Eumenides

The disappearance of Madeleine McCann nine years ago is a case like no other. The role played by the media has kept her face on the front pages of the tabloid press . Police files on the case are available on the internet. The Scotland Yard investigation is ongoing. This blog is a collection of facts - sourced from witness statements, Portuguese police files, Leveson inquiry papers, interviews, videos, transcripts, newspaper articles and other material in the public domain.

Tuesday, 31 March 2015

The First Photo - part 4 Tierney

These are the two witness statements by Amy Tierney. In the rogatory statement she mentions having given statements (plural) in May. If there is another statement, I have not been able to find it. There appears to be an investigative timeline starting in June 2007, when the PJ received four photographs from the GNR. The printer is correctly identified as G 600 not G60 by the laboratory.

AT states in the later interview that she was at her desk at the Tapas Bar, leaves it open in the first interview and gives no location. But why is the Tapas Bar still open at midnight and why should her desk be there as she is head of the Baby and the Mini Club?

In any case, she is in 5a very soon after the alarm and covers the 50 - 100 meters in thirty seconds.

From the reports requesting analyses of the photographs I find the: "we have yet to determine more that would point to what occurred in the first twelve hours" very interesting.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Amy Tierney witness statement:

Date: 2007-05-06

Place: Praia da Luz
Occupation: Head of the Baby Club and Mini Club
Place of Work: Ocean Club

2007.05.06
(statement translated by Robert Murat)
Time/Date: 15H45 2007/05/06

When asked, the witness confirms that she has been in Portugal since the 18th March 2007 having come to Portugal to work in this tourist resort.

She confirms that she works as head of the Baby Club and Mini Club, the former being for children aged up to eleven months and the latter for children aged between three and five.

She confirms that Madeleine is known by her as frequenting the Mini Club, as she was aged almost four.

When questioned about Madeleine's behaviour, the witness says that she is a shy girl but very intelligent for her age, she tended to play with older children, the witness describes her attitude and behaviour as perfectly normal.

The witness confirms that she also knows Madeleine's parents as they would go to fetch her from the club, but she adds that it was normally Madeleine's father who did this.

When questioned, the witness states that she has not noted anything abnormal in the relation between the child and the parents.
[..]
She confirms that, on the night of the disappearance she was on duty and immediately went to the bedroom to see if the girl was hiding. She saw that the shutter was raised and that the window was partially open
[..]
The witness confirms that the girl's father went to the reception to call the police as soon as her disappearance was noticed and that twenty minutes had passed. The GNR took 30 about 35 minutes to arrive.
[..]
She states that the distance between the apartment and the restaurant where Madeleine's parents were was 30 seconds by foot away but that there was no visual contact with the back window of the bedroom where Madeleine was.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Date : 2008-04-17
Time. 10.00 Place: Praia da Luz

Name: Amy Tierney

Has made previous statements in May last year.

Given that she does not speak Portuguese, Silvia Batista acted as interpreter.

When questioned and shown the photographs referred to in the previous statements, depicting the English girl, on 'Kodak Xtra Life ' paper, 10 x 15, she said they were printed on her printer, also of Kodak brand.

When on the night of 3rd May, at about 24.00, she was at her desk at the Tapas bar, inside the resort, when at a certain time, one of the friends of the McCann couple, Russell, asked for a USB memory stick reader, in order to print photographs of Madeleine. Immediately the deponent replied that she did not have an USB reader, but that she had a printer with this hardware, which could read from memory sticks.

She went to her room and returned to the Tapas with the printer where she printed out 20 to 30 photographs of the girl, using her own paper, in 10x15 format mentioned previously. The memory stick containing the photos belonged to the McCann couple, and came from their camera.

She thinks that all of this took place at about 24.00 on 3rd May 2007. She presumes that she handed all of the photos to Russell, who distributed some to those present, the rest would be for the police authorities.

As regards her printer, she says that it is no longer in her possession as it is now with her boyfriend in France, she says, after consultation, and in accordance with her previous statements, that is was a 'Kodak', model Easy Share G60, of thermal ink transfer, with continuous tonality.

