Bennett's 30 Reasons (Refuted)

• The name of the original detective in charge of Madeleine's abduction is Goncalo Amaral.
  
• Goncalo Amaral headed the Madeleine investigation for just 5 months from May 3rd 2007 until October 2007.
  
• Amaral was repeatedly bringing his profession and his country into disrepute during the 5 months.
  
• Amaral was thought to be the source of many bizarre leaks to the Portuguese press.
  
• The leaks were all totally unfounded rumours and never at any time have any them proved to be true.
  
• The leaks were designed purely to blacken the names and characters of Mr Mrs McCann
  
• Amaral was finally sacked from the investigation after accusing the British police of telling lies and being manipulated by the British government and the McCanns.
  
• Amaral was also demoted from his position as Police Chief in Portimao, Portugal
  
• Amaral took early retirement and ever since has been making money out of using Madeleine, her name and accusing her parents of killing her, despite having no evidence to back up any of his claims, he has written a book, been involved in many media promotions promoting his unsubstantiated allegations and is reported to have made over a million pounds off of Madeleine's back.
  
• Since leaving the police (or was he pushed?) Goncalo Amaral has since been found guilty in a Portuguese court of lying about the torture of a witness - Leonor Cipriano.
  
• Leonor is mother of another missing child, who was convicted on "spurious" claims from Goncalo Amaral.
  
• The child, 'Joana' who was 7 when she disappeared just 7 miles from where Madeleine was abducted only 2 years previously, has never been found, or her body discovered.
  
• Amaral was leading the investigation into Joana's disappearance.
  
• Amaral was convicted of lying and committing perjury and concealing evidence of Leonor's torture while she was in police custody, he received an 18 months suspended prison sentence.
  
• Goncalo Amaral has since been charged with yet another count of torture and perjury, of another witness in the Cipriano case,if is found guilty (which is likely due to the way the Portuguese judicial system operates) Amaral will almost certainly go to prison.
  
• As Amaral is already serving a suspended prison sentence, if he is found guilty of any misdemeanor, during those 18 months, he will likely go to prison to serve out his suspended sentence.
  
• Goncalo Amaral also faces an appeal to have his suspended sentence increased and commuted to an actual term in prison.
  
• Leonor Cipriano who a court found was 'definitely' tortured during police interrogation, has since been granted an appeal in the Supreme Court of Justice in Portugal, to appeal her conviction and sentence.
  
• In addition Amaral, also faces a civil prosecution for defamation, libel and impeding the search for Madeleine, he is being sued for £1.2 million, by Mr Mrs McCann.
  
• Goncalo Amaral is also rumoured to be the detective who passed highly classified and sensitive witness information to journalist Felicia Cabrita, it was never officially discovered or recorded if Amaral received any money for this information.
  
• Felicia Cabrita is rumoured to be addicted to class A drugs, she once made a TV appearance where she appeared out of her head.
  
• Just after being sacked from the Madeleine investigation, Amaral who was separated from his wife was reported by his then estranged wife to the Portuguese police (documented), for kidnapping his own child and threatening his wife Sofia Leal-Amaral with death.
  
• Mrs Amaral alleged in a sworn statement that he had threatened to kill her and she also reported Amaral for driving a police vehicle whilst under the influence of alcohol.
  
• However, the couple has since reconciled and have been posing for photographs holding hands
  
• Mrs Amaral penned an incredibly spiteful open letter to Mrs Kate McCann, where she attacked Mrs McCann because her husband was poorly paid by the Portuguese government and seemed to resent Mrs McCann, because her husband (Goncalo) had to go to work and investigate Madeleine's abduction!
  
• 2 months ago the on off relationship of the Amarals, took another nose dive, when Mrs Amaral suspected her husband as having an affair with the wife of their friends, incensed because she smelled the other woman's perfume on him, she packed up Amarals new designer suits and shoes (bought by Madeleine McCann) and threw them in the door of a cafe', along with a letter explaining what her husband had done.
  
• After this Mrs Amaral decided to spend the night with the "friend's" husband. Amaral took offence to this and threatened the man in a bar trying to strangle him 4 times, until he was thrown out of the bar.
  
• Sniffer Dogs -The dogs were not brought in until THREE months AFTER Madeleine was abducted
  
• The dogs are officially known as E.V.R.D dogs.....Enhanced Victim Recovery Dog
  
• Eddie and Keela are described by their trainer/handler Martin Grime as 'operational speciality dogs' trained in Human Victim Recovery and Forensic Crime Scene Investigation.
  
• The dogs are very successful 'but' the "vast majority" of their cases, are usually when the crime has first been committed and forensic evidence is still available and uncontaminated by 3 months of the general public walking through the scene. Forensic evidence being gathered at a "fresh crime scene"
  
• The dogs are handle by Martin Grime, who is co owner of a 'private' company, which hire out their services on private tariffs.
  

