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- Liz great to have you back. Really happy for you with the lurv thing. Can we take it that he is not a doctor from Dewsbury perchance? John as you know I sent La Pearson one of my "Mr Angry" e mails ...
- Welcome back Liz. This is for you Stanley - I know you are big Alison Pearson fan: http://tinyurl.com/6gug9l
- OMG - I leave you for a few weeks to return to find you more or less exactly so... Lovely rants from all and I might add my own soon enough. The reason for my absense is two-fold - family stuff to ...
- John if you want to start a thread on BBC fees I will join it. I find it curious that an institution that is smug, arrogant, self serving and is absolutely oblivious to public opinion should side with ...
- Got this today from BBC: Dear Mr *****, Thank you for your comments. The Madeleine McCann investigation has, over the past year, demonstrated the differences between the judicial systems in the ...
A New Open Thread For Madeleine McCann: Six Months Later
1743 comments
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Lynn 6 months ago with 6 points
Oh no its going to take me ages to understand this new site, too many words!!!
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John_Uk
Steve said its intuitive.
Go t top and choose "Oldest" and then "Threaded" and then it all makes sense. You can reply to individual posts - in which case your reply is indented, or you can post a new topic (at the top) in which it is not indented. -
John_Uk
Daily mail have picked up on the same story:
http://tinyurl.com/22633t
all I can say is they have it in for Murat:
"He "had a squint and sweated slightly," said Ms O'Donnell. "He was breathless, perhaps a little excited... He reminded me of a boy in my class who was bullied."
As I said on the other thread I find this kind of thing quite yuk!
I see I have 2 points! -
Hey john, I'm following you! You have a forum stalker!
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John_Uk
This place is confusing, the post seem to repeat and then jump around. How do you know I'm not following you pdg? Like a panto - "he's behind you!"
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John_Uk
Oh I get it you can sort by oldest, newest or best.
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or hottest darling...
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Actually, it should be intuitive. Comments diverting to the right like this are all responding to another comment. In this case, the thread began with your comment ending with "I see I have 2 points."
The next comment, if it is meant for all readers, should not be placed here by clicking "reply" to another commentator, rather it should be entered in the comment box at the bottom of the blog entry. -
John_Uk
It makes sense now Steve, thnaks. Sometimes 'intuitive' doesn't come naturally to me :)
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Maggie
John: Read Spudgun's article and it's an excellent review of the case so far.
Jose: 'Private' detective's indeed!
So the McCann's did indeed leave the children alone on more than one occasion as was witnessed by Bridget O'Donnell. There are many good points in this article, as long as the reader ignores the obvious bias. -
Jose
My Christmas wish is that the Foreign Office will give its agreement to perform the interviews requested by the Portuguese Authorities as quick as possible. I hope that among these persons there is someone who can help the Police to establish the truth about the disappeareance of Madeleine McCann. I also wish that the parents of Madeleine McCann will fully cooperate with the Leicestershire Police and since they said that they are doing everything they can to find Madeleine, I dont see why they will remain silent..
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Gem
Jose I am giving you a point for wishfull thinking and hopeless optimism
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Just seen this update from the ever readable Beachy:
"I have not been following the Omagh trial on a daily basis (10 months!!!???) and therefore cannot speak to every issue that was addressed there. However, there are some things that were said by the judge and printed by the press today that must be addressed. A few comments on what I have read and heard in the media:
(1) The judge said: "The absence of an agreed protocol for the validation of scientific techniques prior to their being admitted in court is entirely unsatisfactory. Judges are not well placed to determine scientific validity without input from scientists. We recommend that one of the first tasks of the Forensic Science Advisory Council be to develop a “gate-keeping” test for expert evidence. This should be done in partnership with judges, scientists and other key players in the criminal justice system, and should build on the US Daubert test."