In annex, is documentation about the printer, describing its technical characteristics, which she recognises as being identical to her printer.

No more is said. She signs the statement together with the interpreter.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

POLICIA JUDICIARIA
Department of Criminal Investigation of Portimao
NUIPC: 201/07/0 GALGS
Inspector: Joao Carlos
File no: 00266327 Jul 2007Re: Exams

The present investigation deals with the disappearance of the four year old minor, MADELEINE BETH MCCANN, on the 3rd of May of the current year, 2007, in Praia da Luz, in Lagos.

At this moment we have yet to determine more that would point to what occurred in the first twelve hours, after the disappearance was verified and the authorities were handed photographs of the minor for consequent disclosure.

The type of photograph picture frame size (15,3 cm x 10,30 cm, approximately) is not practical to transport.

The investigation solicited examination of the photographs which were delivered to you in order to answer the questions that follow:

QUESTIONS:

1. TIME/COLOUR:
Determine the 'age' of the photographs:

2. PAPER
What machines/printers were used:
a. 'quick print';
b. type of store/commercial centre laboratory;
c. other;

3. CUT
d. If the photographs were cut by guillotine
e. If the sizes are standard

The examination questions have as their objective to determine:
----the age of the photographs, the age of the paper and/or the ink used
----if the type of printer or machine which used roll paper or pre-cut paper with the exact size of the photographs;
----determine if it is possible to 'identify' the machine/printer used for the photographs;
----if the printing was made by a photograph machine or by a PC computer printer;
----to determine, following the collection of details, if the revelation/printer of the photographs were made in Portugal or in another country,
Also to determine other facts/details in the same vein which may be considered of interest, over what was described.

ATTACHMENTS:
--4 (four) photographs, being two photos in each position.
--The photographs represent a minor. With my best complimentsChief Inspector

(Tavares de Almeida)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

16 Processos Vol XVI Page 4197

NUIPC/201/07.0GALGS

Inspector Joao Carlos 4 Brigada

Information

With the aim of providing a technical clarification of the photographs referred to in the statement by Amy Tierney, Maria de Fatima Barbosa, Head of Area of the Scientific Police Laboratory (LPC) was contacted.

When asked about the possibility of carrying out a comparative examination of the photographs, with regard to their printing, using the printer described (in the statement ), she judged that it would not be possible to determine whether the photographs had been printed on that machine.

From the technical point of view she says that they are domestic use printers, and that this model has already been referred to in a report compiled by the LPC, as being of possible use, they work using colour tapes (fitas) and in this way it wiould not be viable to compare the printing pigment of the photograph with the printer referred to (Kodak G600 Printer Dock). But she stated that this printing method, referred to as sublimation, makes comparative tests impossible, at least in as far as known technical tests are concerned.Portimao 17th April 2008 Inspector
Joao Carlos

Amy Tierney gives us everything, a confirmation of the time of alarm, checking the apartment and finding the shutter raised and the window open. She reduces the distance between the Tapas to a time of 30 seconds, halving the time estimated by the Tapas friends.
She describes Maddie as if she was in charge of her during the week, which is surprising as the nanny in charge was Cat Baker.

But: she works as head of the Baby Club and was on duty that night. The night baby club finished at 11.15 pm. So how come she be on duty at midnight at her desk in the Tapas Bar?
She also feels the need to affirm that normally Maddie's father collected her.

Monday, 30 March 2015

The First Photo - part 3: ROB.

Russell O’Brien does not mention printing photographs in either his statement of the 4th or that of the 11th of May 2007.

The rogatory of April the 8th was repeated on April the 10th:

(see http://www.mccannfiles.com/id221.html)

From McCannfiles.com:

‘Russell James O'Brien was questioned on the 8th of April from 9.55 a.m. until 8.18 p.m., divided into 5 distinct time periods (9.55 – 11.30 a.m., 12.01 – 12.50 a.m., 2.06 – 3.55 p.m., 5.15 – 6.56 p.m., and 7.37 – 8.18 p.m.).

