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| | From:  tin-lizzy (Original Message) | Sent: 4/8/2008 3:51 AM |
Gerry did return home to collect photographs (old report) 20 May 2007
Alone, the father of Madeleine McCann began the saddest journey of his life Daily Mail - Online link has been removed
Seventeen days after his four-year-old daughter disappeared, Gerry McCann flew back to an empty house that is still fresh with her memory.
Madeleine parents
[Photograph appeared here] with accompanying text:
Taunt: Kate McCann with an armful of Madeleine's toys, and husband Gerry walk from church past a shop window poster that apparently blames them for the disappearance of their child
Her room is as she left it when the family set off on their holiday to
Portugal last month. Her toys are still there on the bed, her clothes in the wardrobe.
But with remarkable fortitude, the 38-year-old consultant embarked on a heart-rending mission in his ceaseless campaign to find his little girl.
He will trawl through four years of family albums and videos to select new pictures of her for his 'Find Madeleine' website. Then he will prepare to return to the Algarve to continue the search.
Madeleine 'sightings'
The visit was the first time Mr McCann has been apart from his wife Kate and their two-year-old twins since Madeleine vanished from their holiday apartment in Praia da Luz on May 3.
He volunteered to make the journey alone to spare Mrs McCann the ordeal.
Last week the 38-year-old GP said she "couldn't even consider" leaving Portugal while Madeleine was missing.
The prospect of returning without her daughter to the home where they shared so much happiness would have been "too painful to contemplate", according to a relative.
Madeleine's parents will search the whole world for her
Madeleine's aunt, Philomena McCann revealed: "They're both finding it so incredibly difficult. They can't grieve but they can't be normal. They're just focused on finding Madeleine, because that's all that matters.
"Gerry wants to go through all the photographs and pick some to put on the website. The more images there are, the more she will be in people's minds."
Mr McCann who has been spearheading the Find Madeleine Internet and publicity campaign from an apartment in Praia da Luz, will meet lawyers and UK organisers during his brief stay in Rothley, Leicestershire, where he and Kate live.
The family's website www.findMadeleine.com has received 100million 'hits'.
Madeleine McCann: Missing since May 3
A spokesman for the couple in Portugal said Mr McCann was returning to Britain "to do positive things".
"He's very focused," the spokesman added. "He is going out there for very practical reasons and he's going to get back here as quickly as he can."
The trip will also give him the chance to deal with the routine domestic matters that have been neglected during their extended stay abroad and allow the two doctors to make arrangements for staying away for the foreseeable future.
For the last 17 days they have been trying to keep some sort of routine in their life, on the advice of trauma counsellors and for the sake of their other children, Sean and Amelie.
When they are not working from their campaign 'nerve centre', or praying in church for their daughter's safety, the couple are steeling themselves to create little pockets of comparative normality.
At the weekend Mr McCann played tennis and the couple sat on the beach with the twins. Mrs McCann is trying to clear her mind by exercising and jogging against the clock.
And the couple have again sought solace at Mass in the tiny church in Praia da Luz - their third Sunday service since Madeleine disappeared.
During their walk they passed a poster apparently blaming them for the disappearance. Stuck in a shop window, it consists of four pictures of their child arranged around the words: "Mummy help me".
Workers in the car hire shop - Auto Rent III - refused to take it down.
Saleswoman Maria Rocio said: "Whose fault is it that the girl has gone missing? It's the family's. They should never have left the children on their own."
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Why is this report, which does not appear on any online search engines, so significant to the investigation? Because it clearly states that Gerry went home to collect photographs and videos of Madeleine.
But why is that so significant?
Other reports, related to this trip, vaguely stated that Gerry made the flying visit home to attend to "personal matters" and to meet organisers of Madeleine's Fund. If the trip was as described in this report and confirmed by Philomena McCann, to innocently collect some more photographs of Madeleine, then why the veil of secrecy?
Gerry released his first blog that day and there was no mention then, or afterwards, that he had been home to collect more photographs of Madeleine. Surely, that would have been information he would have been only too happy to pass on - the release of new photographs is always of great interest to people. (Gerry's Blog vanaf 20 mei)
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Perhaps he kept it quiet to avoid association.
For just 3 days after arriving back in Praia da Luz, from this trip back to the UK to collect photographs and videos, the 'last photograph' of Madeleine suddenly appeared - 21 days after Madeleine had been reported missing. (May 24, 2007 The last family picture of Madeleine McCann The Times)
We know that Alex Woolfall sat with the McCanns on May 5th and went through the images on their digital camera to find good pictures of Madeleine for publication.
The Times reported: 'The McCanns had photographs of Madeleine on their digital camera, which Mr Woolfall began transferring to a laptop computer. "I said to Kate, 'Let’s try to identify pictures where her face is visible'. Downloading the images was a very difficult process for them. It was upsetting.
