The Lady Vanishes

by May I

Baptista and Quiz Night

As we noted on a previous post, Danny Collin’s  book Vanished, the overlooked treasure we've recovered, was written in 2008; approximately a year after Madeleine disappeared and before the release of the PJ Files or Goncalo Amaral’s book.

Many events in this book bear little resemblance to the information contained in the PJ Files, which is surprising, as Collins states that “… during the book’s preparation, I informed Clarence Mitchell of its contents and conclusions and he promised to pass them on to the McCanns for comment.”

He sets the scene on a sultry night:

“A large round table held 9 revellers, all medical professionals with their partners (first inaccuracy) who were now enjoying an after-dinner quiz, organised by the Ocean Club aerobics teacher. Najova (sic) Chekaya. Waiter Jose Baptista thought it unusual that the loquacious British group should linger so long every night after dinner at the table they claimed as their own, talking and drinking local wine until after 10pm…..but tonight, finding tables would be no great problem, as only a few were taken up by the group’s fellow quiz competitors (who?) 

Thursday was 3rd May and the normally busy resort was still in low season that wouldn’t end until the advent of the official early summer on 25th of May. Besides, the group paid well for the best poolside table, consuming an average of 8 to 10 bottles of wine with and after their meals each night.

Jose noticed one of the men of the group from what he gleaned from conversation at the table to be doctors, raise a finger and indicate an empty wine bottle. He smiled in reply and nodded, crossing over to the wine rack against the wall of the adjoining restaurant.

That evening, the arrivals of the British party at the bar had been erratic ….with a worried Jane Tanner arriving later with her husband, before leaving almost immediately, to check on her sick daughter once again.

Gerry went back to check on the children within half an hour of arrival …soon after Jane Tanner’s return…. It was the turn of Mark Oldfield to rise and look at his wristwatch. He said something to the Scottish couple and a woman Jose assumed was his wife, before leaving the table to walk towards the Ocean Club apartments. (how did Jose know where he was going? who was the Scottish COUPLE?) to fulfil his shared obligation of looking after the group’s children.

Of the group who had holidayed in Greece the previous year and found their child watch system to work admirably with no need of in-house babysitters, only Dr David Payne and his attractive doctor wife Fiona weren’t called to take part in the routine, having invested in a radio baby monitor. (so they were already prepared to leave their children on this holiday too. How did Jose know this? Presumably he didn’t?)…..

Jose Baptista shook his head and clicked his tongue in disapproval as Dr Oldfield left the group… it was 9.38 pm. He often saw this man and his dark-haired wife during the day, sitting next to the pool with their two young daughters in the company with the Scottish couple and their own three children. (who are named and described)

It seemed to Jose that the children were always left alone at night. He had overheard club crèche staff remark that the late diners never took advantage of the crèche or on-site offer of babysitters…. one of the men would leave the table at approximately half – hour intervals that got increasingly more erratic as the evening progressed. Meanwhile, the little ones were left alone in the apartments for up to 3 hours. (he isn’t saying left unchecked for 3 hours, but checked with lessening regularity from half – hourly, to what exactly?)   

Jose Baptista thought about his own large family and the love lavished on his nephews and nieces by his sisters and brothers and their partners. (he must have shared this background with Collins)

The doctor with the difficult English accent, the one the group called Gerry (Jose must have spoken to Gerry) had taken his turn to visit the apartment earlier: 9.05 pm. If the group stayed drinking and talking to past 10 pm as was usual. (it seems Jose is familiar with the nightly routines, so bear in mind he has already made his statement to the PJ) Jose supposed Dr Gerry would follow the nightly ritual and his turn would come around again 30 minutes after Dr Oldfield returned."

Jose Baptista’s statement – Joaquim Jose Moreira Baptista- was taken on 6/5/07

His shift is from 16.00 - 24.00*

"When asked he says he clearly recalls the appearance of the girl’s parents, he does not know their names, together with a group of  English tourists who generally accompanied them, as for almost a week prior to the disappearance they would dine practically every day in the Tapas restaurant. On the occasions he saw the group dining at the restaurant, he never saw the children. He does not remember ever having seen Madeleine’s face, which only happened when he saw her photograph after the disappearance.   

During the dinner the men from the group would leave the table, returning a few minutes later. The witness says that he does not know where they went. These absences would last for about 15 minutes. He cannot say with what regularity these absences occurred…. Remembers these occurrences well as would often have to take a plate of food back…when he would find that the guest was not at the table when he came to serve the food.