Officially, all the video images of this day were rendered useless because the video camera didn't work… which means that Enderby police wants us to believe that, even during pauses, they never verified if the interrogation was being recorded correctly. (See mccannfiles.com for a copy of document that disproves this, the checks were done, so the interview must have been repeated for another reason altogether.)

This was the official version, the one that was offered to the Portuguese authorities. Nevertheless, the truth of facts is different, and Russell O'Brien was questioned again on the 10th of April; this time the camera worked’.(unquote)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rogatory Interview April 10 2008. This is rather confusing as there are two sets of questions about the photographs in different parts of this interview.

This is from Part II of the interview.

1578 [..] ’And a female member of staff possibly from MARK WARNER’?”

Reply “Yeah, she was certainly, yeah, she was, she was English, you know, clearly not a, not a local. Erm, next it says ‘We tried to find a picture of Madeleine’, I mean, it wasn’t so much struggling to get the picture, it was struggling to find the means of printing it. We had the cam, we had Kate’s camera, erm, the, what we were trying to do is find a picture that actually gave a good likeness, rather than just being any old shot it actually had, you know, a close-up of her, of her face. There were a lot of pictures on the camera but they were, you know, just at home and on, you know, in profile and things like that”.

1578 “Yes”.

Reply “So we had, we”.

1578 “So to the words ‘we were struggling’, ‘but we were struggling’ need to be removed?”

Reply “Erm, yeah, ‘we tried to find’, I think, it’s fairly irrelevant, I think, you know”.

1578 “So?”

Reply “’We were trying to find a picture but we’, you know, delete ‘but we were struggling’. ‘Kate checked the camera’. [..] the main thing here was, erm, ‘We were searching for a printer and Kat, one of the Nannies, said she had a printer’. I’m pretty sure it was Kat. So this paragraph’s quite”.

1578 “So we keep in ‘We couldn’t print it off’?”

Reply “’We needed to print it off’ that, that was the sticking issue, we had pictures but we needed to get in somewhere to print them and I think people had asked at, at, at the reception down at Ocean Club”.

1578 “So the pictures of Madeleine?”

Reply “On a digital camera”.

1578 “That were printed off?”

Reply “Yeah”.

1578 “Came from Kate’s camera”.

Reply “From Kate’s camera as far as I can remember, yeah. And the main issue was trying to find somewhere to print it”.

1578 “What about if we say ‘Kate checked her camera and found some pictures’?”

Reply “Yeah, yeah, or ‘Kate’s camera was checked’, I don’t think Kate was in no, in no state whatsoever to check her camera”.

1578 “Okay. So ‘We tried to find a picture of Madeleine’?”

Reply “Yeah”.

1578 “’Kate’s camera was checked’?”

Reply “Umm, ‘And Kat or one of the other Nannies went to their flat to retrieve a printer or something that would connect to a printer and then the pictures were printed in the office off the small reception portal’, there’s a little office in there”.

1578 “Okay. But ‘Kate or one of the Nannies’?”

Reply “Yeah, ‘Kat or one of the Nannies’, I mean, Kat was there and Leanne was there, but whether it was actually their printer or lead, I’m not sure.

Now we get to Part III of the same interview:

1578 “Did you have any photo of Madeleine in your possession”?

Reply “Erm we got a photo of Madeleine later on but this is two hours later, erm”.

1578 “So who gave it to you”?

Reply “Okay well certain, I’m not quite sure what the, the initial, the question made it sound like whoever had one in our possession anyway, I didn’t, erm we got a, we erm, after a portion of my searches, we got hold of erm Kate’s camera, err looked through the digital cam to try and find a picture of Madeleine reasonably recently, reasonably face on and, and with her being the main, the main character on the photograph, erm clearly that that was going through, there were quite a few pictures that were not ideal, so we, we went through those, err and then printed that off, erm all of this taking a reasonable amount of time to try and get hold of equipment and have offices opened and etc., etc”.

1578 “Okay. What kind of photo was it”?