"They were trying to do two things at once: one, emotionally deal with what was actually, really happening to them; two, operate in some sort of logical way to help get her back." Mr Woolfall transmitted the photographs to the Press Association in London, from where they were distributed to the media. The portfolio included the now famous image of Madeleine wearing a hat on a tennis court.'
It is surely extraordinary that the 'last photograph' of Madeleine, showing her full face, should not have been chosen for release at that time. Even if the photograph had been grainy and indistinct, it's significance to the investigation, as the last 'living' picture of Madeleine, cannot be overstated.
That is, unless it wasn't there.
Just 4 days after the 'last photograph' was released, mobile phone video footage was produced allegedly showing Madeleine and the family setting off on their holiday - one showing them all on the shuttle bus and the other showing Madeleine stumbling on the steps as she boards the plane.
(Mobile phone footage of Madeleine boarding the plane)
(Mobile phone footage of bus trip)
So, given the significant time these images had suddenly appeared, could it really be possible that these were actually 'old' images, collected by Gerry on his trip home and subsequently falsely presented as being of the current holiday? If they were, then it would have a massive impact on the investigation because it would destroy the photographic evidence that Madeleine was still alive at 2:29pm on May 3rd.
With that 'evidence' gone, there are no independent witnesses to Madeleine being alive on May 3rd - beyond the apparent statement of Charlotte Pennington, who has already changed her story once before. (pagina gewijd aan Pennington)
Miss Pennington, speaking originally to dispel the story that there was a missing 6 or 7 hours leading up to Madeleine's disappearance, said: "I was helping give the children high tea. The twins were there and Madeleine and both parents. "It was supposed to finish at 5.30pm but because they were a big group and really social, it didn't finish until about 6pm. There was nothing out of the ordinary at all."
Yet, speaking on the Channel 4 Dispatches documentary 'Searching For Madeleine', the following month, she said:
"On May the third, it was just Madeleine I was reading a story to. I later saw them around lunchtime. That's the last time I saw them together as a family." It should also be remembered that Charlotte Pennington was not Madeleine's nanny. That was Catriona Baker, who has refused to comment on the investigation, saying: 'I don't want to go through it again.'
We know Bridget O'Donnell, Jeremy Wilkins partner, was at the tennis courts that day. She writes: 'Earlier that day there had been tennis lessons for the children, with some of the parents watching proudly as their girls ran across the court chasing tennis balls. They took photos. Madeleine must have been there, but I couldn't distinguish her from the others. They all looked the same - all blonde, all pink and pretty.' So, she cannot confirm that Madeleine was there.
(My months with Madeleine The Guardian)
That only leaves one person to positively confirm that Madeleine was alive that day - the McCanns friend, David Payne. It is claimed that Mr Payne was asked by Gerry McCann to pop by and look in on Kate at the apartment, whilst Gerry was on the tennis courts. (genoemd o.a. in de BBC-docu)
David Payne has said nothing publicly to confirm or deny this. In fact, he has said virtually nothing throughout the investigation but has been quoted by Portuguese newspaper, Sol, as saying: "We have a pact. This is our matter only. It is nobody else's business."
But is there is a fatal flaw in this line of thought? The 'last photograph' clearly shows Gerry, Amelie and Madeleine sat around the kiddie's pool in the Ocean Club. How could Gerry have collected that photograph from home if this was the first time they had holidayed at the resort?
But was it their first time? The Sunday Times doesn't seem to think so. They printed on 13 May 2007 that: 'The McCanns are believed to have stayed once before in Praia da Luz and had returned because they considered it a safe resort.'
In the MSNBC documentary, Richard Gaisford said, when talking of Praia da Luz: "It's a very warm welcoming friendly place. And it was a place the McCanns knew well. They'd been to the resort before." (MSNBC Missing Madeleine en op 3arguidoforum)
So, is the 'last photograph' not a forgery, as has been widely speculated, but a simple fraud?
Did Gerry go home to collect photographs/videos from a previous trip in order to deceive the Policia Judiciaria into believing the photographs were from the current trip. More importantly, that Madeleine was alive and well at that particular time on that particular day?
Only the McCanns and their close family can answer that question.
But, if it should be the case, then it would appear to imply that no photographic evidence exists of Madeleine that day - despite Bridget O'Donnell stating that the children were all running around the tennis courts being photographed by their parents. The need to deceive suggests there is something to cover up. The obvious conclusion being that Madeleine was not there to be photographed.
That is a very disturbing thought.
It would be interesting to know whether Alex Woolfall is one of the people the Policia Judiciaria intends talking to when they arrive in the UK to begin their questioning. If Mr Woolfall confirms the 'last photograph' was not on the digital camera he examined in Praia da Luz on 5th May, then, it would appear, the McCanns will have an awful lot of explaining |
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