative drugs as Kate suggested in 'madeleine'?

"Since Madeleine was snatched apparantly without making a sound, we had always suspected that all three children might have been sedated by the abductor. We mentioned this to the police that night and several more times in the following weeks, but no testing of urine, blood or hair, which could have revealed the presence of drugs, had ever been done."

and, regarding 'Why didn't you come when Sean and I cried last night?', Kate writes:

..."But it is my belief there was somebody either in or trying to get into the children's bedroom that night [2 May], and that is what disturbed them."

Why didn't Madeleine mention that I wonder. M

Anonymous said...

Martin R. @21:59

“(She did not mention the stain in evidence until September that year btw).”

Indeed.


Kate McCann in ‘madeleine’

“The only other unexplained detail I remember from that morning was a large, brown stain I noticed on Madeleine’s pink Eeyore pyjama top. I couldn’t recall seeing it the night before and I had no idea how it might have got there. It looked like a tea stain. Gerry and I do drink quite a bit of tea, and Madeleine, too, would have the odd small cup. So at the time I just assumed it was a drink spillage that had escaped our attention, and that might well be all it was. But now, of course, we can no longer make assumptions about anything that can’t be accounted for.”

"a drink spillage that had escaped our attention"


http://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/KATE-MCCANN_ARGUIDO.htm
September 6/2007 3pm at Portimao

“During breakfast the 'crying episode', already described, took place. She noticed a stain, supposedly of tea, on Madeleine's pyjama top, which she washed a little later that same morning. She hung it to dry on a small stand, and it was dry by the afternoon. Madeleine sometimes drank tea; the stain did not appear during breakfast, maybe it happened another day, as Madeleine did not have tea the previous night and the stain was dry.”


http://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/GERRY-MCCANN-ARGUIDO.htm
September 7/2007 16.05 to 20.50 at Portimao

No mention of the stain.


Didn’t Kate tell Gerry about the stain that had escaped his attention? It seemed important given Kate’s detailed account of her observation, not of the removal treatment (tea can be very difficult to remove).


As you say: "I don't believe there ever was a stain (of the spillage variety at least)."

M

Anonymous said...

Agnos @06:43

I'm not Anon @21.15, but thanks for your link.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6635463.stm

There's a photo of the 'no button' Eeyore's, the so called identical ones. From a fashion catalogue I assume (somewhat amateurish 'snapshot', not?), because if 'real', why not give them to the McCanns for their European tour?

Just a thought. M

Anonymous said...

M,

Yes.

...if 'real', why not give them to the McCanns for their European tour?

Or even a scaled photo of the "identical" ones might have been preferable(?)

Instead of which poor "A's pyjamas" were dragged around for the media to devour.

Ag

Martin Roberts said...

HKP 15.3 @23:55

"This could very well be another poorly thought out excuse for something that needed an explanation, they've done it many times before with sea bass, Sun glasses, buggies etc."

Exactly so as regards the 'tea stain'

Martin Roberts said...

Ag. @06:43

Getting it out there was indeed the priority. First build the expectation, then introduce the product - classical marketing technique.

'Madeleine was apparently wearing white pyjamas, possibly with an Eeyore motif, but this detail has not been confirmed by police. Volunteers in the search party said they were given little guidance by police to help them know what they were looking for. Police have not revealed why they refused to release details.'

- The Telegraph, 08 May 2007

VERSUS

'We passed on the accurate details of Madeleine's pyjamas, at the family's request, correcting the police's initial description.'

- BBC - The Editors, 10 May 2007

Martin Roberts said...

M @09:06

M&S gave a 'real' set to the PJ (after a few weeks). But that wouldn't do for the McCanns. The European Tour started around the same time, but they had already issued the photographs by then and for consistency's sake had to put their version before the public. I don't think they realised, when conceiving the grand plan, that the design had changed in the meantime!

