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They says it’s been discredited but how can you without a body.
Indeed. I do find the definitive statements that are made in this very-public case odd, and unique in their style. For example:

Mirror said:
Mr Healy said: "I know Kate & Gerry would not harm Madeleine at all.
"Kate may have used Calpol (to help her sleep), but it's just outrageous to think of anything else."
Mr Healy's qualification for saying this is, he is Kate McCann's father.

Whilst he will of course believe in what he is saying, I'm hard-pressed to think of any similar circumstances in a public-interest murder case where an uninvolved inevitably-biased direct family member would continue to be cited as if they were some form of relevant independant character witness or medical/legal expert.

The whole case has a hugely-unusual atmosphere about it.

We need to prepare ourselves for the probable situation that the McCanns will continue to push for this to be investigated forever: and I do mean until they both die.
 
Whilst he will of course believe in what he is saying, I'm hard-pressed to think of any similar circumstances in a public-interest murder case where an uninvolved inevitably-biased direct family member would continue to be cited as if they were some form of relevant independant character witness or medical/legal expert.
There was enough of this in the current Netflix thing, snatches of which I saw as the youngest Coalette is a crime buff, to put me off watching it's entirety.
We need to prepare ourselves for the probable situation that the McCanns will continue to push for this to be investigated forever: and I do mean until they both die.
Probably.
 
...Whilst he will of course believe in what he is saying, I'm hard-pressed to think of any similar circumstances in a public-interest murder case where an uninvolved inevitably-biased direct family member would continue to be cited as if they were some form of relevant independant character witness or medical/legal expert...

I'm really not sure that this is true. The tabloids regularly resort to unqualified authority, and family members are good copy. It may seem to be more of a case here, but I suspect that this is only because it's gone on for so long, and has been such a focus of media attention.

We need to prepare ourselves for the probable situation that the McCanns will continue to push for this to be investigated forever: and I do mean until they both die.

As would I - if I'd lost a child, and had the wherewithal to do so.
 
These are both fair responses to my comments. But the manner in which these factors come into play within the Maddie McCann case is, I contended, significantly different. There could be all sorts of reasons for this (including misperception on my part) but I feel it is genuinely an outlier in every sense.
 
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If this is an accurate list of unanswered questions that were asked, under caution at the time, and were/are STILL subsequently not answered by Kate McCann, then this entire saga descends into utter farce.

The point about the McCanns appearing to have contacted the (then) mainstream media prior to the Police is incomprehensible- did this actually happen, in sequence?

Also: in the 'new witness' report cited by @MorningAngel - are witnesses Tanner and Tranmer the same person?
 
The point about the McCanns appearing to have contacted the (then) mainstream media prior to the Police is incomprehensible- did this actually happen, in sequence?

I read at the time that a member of the couple's family back in Britain, not the McCanns themselves, emailed Sky TV about it. Possibly Gerry's sister, I could be wrong.
 
For what it's worth, I find it hard to believe that doctors could have overdosed their own child on any medicine. I managed to raise five (one of whom once drank half a bottle of Calpol because their father left the lid off) and managed not to kill any of them, despite extreme sleep deprivation and depression. Plus, as any fule no, you can't make a child sleep with Calpol, unless illness is keeping them awake!

Doctors would know a way to cover up any accidental death. I actually think Maddie woke up, went looking for her parents, and something tragic happened. The parental guilt at having left the children unattended would be enough to make reactions 'off'. How many of us know how we would react in such circumstances? We might think we know, but grief, guilt and panic can make you behave very oddly (to onlookers).
 
I don't believe that the McCanns deliberately brought about the death of Madeline but at the very least they showed they were unfit parents by abandoning their kids to go on the piss. All of their fans decry the incompetence of the Portuguese Police but become outraged when it is suggested that British Police should consider the McCanns as suspects and interview them as such.

All of the millions spent on the investigation yet seemingly it hasn't occurred to any CID member to question the McCanns under caution.
 
Who the heck is training the current crop of 'journalists'? ^^

"Police allegedly told Kate that if she "confessed" killing her daughter, she would only serve "around two years in jail".

It's 'confessed to'!
 
Fair do's ... excuse my naviety :)

I will protest this outrage and debate the editor.
 
Madeleine McCann search could be axed after £12million probe finds no new leads.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/madeleine-mccann-search-could-axed-14214342

On the eve of the 12th anniversary of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, Scotland Yard has asked for more funding as it continues to follow up leads.

Force bosses have been applying for funding from the Home Office every six months to continue the inquiry, which has cost about £11.75 million.

Last November, a further £150,000 was granted.

