If you, like myself, have only recently become interested in the McCann case then this site contains some useful information. You will have to cut through the masonic conspiracy theories but it does cover basics of the case and the contradictions.

I decided to look for a report from when the news first broke. Partly because Battling the Behemoth attributes a quote from Patricia McCann, with reference to the 40metre (130 feet) claim, which when googled produces only links to his site.

Anywho...

I found this report, from the Evening Standard on 4th May 2007 - the day after Madeleine disappeared.

It quotes Trisha Cameron, the child's aunt, as saying, "It was my young brother Gerry distraught on the phone, breaking his heart. He said: 'Madeleine's been abducted, she's been abducted'.

"They kept going back to check the kids every half hour. The restaurant was only 40 yards away. He went back at nine o'clock to check the children. They were all sound asleep, windows shut, shutters shut."

So we can assume that this is how the story started of the Tapas bar being 40 metres from the apartment. Though in fact she says 40 yards (120 feet), or 36.5 metres.

This 'detail' that has been changed since to 70 metres (230 feet), as the crow flies. Yet if you look at a photo, you will see that there is a swimming pool in the way, and what appears to be a fence. And that in actual fact, the distance from the Tapas bar to the apartment is around 120 metres (393 feet).

It is from Mrs Cameron that we get the story of the break-in,

"'The door was lying open, the window in the bedroom and the shutters had been jemmied open.

"Nothing had been touched in the apartment, no valuables taken, no passports. They think someone must have come in the window and gone out the door with her."

Which is odd, as I was of the impression that the door was not locked. And according to the Portugese police, and unlike other reports of the crimescene the British media have not found a tame detective to contradict this, there wass no sign that the window or the shutters had been forced.

Next there is the issue of when the police were called.

According the reports in Sol, one of the Portugese newspapers that the British media accuse of carrying out a witch-hunt, the local police, GNR, claim to have been on the scene within 10 minutes of recieving the call.

The Evening Standard report quotes, John Hill, the resort manager, as saying

"As well as staff, we had guests helping, also the majority of the Praia da Luz village.

"Police were informed at the same time as the alarm was raised. They arrived about 10.45pm and after statements were taken from the family police decided to escalate the situation."

As a side issue, Mr Hill clearly says that people from Praia da Luz village joined in the search. Which raises questions as to why hiddeous child killing paedo Robert Murat should become a suspect simply because he was seen on that night looking for the missing child.

But back to the timing issue.

At about 10.45pm would place the timing of the phone call to the police at around 10.35pm. According to the McCann's, Mrs McCann found the child missing at around 10pm (35 minutes before the call was made to the police).

Is it reasonable that Mrs McCann returned to the apartment, found the door open, her child gone and waited 35 minutes to call the police?

In order to believe the abduction theory, you are also asked to believe, that on returning to the apartment and finding Madeleine missing, Kate McCann realised that it was an abduction because CuddleCat was on a high shelf.

She then ran back to her friends at the Tapas bar. But it would appear that the twins remained in the apartment.

It would seem that the theory of the McCann's sedating the children is based on reports that they slept through the entire rumpus of the search. And remember that the pro-McCann/anti-Portugese police spin being pushed in the British press is based on contamination of the apartment, thus contaminating evidence; on the grounds that some twenty people entered before the police arrived.

Yet no-where have I found anything to counter the assumption that the twins remained in their cots, asleep.

If she believed an abuction had occured, is it likely that Kate McCann would have left the other children in the apartment while she ran to raise the alarm with her friends at the Tapasa bar.

Now rather than get into speculation about where a body might be hidden, or indeed if there is a body; McCann loyalists constantly say that even if they had killed the child, they could not have hidden the body because they were under close surveillance and did not have time to do so.

But as we have already seen there is this thirty-five minute period between discovery of the child missing and ringing the police. In the McCann's version of events, the search began immediately with hotel staff and guests joining in.

And yet, a fellow holiday maker Paul Moyes, who was staying in the same block as the McCann's said,

"There was a knock on the door at about 11.30 from a hotel guest telling us a girl was missing and asking us to help in the search.
"There were uniformed police, plain clothes and even off-duty local officers. The search went on all night, people were using torches.
"We searched the beach and the hotel grounds with scores of people. Quite a few of us own holiday homes here so it's a close-knit community and something like this is terribly shocking."

This would have been 45 minutes after the police arrived.

However there is a very intriguing note to add here. According to Correio da Manha, the British ambassador, John Buck,is supposed to have called the head of the Portuguese investigative police, PJ, Alipio Riberio, at 11pm to inform him of the way in which the investigation should proceed.

So within 15 minutes of the local police arriving, and half an hour before the search had gotten into full swing, the British Ambassador was ringing the head of the Portugese investigation police to advise on the direction of the investigation.

And let us be perfectly clear here. At this point no-one, other than he McCanns, is even sure that a crime of any kind has actually been committed.

Which raises the question of how did the ambassador know?

This would off course explain what the McCann's were doing in the thirty-five minutes before they rang the police. But it still doesn't explain why they would ring the British Ambassador before they rang the police.

There are reports that Madeleine had previously been seen walking in the alley outside of the apartment on a previous night, the implication being the McCann's were elsewhere. And the upstairs neighbour, Mrs Fenn, is reported to have said that two nights before the disappearance, Madeleine was crying or calling out for her parents for around 70 minutes.

It is odd that the McCann camp so vigorously deny these reports.

True, this would not look good from the perspective of the McCann's claims to be 'responsible' parents. And would immediately disolve the argument that they were unucky on the one time they left the kids alone.

But they would torpedo the sedative theory.

But it does undermine Kate McCann's story that seeing CuddleCat on a shelf led her to 'know' the child to be abducted. Rather than say, wandered off.

And is it reasonable for Kate McCann to see the toy on the shelf and immediately assume a crime has been committed?

For instance, it is perfectly possible that one of the other members of the group, during their routine inspections, might have noticed the toy, perhaps having fallen on the floor, and placed it on the shelf. If timescales are to be believed then Mrs McCann had not been back to the apartment for nearly two hours and a number of her party had entered to check on the children.

The question remains, why is the idea of a crime so heavily assumed by Kate McCann?

But rather than go down that path let us enter the realms of wild speculation based pn two statements from the Evening Standard article.

The demonstrates that the Xenpobic smear campaign against the Portugese police started early.

"Family friend Mrs Renwick said the McCanns - who met while training at the Western Infirmary at Glasgow - felt let down by police.
"I spoke to them this morning and they said the police had done nothing overnight and they felt as if they'd been left on their own." "

And relates to something that 'happened' the early the following morning.

"Intriguingly, a Briton who runs a company in the Algarve has told police he spotted a couple carrying a young child early yesterday.
George Burke, from Liverpool, was driving home from nearby Lagos around 6am when he caught the two people in his car headlights. "I couldn't see them clearly because it was dark and windy. They scurried down a side road and out of sight." "

Could it have been the McCann's?

I suppose it depends on precisely what is meant by "left on their own".

Another plank of their PR campaign were also in place from this very early stage.

"Madeleine's uncle Michael Healy said: "There has been some negative spin put on this, with people criticising them for leaving the kids.
"But it's nonsense, they were close by and eating within sight of where the children were and checking on them. No one was rip-roaring drunk."

What is interesting about this statement by Mr Healy is that no one had mentioned anything about anybody being drunk, rip-roaring or otherwise.

peace:)