From ANJ (Paragraph 8 or thereabouts):

"It stands to reason of course, that, Madeleine McCann's pyjamas having been abducted, a surrogate pair would have been required for photographic purposes, in the event of there being no extant photographic record of the clothing in question. But appropriate photographs were to hand. They already existed. One version, as we have seen, was published by the Algarve Resident, another by the BBC. The McCanns' 'official' version was consistent with neither of these."

Martin Roberts said...

HKP 15.3 @23:55

"Yes it has been a while, it seems wayback :-)"

Slowly but surely, we are edging towards a point at which even 'that idea' begins to appear rather less fanciful than others continue to insist.

Given hints of planning (on Thursday the pyjama photos, Wednesday the 'missing' text messages - from 8.00 a.m.), the reason for it must have arisen by Tuesday at the latest. But then we have the mysteriously coincidental return to PdL of RM - on the Monday.

And yet we have supposedly rational individuals shouting down RDH on account of compromised 'witness' statements and (fabricated) stories of a Thursday High Tea.

Do me a favour!

Anonymous said...

Surely investigators have established at this stage who took the pjs photo on the "sofa" and if Kate had brought 2prs of identical pjs for Madeleine on the holiday ?

Himself said...

Anonymous 16 March 2016 at 12:19

If Kate had brought two pairs of pyjamas for Madeleine's holiday, she would have said so.

Anonymous said...

So its confirmed? There was only the one pair ?

Anonymous said...

Anonymous @12:40
At the very least, it is not confirmed that Madeleine was 'abducted' in her Eeyore pyjamas.

Himself said...

Prima facie, yes.

Anonymous said...

But she said she wished Maddie had had her long sleeved Barbie pjs on so I take that to mean they`d brought those on holiday with them.

Anonymous said...

There were a lot of pyjamas, according to Kate & Co.
And, coincidentally, Smithsman was carrying a child in a long sleeved top.

Martin Roberts said...

Anonymous @12:40/12:47

"At the very least, it is not confirmed that Madeleine was 'abducted' in her Eeyore pyjamas"

Inclining very seriously toward confirmation that she wasn't.

Martin Roberts said...

Himself @12:22

"I think there has been a bit of censoring going on, I couldn't find one tweet of Syn0nymphs on the subject. Odd that."

I think she's away somewhere - 'forraging' for the truth.

Reggie said...

That's why the Eeyore pyjamas are being pushed - because they're not long-sleeved etc so can't be the ones seen by the Smiths. And of course they can be the ones described by Tanner. It would have been simpler to say that they'd bought two pairs of identical pj's for Maddie (not unreasonable) but they obviously didn't otherwise they'd have said so.

Re the EXIF data, I was looking at it at around the same time as Synonymph was, having seen her link to the EPA page. Checking the EXIF data is the obvious thing to do; but you've got to know how far you can take it. I think it would be useful to add a supplementary paragraph to the original blog post to say that the EXIF data relating to the various images has been looked-at but contains nothing relating to the original images.

Finally, re laying the pj's out on the sofa, could they have been positioned across the seats. That way the light coming from the arm of the sofa (rather than the back) could have been the cause of the discolouration around the neck.

thanks

Reggie

Anonymous said...

Martin Roberts 15.03.16 @17:49

Unsurprisingly, you win the bet. Generous in word and deed, you are never short of pleasant surprises! Is it Christmas already?

Reggie @14:38

Great to hear from you, Reggie.

“Finally, re laying the pj's out on the sofa, could they have been positioned across the seats. That way the light coming from the arm of the sofa (rather than the back) could have been the cause of the discolouration around the neck.”

Very good thinking. I mean it. I realised I made an error as soon as I posted my suggestions

The side arm would indeed do to the neck-shoulders-sleeves area what has been suggested.

However, here is another problem the proposed re-positioning of the pjs would present: unless the back of the sofa was black or covered with something black, the appearance of the side of the pjs to the sofa’s back would be affected, you may take my word for it or check yourself. This is not what I see in the image of the photograph I have (I am talking about the image at the link provided by M (Maren) earlier on this thread if I remember rightly). To put it differently: I see, so far, no indication in the image I have of anything sufficiently proximate to the pjs on the side opposite to where the flash must have been.