What he is talking about is a U.S. Supreme Court case, Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, in which the U.S. Supreme Court established a more stringent test for admissibility of expert testimony than had previously been used in U.S. federal (as opposed to state) courts. What he seems to have overlooked or misunderstood includes the following:
(a) The Daubert ruling was issued in a case involving a civil lawsuit over damages from a drug, Bendectin, that had supposedly caused harm to the unborn babies of pregnant women who took it. IT DID NOT INVOLVE A CRIMINAL CASE. The case revolved around the role of judges in the U.S. federal courts acting as "gatekeepers" in deciding whether to admit and how much weight to give to the testimony of expert witnesses; one of the main purposes was to give judges guidance because civil cases in U.S. courts had degenerated into a battle of expert witnesses that judges were sometimes ill-qualified to evaluate.
Lots of luck to the Forensic Science Advisory Council in developing a "gate keeping" test for expert testimony; 14 years after the initial Daubert ruling, courts in the U.S. are still struggling as to how to incorporate Daubert into criminal practice, as long-accepted sources of evidence such as ballistics tests on weapons and even EYEWITNESS TESTIMONY do not meet the Daubert test. (Think about it: How can eyewitness testimony be scientifically verified? And yet, how could the courts of any country function without it?) The judge can try to inflict the Daubert standard on the UK in criminal cases if he wishes, and perhaps the police and prosecutorial agencies will buy into that, but AT PRESENT COURTS IN ONLY 11 OF THE 50 STATES IN THE UNITED STATES REQUIRE THAT THE DAUBERT TEST BE USED IN CRIMINAL CASES. (The others use some version of a less stringent standard based on relevancy.)
(b) The Daubert ruling occurred in 1993. It has since been modified by other Supreme Court cases, including one known as "Daubert II" in which the most persuasive factor in evaluating expert testimony is supposed to be WHETHER THE EXPERT HAD CONDUCTED RESEARCH INDEPENDENT OF THE LITIGATION OR WHETHER THE EXPERT'S OPINIONS WERE DEVELOPED EXPRESSLY FOR THE PURPOSE OF TESTIFYING. In other words, is what we have on our hands here a real expert who has done considerable scientific research on this subject, or just a hired gun who, for a price, is willing to get up on the stand and give us his opinion?
I do not think there is any question whatsoever that the testimony of Dr. Peter Gill of FSS would meet the test of Daubert II. He is the person who first figured out how to do low copy number DNA analysis and has published peer-reviewed scientific papers on it. Based on what I have read, in my opinion, the PROSECUTION witnesses in the Omagh trial came much closer to meeting the Daubert II test than the defence witnesses.
(2) I was always concerned about one aspect of the DNA evidence used in the Omagh case: The low copy number analysis was run only twice, which was probably thought at the time to be all that was necessary, but subsequent research has shown that running the test three times is optimal. It is my understanding that LCN/DNA tests are now routinely run three times, and I expect that this has already been done in the Madeleine McCann case.
(3) The judge said that that LCN has only been adopted for evidential purposes in two other countries in the world, the Netherlands and New Zealand. I don't know what he means by "adopted for evidential purposes." It is a FACT (as Lucian might say, LOL) that LCN DNA analysis has been successfully used in the courts of New Zealand, the Netherlands, the United States, the UK, Australia, and Sweden. I do not know how he can have omitted Sweden, as some of the most high-profile cases that used LCN/DNA analysis have occurred there. One involved the conviction of the man who knifed Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh in 2003. Another case involved the 2005 successful prosecution of a man who had raped and murdered two children in the 1980s. In Australia, LCN/DNA analysis was crucial in obtaining a conviction in the Peter Falconio murder case. In all these cases, verdicts have stood up on appeal.
Whilst it is true that to date only one person has been convicted in the U.S. in a case in which LCN/DNA analysis was the primary source of evidence (Jauquin Byrd, convicted of murder in Pennsylvania in 2007), his case has stood up on appeal, and there are many others "in the pipeline." In fact, one state in the U.S. has passed a law requiring that LCN/DNA analysis be performed on all weapons recovered in connection with serious felonies (murder, rape), and several other states are considering such legislation.
