New British Suspect

maria wrote:Sadie

The fact that Hewlett may have been in the taxi does not mean that he was the guy who took Madeleine. Rosie points it out, he may have had a helping hand. And there were TWO guys in that taxi...

As far as I can remember these people arrived by car in Lagos, took the taxi to Vila Real de Santo António (of that I'm not 100% sure, just pretty sure), jumped into a 4X4 and drove off direction Spain. This IMHO very very plausible. The only problem is the time: the taxi driver places it before dinner, not sure 20:00. If it was not for that, any, but any, time AFTER 21:10 could fit. Remember, even if they arrived in Lagos by 22:00, it would fit, 23:00 the same, the abduction was after 21:00ish.

And it is true, the woman looks very much like Kate. For a fast asleep Madeleine opening one eye and hearing a feminine voice whispering her name, she would very well be mistaken with her mum.

I think that this taxi driver should urgently be approached again.

Maria

Maybe I haven't worded my previous post very well. I am all for the taxi driver being re-interviewed, but all I am saying is, that I feel very doubtful given the other points I have made.

All I am saying effectively, is that if the taxi driver has got the time right, then three lots of Brits have got it wrong. Now, on the other hand if the taxi driver has got the time completely wrong, them BINGO..........it could be the answer

But he was so adamant about the time, I feel it unlikely that he has it wrong

As always I am happy to be proven wrong................and I might add that I am not happy about being the only person who seems so cynical; it's not a comfortable position to be in. I want to get to the truth.

Just one observation on this business of a man holding a child in his arms ~ as Gerry supposidly did on leaving that plane ~ anyone parent who has ever scopped up a sleeping child knows that this is the only way to carry them and it is tiring. You don't put them over your shoulder. You literally hold them in a scoop. Also I doubt very much if a taxi or any vehicle is now stopped or searche3d at a border within Europe. I live in Spain and know that these borders are just throughways now. Hence all the dodgy load of criminals we keep getting into the Costas, nobody stops anyone now.

rosemary wrote:Just one observation on this business of a man holding a child in his arms ~ as Gerry supposidly did on leaving that plane ~ anyone parent who has ever scopped up a sleeping child knows that this is the only way to carry them and it is tiring. You don't put them over your shoulder. You literally hold them in a scoop. Also I doubt very much if a taxi or any vehicle is now stopped or searche3d at a border within Europe. I live in Spain and know that these borders are just throughways now. Hence all the dodgy load of criminals we keep getting into the Costas, nobody stops anyone now.

Sorry this is so big - am not very good at posting pictures. Gerry is carrying Sean the way any responsible parent would down plane steps, with one hand available to grab the handrail if necessary.

Cant think why Mr Smith found this so different that he was convinced that bundleman was Gerry! And I cant believe he could think the man might have been carrying a blonde haired bundle, rather than a child. Other members of this mystery party apparantly noticed the childs arms were dangling at the sides just like Seans.

What's bothering me is that, at the moment, I have my family over from Canada and i haven't the time to check what I am saying - maybe I am remembering it incorrectly? Please will somebody correct me if I am rememberring things wrongly. I do not want to start myths.

The other point I would make is that although no vehicles would normally be stopped at the border, would that be the case if an alert had been forwarded to the borders? Is there any control, at all, at borders within Europe these days? I cant remember.

I was of the impression that the taxi had been used merely for crossing the border. I didn't realise it had come all the way from the Pdl area. Sorry if i got that wrong.

I want the taxi driver reinterviewed, despite my doubts, but have a sinking feeling. But there you go, I question everything!

This taxi driver didnt come forward for quite a while. I cant remember how long, does anyone know.

I wonder if he even has the right day. Perhaps it was the following day.

The reason I say this is that his statement about Kate being in the taxi with Madeline at the time he says, is not possible, so he is mistaken as to who was there, and the time.

Either he is completely mistaken and the people who were in the cab, were nothing to do with Madeleine, or he has the time or the date wrong.

As well, it was not Kate in the cab, but a Kate look alike. Just how long was it after the event that he came forward. If a long time, say months, then his recollections will be wrong, and he may have just thought it was Kate because he had seen her often on the news.

Hewlett's wife resembles Kate, Chris noticed it instantly, she said she was shocked because she thought 'hey what's Kate doing with him'!