I am ‘still ‘sitting on it’ and will post as soon as I have more to say and the time to say what I have.

Many thanks and kind regards to both of you

Anonymous said...

I'd like to know of any child under 4 or even 14 for that matter who drinks tea, these days. Equally, I'd like to know of any parent who gives a child tea prior to bedtime. Since it couldn't have been breakfast tea, as that would have been noticed 'dried & stained' before bed. So much fuss about a stain and washing a garment or is this about implication (sowing the seed) of what it might be!

Martin Roberts said...

Reggie @14:38

My sincere thanks for taking an active, unbiased interest in this topic.

"That's why the Eeyore pyjamas are being pushed - because they're not long-sleeved etc so can't be the ones seen by the Smiths"

No doubt. But I should also not wish to lose sight of the extreme likelihood (if not indeed fact) that the photographs were taken before the child was, i.e. before anything needed to be 'pushed' (I have an opinion on that too btw., but better to focus (no pun intended) on the more immediate issue).


"Checking the EXIF data is the obvious thing to do....I think it would be useful to add a supplementary paragraph to the original blog post to say that the EXIF data relating to the various images has been looked-at but contains nothing relating to the original images."

I take it that is the conclusion you yourself arrived at and would support. I confess that my own efforts in that direction were fruitless, but others here did get that far and likewise discovered nothing of definitive value courtesy of EXIF. I might add that they discovered a panoply of paradoxical things besides, suggesting that Luis Forra could fool even Penn and Teller.

"Finally, re laying the pj's out on the sofa, could they have been positioned across the seats. That way the light coming from the arm of the sofa (rather than the back) could have been the cause of the discolouration around the neck."

I suspect this was indeed the orientation at the time, with a light source from the right (large glass window/door?)

Regards

M.R.

Martin Roberts said...

Anonymous @16:35

"So much fuss about a stain and washing a garment, or is this about implication (sowing the seed) of what it might be!"

Yes IMHO.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous @16:35

It seems that here is/was no ‘tea stain’ in the image I've been studying. There seems to be present a mark in the under-the-chin area. Perhaps more later if no one beat me to it.

Regards

Martin Roberts said...

Anonymous @17:02

Please see my response to HKP up-thread (15.3 @21.59)

Anonymous said...

Martin Roberts @16:57

“I suspect this was indeed the orientation at the time, with a light source from the right (large glass window/door?)”

Diffused ambient daylight? Direct sunlight?

With due respect, M.R., I would like to challenge you on that closer to midnight (when the sun is shining through a large glass window/door that is (LOL)).

@17:14

I already have.

Many thanks

Himself said...

Anonymous 16 March 2016 at 16:35

And what child drinks tea so strong it leaves a brown stain?

Kiddie's tea is generally weak and milky.

There are always too many details with Kate. I don't think she has read policing 101.

Come to think of it, I don't think the cops have read it either.

Anonymous said...

http://bit.ly/1UzSvfI

Tania Cadogan said...

She loves us, we love her.

In statement analysis order is important.
The subject puts their thoughts in order of priority to them, that which is most important

Above and with thanks to john mccann.
We see the priority is that Maddie loves them, not them loving Maddie.

Himself said...

Hey up! whooshed. http://bit.ly/1PclNKJ

Martin Roberts said...

Anonymous @17:37

I'd like to say I won't be around to see that until tomorrow morning, but the footie finishes quite late tonight so I just might.

Is your challenge likely to be based on the premise that daylight photos registered with EPA were apparently taken at 23:00 perchance?

Martin Roberts said...

Anonymous @18:23

It's nice to be appreciated (Where's Denise btw?)

Martin Roberts said...

Himself @19:27

We know not why, not by whom, but as an answer to an unasked question I guess it could be quite revealing.

Anonymous said...