(4) I was under the impression throughout the Omagh case that a huge negative for the prosecution was that two witnesses from the police seem to have lied about how the evidence was collected. That alone could be sufficient reason for a not-guilty verdict, but it says nothing whatsoever about the validity of LCN/DNA.
This is my opinion: All the brouhaha surrounding the subject today to the contrary, I should not expect that LCN/DNA analysis will be outlawed or declared inadmissible in the courts of the UK. As the process becomes more widely available, I should expect that it will also come to be used in more countries. Any time science advances, there are always sceptics. One should not allow scepticism to impede scientific progress, but neither should an exciting new scientific discovery be allowed to proceed pell-mell without proper safeguards. I should not be surprised if what comes out of the ACPO review and other oversight activities is a set of guidelines requiring that before LCN/DNA analysis is admitted in court, the samples should be run three times, as well as a specific set of guidelines for gathering such evidence, and that is all to the good.
There is no reason that the decision in Omagh should preclude the use of LCN/DNA evidence in the Madeleine McCann case."
Hope she is right! -
Where is everyone tonight?
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Reader
I agree with your conclusion.
With regard to DNA evidence and low copy number analysis, the most important factor (for me) is validation. In order to establish that a result is a true result, a validation study is first carried out to document how the study proceeds, how the study is interpreted and to ensure that the result of such study are reproducible, reliable and correctly interpreted. I therefore see no reason why this technique should be excluded from future cases? -
metal guru
Lizbee,
thanks for the link to beachy. Very interesting stuff.
But remember, whatever about the analysis of the DNA LCN etc in the Omagh case, there is some problem with the gathering of evidence by the PSNI in the first place. I wish I had the link, but there was a major spat between Nuala O'Loan (Police Ombudsman for NI) and Ronnie Flanagan (Chief of PSNI at the time) not long after the atrocity.
Furthermore in my opinion, the case was decided by ONE judge and NO jury. This to me seems odd. The judge is left with the sole decision, and I would not like to be him!
Anyway, onwards and upwards as they say,
Keep the faith!
MG -
Dee
Thanks Liz, I love Beachy too. Stupid question, when you see "bump" on the forum, what does that mean?
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John_Uk
It means that you bring the thread forward because you want people to read it. It will appear on the main page near the top because there's been a recent comment i.e. the bump.
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Hi All,
Dee, I think it means that it gets bumped up the list so it appears first, that's what I worked out anyhoo!
John, Didn't see the vid (on long call!), not sure if I fancied watching it anyway, was it really bad?
Metal Guru, It looks like the DNA evidence will still be used as investigation is Ptgse and IMO there will be more to come about such evidence as you say one Judge can't decide! -
John_Uk
Liz - its here:
http://tinyurl.com/2yxu5n
halfway down the page if you want to see it. It wasn't as upsetting as I thought it might be. Just another weird thing - if you believe then then it would be moving - if you don't then it sets alarm bells ringing. -
Jose
An interview of Rogério Alves in the Spanish newspaper ABC, December 15: Rogério Alves, Portuguese Lawyer of the McCanns: "The parents still deny any involvement".
Alves came to Spain to collect an award of the council of the Spanish Bar where he has given an interview to ABC, yesterday.
- This Morning the Spanish private eye agency, hired by the McCanns, said that they know where the kidnappers of Madeleine are and they will give news of Madeleine before Christmas.
- I am not aware of this statements except for what you are saying. You should ask to the Spanish agency.
- If a Portuguese child had disappeared in England, would we a similar case like the one of Madeleine? Don't you think that it wasn't the British press which has made it to become something special giving to it a nationalistic tinge?
