Lapse Of Memory Or Lack Of Character?

If I were to elect the most ridiculous of all statements in the PJ Files on the Maddie Affair, I would have to pick Derek Flack’s.

The competition in such a championship would be furious and fierce as the quantity of possible candidates is indeed staggering but the various statements from this particular gentleman would win not by a nose, but by such a distance that when he’d be crossing the finish line, all others would still seem to be in their starting boxes.

So much so, that in a direct competition between him and an 11 yr old girl, Kate McCann chooses to prefer the child’s testimony as “credible” and “reliable”, while she has nothing to say in favour of the witness that, between all witnesses, was the one to have supposedly been closest to Pimpleman.

That says much doesn’t it? To be put down by one's own peers must really, really hurt.

We’ve seen how much credibility and reliability TS’s statement does really have, so picking on Derek Flack’s proves to be one difficult challenge.

One just doesn’t know where to start.

To use Derek Flack’s own words, which I’ll later come back to and more than once, “after having particularly reflected on such incidences” I’ve decided to start with Flack’s consistencies.

You know, where we know he’s telling the truth.

If one wants to be a purist, we have to limit Flack’s possible consistencies to ONLY one fact: he owns a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz.

That as we’ll see in future posts, is one very important detail.

As said, if we were to say that he’s only consistent about that then we would be much too strict with the man but more important than that it would mean being unfair to logic.

He’s basically consistent about THREE things.

The FIRST, already stated, is the ownership of a holiday apartment in Rua do Ramalhete.

The SECOND is that he’s not married to Christine, but had been living with her, at the time of his statement, for 36 years.

We’ll consider that when he contacts the PJ on May 5th it wasn’t clearly understood that Christine was his “partner/companion” and not, as written, his “wife”. A natural misunderstanding so we’ll accept it as his second consistency. Besides, it has absolutely no relevance.

The THIRD consistency is the most important one of the three.

Not the only important one, only the most important of the three and that is that he consistently doesn’t remember the day he almost literally ran over Pimpleman.

Mind you, he can’t be precise JUST about the day, because, as you’ll see, he firstly hesitates about the hour but has, it seems, clarified that detail.

Let’s see what he has to say on this:

1. On May 5th 2007, he says “Last Wednesday (May 2nd) or Thursday (May 3rd), during the day (doesn’t remember but says that possibly in the afternoon)”

2. Also on May 5th 2007, in a PJ External Diligence report it’s said “at a moment prior to the occurrence that is now intended to be investigated”.

3. On May 06th 2007, he says “in a date that he doesn’t remember with precision, but reports it to be late morning or early afternoon in the past May 02 or 03”.

4. On May 9th 2007, in a PJ External Diligence report it’s said “on date immediately prior or even contemporaneous to the occurrence currently being investigated”

5. And in April 2009, in the Mockumentary, he’s quoted as saying “I don’t remember whether I saw the man Wednesday 2nd or Thursday the 3rd of May”

Notice that the second time, when Flack is contacted by the PJ in an external diligence on May 5th, the same day he had contacted them earlier, he’s registered as saying “at a moment prior to the occurrence that is now intended to be investigated”. The occurrence being investigated happened on the night of May 3rd 2007 so we could interpret the said “moment prior” to be earlier on that same date.

But May 2nd is also “a moment prior” to May 3rd, as is February 12th and January 31st.

However, it's clear that all other four statements are adamant in Mr Flack's indecision.

So even with the exception of that one imprecise “moment prior”, it can be stated with total certainty that Derek Flack CONSISTENTLY doesn’t remember on which day he saw Pimpleman.

If it was on the Wednesday 2nd or the Thursday the 3rd of May.

He remembers many other little details as we’ll see in future posts but this one simply escapes him.

It’s a common occurrence when witnesses don’t remember with precision the time that an event, or events, happened.

Confusion occur with minutes, hours, days or even years, depending on how far back they’re asked to recall details.

But a memory is as more precise as how directly the witness has intervened in the event being recollected or how relevant it was in their lives.

