Madeleine McCann: Apartment was not made crime scene for two months

The two-bedroom flat in Praia da Luz was crucial to the investigation with forensic teams dusting the shutters and specialists taking DNA samples from the furniture.

It lay empty for a month after three-year-old Madeleine’s disappearance, but was then available to tourists throughout the summer, raising fears of contamination.

Apartment 5A in the Ocean Club resort was eventually cordoned off in August after sniffer dogs from the UK - trained to detect corpses and human remains - were brought in.

Their reaction prompted investigators to take further samples from the flat which were sent to the Forensic Science Service (FSS) in Birmingham for analysis.

The findings, which appeared to suggest that traces of Madeleine’s DNA were in the apartment and the hire car rented 25 days after she disappeared, played a large factor in making the McCanns suspects last September.

Although the couple, from Rothley in Leicestershire, have been cleared and the investigation closed, the apartment which played such a large part the case still lies empty.

The blunder was revealed in the extensive 30,000 page police dossier into the investigation.

Details of all those who stayed in 5A after the McCanns were disclosed in an internal document written by Chief Inspector Vitor Matos to Goncalo Amaral, who was then leading the investigation.

It showed that the McCanns booked the flat from April 28 for a week, but moved out on the morning after Madeleine vanished on May 3 last year.

They moved to neighbouring 4G with their other children, twins Sean and Amelie, and stayed there until July 3, when they moved to a villa in Praia da Luz.

On June 12, a couple from Liverpool who were friends of the owner, retired teacher Ruth McCann - who is no relation to Kate and Gerry McCann - stayed in 5A for a week.

A family of four from Falkirk in Scotland stayed from June 28 to July 12, followed by a couple from New Barnet in Hertfordshire.

On July 19, a family of three from Leicester stayed for a week.

The apartment became a focal point for the world’s media who descended on the small Algarve town to cover Madeleine’s disappearance.

During the search for the little girl, Portuguese police wanted to bug Mr and Mrs McCann to eavesdrop on their conversation, according to the police file.

They wanted to place two bugs in the house and one in the couple’s car but a judge refused the formal request, saying that the couple’s witness statement would be enough.

The case files also showed the frustration felt by the officers sifting through the thousands of potential sightings of Madeleine that could not be substantiated.

DC John Hughes, from Leicestershire Police, the force co-ordinating the British end of the investigation, looked into a spate of reports of children resembling the missing girl seen in Malta.

In an e-mail dated June 26 last year he wrote: "Most replies we get back from other countries don't take us far as many can't be verified or discounted, and I feel these will be the same."

The investigation was shelved on July 21 and the McCanns were cleared of their suspect status after all leads went cold.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/madeleinemccann/2523523/Madeleine-McCann-Apartment-was-not-made-crime-scene-for-two-months.html
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OMG that is really bad...although we all knew the pj never really bothered doing their jobs correctly in the first place, this is just totally unacceptable. What date did British cops and dogs go to luz????

They sealed this apartment off after all these holiday makers stayed their holidaying and continued with forensics?????This is getting more and more bizarre as time goes on .A child as been abducted possibly killed and instead of doing their jobs correctly they p#ss a#ss about allowing people from all walks of life to park their butts right smack bang in the middle of a crime scene.And then later the cops go into the apartment and make k&g arguidos on understanding blood and death was detected by cavader dogs???

IMO they have no rights to make them arguidos even if Madeleine's blood was detected there...for after allowing so much activity to go on there before forensics were carried out I cant see how they can be sure of who is responsible.


IMO they know dam well whats going on and thats the reason they made so many so called mistakes.They weren't mistakes imo......... they were deliberate attempts to contaminate and cock up this investigation.Maybe thats why the pj refused to accept help from the British cops and dogs until weeks later....maybe they wanted the crime scene contaminated first????Hmmmmmmmmmmm

Maybe they knew if brit cops and dogs were to go to luz in the first days after she was taken they would find something out that pj wanted to ignore....I wonder why a cop would want to ignore a crime???Hmmmmmmmm the only thing I can think of is that he/she would either be involved in it or they are on some sort of deluded payroll after the jobs complete???

I knew this apartment was not examined properly for forensic evidence until very late, I read this somewhere and could never find where I read it. I said this on the DX at the time and was called a liar by Claudia and Alsabella.

As Goncalo Amaral blamed the McCann's for allowing people to search for Madeleine on the night she went missing.

Although how Goncalo Amaral knew this is beyond me, as he was at home with a bottle of vino and then went off to bed and slept while the *Golden Hours* ticked away after Madeleine was abducted.

So I would like to know who Amaral is going to blame for allowing a string of different people to stay in the apartment and contaminate this crime scene repeatedly, over the two months since Madeleine went missing?

That scent could have been put there by anyone, especially as two of the by-products of decomposition, putrescine and cadaverine, have been bottled and are commercially available as dog training aids. But they are also present in *ALL* decaying organic material, and in human saliva? Also the scent pf pork has been known to confuse these sniffer dogs.

However, I now see how important it was that the scent and DNA was found to be in the hire car! This is what Amaral hoped would tie the two together along with Kate's clothes, knowing he did not have a cat in hell's chance of getting this link to stick to the McCann's, it was always going to be tenuous. Because of the amazing idiotic blunder Amaral made by allowing this crime scene to be further contaminated in the months after Madeleine went missing. A law student on a practical exercise could have got that thrown out of court, so the car had to feature, I see it all, everything is becoming crystal clear.

Just too far fetched though to find this in a car hired 25 days AFTER Madeleine went missing, it complicated it too much and more fantasy facts had to be dreamed up as to where the parents hid the body for 25 days!

So the parents never having been in the area, had to find not one but *three* cast iron hiding places for a body of a child that the whole of PDL was looking for. Not to mention that every time the McCann's went out they were followed by the world's media.

What really puzzles me is that Amaral expected that everyone would be willing to believe this nonsense and some half brained morons actually fell for it.

Amaral whose fault is it that apartment 5a was relet to many people after Madeleine disappeared?

This just keeps getting worse, day by day by day. Those poor parents, just look at all they had to put up with.

I honestly think that he should be prosecuted for gross dereliction of duty. I also think there is something really amiss here, something is wrong, I wonder what it could be?

Clairesey,
what a great post well done you

Why should we be surprised at this ?
Why did he leave it for nearly three months before letting the British dogs help?, when he knew it would be to late to find anything.
Why did he refuse all the other help offered?
I hope somebody writes a book on his cock-ups. Might do it myself Any idea's for the title?
Oops must be careful he's going to be a lawyer

This big idea might have to change soon though

christabel wrote:Clairesey,
what a great post well done you

Why should we be surprised at this ?
Why did he leave it for nearly three months before letting the British dogs help?, when he knew it would be to late to find anything.
Why did he refuse all the other help offered?
I hope somebody writes a book on his cock-ups. Might do it myself Any idea's for the title?
Oops must be careful he's going to be a lawyer

This big idea might have to change soon though

Yes chris I have a title for his book ...seeing as he is going to be a lawyer(or wants to be a lawyer)...............i think a good title for his book could be liar!!! sounds like lawyer to me!!!!

Don't you nick my idea for a book and I have a title too!

The Lie of the Truth...

Christabel Said.....

Oops must be careful he's going to be a lawyer

Him a lawyer? That doesn't exactly fill you with confidence does it? Do you think he will actually turn up in court, or will he conduct it over the telephone by means of a hotline to the judge? After all he never bothered to turn up at the crime scene of the abduction of a little girl, preferring to do it over the telephone!

Anyway are you sure he said Lawyer and not Liar?