Madeleine McCann

[Jon the Hat]

24 minutes ago, ClaphamFox said:

Portuguese police say they have identified somebody who worked at the resort who tipped off Christian Brueckner about the fact that the McCanns and their friends left their kids in their apartments while they ate at the bar.

 

https://news.sky.com/story/madeleine-mccann-suspect-christian-b-was-tipped-off-by-praia-da-luz-hotel-worker-12002751

Jesus.  This looks pretty damning does it not?

[fuchsntf]

6 hours ago, Jon the Hat said:

Jesus.  This looks pretty damning does it not?

Beggars the question,Why this wasnt picked up & Followed through, earlier in the case...!!!

Edited 8 June 2020 by fuchsntf

[UpTheLeagueFox]

On 06/06/2020 at 19:13, Parafox said:

I don't think you can blindly say that if you're affluent and easy on the eye, you get better press coverage.

When I started out as a hack 30 years ago, if a pretty blonde went missing the nationals would be all over it. If it was an Asian woman then much much less so.

Attitudes have quite rightly changed but there's still an element of that sadly.

When you see students celebrating at graduation you very rarely see pictures of fat or ugly folk in the papers, they're usually the "eye candy" ones.

There's a definite bias in areas of society.

[Nick]

44 minutes ago, UpTheLeagueFox said:

When I started out as a hack 30 years ago, if a pretty blonde went missing the nationals would be all over it. If it was an Asian woman then much much less so.

Attitudes have quite rightly changed but there's still an element of that sadly.

When you see students celebrating at graduation you very rarely see pictures of fat or ugly folk in the papers, they're usually the "eye candy" ones.

There's a definite bias in areas of society.

 

Yep The Daily Mail on GCSE Results Day or rather Uniformed School Girls Short Skirt Day Images - Front Page News!

 

P2 - Paedophiles - prey on schoolgirls   

[nnfox]

1 hour ago, ClaphamFox said:

Portuguese police say they have identified somebody who worked at the resort who tipped off Christian Brueckner about the fact that the McCanns and their friends left their kids in their apartments while they ate at the bar.

 

https://news.sky.com/story/madeleine-mccann-suspect-christian-b-was-tipped-off-by-praia-da-luz-hotel-worker-12002751

 

1 hour ago, Jon the Hat said:

Jesus.  This looks pretty damning does it not?

Am I missing something? An employee recorded the dinner booking and left it on the side for anyone and everyone to read. He also had Christian B's phone number who is known to have spent time in the area and could well have been a friend.

 

Hardly damning.

[Fox92]

14 minutes ago, nnfox said:

 

Am I missing something? An employee recorded the dinner booking and left it on the side for anyone and everyone to read. He also had Christian B's phone number who is known to have spent time in the area and could well have been a friend.

 

Hardly damning.

I'd read that before, always found it strange.

[ClaphamFox]

39 minutes ago, nnfox said:

 

Am I missing something? An employee recorded the dinner booking and left it on the side for anyone and everyone to read. He also had Christian B's phone number who is known to have spent time in the area and could well have been a friend.

 

Hardly damning.

A number of Portuguese newspapers appear to be saying that the police 'have identified' an employee who passed on information to Brueckner, but it's not clear whether they have definitive proof that this occured or it's just a theory based on the open dinner booking plus Brueckner's phone number being in an employee's contact list. I'd really like to know how they identified this employee - have they traced calls made to/from Brueckner's phone? Does it have something to do with the two phone numbers they published last week?

 

In general, it seems as if things are moving fairly quickly since the appeal last week. Let's hope they get what they need to either prove or disprove this line of inquiry. 

[Jon the Hat]

1 minute ago, ClaphamFox said:

A number of Portuguese newspapers appear to be saying that the police 'have identified' an employee who passed on information to Brueckner, but it's not clear whether they have definitive proof that this occured or it's just a theory based on the open dinner booking plus Brueckner's phone number being in an employee's contact list. I'd really like to know how they identified this employee - have they traced calls made to/from Brueckner's phone? Does it have something to do with the two phone numbers they published last week?