Reply “The, it was a, it was a photo of err, it was the one that was being circulated in the, in the days immediately afterwards, I’ve seen so many photographs of her, of Madeleine since, I think it was a photograph that had been taken of her and a relatively number of weeks before and I think with a slightly different, slightly longer hair, erm but it was, it was a fa, it was a fa, it was a relatively full on sort of face on photograph, err and it was printed on a standard size erm four by six err inch, as you know, using the equipment that the people had and we ran off a number of copies of this, erm and several I think were given to the, the GNR”.

1578 “I was going to ask you the next question”.

Reply “Sorry”.

1578 “Was, who did you give the photo to”?

Reply “Yeah well I think the ones that I had, I took, you know cos obviously they were printing out, you know they were slow you know, we really wanted to get them to the Police fairly quickly, so I took the first couple of copies and took those round to, I think the GNR staff, I presume they were the origin, you know original uniformed Officers, it wasn’t the PJ, it was well before the PJ arrived, erm there were other copies printed off which I don’t know where they got to but I know that Mark WARNER, somebody in Mark WARNER made a poster, or at least an A4 err saying that there’d been, you know, there’d been a, err an abduction and that Madeleine was missing and that was circulated around the next morning, so somebody had, had, had that photograph and used it for that poster but I took, I don’t know two or three copies maybe and gave them to the Police. I actually think ultimately there may have been more copies printed off and somebody else gave even more copies to them as well, err and I think some of the other copies were shown, were just shown to people around who were going on the searches but erm personally”.

1578 “The copies that you had, you only gave to the Police”?

Reply “I gave it to the Police, just to the Police”.

Unquote.

So what we have here:

They had Kate’s camera. It was checked by Kate(8/4), but by 10/4 (interview repeated) Kate did not check her camera.

'we went through those, err and then printed that off,' doesn't give much information, neither does :“From Kate’s camera as far as I can remember.

In effect ROB does not commit himself to anything, not the exact camera and specifically not who selected the photograph or where the USB stick came from. He even leaves the printing aside here.

They went through a lot of unsuitable pictures before deciding on one. This picture shows her with ‘longer’ hair. Longer than when? The polka dot photo shows her with hair shorter than in most photos.

In part II of his statement there were a lot of pictures ‘just at home or in profile’, no mention of unsuitable holiday photos.

In part III this has disappeared and we have ‘pictures that were not ideal.’

Nowhere do we hear that Kate chose the picture, which is surely what one would expect.

His account does not corroborate that of Ms. Tierney. At no time does he go to Ms. T's desk and ask if she has a USB stick reader. We get the impression that there are a number of nannies floating around and he decides on Kat, who incidentally looks nothing like Ms. Tierney.

Most of all there is a gap in the narrative between finding the suitable photograph and printing it off. There is in effect no continuous chain of events where otherwise we are treated to more detail than necessary. The USB key appears in Tierney’s statement, but not in ROB’s. He does however mention a USB key the group used to store an extended timeline on a borrowed laptop at least a week later so he knows perfectly well what it is.

From the same interview, part III:

I turned up on my second interview and presented them with the, with the stick [..] it’s been, it was, it was,it was really quite hard for, you know to hear that, or at least hear the fact be[..] and we were transparent in that we gave this to the Police at the very next meeting, there was no attempt to conceal this and have this as a hidden document that we were all reading from’.

However there is no mention of a USB stick by the PJ. Instead we have this:

A 3 typed pages timeline (Vol IV. p. 887 - 889) were received by the PJ on May 10, through the services of the British Consulate.

Vol IV p 886: Attached:

On this date, I attached to these official papers 3 computer printed pages, relating to the description of the events that have been collectively prepared by the nine people of the group in question, that was delivered to this Police Officer by the British Liaison Official before the of re-questioning of those same people.

Portimao, 10 May 2007. Inspector M.P.

---------------------------------------------------------------

So two versions in the same interview of how the photo was found and printed and no mention of a USB stick by ROB at all. The only USB stick in the interview has nothing to do with the photograph and appears not to have been given to the PJ as stated.

From the book 'madeleine'. chapter 5:
Russell later asked us for our digital photos of Madeleine and went off somewhere with our camera.

That is no help either, as we can see in the technical details in part one. The Canon could not have printed that photograph as the aspect ratio is wrong.