On Thursday, Commissioner Cressida Dick confirmed the Metropolitan Police had applied for more Home Office funding. She said: "We have active lines of inquiries and I think the public would expect us to see those through. A very small team continues to work on this case with Portuguese colleagues and we have put in an application to the Home Office for further funding."

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/20...12th-anniversary-scotland-yard-request-money/

maximus otter
 
Although I was always sitting on the wall, I no longer believe the McCanns had anything to do with her disappearance. However, still a sticking point for me are the dogs. I still want an answer to this. It's no use saying "oh yeah magic dogs" with a wave of your hand and I get the impression this is roundly and widely dismissed too easily. From a Fortean perspective this is the interest point. Two separate dogs, one trained to detect cadaver, the other blood, mark the same points in the flat (and car). Together with the fact that dogs are known to be usually incredibly accurate, the odds of an error are way beyond likelihood.

Could there have been a murder in that flat some time in the past? Were the sniffer dogs 'led on by the trainer? Did the McCanns really have a hand in this (this meant driving around with her body in thee car when they were followed 24-7 by the press)?

Some other observations from the Netflix documentary (and elsewhere):

-That Portuguese child that disappeared in a similar way near to the time MM went missing. Again Portuguese police tried to stitch up the parents, they were innocent but they were poor and didn't have the McCann's resources to defend themselves. Looks like children do get abducted in Portugal from time to time. It doesn't help the tourist trade much so it pays to cover these things up.

-That bloody man Amaral. Known for previous misbehaviour (kicking the shit out of a suspect), looking more and more like a lazy, stupid corrupt, incompetent bastard.

-That poor Robert Murat. Fucking hell it's hard enough being a bloke in this day and age, he had his life ruined for trying to help, and for "looking creepy" according to some shit-stirring bitch. Remind me never to offer my help in a police investigation. FFS.

-
 
I dunno about the dog thing. I think it's placing an awful lot of faith in an animal that can't accurately communicate what it can smell. Was the dog reacting to the smell of a dead small child or the smell of death generally? 'Something dead was once here...' is very different to 'the body of the person you are looking for was here 24 hours ago'.

Plus dogs. I owned a supremely intelligent dog who trained himself, was 110% trustworthy off the lead even on busy roads, never put a paw wrong. Except the time he tried to run across a road in front of a car to greet another dog. Something he did precisely once, ever, in his entire, long life (no, not fatally, we stopped him before he got into the road!). They can be unpredictable.
 
I dunno about the dog thing. I think it's placing an awful lot of faith in an animal that can't accurately communicate what it can smell. Was the dog reacting to the smell of a dead small child or the smell of death generally? 'Something dead was once here...' is very different to 'the body of the person you are looking for was here 24 hours ago'.

In a study published [in 2007], the forensic pathologist Lars Oesterhelweg, then at the University of Bern in Switzerland, and colleagues tested the ability of three Hamburg State Police cadaver dogs to pick out – of a line-up of six new carpet squares – the one that had been exposed for no more than 10 minutes to a recently deceased person.

Several squares had been placed beneath a clothed corpse within three hours of death, when some organs and many cells of the human body are still functioning.

Over the next month, the dogs did hundreds of trials in which they signalled the contaminated square with 98 per cent accuracy, falling to 94 per cent when the square had been in contact with the corpse for only two minutes.

The research concluded that cadaver dogs were an "outstanding tool" for crime-scene investigation.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...th-behind-the-crime-scene-canines-835047.html

maximus otter
 
They can pick up the scent of a body. They can't tell you whose body it was. Or how long ago it had been there.

That was my point, maximus.
 
at the very least they showed they were unfit parents by abandoning their kids to go on the piss.

My understanding is that they left their children in a hotel room, and were in the restaurant of the same hotel, and were checking on the children periodically. This is not ideal, but it is no worse than many many families.

This summer, there will be countless well off families where the kids are in bed at one end of the house, and the parents are out of earshot, maybe outdoors on the patio, sharing a bottle of wine. Parents out of earshot drinking socially, on the same premises as the kids, and within range to go and check on them from time to time — pretty much as the McCanns were on that night.

When I was between 8 and 10, I was regularly left in the evenings to look after a toddler and baby who were both asleep in bed, while my parents were at the pub a mile's walk away. That was more of a gamble than the McCanns took. My parents were luckier.

Assuming that the McCanns were not guilty of causing the death, then their actions as parents on that night were not as extraordinary as many people portray them to be. It's very easy to be judgemental about the isolated case where the unthinkable happens.
 
They are both doctors so could they have been carrying the sent of death/blood from
contacts with patents ? how long does the sent last?
Or has this some bearing on the dogs being mistrusted on this occasion.
 
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