I think it was proved that it was impossible for this to have been Kate in the taxi and the taxi driver is apparently the father of a member of the PJ!

Found it Diane, the one with taxi drivers pic on.

London,

Sunday 24.05.09
Madeleine police to come to Britain to re-interview Tapas Nine

Last updated at 23:07pm on 29.02.08
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Portuguese police will arrive in Britain within the next ten days to reinterview friends of Kate and Gerry McCann over the disappearance of their four-year-old daughter, Madeleine.
David Payne, Jane Tanner and her partner Russell O'Brien are set to be quizzed first in a last-ditch attempt by cops to crack the mystery. Police will then decide whether to requestion other members of the so-called Tapas Nine, it was claimed.
The news came as a Portuguese taxi driver told how he picked up Madeleine McCann with a blonde woman who looked like Kate McCann and three men including one who looked like suspect Robert Murat the night of her disappearance.
Antonio Castela, 67, said he dropped off the missing girl and her English-speaking mystery companions at an Algarve hotel and watched them drive off in a blue jeep.
He insisted he was "100 per cent sure" his passengers included Madeleine, four, saying he even noticed her famous eye defect as his son had a similar defect.
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Madeleine has been missing since May 3 last year


Antonio Castela insists he saw Madeleine on the night she disappeared


"She was with three men, one of whom looked like Robert Murat, and a blonde woman," he said.
"The blonde woman with them looked to me like Madeleine's mother but I couldn't say whether or not it was her," he added.
"I even noticed the girl's eye defect, as my son, who is a police officer, has a similar defect in his eye.
"When I saw the news on the television I was stunned and I turned to my wife and said: 'I had that little girl in my car!'
"I went back to the hotel and told them and asked if they had CCTV cameras. They said they did, but they were broken so there was no footage.
"I told the Judicial Police but they never took me seriously and told me I must have been mistaken.

Robert Murat is one of the three suspects in the case
"But I know what I saw and I'm sure I saw Madeleine.

"I believe she must have been smuggled abroad. It has been on my mind ever since."
Castela, a taxi driver for the past 17 years, said he picked the group up at at a taxi rank in Monte Gordo an hour's drive east of Praia da Luz where Kate and Gerry McCann were holidaying with their three children on the evening of May 3. He was certain about the timing, he said, as it was approaching the end of his shift.
He claimed Madeleine was wearing a pair of pink pyjamas and sat on the lap of one of the two men.
They asked him to drive them to the Apolo Hotel in the nearby town of Vila Real de Santo Antonio, a 15 minute drive from Portugal's southern border with Spain.
And the only one words one of the men uttered at the end of the two and a half mile journey was "How Much?" in English when it was time to pay, Mr Castela told Jornal do Algarve in an exclusive interview.
He told the paper the jeep the group got into in the hotel car park had a yellow UK-style number plate.
He is thought to have informed police after being told they were not staying at the hotel and seeing news of Madeleine's disappearance on TV.
Mr Castela is said to have picked up the group just after 8pm local time.
Madeleine's parents - official police suspects - first raised the alarm around 10pm although the last public sighting of Madeleine is believed to have been at least four hours earlier.
Jane Tanner, one of the friends who was eating tapas with Madeleine's parents the night she disappeared, has told how she saw a man carrying a little girl in pink pijamas in his arms near the McCanns' Ocean Club apartment the night the youngster went missing. She told police she saw the man from behind but was able to give a description of what he and the child was wearing.

Sadie thanks for putting up that photo. I niever saw it before. My point was merely that it is also quite normal to scoop a sleeping child. As for the border crossings, I think it's only transit lorries that now get stoppped. It is because of the new EU agreements Sadie and what they refer to as freedom of movement now. We in Spain and Portugal and all the costas had a massive influx of refugees (and a huge criminal increase!) when all the Russian satellite states like Albania and Romania etc were allowed to come and work here. This is precisely why K&G want an amber alert as in the US.

I really hope that this will be the break through that the McCanns have been waiting for and if not Hewlett, then maybe he knows more and can be broken.

May wrote:I really hope that this will be the break through that the McCanns have been waiting for and if not Hewlett, then maybe he knows more and can be broken.

