Dead-End

Kate and Gerry McCann were attributed the status of arguido in September 2007 in the case involving the disappearance of their daughter Maddie McCann.

That made them very, very unhappy.

On Thursday, September the 19th 2013, the judge presiding over the McCann vs Amaral Libel Trial explained, in our opinion, quite well what being an arguido meant exactly: “The judge now explains that "suspect" is different from "arguido". "Arguido" means there are indications that will lead a person to have to defend her/himself. It's a statute created for the defence of the person. "Suspect" means a hypothesis is formed about someone”

In July 2008, an archiving dispatch dispatched by João Melchior Gomes (JMG) then Évora’s District Public Prosecutor and José Cunha de Magalhães e Meneses (JCMM), then Portimão's General Prosecutor, determined that Kate and Gerry McCann were no longer arguidos in that same process.

That made them very, very happy.

A happiness that wasn’t to last long

Just out of curiosity, JMG signed the dispatch and JCMM didn't although his name does appear at the end of it.

That same month, July 2008, Goncalo Amaral, the PJ inspector responsible for the investigations of the missing girl from when she disappeared and dismissed of all his responsibilities in the case in October 2007 for having given an interview to a newspaper where he was sufficiently brazen to say that UK had influenced the investigation, published a book, “A Verdade da Mentira”.

In this book he concluded that Maddie had died inside apartment 5A of the Ocean Club in Vila da Luz, on the night of 3rd May 2007, that there had been a simulation of abduction, that Kate and Gerry McCann were suspected of involvement in the concealment of their daughter's body, that the death could have occurred as a result of a tragic accident and that there were clues about the parents’ negligence concerning the care and safety of the children.

That made Kate and Gerry very, very unhappy.

Very unhappy, very happy, very unhappy, a mood swing as fickle as the weather in May in Praia da Luz, back in 2007.

So they decided to sue Mr. Amaral for having spoiled their fun.

They must have sulked more than be furious about the book as it took them several months to react against its author.

The Guardian, reports the couple's return to Portugal with the main objective of "Parents try to convince locals daughter is alive" and, taking the opportunity that they happened to be there, "Visit also used to finalise plans to sue police chief" on Sept 23rd, 2009, one year and two months after Mr. Amaral published his book.

They must have been far too busy being starlets catapulted to celebrity status to sit down with one of their many lawyers the moment they saw the book and say “Make this man apologise at once for all the outrageous things he’s saying here and if he doesn’t sue him immediately!”

One of the excuses, if you remember, was the time it took to translate the files into English at a cost of £100,000. Now we have found out, directly from the witnesses’ mouths that this translation either wasn’t read or was only read in part. What a waste of time and fund money.

Anyway, in 2009 they went ahead and sued Mr Amaral for a staggering and inexplicable 1,250,000€ or £1,055,000 at current rate.

That’s enough to translate the PJFiles 10 times over, that’s how much it is! Mr Amaral really, really made them throw a hissy fit because of his book.

But let’s, like the Portuguese say, put our hands in the dough and see what this is all about.

The PJ, as was its job, did an investigation and came to conclusions.

Here many make a “minor” mistake, some intentionally, others innocently, of thinking that the conclusion of the PJ Files is the archiving dispatch.

And this “minor” mistake is in reality a very big one to make.

A report is a report, a dispatch a dispatch.

A dispatch determines what actions are to be taken from the conclusions of a document, be it a single page or a report.

When you take your broken down car to a repair shop and the mechanic investigates what is wrong with it and produces a report, a cost estimate, you make decision about it, dispatching it, on whether the car is to fixed there or not.

A dispatch is a conclusion about conclusions of facts and not about the facts that led to those conclusions.

If you question the cost-estimate, thus not validating the conclusions and/or the investigation done on the car, you simply tell the mechanic to redo his investigation or take the car somewhere else for a totally different and new investigation.

When one dispatches, favourably or otherwise, a document without questioning either the conclusions or the investigation that led to them, then one is validating both.

For example, and continuing with our mechanic analogy, the estimate may be over the budget and you may refuse to have the car fixed there and then. It’s a decision completely independent of both investigation and the report. Neither being wrong in themselves.

Simple and straightforward sequence: event (car breaking down), investigation (mechanic looking at car’s engine), report (repair shop’s cost-estimate) and dispatch (your decision on repairing the car or not).

In the legal world the phases involving the report and dispatch are not that linear.