 

In general, it seems as if things are moving fairly quickly since the appeal last week. Let's hope they get what they need to either prove or disprove this line of inquiry. 

I also read it as someone identified, not the person who wrote the note in the book about them leaving the kids alone.  Sounds more like someone giving tip offs of empty roomw - now whether they knew what was going to happen is a different question.

[Wymsey]

This new suspect inquiry/investigation does seem very credible, from the outside.

This may well be the closest the detectives can get into this matter, but am sure they know this type of information from others has probably been analysed through before.

[nnfox]

So a receptionist wrote the booking in a book accessible to all, the article suggests that another employee tipped off Christian B with this information.  There is a link between that employee and CB because the employee had CB's phone number stored in his phone.  I can't see how that tip off was made though.

 

Obviously, the authorities have far more information than us, and there might well be something in it that we aren't being told about - which is fine.

 

I do think the headline is a little sensationalised and appears to be an example of the press putting 2 and 2 together and not necessarily coming up with 4.

 

It does sound promising though.  The next week or so will be interesting.

[Countryfox]

I don’t think we’ll ever get to the real truth. 
 

 

[Alf Bentley]

Had a quick look at the web site of the Portuguese paper cited.

 

Most of the reports are behind a paywall that I'm not going to subscribe to, but some interesting bits of info freely available:

- They explicitly say the employee was a "Portuguese friend" of the suspect and that he was sharing info about the McCanns' movements with the suspect. I wondered if Sky was misreporting but they're not.....of course the Portuguese paper may be - or else the employee has confessed to passing info?

- They refer to "o empregado" (male employee) whereas Kate McCann is quoted by Sky as talking about a female receptionist....so not the person who noted the booking, it seems

- They say that the investigation had the suspect's number back in 2007 but only made a connection to the employee some time after his German mate reported Christian B's alleged confession to the German police in 2017

- The reason they had the suspect's number in 2007 was because it was on a list of mobiles used in the vicinity of the Ocean Club complex (doesn't say when but presumably at the time of the disappearance - and previous media reports said he'd received a call in Praia de Luz an hour before the disappearance)

- Under Portuguese law, they reckon that the employee would face no penalty for passing on info, even if he knew that the suspect intended to break into the apartment

- The camper van was recovered and sent from Portugal to Germany in 2019 (no conclusive evidence from that yet, it seems)

 

It might be misreporting by the Portuguese media, it might not be enough to charge the bloke and he might be innocent despite his track record, but if the reports are true then it looks mighty suspicious. 

 

Edited 8 June 2020 by Alf Bentley

[nnfox]

7 minutes ago, Alf Bentley said:

Had a quick look at the web site of the Portuguese paper cited.

 

Most of the reports are behind a paywall that I'm not going to subscribe to, but some interesting bits of info freely available:

- They explicitly say the employee was a "Portuguese friend" of the suspect and that he was sharing info about the McCanns' movements with the suspect. I wondered if Sky was misreporting but they're not.....of course the Portuguese paper may be - or else the employee has confessed to passing info?

- They refer to "o empregado" (male employee) whereas Kate McCann is quoted by Sky as talking about a female receptionist....so not the person who noted the booking, it seems

- They say that the investigation had the suspect's number back in 2007 but only made a connection to the employee some time after his German mate reported Christian B's alleged confession to the German police in 2017

- The reason they had the suspect's number in 2007 was because it was on a list of mobiles used in the vicinity of the Ocean Club complex (doesn't say when but presumably at the time of the disappearance - and previous media reports said he'd received a call in Praia de Luz an hour before the disappearance)

- Under Portuguese law, they reckon that the employee would face no penalty for passing on info, even if he knew that the suspect intended to break into the apartment

- The camper van was recovered and sent from Portugal to Germany in 2019 (no conclusive evidence from that yet, it seems)

 

It might be misreporting by the Portuguese media, it might not be enough to charge the bloke and he might be innocent despite his track record, but if the reports are true then it looks mighty suspicious. 

 

Thanks for this.  Makes a bit more sense now.  I've highlighted the really interesting part in bold.  I wonder what the evidence is of sharing information about the McCanns? That could be crucial.