Hi May, nice to see you. This is what I am hoping too, maybe for the first time in his sorry life Hewlett will do the right thing.

where is the photo that i think the mirror printed of him and his so called common wife and 6 kids sitting outside the campa van ??? they were all sat outside it his kids to. I seen it because i remember looking at his kids thinking omg what sort of life have you little ones had with them pair of dimwits.I have been searching the web none stop to tonight for that picture someone please help me find it arghhhhhhhhhhhhh

The van was facing away from the road side,there were chaires or nenches and the children were sat on them,he was stood in the doorway i think to the van and his wifey woman was stood near the kids. i wanna see the pic again.heeeeeelp me find it purlease!

I see that photo too Clairesy, but I saw it in the paper version of the newspaer.

I have it, but my scanner refuses to san into my computer.

oh god rosie,lol I saw it in the paper to,but cant find it online lol..I thought maybe they had removed it due to the kids being on it etc.i cant post about this guy no more tonight hes doing my head in big time wil post about him again tomorrow maybe. keep hold of that pic though as you might be able to get it on here cant you take a picture of it with your digital camera and download it on? LOl cheeky s### en i lOL

I don´t know how this is going to sit with people but I have to say I believe this taxi driver´s story - only I think the woman was Hewlett´s wife - And here is the difficult part - I think there is a resemblance to Kate here. Looking at that wife of Hewlett´s picture, if you keep her mouth closed (!) and let loose her hair, the colouring is right and the bone structure - he could have only got a passing look at this woman and all he needed was a resemblance. Does anyone else see it or is it just me?

rosemary wrote:I don´t know how this is going to sit with people but I have to say I believe this taxi driver´s story - only I think the woman was Hewlett´s wife - And here is the difficult part - I think there is a resemblance to Kate here. Looking at that wife of Hewlett´s picture, if you keep her mouth closed (!) and let loose her hair, the colouring is right and the bone structure - he could have only got a passing look at this woman and all he needed was a resemblance. Does anyone else see it or is it just me?

Rosemary, it isn't just you. I have to say, there is one particular photo of his wife, I think she has a blue sweatshirt on and her hair is shoulder length, I thought there was a resemblance to Kate too when I first saw it. I think Christabel has posted this particular photo on here. However, now having seen her close up there is no resemblance but as you say in a passing look one could perhaps be mistaken.

I dont remember now, did the taxi driver ever say whether he heard the womans voice ?

Tinkerbell thankyou I found that photo on the other thread and there is more than a passing resemblance to Kate, enough for a disinterested taxi driver to note. And others have also seen it as you say. Just so odd about the timing being so out! And it must be surely such a simple error, watches out of sync - we are so beleaguered by such discrepancies in this whole case...I even googled British summertime as the cause but no joy.

Hi Rosie thanks or the photo,

Its the same one i seen the picture im sure was taken before Madeleine was snatched.It wasn't in Morocco etc.The van was parked alone i think in a field near the roadside although facing away from the road.

It reads how they have no money etc how they make money by selling items he finds from besides the roads etc etc....she makes money from working in towns i think working crazy puppets or something for money.Any way what ever they have no money,the clothes they wear shows how poor they are and also the way they live etc.I wouldn't imagine they had many clothes at all..........to be honest i would say they share some clothes and that's probably why the women looks like a man a lot because she struts about wearing joggers and big jumpers etc. In that picture what i notice is that both of them are wearing a blue jacket,sporty type to.



A description in papers of a suspect and also again recently in the sun reads how someone wearing a blue jacket was at the ocean club carrying a child away.

Sorry I didn't realise that I had accidentally missed one of the kiddies. Here s an excerpt that I took from the paper. It explains the busking thing, but I am sure I read somewhere that she also dressed up in a costume and would send the children up to tourists to collect money.

"Alan and Cindy struck up a friendship with Hewlett and German "partner" Mariana 33, after meeting them in Portugal three years ago. Cindy said: "Ray was living along the Algarve and the Spanish coast.

"He survived by selling things he had found. "Mariana also made money by busking on the streets in tourist areas - playing a tin whistle while operating a puppet."