The First Photo - part 2: The GNR statements

PROCESSOS IX
Pages 2294 to 2296
GUARDA NACIONAL REPUBLICANA
MINISTERIO DA ADMINISTRACAO URBANA
BRIGADA TER. No. 3 – GRUPO TER. PORTIMAO
DEST. TER. PORTIMAO – POSTO TER. LAGOS

On the 25of the month of June of the year 2007, the Territorial Post Commander of the Lagos GNR, delivers to your Excellency Mr. Goncalo Amaral, Chief Inspector of the Portimao Policia Judiciaria, four photographs, two by two in different positions of the minor Madeleine Beth McCann, which were together with the copy of the missing notice NUIPC 201/07.OGALGS and which were given to us by family on the day of the disappearance.

______________________________________________________________________________
Processos Vol XIII Pages 3988 to 3990 Witness Statement
Date: 08/11/2007

Antonio Henrique de Conceiçâo Duarte
Comes to the process as a witness GNR officer.

Upon questioning, he states that he arrived at the site of the disappearance of the young girl on 3rd May of this year, about 25 to 30 minutes after the patrol.
[..]

Upon arriving at the site he was told that this was a case of abduction, this information being transmitted, he thinks, by the girl’s father. He was also informed by Silvia (head of maintenance at the resort) that the parents and friends said it was an abduction, their intention being to inform the media, and that they were in fact making phone calls to this effect.[..]

After the arrival of the police, also accompanied by a member of the GNR, he continued searching, checking the beach and all the paths leading to it.
[..]
As concerns the photos of the child, he says that he only saw what he calls the originals, poster type 10 x 15 cm on photographic paper. He did not see any other type of photos. Upon being shown a sample, he recognises it as being identical.

When asked he say he does not know the quantity of photos, but that there was more than one. He says that of these photos, at least five, he annexed one to the document he sent to the Tribunal and another four were handed to the officers carrying out searches, which were later returned and handed to the police, in due course.

He says he does not know who handed him the photos, different from each other, two by two.

He states that the photos came from inside the apartment, he still cannot say who had them. When he was inside the police car, gathering identification documents from the parents, he asked someone nearby for photos, he does not know if that person was Portuguese or British. This same person entered the apartment and came out with the photos.

He does not know whether it was Silvia Baptista who gave him the photos, as she was translating the conversations, neither whether it was someone from the family or friends.

He is sure that he received them in the early morning, at about 02.00, when the police arrived, after having carried out the first search.

He has the impression he saw the girl’s father, however he cannot confirm whether he was the one to give him the photos.
[..]
When questioned he says that the photos could not have been printed/revealed at the Ocean Club installations (they do not have this kind of paper). He adds that the photos produced the following day, which he observed, were printed on A4 paper, which was available at the resort.
Unquote

------------------------------------------------------------------
The timeline is (this statement is given six months later) as the PJ arrived at the very latest at 01.00. Silvia Batista makes is even earlier as she relates this event soon after she met Gerry and the first patrol at reception.

If Duarte arrived about 30 minutes after the first patrol, that would make it around 11.30.

This time is agrees with the statement of Silvia Batista. So the photographs would have been given to the GNR soon afterwards.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Processo Volume XII
Pages 3885
Witness Statement
Nelson Filipe Pacheco da Costa 17-10-2007
[..]
He also emphasises the situation that someone, who he cannot identify, having contacted Sky News and the Embassy that night. He does not know if it were the parents.

He also notes that he saw various photographs on normal A4 paper of the girl, which had been printed at the reception, as well as other photos on photographic paper, poster type 10 x 15, that could not have been printed at the reception. This seemed unusual to him and he later confirmed that it was not possible for them to have been printed at the reception.
unquote

Processos Vol XII

Pages 3259-3263

External Inquiry Report

Date 02-10-2007
Place: Ocean Club
Executing Officers: Paolo Ferreira and Ricardo Paiva

On this date, at 15.00 we went to the Ocean Club where we were received by the Maintenance and Service Manager, Silvia Baptista, and by the Mark Warner director, John Hill. We asked them to show us all the printers and photocopiers existing at the OC, which were operational at the time of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann and that were used to print colour copies of Madeleine’s photo.