He was in the kitchen between 22.00 and 22.30 when he was informed by a colleague that a client had entered the restaurant shouting."

* Tapas rota – Ze- Jose 

Off on Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday  Thursday, Sunday- 16h/24h

This means he could only have observed the group on Wednesday and Thursday .

And what about Quiz Night and the aerobics teacher? Not a mention!
  

Goncalo Amaral’s book

“We don’t know what clothes the McCann couple were wearing on the evening of May 3rd. At the start of the investigation we had requested all the photos and videos from that day and from the other days, but all we received were daytime photos; it was as if in the evenings and during the now famous “Tapas” , no photos had been taken despite the fact that some of the diners had cameras with them. The lack of night time photos was something we had never understood. Within the rogatory letter, we ask the English authorities to seize photos and videos taken throughout the holiday at the Ocean Club.”   

Mind your Ps

by May I 

How many waiters to serve 15 people?

David Pilditch wrote an article in the Express on December 17^th 2007*, saying Portuguese police had quizzed a Tapas bar waiter for the third time. 

Reportedly, he gave a dramatically different account of events to the T9. He was said to be one of the trump cards in clearing up contradictory accounts, with an account of how Kate had raised the alarm from the balcony of her apartment. 

His other claim was that checks on the children were less frequent than half hourly. (This is what we refer to as the Total Neglect Theory  – TNT -and just about as explosive)

ANOTHER waiter at the tapas- Jose BAPTISTA told the Express that only male members of the party had checked the children that evening. The paper has a photo of BAPTISTA and a woman, so Pilditch must know who this couple are.

*Sources Jose BAPTISTA, another waiter, Clarence Mitchell

  

The following day,  another article from Pilditch. 

“Key witness goes on the run to protect his evidence.

The key witness is now in hiding after fleeing Portugal (we aren’t told where he fled to) after being sworn to secrecy and terrified that his identity would be revealed. He was afraid that he would come under pressure from RIVAL FACTIONS in this case (What we call BH camps). The witness was scared of British and Portuguese government influence in the probe. His friends claimed he was wary of the team of private eyes hired by the McCanns (presumably Metodo 3)”

Robert Murat’s mother is reported here as accusing the investigators of bribing witnesses into changing their stories. Maybe she will be more informative in her forthcoming book.

Pilditch also refers to the waiter again as the TRUMP CARD for the police and their MOST RELIABLE witness. So it was the same person as he referred to the previous day.

By this time, Goncalo Amaral had been removed from the investigation, but the PJ files had not yet been released.

Moving backwards may explain why there was some confusion about 2 waiters; one called Jose BAPTISTA - the one with the woman in the photo, and Jose BATISTA.  Unless they are one and the same?

In another exclusive article by Pilditch in October 2007, Jose BATISTA - 45, accuses the McCanns or their 7 friends of being to blame.  “I did not think she’d been taken by an abductor. I told them (the police) it had to be one of family or a friend. It had to be someone close….  Batista is standing with his “partner” Maria Fernandes, also works at the Ocean Club complex. They are holding hands. ”

BATISTA surely must have been the guy on the run, as BAPTISTA was speaking directly to Pilditch about ANOTHER waiter in December. How strange then, to have 2 waiters with such similar names serving that night. (Sources: Jose BATISTA, Clarence Mitchell, close friend of couple)

The staff who are witnesses to the dining are: 

1- Jose Baptista, (PJ statement)

2 - the runaway waiter

3 -Jeronimo Salcedas- the barman - referred to as Joe by Oliveira. His father worked for the British Consulate and his mother a teaching assistant.  (PJ statement)

4 - Ricardo Oliveira, another table employee. (PJ statement)

So 3 or 4, depending on whether 1 and 2 are the same man.

Cenoura and David (Barroso?), who were listed as working on Thursday  finished at 6. Who is Cebola, who worked from 4-12pm, according to the rota? The night rota does appear to have been altered.

Strangely, Oliveira, in a second statement, where his memory recall dramatically improves, describes hearing noises from the balcony AFTER Madeleine is reported as missing and a search is underway.

There is a statement in the PJ files from waiter Joaquim Jose Moreira BAPTISTA. Unfortunately, his date of birth has been erased.

In his statement here, BAPTISTA clearly recalls the parents, but not their names, as they ate there practically every day. He says the men checked and their absences were for about 15 minutes, as he had to take food back to warm it on previous evenings.

Maria de Fatima de Sousa Fernandes was interviewed on May 7^th. She was a table worker at the Millenium restaurant, where the McCanns and various other couples with children dined on April 28th . She was aware that they dined at the Tapas thereafter, as it was allegedly closer to where they were lodged (who told her this?)