[Sly]

I was skeptical about this originally; almost like they were looking for a tedious link to sweep it under the carpet once and for all. 
 

It would appear that something might be in this though.

[nnfox]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52984306

 

Not massively encouraging.  German authorities basically saying they are sure Madeline is dead and they are pretty sure that Christian B killed her, but it doesn't look like they have enough evidence to charge him.

[Sly]

42 minutes ago, nnfox said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52984306

 

Not massively encouraging.  German authorities basically saying they are sure Madeline is dead and they are pretty sure that Christian B killed her, but it doesn't look like they have enough evidence to charge him.

I thought exactly the same

[ClaphamFox]

59 minutes ago, nnfox said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52984306

 

Not massively encouraging.  German authorities basically saying they are sure Madeline is dead and they are pretty sure that Christian B killed her, but it doesn't look like they have enough evidence to charge him.

According to some of Brueckner’s former acquaintances, he used to boast about how easy it would be to make a body disappear without a trace. If he’s as good at that particular skill as he claims he is, it’s unlikely Madeleine will ever be found. Prosecuting him without a body may prove difficult.

[StanSP]

2 minutes ago, ClaphamFox said:

According to some of Brueckner’s former acquaintances, he used to boast about how easy it would be to make a body disappear without a trace. If he’s as good at that particular skill as he claims he is, it’s unlikely Madeleine will ever be found. Prosecuting him without a body may prove difficult.

I've got a feeling it'll become one of those cases where Brueckner goes to prison for however long, then dies in prison without Maddie's location ever being disclosed or not enough evidence yet to charge him and he walks free...

[ClaphamFox]

Not a great deal new here, but it seems that the British and German police still have very difficult relations with their Portuguese colleagues. It must be incredibly frustrating for the McCanns.

 

McCanns' lawyer says, "Stop squabbling"

 

I watched the Netflix documentary over the past four nights. I was interested to see that the Portuguese TV journalist Sandra Felgueiras initially strongly pushed the line that the McCanns were responsible based on tip-offs she was receiving from inside the Portugese police force, but later changed her mind after discovering that they were lying to her. I thought Goncalo Amaral came across very badly, too.

 

Also, re: the latest developments, it was interesting to hear that two separate eye witnesses described a 'blond, scruffy, pockmarked man' acting very suspiciously close to the McCanns apartment before Madeleine was abducted. Christian Brueckner certainly fits that description. 

[FLAN]

Hard to believe it is 14 years ago and she would have been 18 now

 

seems to have gone very quiet again but I guess cooperation is greatly affected by the covid situation 

[Wymsey]

4 hours ago, FLAN said:

Hard to believe it is 14 years ago and she would have been 18 now

 

seems to have gone very quiet again but I guess cooperation is greatly affected by the covid situation 

And possibly someone lying, not revealing any information they know about etc.

 

Edit: Sorry, mis-read the second sentence.

Thought it said what was hindering the investigation.

Edited 4 May 2021 by Wymsey

[stripeyfox]

50 minutes ago, FLAN said:

Hard to believe it is 14 years ago and she would have been 18 now

 

seems to have gone very quiet again but I guess cooperation is greatly affected by the covid situation 

I don't think there's a lot else to find out is there? The have the suspect in prison in Germany, he's not going to confess and they don't have the evidence to charge him but they believe he killed her.

 

That might well be the end of the sorry story

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-52984306

 

 

[Sharpe's Fox]

This will keep dragging on while the Met are getting expenses paid holidays to Portugal. Don't forget to pack the trunks, detectives!

[Parafox]

16 minutes ago, Sharpe's Fox said:

This will keep dragging on while the Met are getting expenses paid holidays to Portugal. Don't forget to pack the trunks, detectives!

Really? When was the last time any Met police went to Portugal?

 

2 hours ago, Wymsey said:

And possibly someone lying, not revealing any information they know about etc.

FFS. I assume you mean one of the McCann's or their friends at the time?

[Fox92]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-56979800

 

Quote

Madeleine McCann: Parents 'hang on to hope' ahead of 18th birthday