Je ne sais pas.

http://www.corbisimages.com/errors/404?aspxerrorpath=/photographer/luis-forra

Bonsoir!

Martin Roberts said...

Anonymous @19:58

Moi non plus.

Faster than a teenager could hide an adult magazine!

Jusqu'au matin


Martin Roberts said...

Tania Cadogan @18:53

Little things mean a lot.

HKP said...

So, stick a spotlight on the stain and the washing it away and send everyone off on a wild goose chase. Meanwhile the pair of pj's they hold up for the world to see are not what Maddie disappeared in as they were white long sleeved, as witnessed by the Smiths?

HKP said...

@Syn0nymph 21:35
You are assuming that both Maddie & Amelie had a pair of the same pj's and it was the Barbie set that Amelie was referring to. There's no more evidence of that than there is that proves those displayed were not Maddie's, MR's theory still can stand as far as I can see.

Reggie said...

Yep - the photo's still there.

I had to search for it as none of the links seemed to work, but found it I did ... and linked it to the EXIF data viewer.

I'll be interested to see what Mr Forra has to say, Syn, but I suspect it'll be nothing more than how he prepared the image for upload to the EPA website. Hopefully he can say who took the photo, when and how it got passed around.

thanks

Reggie

Martin Roberts said...

FAO anyone spectating these comments

My 'Main Thesis' is NOT as recently 'simplified' by Tony Bennett.

The question I wish earnestly to raise in your minds is this:

How would you explain someone taking photographs of pyjamas belonging to (or resembling those of) their daughter hours BEFORE the 'discovery' of said daughter's disappearance, when the photographs can have served no purpose other than to support the search for the missing child?

Clairvoyance is not an option.

FBG said...

Anonymous said...
Pseudo nym aka ben thompson is in league with a few others like zora McCartney, Paul rees, Isabelle McFadden, jillycl, to destroy the credibility of all those who have contributed with integrity to the maddie case since 2007. Their attacks have bullied many into silence, just look on the web, Twitter, fb.
16 March 2016 at 23:37

Whose credibility did any of these people tried to destroy, anonymous?
Yours is a vague and unproven accusation that seeks to do exactly what you are accusing them of, it would appear?

Tania Cadogan said...

Anonymous Martin Roberts said...

Tania Cadogan @18:53

Little things mean a lot.

16 March 2016 at 20:19


Indeed Martin.
In some cases it can be just three little letters that tell me all i need to know.

In kate's case the letters were A-L-L.

Anonymous said...



Dr Martin Roberts, it is complicated, pointing to the needle in the haystack, this is a revelation and certainly needs more than one read to finally see the whole picture. Congratulations to you and all who add their knowledge and wisdom.

Himself said...

Anonymous 16 March 2016 at 23:37

This is neither Twitter or Facebook.

Don't bring it here.

Martin Roberts said...

HKP 15.3 @20:07

From my response @21:59

"As daft as it may seem, I can imagine her thinking up an explanation, not in relation to departed pyjamas, but for the 'iffy' characteristics of the photographs (the stain washing story accounts for all the visible blotches). It may simply not have occurred to her that someone might ask how it was that a stained/washed pyjama top should be abducted one minute and return for a photo-shoot the next."

Not so daft if someone else sees the same possibility independently (Skyrocket - CMoMM 08:50 today):

"Why would she introduce the stain/drinking tea story when there is a clear stain on the front of the pyjama top which is being shown to the world as Amelie's?

"Why did KM just not say 'Here's Amelie's pyjama top, which is identical to Maddies.'

"Journalist, 'What's that brown stain?'
KM, 'Amelie likes tea.'"

Reggie said...

MR wrote "How would you explain someone taking photographs of pyjamas belonging to (or resembling those of) their daughter hours BEFORE the 'discovery' of said daughter's disappearance, when the photographs can have served no purpose other than to support the search for the missing child?"

Sadly (?), this is the one area I struggle to accept. So Kate McCann said she couldn't take a photo after (presumably) 10:00pm on May 3rd. Since when have we been believing 100% what Kate McCann has to say ("Mummy, I've had the best day ever") ?