While in the repair-shop analogy the replacement of a screw has a fixed cost, so it’s easy to set a price for that in the cost-estimate and present it for the client for decision, in the legal world many factors to go into such a "cost-estimate".

Continuing with the screw, in the legal world, its replacement cost will vary if the screw was broken intentionally, if it was due to normal wear or if it happened accidentally.

In the repair shop the price is always the same in any of the instances referred but in the legal world it isn't.

The process of clarifying of how the said screw broke is, in legal terms, the determination of the “matter of fact” of the event under investigation. In simple terms, precisely the what, the where, the when and the why a certain event happened.

Once that is done, then it has to be determined which and what existing laws has the  matter of fact concluded by the investigation infringed and what says the existing legislation are the consequences for such an infringement.

A judge when pronouncing a sentence is simply applying what is legislatively applicable to what has been determined that the matter of fact has infringed in terms of law.

A dispatcher is dispatching an issue, not reporting about it.

The conclusion of the PJ Files is not the archiving dispatch.

The archiving dispatch, as a dispatch that it is, only determined what legal actions were to follow based on the conclusions the PJ investigation came to about the matter of fact in Maddie's case.

The first document that concludes about matter of fact in the PJ Files is the Conclusion to the Investigation Report dated 10th September 2007 which is within the files that were released (Vol X, p. 2587-2602) and it says, as was read in Court, that:

"A) The minor Madeleine McCann died in the apartment 5A of the Ocean Club resort, on the night of 3rd May 2007;

B) There was a simulation of abduction;

C) In order to make it appear impossible that the death of the minor occurred before 22.00hr, a system of checks on the McCann children while they slept was created;

D) Kate McCann and Gerald McCann are involved in the concealment of the cadaver of their child Madeleine McCann;

E) At this moment, there is no evidence that the death of the minor didn't happen due to a tragic accident;

F) From what has been established until now, everything indicates that the McCanns, by virtue of self-preservation, don't want to deliver immediately and voluntarily the cadaver, even though there is a strong possibility that the same was transported from the initial place of deposition. This situation consequently raises questions about the circumstances under which the death of the minor occurred."

This report, on Sept 10th 2007, came to the above conclusions taking into account:

• John Lowe’s mail to Stuart Prior, dated Sept 4th 2007, with the highly complex explanation about how the DNA in the Scenic, that anyone could understand it belonged to Maddie could, after all, not belong to her;
• the FSS preliminary Forensic Report of Sept 6th 2007, signed by the same John Lowe.

Then we have a second report, the Final Report, of June 30th 2008, signed by inspector Joao Carlos.

In terms of matter of fact, what happened in this period, between Sept 10th 2007 and June 30th 2008?

Not much. After all, Mr Amaral was kicked off the case to assure that much else wouldn't happen, wasn't he?

In our opinion, only two relevant things occurred: the rogatory interviews and the FSS Final Forensic Report.

About the first, we see no reasons for them to alter any of the conclusions of Sept 10th 2007, as they only highlight and underline the various discrepancies of the witnesses that were heard. If anything, the rogatory interviews further confirm the conclusions.

About the second, in our opinion, the only relevant difference between the FSS preliminary Forensic Report of Sept 6th 2007 and the FSS Final Forensic Report signed June 18th 2008, is that stain 9, on the East wall and crime stain 1 on the bedspread from the kid’s bedroom has been positively identified as belonging to CG, the 2 yr old son of Paul Gordon, the father of the family that occupied apartment 5A just before the McCanns.

Again we see no reason for the FSS Final Forensic Report to alter any of the conclusions of Sept 10th 2007.

So it's perfectly logical that the June 30th 2008, Final Report only concludes the following about matter of fact: “In conclusion, it results from everything that has been done, despite the efforts that were made and all investigation lines being explored, that it is not possible to obtain a solid and objective conclusion about what really happened that night, and about the present location of the missing minor.”

It doesn’t contradict any of the Sept 10th 2007 conclusions and if that was the case, it would have to explicitly say which and justify as to why, and it doesn’t.

And by not contradicting any, it confirms them all. She's dead but it just wasn't possible to determine really how it happened.