For example, who doesn’t remember what the weather to their wedding day was?

Another way for a memory to be precise is when the event in question becomes unforgettable due to its impact on the general public.

Who doesn’t remember exactly what they were doing during the events of September 11th 2001?

The scale of an event’s public relevance has obviously to do with those it has affected.

The tragic events of the Twin Towers affected everyone worldwide, and that’s why we all remember what we were doing when that second plane hit the South Tower.

But, although in a similar scale of seriousness, if you ask a non Brit for the date when the London terrorist attack happened, it’s no disrespect to the UK or to the victims of the vile attack that they can’t recall that it was on July 7th 2005.

Nor is it that a non Spanish doesn’t remember that Madrid suffered a similar tragedy on March 11th 2004.

To prove the point, very few people could consciously put in order these two events. You see what I meant when I said that people even get years confused?

But separately these two dates are remembered by both the British and the Spanish respectively and the great majority of people that lived in these two countries at the time can recollect in detail what exactly they were doing when the tragedy in their country happened.

All this because Derek Flack cannot remember, on Saturday May 5th, if it was on Wednesday 2nd or the Thursday the 3rd of May that he saw Pimpleman.

Let me tell you that I’m absolutely sure that everyone that who was in PdL at the time Maddie disappeared remembers exactly what they did both on May 3rd and May 4th 2007.

The day that Maddie disappeared and the day the news got out.

Were you in PdL Mr Derek Flack?

Then you remember what you did on May 3rd.

And if you didn’t see Pimpleman on that day, then, according to you, it leaves only May 2nd for that to have happened. It's up to you to know in which day you say you saw him. With no justifiable indecision.

Saying that you don’t remember on which one of the days it happened is blatantly lying and we both know that.

But let’s pretend, Mr Flack that you’re as stupid as you pretend to be.

Let me try to help you jolt you memory.

I'll do a similar exercise that you people intended to do with the Mockumentary, which was to jolt nobody’s memory because you and all of those who participated in it, in front or behind the cameras, knew beforehand there was nothing to be jolted.

Like in your case, Mr. Flack, no one can jolt what isn’t there to jolted, can they? We know you didn’t see what you say you saw, when all you saw were recollections of figments of your imagination that your mind fed you at the time you had to comply with the character in the script that you were cast to play.

But let’s get back to the debunking, shall we?

The dates you give as possibilities are sandwiched between two relevant dates: May 3rd, the night Maddie disappeared and May 1st, the Portuguese Labour Day National holiday.

It was either the day after the holiday, or the day Maddie was gone, that simple to remember. Which was it?

You still don’t remember?

Well, let me help you then a little further. It was on the day that you, Mr Flack, “got ready to have a walk through the streets surrounding where he was domiciled, in Praia da Luz, together with his partner CHRISTINE”.

Do you two decide to have this particular walk every single day?

If so you should have said “the walk” instead of “a walk”, shouldn’t you?

But if this “walk” is such a daily routine that it cannot be pinned in time, its path clearly is not always the same, because, as you say, on May 6th, you “cannot wholly specify the path made, knowing however that they walked the road in which he resides in the ascending way, which would take the direction of Rua Agostinho da Silva, in the descending way, in order to access Rua Dr. Francisco Gentil Martins, in which is located the "Ocean Club Gardens" enterprise “.

Hardly the description of a daily routine walk is it? Even stranger if one is to consider that this is coming from someone who owns an apartment in town, so is supposed, unlike the McCanns, to know the surroundings.

At least the near whereabouts of where you usually reside when you’re frequently in town. Honestly if you’re not able to specify a path that involves THREE streets, the one where you house is, the one where you allegedly saw Pimpleman and the one in between, what can you specify?

So Mr. Flack, it’s easy to remember. Just ask Christine if it was on Wednesday or Thursday that you two took that exceptional walk.

Still having a difficult time remembering? Oh, you don’t want to ask her?

Could it be because you don’t even remember why you were on Rua Dr. Francisco Gentil Martins in the first place?