The Sun refers to BAPTISTA as the waiter who said Kate left the children alone for 3 hours a night and his “wife” Maria, who remembered Madeleine as “a little angel…. quiet and as good as gold.” ( a very British expression) Presumably Maria Fernandes.

The Star refers to him as BATISTA, who said only parents or pals could have done it.

Daily Mail calls him BAPTISTA, who claims the friends shared 8 bottles of wine every night.  

IF he is one and the same waiter, then his story has changed and evolved, but he wasn’t on the run when Pilditch interviewed him in October 2007 AS BATISTA. 

And there is a statement in the PJ files, giving what is the official version of his story on MAY 6^TH 2007 AS BAPTISTA. What he said here is not what he told Pilditch in October. 

There is no mention of an alarm call from the balcony or any comment about checking on that particular night. His recall is that the group of 9 arrived between 20.00 and 21.00 and that he received their food orders. Between 22.00 and 22.30, he was in the kitchen and was informed by a colleague that in the meantime, a client had entered the restaurant shouting and that afterwards the whole English had left in a panic.   

Are you confused? If so, was that the intention, either of Pilditch, or the people who supplied him with this information? He would be the best person to clear this confusion, as he quotes both BAPTISTA and BATISTA as his sources. 

It was his article on December 17^th which carried the photo of the couple. The PJ also know who this man/these men are.

But, as we maintain the Tapas dining and the big round table are inventions, those who are witnesses to this event are not telling the truth.  


POST SCRIPTUM 

Having looked at the OC staff list we are now certain that the waiters referred to in the press as Baptista/ Batista are the same person.

 

The only other male Batista is the husband of Silvia, who was not a waiter.

60 of Us

By May I

If a trio of journalists obtain an “exclusive” interview and speak directly to the people they are interviewing, one would expect some degree of accuracy with regard to the information they are reporting?

Mail Online -31 December 2007

“British witnesses: We saw two blond (sic) men on balcony next to Madeleine apartment”

By Fiona Barton, Dan Newling and Vanessa Allen

In the “exclusive interview” Jayne Jensen and her sister Annie Wiltshire speak of seeing “two blond men in their 30's, standing on the balcony of an empty apartment only a couple of doors away from the McCann's flat ….   One had curly hair....one was stockier than the other”

No sign of pimples or ugliness; both were “tanned and in Bermuda shorts”

The photograph in the article points to this apartment:

This was on the afternoon of May 3^rd; the day that Madeleine disappeared.

In the strange micro climates we have previously observed in Praia da Luz, these two have managed to acquire a tan in weather described as “pleasant with a cool breeze” in Kate's book. Or perhaps they have flown in from sunnier climes?

The sisters were “ immediately struck by the strange behaviour of the men on the balcony” 

What was the strange behaviour described?

“The pair... were standing outside the patio doors of a ground floor apartment, which had been unoccupied all week.”

According to Annie; “ One of the guys was walking down the steps and as I looked at him, he walked back up and started talking to the other one.”

Maybe I'm not so alert but this hardly strikes me as suspicious behaviour. The article goes on to mention that the apartment had been unoccupied all week, so it can be deduced it was 5C, and the photograph in the article appears to confirm this. Maybe the sisters had some way of knowing the apartment was empty, as Jayne had been in the resort a week before the McCanns arrived. Wasn't it possible that the 2 men had only just arrived the day they were seen on the balcony?

The sisters were in apartment 4L, which is a different block to the T9 party.

Annie explains why she found the situation odd:

“I hadn't seen them before. In May the resort wasn't busy. There were only 60 of us staying in the apartments and you got to recognise ALL the other people.”

She is very precise about the number 60 and US suggests a group with something in common.

Us is obviously both men and women given her comment about the men being strangers to her.

The blocks of apartments were reported to have 15-20 units, so she isn't referring to the number of apartments. Neither is she talking about US as doctors, as she and her sister are described as business women and the other couple she socialises with are a middle-aged barrister and a TV producer.

Tennis players maybe? But the tennis lists don't show 60. 

What about Mark Warner guest lists? More than 60 here.

So, what else to do the 60 have in common- not their age group nor the fact they have brought children. Or could it be everyone on the flight? Who would remember all of the passengers on a flight, unless previously known to them?

Or Tapas “diners”? With only 15 per night including the T9, according to Kate, that only allows for another 6 per evening. Could the additional diners be part of the 60?

There may be some explanation for this number, which is asked for by the authors of Maddie 129.