- There is no criticism to the Portuguese authorities. The disappearance of a child is something difficult to investigate, in Portugal, in England, in Spain, in any part of the world. What has happened is that through the disappearance there was the help given to the McCanns to try to find their daughter with economics means and so on. When other children disappear, there is no such possibilities. However, as a lawyer of this case, these circumstances are beyond my control.
- What do you think that the McCanns hired a private eye agency from Barcelona?
- Anything that is legal and that the parents think that could help to find their daughter, is acceptable for me.
- Could you tell me what is the character of the parents of Madeleine, Kate and Gerry? Are they cold? They don't want to show their feelings?
- I don't speak about my clients. However by the law I have to contest that it tarnishes their honor.
- This is precisely why I ask it. Why do they have this image of coldness?
- Yes. I understand the question, but understand me if I don't tell you more. For me, they are two persons that I knew and they are two human beings like any others.
- What do you think that the Justice of Portugal has been formally treated as suspicious?
- If the Police has seen that there is a clue that could incriminate, they had to proceed in this form. But let me clarify. A suspect in any process is not an a accused. We hope that the suspicions are not going to be confirmed. They are still claiming that they have nothing to do with the disappearance of their daughter.
- Was it the blood of Madeleine in the car of the McCanns?
- The inquiry is secret. The only thing that it could be said is that the parents continue to deny to be involved. They continue to maintain that it has been an abduction. -
John_Uk
Sunday Express says that the FBI are going to analyse footage of men lurking nearby caught on CCTV cameras. This is new according to this newspaper.
http://tinyurl.com/29tlnp -
Andrea
Hello John, so one part of the express article points towards the possibility of an abduction...three men, one of them resembling jane tanners drawing....???
and the other part about the barn could be connected to the phone call between gerry and o' brien, the towel, the renault .... Two completely different directions - or not? -
Dee
Two different directions top part from CM no doubt? Given the situation the tape certainly should be looked at, but the description to me sounded like the same situation as G. & J., just a couple acquant. stopping to chat.
Second part is much more interesting and why haven't other papers picked-up on this? -
Jose
Diario de Noticias:
The Pj has re-requestioned an employee of the Ocean Club
The employee has been the first to see Kate after Maddie vanished.
The PJ has returned to hear for the third time, since the disappearance of Madeleine McCann in Praia da Luz, the first employee of the Ocean Club that arrived when the Mother of the toddler was screaming from the veranda of the apartment: "They have taken her!". This waiter is considered as a crucial witness for the investigation, reports the DN.
The employee has been questioned two times, three weeks ago, in the PJ of Portimão. The Police has informed him that they will eventually return to the charge to ask more clarification. But, according to what is known, this person had nothing more to add, he had merely repeated what he had already said. The detectives insist on the happenings of the dinner, especially in the conversations and postures of the McCanns, in addition to the alleged displacements of the same in the apartment where Maddie and her twin siblings were sleeping.
The employee continues to ensure to be false that the parents of the toddler had gone to check their children each half hour as it has been reported initially to the PJ. Kate stood up from the table around 22h00 and she went to the apartment and it was at this moment that she raised the alarm from the veranda. The testimony of the employee will be one of the trumps of the PJ to clarify the contradictions of the McCanns and their friends, who were spending their holidays together, in the future interviews, in England, as a consequence of the Letters Rogatory that are being translated. -
Jose
Statements of the waiter are denied by the McCanns:
Yesterday the McCanns' spokesman Clarence Mitchell furious denied the claims. He said: "This is all lies. Kate has consistently and categorically absolutely denied that she said that on the veranda.
"But in the evening she may have said it at some stage as a general remark, but she did not run out with this phrase.
"Whoever this guy is and if he is saying this, he is either making it up or he is mistaken.
"Kate, Gerry and their friends told the truth. They will continue to maintain their stories, because it is the truth. Whatever this guy is saying, we reject it, it is not true." -
Andrea
Thank you Jose for the translating!