The dispatchers seems to agree with us. In their substantiating arguments on their archiving dispatch (or the AG Final Report as they are calling it) they say: “Despite all of this, it was not possible to obtain any piece of evidence that would allow for a medium man, under the light of the criteria of logics, of normality and of the general rules of experience, to formulate any lucid, sensate, serious and honest conclusion about the circumstances under which the child was removed from the apartment (whether dead or alive, whether killed in a neglectful homicide or an intended homicide, whether the victim of a targeted abduction or an opportunistic abduction), nor even to produce a consistent prognosis about her destiny and inclusively - the most dramatic - to establish whether she is still alive or if she is dead, as seems more likely.

From where else, but from the Sept 10th 2007 conclusions, could the dispatchers assess, as they do, the highly unlikely possibility of an abduction and the highly likely possibility of Maddie being dead?

All conclusions of matter of fact within the PJ Files are those of Sept 10th, 2007.

But it's not only the dispatchers who agrees with us. Isabel Duarte also does.

To which documents in the PJ File did Isabel Duarte refer to when confronted, in court, with the fact that JMG, one of the dispatchers of the archiving dispatch, had not read Mr.Amaral's book? To the June 30th 2008 Final Report or to the Sept 10th 2007 Conclusion to the Investigation Report?

The dispatchers, JMG and JCMM, in their archiving dispatch, dispatched only matter of law about the matter of fact concluded in the Conclusion to the Investigation Report dated Sept 10th, 2007.

They dispatch the following on July 21st 2008, determining:

"a) The archiving of the Process concerning arguido Robert James Queriol Eveleigh Murat, because there are no indications of the practise of any crime under the dispositions of article 277 number 1 of the Penal Process Code;

b) The archiving of the Process concerning Arguidos Gerald Patrick McCann and Kate Marie Healy, because there are no indications of the practise of any crime under the dispositions of article 277 number 1 of the Penal Process Code."

Basically they determined a single and very simple action: archive the process until new evidence is presented that justifies its reopening.

Yes, it does say that the dispatchers found that there are no indications of the practise of any crime by Robert, Kate and Gerry but that is only the substantiation of the the action they have determined: archive it.

And yes, it also meant that Kate and Gerry were no longer arguidos as, as far as we know, no one can be one in an archived process, the resulting action determined by the dispatch.

To sum up, the dispatchers, JMG and JCMM, read, certainly with the adequate attention the matter deserved, the Conclusion to the Investigation Report and, for them, in terms of matter of fact contained in it, there was not sufficient evidence that would enable the legal system to charge Kate and Gerry with anything so the process should be archived until new evidence is presented that justifies its reopening.

Because of this archiving determination, both Kate and Gerry stopped being arguidos.

This, as we said, made the McCanns, very, very happy.

For them, according to the Black Hat propaganda, it meant that the couple had been totally and absolutely cleared and even that it declared them innocent of all possible suspicion of any crime related to Maddie’s disappearance.

Very good and justifiable reason to be very, very happy.

Mind you, just for Kate and Gerry to be happy because there’s absolutely no reason or justification to substantiate the Black Hat's interpretation of the dispatch.

But then came along nasty and mean Mr. Amaral and spoiled all this happiness and puts them back into a very, very unhappy mood. What an evil man, this Mr. Amaral… such a spoilsport.

How did Mr. Amaral spoil the McCann’s fun?

In two ways.

The first, is that he comes to the conclusion in his book that Maddie had died inside apartment 5A of the Ocean Club in Vila da Luz, on the night of 3rd May 2007, that there had been a simulation of abduction, that Kate and Gerry McCann were suspects of involvement in the concealment of their daughter's body, that the death could have occurred as a result of a tragic accident and that there were clues about the parents’ negligence concerning the care and safety of the children.

The second is that the Black Hats attribute the book “A Verdade da Mentira” with a sort of mass influencing capability that lies somewhere between Karl Marx’s “Das Kapital” that influenced the communist worldwide “nation” and Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” that influenced a single country, Germany.

To the Black Hats, Mr Amaral’s book has basically hypnotized two countries, Portugal and the UK (although “banned” in the latter) making, as said in court by the prosecution witnesses, most people believe it to be the truth, if for nothing else because of “the style of the book – agreeable and easy to read – and the simplicity of the proposed answers” as says Emma Loach, or because “GA's book can be read in a day” as says Michael Wright.

Susan Hubbard says “that everybody in Portugal believed the book” and Michael Wright says “a great number of people know it [Gonçalo Amaral’s theory]. Any person who knows about the McCanns know the theory of Gonçalo Amaral” and that “most people think that Gonçalo Amaral's conclusions are true.”