You appear to suggest that whoever is able to take a photo after the actual death of their daughter but as soon as the alarm is raised, they're no longer able to do so.

Nope - I'm afraid in my mind, the jury's still out on this one.

Thanks

Reggie

Anonymous said...

"FAO anyone spectating these comments

My 'Main Thesis' is NOT as recently 'simplified' by Tony Bennett.

The question I wish earnestly to raise in your minds is this:

How would you explain someone taking photographs of pyjamas belonging to (or resembling those of) their daughter hours BEFORE the 'discovery' of said daughter's disappearance, when the photographs can have served no purpose other than to support the search for the missing child?

Clairvoyance is not an option. "

I got this loud and clear and find it astonishing and devastating. Thank you sincerely Dr Roberts and Himself for hosting and 'spring cleaning' ego and agenda that muddy the path of light.

Amanda S.

Martin Roberts said...

Reggie @09:48

"You appear to suggest that whoever is able to take a photo after the actual death of their daughter but as soon as the alarm is raised, they're no longer able to do so."

Would you be a good soul and clarify that statement a little, please.

Tks.

M.R.

Martin Roberts said...

Amanda S @10:08

"I got this loud and clear"

And yet it seems to have passed over a lot of heads completely.

With so many so-called 'anti McCanns' queuing up to defend them they were never going to be in any trouble!

Even at 'O' level pupils were once advised to 'answer the question on the page, not the one that pops into your head'.

Times have changed and not uniformly for the better unfortunately.

Anonymous said...

SynOnymph

Censorship or not, this blog is a private enterprise and consequently the rules, their application and interpretation are entirely for the host to consider.

Martin Roberts is not the host of this blog and therefore it is not unreasonable to suggest that your grievances in that regard to said rules are misdirected.

Looking at you posts on this thread I cannot help but notice that you have a problem with Martin Roberts.

I am unreservedly against both censorship and causing harm to another. To some, this may sound contradictory in that the statements No Censorship and No Harm to Another may frequently seem to clash. They are nevertheless capable of being reconciled if one takes into account the notion of Intent.

That said, one’s intent in a debate is most important and must be considered to avoid being misled in deciding ‘what is what.’

Martin Robert’s intent with regard to the matter of Madeleine Beth McCann is on the record. It is unblemished! His publications in the public domain are readily available to anyone who wishes to know what he is ‘about’

"You either do not have children, or if you do, never really took notice of them."

Repugnant and harmful beyond necessity. Censorship or not!

What is your intent therefore?

(It was I who raised the question of censorship on this thread in the first place btw)

Regards

Martin Roberts said...

FAO HKP

From Syn0nymph's reply to you (22:45)

"Amelie was a babby (scouse term)"

Not being from LIVERPOOL I wouldn't have known that, would you?

Martin Roberts said...

FAO Reggie

This from Syn0nymph's reply to you (22:45)

"Yet the PJ used Mr Forra's photo on their own Missing Persons Page of their website..."

I don't believe they did. That very exposure was reproduced in the Telegraph and credited to the PA (Press Association) not EPA/Luis Forra (as one might expect if the statement above were true).

Reggie said...

Re MR @ 10:35

Apologies. It wasn't the best 'crafted' sentence. After I'd posted it, it took me a couple of re-reads before I got the gist.

As I understand it, you're suggesting that someone (presumably Kate McCann) took "photographs of pyjamas belonging to ... their daughter hours BEFORE the 'discovery' of said daughter's disappearance".

So you believe that, despite the trauma of the discovery of their daughter's death, they were still able to set the pyjamas out neatly on the sofa and take some half-decent photos.

But you also believe Kate's assertion when she says "I haven't been able to use the camera since I took that last photograph of her." (or more accurately, since Madeleine's abduction was discovered [wink])

I just think the two beliefs expressed in the previous two paragraphs are incompatible.