Hi rosie ,thats probably the 3-4 year old in the Right of the picture then,not that it can be seen clearly as its distorted by media for obvious reasons.Is that the little girl???Looks like a boy to me with the clothes it wears.I wonder if Madeleine would have looked like a boy if she were dressed in clothes in like that.Maybe.Anyway.your right about that mariana(that names been mentioned before by Brian or Merlin to,i know that because i have a mate called Maryanna and it reminded me of her name when they said it) anyway..............she did wear a costume a bunny one or something,it was in Germany.......she would stand on the roman bridge and get her kids to collect the money from tourists.Brian or Merlin also mentioned roman and bridge a lot to.Also is there such a thing as romanian gypsies in Spain or morroco???I read in the paper that hewlett told the guy in the morrocon camp site(rif mountains) that 'romanian gyspies' asked him to buy his daughter.

I have something else im a little confused over tonight.Raymond's passport photo.It isn't very clear image of him and his eyes are half closed.In the uk you cannot have a passport photo with your eyes half shut,they wont allow it. Does anyone know about the rules of passport photos in portugal spain etc etc.As here you canot get away with having a passport photo that looks like raymonds,the picture we have all seen,i have pasted it below.And the link which reports this is his passport pic.


Sick ... Raymond Hewlett's passport photo

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/maddie/2445694/Ive-been-to-Maddie-resort.html

Yes, in Spain the Residencia card does need a photo and they are not so particular as the UK about this BUT it also needs a fingerprint which obviously is more important. I would think the same applies to Portugal.

rosemary wrote:I don´t know how this is going to sit with people but I have to say I believe this taxi driver´s story - only I think the woman was Hewlett´s wife - And here is the difficult part - I think there is a resemblance to Kate here. Looking at that wife of Hewlett´s picture, if you keep her mouth closed (!) and let loose her hair, the colouring is right and the bone structure - he could have only got a passing look at this woman and all he needed was a resemblance. Does anyone else see it or is it just me?

She has more than a passing resemblence to the kidnapper if you ask me, although I believe this is an old photo.

Clairesy for some reason it keeps cropping off some of the photo so I done it this way so you can see the other child. I have tried putting this on so many tiems and each time it was cutting this child out, so I did it this way.

So they do have a finger print for him then?Thats good news,maybe they could use that to see if anything matches up to ray in the apartments then?Would be good.CCTV footage also would be good now,from various places in around luz around the 3rd of may ,to see if his van as been in the area,it stands out doesn't it. I don't think he would have taken it to luz itself though because being the small place luz is i would imagine a contraption like that would draw stares from all over the place.But it might show up on cctv somewhere,on route to a place they think Hewlett would have traveled to get to luz around that time etc. Hewlett sold his blue van after Madeleine was abducted,he sold it for 300 euros to a Gypsy family.He then got a white one.So it was the white van that his son died whilst traveling in then??Im sure i read that his son fell from the campa van pictured(the blue one) but that cant be true because the child died in december last year.By then Hewlett would have had the white van.

Winter wrote:

rosemary wrote:I don´t know how this is going to sit with people but I have to say I believe this taxi driver´s story - only I think the woman was Hewlett´s wife - And here is the difficult part - I think there is a resemblance to Kate here. Looking at that wife of Hewlett´s picture, if you keep her mouth closed (!) and let loose her hair, the colouring is right and the bone structure - he could have only got a passing look at this woman and all he needed was a resemblance. Does anyone else see it or is it just me?

She has more than a passing resemblence to the kidnapper if you ask me, although I believe this is an old photo.

I think that photo above was taken a couple of months before Madeleine was abducted, so she would have looked more or less like this at the time of the kidnap.

Since you both have drawn my attention to the clothes, well not only does Mariana have manly features, she wears manly clothes, look at her clothes, they look like a man's trousers and a man's shoes and I am not too sure of this, but didn't one of the witnesses describe the trousers as corduroy?

Also I believe a woman would be more than likely to carry a child across her arms, I know I do this when I pick one of the children up when they have fallen asleep on the sofa and I want to put them into bed.

There is also a very very strong resemblance to the sketch above, I was quite shocked by it, the way the hair is curled back behind the ear is a very feminine.

"She said she spotted the man striding from the area of the McCanns' apartment but had not realised the relevance of what she saw at the time.
The man is drawn by the artist with greasy, straggly hair, wearing a purple or maroon top and beige chinos."

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Sky-News-Archive/Article/20080641290208