Michael Wright confirms that the documentary and the book are very well known everywhere in Portugal and in the UK.

Amaral’s “evil” hypnotic powers had also, apparently, a significant influence in PdL against the McCanns.

Michael Wright says “the fact that people in Praia da Luz believed the conclusions of the book was terrible for them…” and Susan Hubbard, who lived in that particular town when the book was published and continued to live there for the following years states that only a minority of PdL’s population believes in the couple when she says “that in PDL some people believe Kate and Gerald, but outside they don't.”

We don’t know about you, but, without wanting to criticize or minimize Mr Amaral’s literary abilities, we think his book is being attributed with mass hysteria capabilities that it simply doesn’t have.

What turned the tide definitely against the couple was the dogs.

It was wearing thin from the moment Kate read in that emotionless way from a paper a message to Maddie’s alleged kidnapper,

The subsequent arguido status for the general public was only the official confirmation of the evidence sniffed up by the dogs.

As The Guardian says on April 19th 2008: "The missing person posters came down almost overnight, says Thompson, when the couple were named official suspects in early September. Though the continuing value of a picture of the child a year on is perhaps debatable, it is striking to see so few visible reminders of Madeleine in a village that was once overwhelmed by her image."

This article is 3 months before Mr. Amaral’s book was published.

But let’s look attentively at the first reason, what Mr Amaral has said in his book that made the McCanns to be very, very unhappy since it was published and up to this day.

Michael Wright says “The thesis that Madeleine died and the parents concealed her body contradicts the AG Report which led to the lifting of the arguido status. His understanding is that the PJ Files say that Madeleine could be dead but there was no evidence that the parents were involved. This is contradictory with the conclusions of GA's book.”

First, as we said, the “AG” hasn’t produced a report but dispatched one and is clearly mistaken about what the conclusions of the PJ Files saying that that Madeleine could be dead but there was no evidence that the parents were involved because they say “the minor Madeleine McCann died”, twice “the death of the minor occurred”,  and “Kate McCann and Gerald McCann are involved in the concealment of the cadaver of their child Madeleine McCann”

No “ifs”, “coulds” or “eventuals” in those sentences but “died”, “death” and “are involved”.

Emma Loach says she “doesn't remember a passage (of the final Report) in particular but considers the final Report disagrees with GA's thesis. She says the book wasn't written in the Report's language but as an account, the conclusion of which being totally different to that of the Report.”

So let’s put one against the other, Mr Amaral's book's conclusions against the Investigation Report's (IR) conclusions, so that we can see the differences:

The book says “1. The minor, Madeleine McCann died inside apartment 5A of the Ocean Club in Vila da Luz, on the night of 3rd May 2007”
The IR says “A) The minor Madeleine McCann died in the apartment 5A of the Ocean Club resort, on the night of 3rd May 2007”
 
The book says “2. There was simulation of abduction”
The IR says “B) There was a simulation of abduction”
 
The book says “3. Kate Healy and Gerald McCann are suspects of involvement in the concealment of their daughter's body”
The IR says “D) Kate McCann and Gerald McCann are involved in the concealment of the cadaver of their child Madeleine McCann” and it also says “F) From what has been established until now, everything indicates that the McCanns, by virtue of self preservation, don't want to deliver immediately and voluntarily the cadaver, even though there is a strong possibility that the same was transported from the initial place of deposition. This situation consequently raises questions about the circumstances under which the death of the minor occurred”
 
The book says “4. The death could have occurred as a result of a tragic accident”
The IR says “E) At this moment, there is no evidence that the death of the minor didn't happen due to a tragic accident”
 
The book says “5. There are clues about the parents’ negligence concerning the care and safety of the children” 
The IR says “C) In order to make it appear impossible that the death of the minor occurred before 22.00hr, a system of checks on the McCann children while they slept was created”

Well, we don’t know about you, but we do think the PJ’s Report’s conclusions are much more damaging to the McCanns than the ones from Mr. Amaral’s book.

Can you now see Isabel Duarte’s unsolvable “Dead-End Dilemma”?

Let us explain.