Apologies if I've misunderstood what you're saying or I'm putting words in your mouth.

thanks

Reggie

Reggie said...

@MR - I agree with your 11:10 post. All Forra may have done was prepare for filing on the EPA database of photographs. (Description, tags .... that sort of thing.)

Reggie

Martin Roberts said...

Reggie @11:10

Thanks for spelling it out. Please forgive me if I appear to stray (just a little) outside my area of professional competence in discussing those incompatible statements and in reverse order into the bargain (Tania! Tania! Wherefore art thou Tania?):

'But you also believe Kate's assertion when she says "I haven't been able to use the camera since I took that last photograph of her." (or more accurately, since Madeleine's abduction was discovered [wink])'

The 'wink, wink' version is what she should have said, but she didn't, and we should not automatically and instinctively assume that that is what she meant.

What she did say may even have been a subliminal defence against any question regarding what she might have taken photographs of, as there is no guarantee whatsoever that the 'last photo' was taken quite when the McCanns say it was.

'So you believe that, despite the trauma of the discovery of their daughter's death, they were still able to set the pyjamas out neatly on the sofa and take some half-decent photos.'

I, and others, have been rowing in the same direction for quite some time now. What I very much suspect (believe if you'd rather) is that the order of events as portrayed by the McCanns is not the veridical scheme of things. Madeleine McCanns death in Praia da Luz, if that is what happened, was perhaps not immediately proximal in time to the photography we're concerned with here, and, though it is a very harsh thing to say, I might go so far as to question the degree of parental trauma, or at least their reasons for it.

Thanks for hangin' in there. I've no problem whatsoever with responding to sensible ??s. It's the 10 year olds I find difficult to deal with!





Reggie said...

Thanks MR - I'm going to have to go away and think about your response. I'm afraid I am "a bear of very little brain" so it won't come easy.

However, I should point out that I am comfortable with the theory that Madeleine died some time before dawn on May 3rd and the actions that would need to have been taken to persuade everyone that she was in her bed to be abducted at 9:00 that evening. It's just (in this particular instance) I'm not sure it's a good idea to rely on the words of Kate McCann.

thanks

Reggie

Anonymous said...

I find it incredible that so much emphasis was put on MBM's pyjamas and so little care taken in the photos released for her identification.
http://bit.ly/1R04NNk

Indeed.

And why drag Amelie into the show? M

Martin Roberts said...

M @12:32

The paragraph from which you've extracted the quote is rational in its entirety.

"And why drag Amelie into the show?"

Because the clothing dare not be explicitly identified as Madeleine's? But it was there and so had to belong to someone in the family as it didn't come from anywhere else.

Anonymous said...

Grime and Harrison trained Keela together, go figure?

Martin Roberts said...

Anonymous @13:45

Like I said up-thread (10:42):

"Even at 'O' level pupils were once advised to 'answer the question on the page, not the one that pops into your head'."

Martin Roberts said...

FAO HKP

You'll like this, but not a lot (as the sadly late Paul Daniels would say).

Just a couple of days ago Syn0nymph shared some Google search parameters (which I followed up and which yielded a 4-page result, her precise target coming in at 32 out of 35)

She has since claimed to have been more efficient (luckier?) than that and sent me a second search string, to illustrate how she only had to view 2 pages and there it was - atop p.2

Within the last few minutes I checked her version 2 of said search for myself. Yes indeed. 2 pages. But when re-checking her first option I was unexpectedly greeted by one page only (with the Forra instance at the head of it), plus a Google message to the effect that SOME RESULTS had been removed for data protection purposes.

Guess what? Going back to the nymph's (more efficient?) option 2, I now get exactly the same result, namely 1 page (of but two entries) with 'SOME RESULTS have been removed for data protection etc.'

Some results! All 33 of them. Leaving Luis Forra ahead by a neck in a two horse race.

Didn't we encounter a similar situation Wayback when?

Must be another glitch!

Regards

M.R.

Anonymous said...