Question 68 asks why the Ocean Club manager mentions this as the number of people searching for Madeleine on the night she went missing, referring to an article by The Guardian. The authors obviously regard this as significant.

In fact, John Hill said ABOUT 60 Ocean Club workers and guests joined the search. Did he have a roll call, or did he just estimate the numbers? If he simply estimated, how did he account for the people who joined in the search of their own accord, when the news of the disappearance reached them?

How did Annie Wiltshire arrive at the same estimation?  Did John Hills share this information with her or is she simply repeating what she heard? She talks about 60 people staying in the apartments, with no mention of workers.

The sisters come forward to speak to the press in December because they claim their names were leaked to a Portuguese newspaper. They say they had alerted the police the next day but they were not interested.  Disinterest isn't confined to the Portuguese police, however. On their return home to England, they contacted the police, who did not respond until they contacted Clarence Mitchell.  Leicestershire Police then interviewed them for 11 hours and signed statements were obtained.

These statements will contain some very important information for 2 other reasons apart from the sighting of the 2 blonde men.

They said that they ate at the Tapas restaurant that evening.

They said that they saw Robert Murat outside the McCann apartment half an hour after the alarm was raised. This was said to be corroborated by the middle-aged barrister.

Kate's book, page 136, also reminds us that 3 of the Tapas 9 also claimed to have seen him that night.   

Can 5 people have made the same mistake? Actually, 6 if you count the “middle-aged barrister” who also backs Jayne’s sighting that night and also speaks to the police.

Strangely, on page 135, Kate describes Jane Tanner observing a man from the interior of a van. The police asked her to try and identify 3 men and say if they resembled her abductor sighting.

 “One was blonde and tall and the other too fat.”

Perhaps the police had taken more note of the sisters' sighting than they realised? The third man she was unable to see properly, so she couldn't be sure.

After observing the T9 at the Tapas, behaving reasonably, the sisters left to go to somewhere unspecified for a nightcap. 14 bottles of wine on the list for all the diners seems quite abstemious, so were accounts of excessive drinking an exaggeration? They seem to have been added by a different hand to the main body of the list.

On the way to the bar, they heard the hue and cry, so they must have left the Tapas shortly before 10pm. They must, therefore, have observed the checking or lack of it, by the group?

When the dining list was later released in the PJ files, the names Jensen and Wiltshire do not appear. The mysterious Irwin women do appear on the list, but no-one seems to have any recollection of them. The only possibility is that the sisters were at the table of another guest; under the name of the person who booked the table and that they left the group to go off on their own to another bar? 

Why are we spending time on the Tapas bookings when we assert there was no Tapas dining?

Because we want to demonstrate the anomalies that arise when trying to use it as a guide and forestall any “explanations” we may be offered as to the presence or otherwise of the sisters that night.

In conclusion, Clarence Mitchell uses the well- worn phrase that the information given by the sisters was “Very credible”, but as we can see, the men described do not fit the description of Pimpleman given by TS and Jeni Weinberger. Carol Tranmer, on the other hand, gives a description of a man she saw on the afternoon of May 3^rd, who was Scandinavian in appearance (blonde?) and refuses to be convinced that the person she is asked to identify is the pimply man seen by TS.   

The statements of Jayne and Annie, taken by the UK police, are not available in the PJ files, but the review team from Scotland Yard must have had access to them.

Will they be interviewing the sisters again?

Bloody Hands, Silver Coins and Loud Silences

At the end of Mr Bennett’s trial we said that we would abstain from commenting until all was settled.

There was the question of how much Mr Bennett had to pay to be agreed upon between the parties.

It seems that an agreement has been reached. The Black Hats have agreed to take a substantial cut in the amount to be paid by Mr. Bennett in exchange for his silence on the issue for the rest of his life. Making him, as you know, the only person in the entire planet that can't speak about the case.

So now we’re free to comment and provide our opinion about what happened.

And what happened is that some people got their hands dirty with blood. Really, really dirty.

Before we gross you out, let us quickly explain that there are two kinds of blood. There’s the normal blood, the one that’s red in colour, flows in our veins and oxygenates our body, and then there’s the unjust blood.

The unjust blood, or blood of the innocent, has no definite shape, form, colour or texture. It may, as it happened with the unfortunate Maddie, be the same as normal blood but is usually completely diverse from it.

In the case of Mr Bennett the unjust blood took the shape of silver coins and a violently forced silence.

I’m speaking directly to all those who took upon their hands to engage on a crusade to right the wrong they witnessed, either directly or by indirect party, that happened in PdL: the completely unaccountable death of Madeleine McCann.