1. ‘Stranger’ abductions of an infant from a family home almost never happen. We always need to examine whether the family may be involved



A) Sadly, throughout the world, every year, many infants and young children die in their own homes, due either to accident, neglect, negligence or a deliberate act.
In some of those cases, especially where very young children are concerned, the parents decide to hide the body, and claim their child had been abducted.

B) Statistics have been kept in some countries about the proportion of alleged ’stranger’ abductions of an infant from a family’s home, or their temporary residence elsewhere, such as being on holiday. They show that in up to 99% of so-called ’stranger abductions’ of infants from a family home, it later turns out - when the full facts emerge - that a member of child’s family has been involved in the child’s death and has tried to cover it up by falsely claiming that their child had been abducted.

C) Last year (2007), for example, there was the case of two-year-old ‘Baby Grace’, whose body was found battered and decomposing in a plastic box on sand dunes near Galveston, on the Gulf Coast of the U.S.A. Eventually, DNA tests linked the body to parents in the U.S. who, months earlier, had told police that their baby had been abducted, sparking a massive man-hunt. Then there was the case of the dead baby found by police hidden in the attic of a couple’s home. Once again, the guilty parents had falsely claimed their baby had been abducted.

D) More recently, in the U.S., the mother of 2-year-old Caylee Anthony reported her as missing a month after she had ‘disappeared’. But forensic evidence, including that of cadaver dogs, now suggests that Caylee died at her mother’s home in suspicious circumstances [UPDATE: Caylee’s mother, Casey Anthony, has now been arrested and charged with first degree murder, but little Caylee’s body has still not been found].

E) Now, the above statistics do not in any way prove that the McCanns were involved in Madeleine’s death nor, like many other parents have done, have made up an abduction ‘cover story’. But what we do say, and what the statistics tell us, is that wherever a parent claims that a complete stranger has lifted their infant child from their home and taken the child away, we should immediately view their claim with grave suspicion. We need to examine their claim, test it, check it out. Which is what the Portuguese police have also tried to do in this case.

F) We need to see what evidence there is that Madeleine was abducted. We also need to see if there is evidence that may point in another direction - for example, the possible involvement of the parents.

G) Since the reports of Madeleine going ‘missing’, it has often been highlighted how many children go missing every year. And we concede that there are, certainly, occasional cases of ’stranger abductions’. However, the vast majority of cases of missing or ‘abducted’ children usually fall into one of the following two categories:

H)
a) children who run away from their parents
b) children snatched by a former spouse or partner during custody disputes
A very small number of children are also:

c) snatched by stranger abductors whilst outdoors and away from their homes (think for example of Sarah Payne and the Soham girls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman), and
d) snatched by child traffickers whilst outdoors and away from their homes (though this phenomenon is not known to occur in western Europe).

I) Then, in addition, there are very occasional instances of babies snatched from hospital by mothers desperate to have a baby.

J) But we repeat - and this is most important: In cases where parents of infant children claim that their children have been abducted from their family homes (or from a temporary residence elsewhere such as a holiday hotel or caravan), in nearly every case, it turns out that the child has died in the family home, due to an accident, neglect, negligence or a deliberate act. In these circumstances, it is usually a member of the child’s own family, or extended family, or a friend known to the family, who is responsible for that death. Hundreds of examples of such cases have occurred in recent years alone.

K) In the U.S., following the abduction of a child called Megan by a known paedophile, ‘Megan’s Law’ was passed, which provides for parents to be informed if a known sex offender is living in their area. But in the U.K., the Children’s Commissioner said: “We are concerned that a version of Megan’s Law could detract from the fact that children are actually most at risk from people known to them“.
Against this background, where we have seen that in the vast majority of cases of young children reported stolen from inside their family home, the child is dead and the family is responsible, we now turn to examine 29 specific lines of evidence which suggest that Madeleine McCann was not abducted.

"
In a case such as Madeleine’s disappearance, we should expect professional investigators to pull together systematic accounts of the circumstances of a variety of child abductions and see what they can learn from them.
It does not seem to me that the Portuguese police have done this. If they had, they might have come to the conclusion that the most plausible reason for Madeleine’s disappearance remains our original conclusion — her abduction by a stranger.

At the Centre for Investigative Psychology at the University of Liverpool we routinely build up accounts of the characteristics of particular types of crimes and the criminals who commit them. Most recently one of my graduate students has collected together all the information she can on those child abductions that were obviously not part of some family custody struggle.


Her reviews shows that of the 800 or so abductions that occur in Britain each year about half are carried out by strangers to the family, but the great majority were quickly brought to an end by the abductor being caught in the act or soon after. It is thus extremely rare for people who do not know the children to be able to steal them away. There are about 50 of these cases a year in Britain."

David Canter Director of the International Centre for Investigative Psychology and professor of psychology at the University of Liverpool.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article2508052.ece