Silvia Baptista informed us that at the request of John Hill and his wife D****, hundreds of colour copies of a photo of Madeleine McCann were printed on 4th May 2007 with the aim of distributing them in Pda L and Lagos. For this purpose a colour photocopier, Toshiba, in the main OC reception was used as well as an HP laser printer, HP Color Laserjet 2840 located at a desk at the Ocean Country company, a colour laser printer Epsom Aculaser C1100 located on the desk of the administrative secretary and a colour laser printer HP Color Laserjet 1600 located on John Hill’s desk.

On his part, John Hill informed us that the printing of large quantities of Madeleine’s photo was carried out by himself with the help of his wife, at the request of Russell O’Brien, a member of the McCann’s group of friends, John Hill stated that the photograph the colour prints were made from a mobile data disk of the “memory stick” kind that Russell O’Brien gave him on the morning of 4th May.

They both stipulated that these were the only colour printers and photocopiers in existence at the Ocean Club and that there was no other place with the capacity for colour printing.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

08 Processo Volume 8 pages 1975 to 1977

Witness statement of Silvia Maria Correia Ramos Batista 2007.07.26
Date: 26 July 2007; Time: 16h00; Place: DIC Portimao
Officer: Paulo F., Inspector

To the matter at hand she said:
--- Already having given declarations in this case several times recalling the content of what she had stated previously, reproducing [repeating] them all unchanged for this document.
--- The deponent appears again given that in the time since Madeleine disappeared she [S.B.] has remembered some details of witnessed facts/events that she considers may, in some way, be of interest to the investigation.
--- As already stated she was alerted to disappearance of Madeleine between 22h30 and 23h00.
She was at home and was informed of what happened by telephone. She went immediately to the Ocean Club where she arrived a few minutes before the GNR officers arrived there. When she arrived at the resort she went immediately to apartment 5A where she found several people as much/many inside the apartment as outside it. Still she entered the apartment but left straight away without having spoken with anyone who was there, since at the same time she was told that GNR officers were at the main reception and she went to find them.
--- When she arrived at the officer's location she saw that behind them was Gerry, Madeleine's
father, with another person but she does not remember who it was.
[...] Then Gerry stood up and accompanied the deponent and the other person to the GNR vehicle next to the 5A apartment.
--- Once inside the apartment she asked those present for the passports of all members of their families, as well as photographs of the missing girl. The deponent accompanied Gerry to the GNR vehicle in order to deliver the requested documents. She states that she did this work, as well as other work, at the request of the GNR Commander because they used her knowledge of English to translate questions put to members of the family of the missing girl, as well as the answers that were given. She recalls Gerry delivered several photographs of the missing girl to the GNR Commander. The photos were postcard-style, they having that dimension and format. In truth they were photographs of the dimension and format [size and shape] of a postcard, and they all looked the same to her.
unquote

Both these statements are of interest. I take John Hill’s statement to mean that the photocopies were made from the colour prints given to him by Russell O’Brien. Why he should feel the need at this stage (note that both these statements are six months later) to assert where the original photo came from and has gone into some detail on this point is interesting.

He received the photos, how and why should he know in which manner they were produced?

The two posters have slightly different photographs, the poster with the Portuguese text seems to be cropped. The English one not.

The text is strange too: ‘Missing, 3 yrs from last night. Please contact Luz Ocean Club.

The Portuguese: Desapanceo ontem as 22.00 as Luz se vea por favor contacte a policia.

Most of all it is Silvia Batista who gives a time when the photos were produced well before 24.00 when Ms. Tierney went off to find her printer.

Officer Duarte says:

When he was inside the police car, gathering identification documents from the parents, he asked someone nearby for photos, he does not know if that person was Portuguese or British. This same person entered the apartment and came out with the photos.

It appears from the above that as from June/July 2007 the PJ were looking into the First Photo and the printing thereof. But it is not untill after the Arguido status and the flight back to the UK that more evidence is gathered, culminating in the statement given by Ms. Tierney of which more later.