You see, as shown, on May 6th you say you happened to be there because of a stroll you decided to make around town, but, just 24 hours before, on May 5th when you contacted the PJ, it’s registered that you said “Last Wednesday (May 2nd) or Thursday (May 3rd), during the day (doesn’t remember but says that possibly in the afternoon), accompanied by his wife, and when going to the "Baptista Supermarket", he observed an individual...”

Please clarify, was it a strolling trip or was it a shopping one?

Why is this Baptista trip is not mentioned again? Please don’t say that the PJ misunderstood your intention to having been on that particular road at that particular time.

One thing is for the PJ to misunderstand between a partner and a wife, but it’s not acceptable to confuse a vague objective as a stroll with a clear and named shopping destination.

So Mr Flack, was it on Wednesday or Thursday that you went to Baptista? Still don't remember? Don't tell me that you go there so many times that you can't specify a particular trip...

How about asking your partner? After all it was you that contacted the PJ. It was your initiative, nobody else’s. You say you saw something suspicious and you felt that you should report it, so one would assume that you’d get your fact straight before you headed for the authorities.

It was you who went to the authorities, right? Not the other way around, so the least expected from you would be for you to remember exactly what you wanted to report.

We know that you and Christine played the same game “Now I see, Now you don’t” that TS and her mom also played, so we’re supposed to think she didn’t see Pimpleman. But we don’t want her to tell you any detail about the man, just about the day you say you saw Pimpleman.

A day has 24 hours, and each unique and full of all those particular details that make one different from the other and allow us to determine, with accuracy, to which day they belonged to, just 48/72 hours afterwards.

For example, did you buy an ice-cream downtown just like the McCanns on their single family trip to the beach?

Or maybe you bought also some sunglasses? A newspaper? A coffee? I’m sure you did do something different that day that you didn’t do on the other.

Between the two of you, you should come up with something that would distinguish the Wednesday from the Thursday. The clothes each one wore, the meals you had that day, where did you go after you went down that street, something that would clarify if it was 72 hours or 48 hours that you, Mr Flack, had seen Pimpleman.

But it seems that, even though “moreover, he wishes to add that, after having particularly reflected on such incidences, has concluded that…” as you say on May 06th, nothing has come to both of your minds.

Pity.

Very unbecoming for someone that characterizes himself as “To the question asked, the respondent refers that he perceived the facts reported above due to the fact that he possesses a great surveillance instinct, presumably resulting from the fact that he integrates a neighbours community that exists where he resides in England, established for security purposes, entrusted to ensure the maintenance of the order and for the surveillance and detection of suspicious people or movements in the vicinity of that location”

I do pity who rely on your skills back home. And even more those who rely on your instincts.

Fortunately for them, Pimpleman seems to be allergic to the UK. Cheshire and Ilford are both in the UK, aren’t they?

Both your supposed skills and instincts should've told you how important it would be for the Police to know, with the best possible precision, when a reported event did happen.

For example, in your case, one thing is for Pimpleman to have been seen by you on the Wednesday, the same day other two witnesses apparently also saw him, another, totally different, is for him to have been seen only by you on the Thursday, isn't it? 

But is your forgetfulness really that astray?

I don’t think it is. And you know why?

Because of the Mockumentary.

It shows clearly that sometime between May 5th 2007 and April 2009, you got your memory back.

On May 5th, you’re registered as saying “Last Wednesday (May 2nd) or Thursday (May 3rd), during the day (doesn’t remember but says that possibly in the afternoon), accompanied by his wife…” and on May 06th that ”…reports it to be late morning or early afternoon in the past May 02 or 03."

And this is what the Mockumentary shows:

It says “aprox 11:30”

That’s late morning.

Where did “afternoon/early afternoon” go?

Mr. Flack, you do have a very selective memory, don’t you?

Post Scriptum:

The blog will now break until May 3rd. It will be the 5th anniversary of Maddie's death. The idea behind this break is the expectancy we have about what SY is to conclude until then, if it is to conclude anything by then. Both SY’s words and silence on this issue are significant.