Without passing any sort of judgment on the archiving dispatch by JMG and JCMM, logic would dictate that if they had to produce a similar document about Mr Amaral’s book, they, JMG and JCMM, would have to conclude after reading the book, certainly with the adequate attention the matter deserved, that, just like they concluded with the Conclusion to the Investigation Report,  in terms of matter of fact contained in it, it didn’t present enough evidence that would enable the legal system to charge Kate and Gerry with anything so the case should be archived and because of that, both would have to stop being arguidos.

The exact same thing they dispatched about the Conclusion to the Investigation Report dated 10th September 2007 which is within the files that were released (Vol X, p. 2587-2602) which was read in Court on Sept 19th 2013 in Lisbon because it speaks of basically of the same matter of fact

So when McCann Team attacks Mr. Amaral’s book, they haven’t exactly realized that they aren’t attacking Mr. Amaral but fundamentally questioning JMG and JCMM and their dispatch!

To say that the JMG and JCMM dispatch is applicable to the Conclusion to the Investigation Report and not to Mr Amaral’s book is to say that one presents different conclusions from the other, which isn’t the case, although, in all fairness, the first is much more damaging to the arguidos than the latter.

If that was to be said then the reason could only lie in the dispatchers themselves and their capability to interpret differently two things that basically say the same.

Only after proving this, that JMG and JCMM would (not could) dispatch differently two things that basically say the same, can Team McCann start to prove that Mr. Amaral’s book was malicious and have had any sort of responsibility in the McCanns’ current state of distress and despair.

Behold that this requires factual substantiation. It simply wouldn’t be enough for JMG or JCMM to come and just say “The PJ Files and the book are different. Why? Where? I don't care... I just have the "feeling" that they are different”, as some people who apparently have used their "feelings" in court to substantiate their opinions.

Each would have to explain where the differences between the two were and why it would be valued more what was written in one, the Conclusion to the Investigation Report, to the detriment of what was written in the other, Mr. Amaral’s book.

If they didn’t do that, then their dispatch had to be applicable to Mr. Amaral’s book.

And their dispatch made Kate and Gerry very, very, happy, as we said.

So if the Conclusion to the Investigation Report made Kate and Gerry very, very, happy, so should Mr. Amaral’s book make Kate and Gerry very, very happy too!

So what did JMG, one of the authors of the dispatch and crucial prosecution witness say in court?

“Says he didn't read the book nor did he watch the documentary.”

JMG didn’t read a book that according to Michael Wright “can be read in a day” and that dealt with one of XXI’s Century’s most mediatic cases in which he, JMG, was directly involved and played a significant part in its development.

The least we can say is that JMG is not a man with curiosity.

His answer caused the most embarrassing moment to date in this Libel Trial: “A momentary silence envelops the court room. ID [Isabel Duarte] then states that, if that is the case then she will refer to the PJ Files 2587-2602 (Vol X) dated 10 SEP 2007 (Report by Inspector Tavares de Almeida). She doesn't have a copy of the documents however and neither does the Judge. The Court clerk hurriedly exits the Court in an attempt to find them.”

The prosecution’s main witness surprised the prosecution! How humiliating is that?

And the only other person, JCMM, as the other dispatcher, who could hypothetically say, and and explain the reasoning as to why he would, again hypothetically, have dispatched differently about the book’s conclusions than he would have about the Conclusion to the Investigation Report, hasn't testified yet nor is it foreseeable for him to do so.

It’s just left for everyone else, that means you and me, to read both conclusions and conclude if and why they would or would not dispatch differently both documents.

We, on our part, conclude that he would as there’s nothing in Mr Amaral’s book conclusions that isn’t explicitly referred in the Conclusion to the Investigation Report, as shown above.

You, on the other hand, may conclude differently. It’s totally up to you. If you do, please explain

What is important to understand is that Isabel Duarte is in a Dead-End alley without the possibility of backtracking.

She can either show how unfair, unjust, malicious and evil are the conclusions of Mr. Amaral’s book without discussing facts and contents and that is the same as saying that JMG and JCMM should have also said that the conclusions the Investigation Report were also unfair, unjust, malicious and evil, instead of writing what they wrote, thus making the McCanns very, very unhappy.

By doing that she’s undermining completely the basis as to why the Black Hats have been saying that the McCanns have been cleared.

Or she can say that the conclusions of Mr. Amaral’s book indicate clearly that there was not sufficient evidence that would enable the legal system to charge Kate and Gerry with anything so the process was correctly archived and because of that, both would stop being arguidos, thus making the McCanns very, very happy.

But then why are the McCanns suing Mr. Amaral in the first place if they agree with him?