From Gerry McCann's arguido Interview 7th September 2007:
Regarding the disclosure of Madeleine's photograph, he says that he gave the authorities a photograph from a digital camera and he thinks it was Russell who printed it at the main 24-hour reception.
He made the delivery of this, or those, pictures on A4 paper to this Police but he is absolutely certain that he never delivered any of these photographs to the GNR.
unquote

But is appears that Silvia Batista was sure, very sure, even six months later and also sure that it happened before 24.00.
Somehow Gerry's statement above reminds me of the Expresso Interview of 5-9-2008 when he was asked about those text messages on the 2nd of May:

Gerry McCann: 'No one has asked to see any of my text messages. There is no way there was 16 messages on the day, or even, you know, the day after. You know, the day after we got hundreds of text messages.'

He never gave photographs to anyone, A4 Yes, photos No, PJ yes, GNR no...
He never had 16 text messages, hundreds the following day, ......got that Mr. Policeman?

Around 10.00 am on the morning of the 4th Gerry and Kate were taken to Portimao police station and did not return until around 7.30 pm.
Kate writes in Chapter 6 about meeting Murat: ....when one of the GNR officers came over to request more details about Madeleine and any distinguishing features she had, this man stepped in to translate. I was holding a photograph of Madeleine, which he asked to see.

So Gerry chose to give A4 paper to the PJ instead of a 10 x 15 photograph? His statement seems clear that the 'photograph'he is talking about is on A4 paper. So not a photograph. Kate has a real photograph in her possession, the official PJ poster in part 1 here is a photograph, not a cut-out. So it looks as if at some stage the First Photo was a bit of a problem for all concerned. In any case, there were two sets of photographs, same clothes but different poses.

The First Photo

For Brenda Leyland

As will be shown in the extracts of various statements below and in the following posts, the photo said to have been printed on the night of the 3rd May 2007 is this one which looks like a real photograph to me, being fixed to the document with photo corners.

One camera and a printer: technical details.

The Kodak Easyshare G600 has a dock which can only be used by Kodak cameras, the printer supports the PictBridge standard.

(The serial number is in some statements given as G60 - there is no such printer and Ms. Tierney identified the printer as being identical to the one she used in her statement of the 17th April 2008).

The Kodak G600 is only compatible for downloading direct from a camera if that camera is a Kodak Easyshare model or Pictbridge enabled.

The printer does not have a memory card reader. Neither does it have its own LCD screen so if printing from a USB stick you cannot preview or select a particular photo. The Kodak was designed to dock a Kodak Easyshare camera only.

Printing photographs without a camera is only possible by using a USB key (in 2007 these were not quite a commonly used as they are now).

In this case the printer cannot display what it is going to print, it would likely print whatever photos were on the USB stick. (Amy Tierney talks about only one photo, so does R.O’Brien).

Thirty to forty photographs printed on a small portable printer would probably have taken a long time to print and probably exhausted the colour cartridges.
However: http://resources.kodak.com/support/pdf/en/manuals/urg00536/G600_GLB_en.pdf

Page 34 states one can only print from a USB stick IF a Kodak camera is already docked.

The camera owned and used by Kate McCann is Canon A620 from 2005 and supports pictbridge.

The PictBridge connection uses the USB port on the printer, so you would have to have a USB (printer) to MicroUSB (Canon camera end) cable. The Canon most likely had one.

The poster photo was probably taken a camera with a pixel "aspect ratio ' of around 1888 x 2350. As the image is of a considerably younger Maddie than at nearly four years old, the question arises why photographs from years back are kept on the camera.

The aspect ratio of the photograph indicates that the Canon camera could not have been used to transfer this photograph to the printer. (but see comments on aspect ration as both photos (there were in fact two different ones) are cropped.

Therefore this photograph was most likely elsewhere. Not on a laptop as none of the group had taken laptops with them. Neither is there any mention in ROB’s statements that a laptop featured in the transfer of the photo - as we will see in part 3, he only talks about a memory stick not a card, which te Kodak printer does not have any ports for. We do know how it was allegedly printed: using a USB stick.