Martin Roberts

I am very sorry for not having challenged you “closer to midnight” yesterday. You were interacting with others at the time and, being tired and wishing not to distract you, I fell asleep, as one often does when one is tired (LOL).

Your engagement continued earlier on today

Meanwhile, I’ve posted @10:55 with an error in the second para: “…in that regard to…”, which should have been “…with regard to…

16.03.16 @19:37

“Is your challenge likely to be based on the premise that daylight photos registered with EPA were apparently taken at 23:00 perchance?”

Not at all. That premise seems to be meritless in this case.

I would refer only to the image of the photograph (“As published by the Daily Mail”) within your assay and what can be seen in it

Mindful of the recent developments, I would like to refrain from posting my challenge now. I hope you will not mind. “Never hurry a Murray…”

There is no hurry anyway, is there? And no mints…

Kind regards

Martin Roberts said...

Anonymous @14:30

No hurry, Murray.

Regards

M.R.

Martin Roberts said...

Anonymous @13:45

And don't talk like that. You'll upset Denise. She was almost family once upon a time.

HKP said...

MR@14:25
Well that is interesting, I take it that it is the search through Google that has been whooshed rather than the actual web pages? Can you use another search engine and produce the same results.

How many times can somebody find an interesting fact on the web and before you know it'alterations' are made.

In this instance they give the reason as data protection, who's data? and protection from what. It does however make a change from 'the interests of national security' that we often see quoted from FoI requests.

It does lead us back to how do they manage to 'interfere' with Internet Archive, Google etc. If looking to have an omission from a Google search they state to contact the webpage owner, did somebody potentially contact 33, I doubt it.

Martin Roberts said...

HKP @17:32

"Can you use another search engine and produce the same results?"

I've e-mailed the command string to a 3rd party and asked what they get.

In the scheme of the internet universe, losing an option on 33 locations (which I believe still exist btw. We're talking search results here) is a drop in the ocean. Except that, of the two sites that were left, the topmost, i.e. the one anyone would be instinctively drawn to, would be the EPA source and Luis Forra. It's like a magician 'forcing' a card.

And why should that be the 'last man standing' when it was originally at 32 in the hit parade? Of course Batman wouldn't be Batman without Robin, so there's just one more beneath.

Of course I don't believe (or even think) 'the nymph' 'phoned Google and asked them to 'fix it' but something about her account bothers me.

Had she pursued the search she first recommended 48 hrs ago, the result would have been the same as mine, simply because she obviously got there ahead of me. The 'filtering' to two pages (then one) has occurred since. So her 'I only had to deal with two pages' claim ought, I believe, to relate to a search she undertook AFTER her first explanation, not before.

Which brings me back to the intensity of her endeavour to find something (anything?) with which to contradict my argument.

Very odd.

Regards

M.R.

Himself said...

Grande Finale Today at 2:43 pm

http://jillhavern.forumotion.net/t12555p75-dr-martin-roberts-a-nightwear-job#333679

Reggie said...

Good stuff, the comparison of the pyjama photo and the sofa. OK, the colours in a photograph aren't fixed and you can adjust them how you like, but on the face of it, that's pretty good.

Hmmmm ..... what's Kaz and Bennett on about? "I think the pyjamas photo was out there for people to link to the Tanner and Smithman sighting." There's a significant difference between the pyjamas Tanner described and those described by Aoife Smith, namely the length of the sleeves.

Reggie

Anonymous said...

Reggie @20:54

My thoughts exactly.

Maren

Anonymous said...

I do not understand the Forra controversy. Surely SynOnymph is not making the argument that Forra took the pic of younger Maddie, the polka dot top one that appeared on the original poster? Otherwise, it is clear as day that Forra took pics of evidence/exhibits the POLICE displayed to the press.

Cheers
whodunnit

Himself said...

whodunnit

Yes & yes.

Himself said...

Reggie 17 March 2016 at 20:54

And man and dinosaurs coexisted, on the Ark no less.

Himself said...