But we do know that what they are doing is attacking the book, without realizing they are, in turn, also attcking the PJ investigation, as both come to the same conclusions that Maddie is dead and that the McCanns concealed her body, so what the McCanns are really asking for is that the Portuguese Justice revoke the archiving dispatch from JMG and JCMM, because, according to the McCanns, they wrongly interpreted the matter of fact within the files.

If the McCanns are in disagreament with something then it's with the dispatch that has said that there was not enough evidence to charge them. By disagreeing with it then it means that they think there is enough evidence in the files to charge them!

What they really are seeking (and have failed to see it)  is to have the dispatch changed and that means that the McCanns should therefore be charged with obstructing justice.

And who is seeking for the McCanns to be charged? It's the McCanns! Isn't that just so ironic?

If they argue, which they in effect and unwittingly are doing, against the archiving dispatch, which concludes not enough evidence, then they are left with only a document that accuses them of a number of possible offences, which is worse for them.

And they've put themselves into this position before the onslaught that will be coming from the defence side and that is an unquestionable extraordinary achievement on the part of the prosecution, to say the least.

Not only are things not going well for the McCann team, and that is an understatement, they are, in our opinion, in real trouble.

And we are not talking about the various embarrassments and blunders that the prosecution has made so far.

Isabel Duarte has, in our opinion, as the British say, painted herself and her clients into a corner.

And publicly, against Mr Amaral's wishes to have it all away from the media.

The McCann distress comes from the PJ Files and only from the PJ Files.

The archiving dispatch was supposed to bring "closure" to the case for the Black Hats.

The release of the PJ Files and the publication of an agreeable and easy to read book that could be read in a day sabotaged that completely.

What they really want to punish Mr Amaral for is for him having made the PJ Files' matter of fact conclusions known worldwide through his book.

But can't. And are in court running around in circles trying to find a way out and there simply isn't one.

At least one thing that can't blame themselves for is having been hasty in taking Mr Amaral to court as one year and two months after he published the book, they still were "finalising plans to sue police chief".

************

Post Scriptum:

This morning, we woke up with a media frenzy that we hadn't witnessed equal since 2007/2008: 

The Times: “Madeleine police scour thousands of telephone records” 

The Guardian: “Madeleine McCann inquiry focuses on mobile phone data”

The Telegraph: “Madeleine McCann detectives appeal for help from 31 countries in mobile phone trawl”

Sky News: “Madeleine McCann: Police Probe Phone Records”

The Mirror: “Madeleine McCann: Police using phone data to track EVERYONE who was in Praia da Luz on night girl disappeared” 

Chanel4: “Madeleine McCann investigation to target phone records”

Let’s read these news with our other set of eyes.

Scouring of thousands of phone calls in 31 countries? Basically that is saying that they are looking for a needle in a barn filled to the roof with hay and they aren’t saying if it's decisive or not even if they find it.

In a world full of coincidences, there is one corner of it where, as we have seen, there are absolutely no coincidences: Maddie's world.

So there must be a reason for this blatantly coordinated massive media manoeuvre.

We see two options.

The first, and easiest to believe in, is that it's to distract attention away from how badly the trial is going for the McCanns. A decoy of humungous proportions required for a disaster of equal size, as shown in present post, now that the defense is to start its offensive.

The second, would be to call the attention of the public to the subject, heightening the interest of many, now that the McCann’s tide is at its lowest.

We're not talking about tabloids but mainstream media.

Internet searches will increase. Knowledge will spread. Eroding public's opinion against the McCanns.

Increasing the pressure on those protecting them (we know Black Hats aren’t protecting the McCanns but themselves). Making the rope burn in their hands and forcing them to let go.

Just three final notes on this.

First, the Correio da Manhã says “Cameron força investigação a caso Maddie”

This translates to “Cameron forces investigation in Maddie’s case”, explicitly saying that in Britain, Government does influence directly police investigations.

Second, the Express says about Crimewatch that “The programme, which will be screened on October 14, will ­feature a reconstruction of events in the Portuguese resort on the night of May 3, 2007. And it will highlight a series of new leads found by the team of 37 Yard detectives.”

So it has already been filmed.

Duarte's behaviour, and we would add, Gerry’s and Kate’s expressions, don't suggest the Crimewatch programme has cheered them up.

Third, The Sun is, up to this moment, strangely quiet on this matter.