These people, personally carrying such a heavy burden on their consciences or mandated by those who carried such, rolled up their sleeves and took up “arms” to fight for justice for Maddie.

But by hiding what indeed what was going on when that death happened, their departure point for this "crusade" was based completely on a wrong.

Yes, what was going on was absolutely unrelated with the toddler’s unfortunate demise but in the effort to hide it they lost track that two wrongs never made a right.

And as the second wrong, the cover-up, was already well under way when they decided to act, their act was doomed to fail. But their thirst for a conscience-cleansing made them overlook this incontrovertible fact.

Under the banner of justice these self-righteous fundamentalists have, with Mr Bennett's trial, become their own nemesis, the biggest and sturdiest vehicles of injustice.

They have persecuted an innocent man. A man whose innocence is well known to all those who helped set up the system that would persecute him.

A system set up to protect an optional lifestyle from neighbouring and completely unrelated events that led to the death of a girl.

The same system that has ended up sentencing an innocent man.

One may not agree with what Mr Bennett believes to be the truth as to what happened to Maddie but one is absolutely sure that it was the truth as he saw it and nothing but that truth that moved and motivated the man.

One disagrees with his version of events? Then one only has to contest.

To silence him is to recognize, publicly, that what he had to say someone found the need to censor.

History has proven time and time again that censorship is only a temporary panacea to stop truth from coming out which inevitably it does.

Insult, and even slander, is like the Portuguese say, clay thrown against a wall. It will only stick if there’s reason for that to happen, otherwise it will fall on to the floor.

Other themes, of gruesome nature that I will refrain from identifying, are self-censored and this censorship is voluntary, never enforced.

Whenever we witness enforced censorship we know with certainty that we’re before stifling of the truth.

The interesting side to censorship is that it raises awareness to the truth. The exact opposite effect intended.

And that is what happened with Mr Bennett. From now on his silence will speak much, much more than ever his words did.

Thanks to you, Black Hats, he has become omnipresent. In the back of everyone’s mind he’s temporarily “the one they silenced”.

And most ironically what you have achieved, with permanence, is that when the lid pops off this pan, he will be remembered as “the one they shamelessly and hypocritically tried to silence with the help of the British Courts”.

You, Black Hats, by your doing and your doing alone, have created a hero. He may now be forcefully silent but his silence is deafening loud.

About the lid popping off, or the closure of this case, the current times have been, as we’ve been saying lately, very interesting.

Cameron as the astute politician he is in political games, has now most likely come to the conclusion that his war against the media was a lost cause and is now resisting Leveson recommendations and Hacked Off - which Gerry McCann was a spokesperson for.

Cameron is supported in his opposition by the majority of newspapers, who don't want state regulation and we must say that we agree with them.

Apparently he’s stopped making an enemy of Murdoch.

After the outing of the affair between who represented the McCanns with Leveson’s side barrister, the Leveson Inquiry has attracted some derision.

The McCanns by siding with Cameron have provoked the tabloid wrath, which is very, very lethal. The couple, as we keep highlighting, are small fish in such a big pond. They haven't, and never had, any fighting power and, it seems, they've outlasted their use.

So now we have two, Cameron and Murdoch, of the three parties involved apparently interested in putting a closure to this mess.

The third party, the powerful Black Hats are the only obstacle left. We’ll see how strong a fight they will put up, and they will put up a fierce fight we are certain of that.

Our final words of this post go to those we intended to communicate with by writing it, the “WH”, or pretendy White Hats. Those who are far from what they pretend to be and whose agenda is far from being what they say it is.

Mr Bennett’s coins and silence are the unjust blood on your hands. A blood that will taint your hands no matter how much you wash them. Normal blood can be cleansed but the blood of the innocent will remain on you forever. And we do mean forever.

You have fallen in the commonest trap of this affair. In an effort to help, you’ve become a stakeholder.

Now, you’re no longer contributing to the “cause” out of will but out of necessity.

The day Mr Bennett wasn’t acquitted in Court was the day that you lost whatever little innocence you still had because of the integral, albeit hidden, part that you were, and are, of the system that had an innocent man sentenced unjustly.

And it was the day you began to hope no one will ever find out your true role in all this mess.

Poem for a Fallen Petal in May

May

The wind is tossing the lilacs,

The new leaves laugh in the sun,

And the petals fall on the orchard wall,

But for me the spring is done.

Beneath the apple blossoms

I go a wintry way,

For love that smiled in April

Is false to me in May.

Sara Teasdale