Hard to establish your bona fides as a rational thinker when that's your core belief.

Anonymous said...
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Reggie said...

Sorry - I'm not really getting this 'bona fides' stuff (my Latin was never very good).

Could you be a bit more direct, please.

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...
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Reggie said...

Thanks Anonymous @ 9:07

Just to clarify, I don't have a difficulty with the timing of the two events; personally, I don't really see what difference it makes when the pyjama photo was taken except to reinforce the theory that Madeleine was dead before (say) breakfast on May 3rd.

But the point I am trying to get over is that I don't think it's best to support a theory of when the pyjama photo was taken by basing it on something Kate McCann had said.

It's nit-picking, I know, and I had decided to leave things be ... until this morning.

Anyway, thanks again for your post.

Reggie

Martin Roberts said...

Whodunnit @01:56

Himself says it best, but to expand just a little:

"I do not understand the Forra controversy. Surely SynOnymph is not making the argument that Forra took the pic of younger Maddie, the polka dot top one that appeared on the original poster?"

She was even good enough to provide a link and point to the caption as evidence in support of HER argument (doh!)

"Otherwise, it is clear as day that Forra took pics of evidence/exhibits the POLICE displayed to the press."

What's the first thing you do with 'evidence' in the face of a major police investigation going on around you?

(a) Hand it TO the police

(b) Hide it FROM the police (and invite someone to take a 'sneek peek' so that you can make a press announcement before the police even know about it).

To pick up on the pre-historical analogy, I think the conclusion's clearest to all those who don't scrape their knuckles when walking!

Reggie said...

Thanks Anonymous @ 9:17 (re the 7:01 post?)

I'm not sure I've distorted anything, though I apologise if I have. I think I apologised to MR if I'd misunderstood anything or was putting words in his mouth, and I don't believe he put me straight, though I'd have to check.

As regards the ironing (Oh! The ironing), I did suggest it on "my forum of choice" (The Maddie Case Files, if you're interested) but no one picked up on it so I left it. But yes, I noted that the easy bits below the "Sleepy Eeyore" looked recently ironed whilst the difficult bits above it didn't.

Thanks

Reggie

Himself said...

As Bill Maher would say, NEW RULES!

Chose a nickname from now on if you don't have a Google/Twitter ID.

ALL anonymous comments will be trashed, no matter who you are.

Himself said...

Reggie

Beware of piss takers.

We have enough in the Home Office and the Met, without having them here.

Himself said...

Comments full, please go here.
http://onlyinamericablogging.blogspot.com/2016/03/a-nightwear-job-by-dr-martin-roberts_18.html

Anonymous said...

Good morning

In my opinion it's not what Kate said, but why she said it. Why explicitly mentioned? Who cares that she hadn't been able to use the camera since she took that last photograph of Madeleine?

Regards,

Maren

Tania Cadogan said...

Anonymous said...

But she said she wished Maddie had had her long sleeved Barbie pjs on so I take that to mean they`d brought those on holiday with them.

16 March 2016 at 12:51


No it doesn't.
Kate doesn't tell us she brought the long sleeved pajamas with her so i can't say it for her.

Kate could very likely be referring to pajamas that Maddie had at home which were perhaps more suitable for a cooler climate.
They thought they were going to have a nice week with sunshine and warmth and instead had cold and rain.

When you pack a case for a vacation, you pack clothing suitable for the climate of where you are going and for whichever season it will be.
If the climate is warmer than you expected they you would refer to clothing you left at home such as t shirts or shorts or cotton pajamas.

If the climate is colder than you expected then you would refer to the clothing you left at home such as sweaters, fleeces, fleecy pajamas.

If i went somewhere i expected to be warm and it turned out to be cooler i would say i wish i my long sleeved pajamas on rather the the short sleeved ones i had packed.

Don't interpret what you think they meant, you won't learn the truth as you are statement analyzing yourself.

Look and listen only to the words used by the subject and they will tell you the truth even though they try not to when being deceptive.