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http://tinyurl.com/yoo7ky
Sorry about that I was having trouble with the link it worked perfectly before I posted it but then collapsed once posted? but this one should work :) -
Dee
I found it Liz.
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Dee
That is interesting do you remember which thread, I would like to read more? That is creepy, one child looks certainly a lot larger. Thanks Liz.
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John_Uk
Sorry Lizbee what are we supposed to see looking through the cover?
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Through the cover you can see Sean on the left as we look at the picture of Gerry pushing the pushchair. On the right it is supposed to be Amelie but the child is way too big to be Amelie, look at the length of the legs and arms compared to her brother and we know the twins are to all intents and pusposes the same height and build. It's always possible that either a) there's a strange trick of seat position and poor image or b) that ot is Ella O'B in the pushchair. Although the article was about Gerry walking with the twins.
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Jose
Daily Mail: Confession of Michaela Walczuch:
She says: "I have answered everything the police asked me. They know everything so what right do these 'detectives' have to do this to me?
"They used us. They had to find something, someone, and that someone was me."
Michaela recalls: "On May 5 [when she was allegedly 'spotted' with a child in a blanket] I spent the morning cleaning my house, then I went to the hairdressers and in the evening I had a meal with two friends and Rob [Murat].
"On June 15, when I was supposed to be in Morocco, I went to see my lawyer and then had lunch with Rob and his lawyer. After that I went to the bank."
It has also been insinuated that Michaela lied about her whereabouts on the night Maddie disappeared.
She told police she had been at a meeting at her church in Lagos but a congregation member said Michaela had been cast out of the church last year.
At the time, Michaela was living with her husband, although they were separated, and was also friends with Robert, breaking church rules.
Michaela says: "I was set aside from the main congregation last year but I was brought back in March and was at a meeting that night with my daughter. There can be about 100 people there at any one time.
"It's entirely possible that someone didn't see me there but at the same time there are also many people that did.
"The worst part is people putting me in this, knowing I have nothing to do with it. They have no feelings, no heart. They are completely empty.
"I don't know if it is the McCanns or Metodo 3, I don't know who it is, but one way or another they are trying to put me in there.
"It makes me sad and it makes me angry. I have nothing but I am still a better person with a higher standard than all that bunch of people. I will not be used and abused.
"I've had enough of this vile game that others are playing. Others that are free to earn money, to walk around, to have a life. What about my life?"
She adds: "It's just like a film. You have the goodies and the baddies. It's as though one side is being supported and the other is not. These people I've never met accuse me of being in places I've never been, doing things I've never done.
"I didn't spend my whole life trying to be a good and happy person for people to come like rats from a hole accusing me of things I've never done."
Michaela describes the "sickness" she felt when the claimed sightings were made public.
"When Robert called me to tell me that there was a story about these sightings I went into town and I just saw my face on the front of all the papers. I felt sick.
"I wondered, if I was on the other side, if I didn't know me, if I didn't know that I am innocent, what would I think?
"Would I think I had something to do with it? I just wanted to go all around the town screaming, 'It wasn't me.'" She described her ordeal as a "stupid, disgusting soap opera that has no end".
Michaela's words may seem harsh, given that a little girl is still missing, but then she has spent the past seven months standing by helplessly as her life has unravelled before her eyes.
She recalls how, on Monday, May 14, about ten police officers descended on her apartment in Alagoas, the village next to Praia da Luz where the McCanns were staying.
She says: "It was about 7.30am and I was still asleep when I heard the buzzer going again and again. When I opened the door they shone a big bright light in my face and then a group of men came flooding past me.
"Next thing I remember I was in the kitchen and one of them was sitting there with a piece of paper telling me it was a search warrant."
The police confiscated her mobile phone, her laptop and her daughter's computer and then took her to the police station in Portimao ten miles away. She arrived at 9.30am and didn't leave until 1.30am the following morning.
Michaela says: "It was terrifying - all the time answering these questions, knowing you