This might mean that there should have been only one photo on this key as the only way which this printer can print pictures from anoth

The AFP agency notes that the poster photo does not have a date.

er make of camera is from a computer link via the USB port or from a memory stick inserted into that USB port.
There were however two photographs, different poses, according to the GNR.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The camera:

Canon A620 Aspect ratio 3072 x 2304

Chapter 11, from The truth of the lie:
[..]At this stage of the investigation, we have already requested the holiday photos
from all of them. On the dining table, we notice a digital camera and we decide that
we must acquire its contents. unquote

It seems however that the camera did was not requisitioned, the two timelines were taken that night and a document with the 'terms of seizure' exists. However, the Ambassador was on site and was instrumental in preventing the PJ to take clothes belonging to Maddie. It may be that the same happened with the camera and therefore the holiday photos delivered on the 9th make a lot of sense. A compilation of the Tapas photos edited by none other than Gerry McCann and Michael Wright.

9-5-2007 Gerald McCann and Michael Wright deliver CDs of photos to the PJ. (see PJ receipts below)

10-5-2007 Around 15.00 both McCanns are at CID Portimaio (see extract book below) for Gerry’s second interview.

http://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/HOLIDAY-PHOTOS-LIST.htm

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Canon A620 (which allegedly also took the famous ‘last photograph) does not appear to have been in the hands of the PJ at all. Alex Woolfall and KM spent time going through the photographs. He also said it had ‘a lot’ of photographs on it. This is attested by Woolfall (Timeonline 6-10-07)so sometime between 5/5/07 and 8/5/07 as the tennis photo was allegedly on that camera. The tennis photo was sent around the world by 9/5/07.

From the book “madeleine” by Kate McCann. p. 123
"Later that day, Thursday 10 May, the Portuguese police held a press conference, [...] Meanwhile, Gerry and I, along with a couple of our friends, were called back to the police station in Portimão. [...] I made use of the long wait I anticipated by sitting down with a notebook, pen and my camera, containing dated photographs of the holiday, and trying to write a detailed account of everything that had happened the week before.”

4/5th May PJ look at the crime scene photos and decide to obtain the Canon.
The PJ also ask for holiday photos from all the Tapas group.
5th - 8th Alex Woolfall and Kate download photographs from the camera onto a laptop.The tennis photo must allegedly have been sent to the UK on this occasion. However, the PJ find no tennis photo that matches - but a tennis photo of a child with a racket is apparently recorded - presumably on the DVDs delivered on the 9th.
9th Gerry and M. Wright deliver two DVDs of holiday photos. (there can be seen only in black/white in the files)

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Outros Apensos Vol VIII Page 549 - NUIPC 201/07.0 GALGS
Visualisation and Analysis of Photographs
On this date, I state that the photographs contained on a CD delivered to this police force

Gerald McCann have been visualised and analysed, some of them are from the holiday period that the McCann family spent at the Ocean Club in PdL, beginning on the 28th April 2007.

The visualisation and analysis of these images that was carried out reveals that there are several photographs of interest to the investigation, in which it is possible to visualise Madeleine McCann.
Portimão, 09 May 2007
Inspector Ricardo Paiva
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Outros Apensos Vol VIII Page 550 - NUIPC 201/07.0 GALGS
Visualisation and Analysis of Photographs
On this date, I state that the photographs contained on a CD delivered to this police force by Michael Wright, a relation of the McCann couple, relating to the holiday period that the McCann family spent at the Ocean Club in PdL, beginning on the 28th April 2007.

The visualisation and analysis of these images that was carried out reveals that there are several photographs of interest to the investigation, in which it is possible to visualise Madeleine McCann, as well as different adults and children that made up the group of friends who were on holiday together with the McCann couple in PdL, which is why these photographs, joined to the report, were printed.
Portimão, 09 May 2007
Inspector Ricardo Paiva

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is an edited version of the post when first published. It appeared at the time that the McCanns owned a second camera - an Olympus - this is not the case and I have removed all references to the Olympus which are not relevant here as the camera belonged to other holiday makers. My apologies for the mistake.