Closure

1. Introduction

David Jones article on Monday in the Daily Mail about Maddie was very interesting.

It starts with the fact that it rivals in extent with some of our posts, 2,371 words to be exact. Not usual in a tabloid.

Then it’s about a move in this sick game Maddie has become, that wasn’t meant to be one but ended up being one, the closure of the Maddie case.

A relevant one as we hope to explain.

Something that focused our attention briefly between SY being clobbered by the press with its possible involvement in paedo scandals and Brenda Leyland’s Coroner’s court inquest on March 20 and has now returned to the spotlight

It’s an interesting article because it is written in a way that pleases all.

Those supporting that there’s an ongoing campaign for the archiving of Operation Grange, the Swinging Black Hats, are pleased because it seems to support them. It maintains the claims of the PJ’s ineptitude and botched investigations and states clearly that Maddie was abducted.

Those, like us, who believe there is pressure to convince the Swinging Black Hat Deciders that there is no way out of this other than to publicly unveil the truth, are also pleased because as we hope to explain, the article seems to be more in our favour than in theirs.

And because nothing can please two opposing sides simultaneously, it has to have another objective altogether besides dwelling on whether Operation Grange should be closed.

That is what makes it particularly interesting because it’s not about Operation Grange but about throwing Operation Grange right in front of us to distract from one of the most inconvenient episodes of this whole saga, Brenda Leyland’s death.

By giving us all something to chew on and fight about, it draws away attention from Brenda.

Yes, the written record of Brenda Leyland's inquest will be available soon but only to “properly interested persons” and that status is for the coroner to decide who it will be given to:

“A properly interested person can only be:

• a parent, spouse, child, civil partner or partner and any personal representative of the deceased;

• any beneficiary of a life insurance policy on the deceased; • any insurer having issued such a policy;

• a representative from a Trade Union to whom the deceased belonged at the time of death (if the death arose in connection with the person’s employment or was due to industrial disease);

• anyone whose action or failure to act may, in the coroner’s view, have contributed to the death;

• the Chief Officer of Police (who may only ask witnesses questions through a lawyer);

• any person appointed as an inspector or a representative of an enforcing authority or a person appointed by a Government Department to attend the inquest; or

• anyone else who the coroner may decide also has a proper interest.”

Not seeing us ever being able to look at it from now until 2030, the time the coroner has to keep the records.

And what novelty could it possibly bring to the MSM besides confirming what the MSM has already reported and that it was a suicide?

Whatever is related to Brenda and what happened to her must be swiftly swept under the rug. The faster, the better.


2. Brenda Leyland

About Brenda we will just say the following: no one killed Brenda Leyland but Brenda Leyland.

It was her decision to take her own life and which resulted in her losing it. Not being harsh, judgmental or disrespectful to her but simply stating fact.

What made her make that tragic decision, is open for discussion and we hope to do it another day.

Wounds are still too recent making the subject too sensitive to be dealt with for now.

However, we will not embark in any murder conspiracy theory about her death.

At a certain point in time and for reasons we think we can guess, Brenda decided to do what she did and for that purpose probably searched the internet and acquired the necessary material, namely the helium canisters and in the privacy of the hotel room took her own life.

To discuss where she bought the material, when she bought it or if there’s CCTV images of her doing so is, for us, to dwell unnecessarily in gruesome details and being disrespectful to Brenda and to her memory.

We have witnessed all over the internet that Martin Brunt has taken the burden for her death. On March 20 he was able to do the almost impossible which was to walk into the Coroner’s court looking really bad and walk out looking even worse.

But we do not take part in any witch-hunting. We condemn such attitudes. It repulses us.

To criticise someone we must first find reason to criticise. Taking the easiest route has never been our way of being and we will always compose for ourselves the songs we sing.

Martin Brunt in this specific episode is, in our opinion, a character as much wronged has he has done wrong.

If the reader thinks we’re in any way exonerating Brunt from any responsibility please reread the words “has done wrong” in the previous paragraph.

Brunt was just the finger that pulled the trigger. Not even the hand and much less the man who did it. He was the “hitman” mandated to do a job and did it. It just went awfully and tragically wrong. Brunt made that very clear on March 20.

Consciences should really weigh heavy on those who know there’s weight on their consciences about Brenda. Unfortunately many have arrived in this world without one. “Collateral damage” is just a two-word expression to use conveniently.

That is all we want to say about Brenda for now. It was a tragic mishap that holds little mystery to us but about which we prefer to abstain providing a more substantiated opinion at the moment. For that reason only and not because of Mirror’s distracting article.

3. Corporate interests

David Jones literary piece last Monday March 23 in the Mirror is but a piece in a chain of events that began on March 12 and had nothing to do with Maddie.

Life does not revolve only around Maddie and the article proves that but it also proves that the Maddie case is one painful thorn in UK’s side which has created a purulent and pestilent sore recognised worldwide by its putrid smell and horrendous footprint.

People all around the world feign ignorance but the discomfort is evident. Whenever a Brit meets up with someone from another country the Maddie case in the subconscious of both is a taboo subject. As if the British have been branded with a scarlet letter “M”. A dark cloud that covers every inch of the country.

It has damaged the UK’s reputation beyond anything we have known in the past. By dragging the UK’s name in the mud one could eventually compare it with the “soccer hooliganism” phenomenon back in the early 80’s that shamed England.

It took the Heysel tragedy to make the UK face it head-on with all its horrid truths and so eradicate it. Since then England has restored on the various European pitches its lost credibility and prestige. Why? Because it had to face a problem it was pretending wasn’t as serious as it really was.

That should be a lesson to those persisting that the best solution to the Maddie case is to stick the head in the ground like an ostrich. These people should finally understand that whatever may emerge with the truth will be less damaging than the damage caused by each day this case is allowed to further putrefy in the hands of the foolhardy.

The biggest victim in UK of the Maddie case is SY.

One thing is to be told to go and sell sand to camels, another is to be told to say publicly in the 21st century that the Earth is flat and ordered to ignore all proof that Galileo Galilei was right. It’s degrading and humiliating.

Sky News, on March 16, with the article “Met Investigated Over Child Sex Cover-Up Claims” and Daily Mail with their 2 articles of March 17 “Metropolitan Police to be investigated over claims of 14 separate child sex abuse cover-ups because MPs and officers were involved” and “Cyril Smith was spared court because he would have exposed other high-profile child abusers says former police detective” and Mirror's “Metropolitan Police Chief Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe facing probe over child abuse 'cover-up'” on that same day reported on a possible involvement of the Met in paedo scandals.

Plus the IPCC (Independent Police Complaints Commission) said on March 16 that it was investigating the Met: “IPCC to investigate allegations of historic corruption relating to child sexual abuse in the Metropolitan Police”.

We think that this pressure put on SY is them being used once again as they have been used since 2011.

In our opinion, SY on the Maddie case is to Government Black Hat Deciders as Martin Brunt is to Sky News, it handles it according to what it is told to do. No independence of action whatsoever.

So with the publishing of these articles that say the Met may be up to its neck in covering up paedo scandals, the Government Black Hat Deciders are clearly showing the Swinging Black Hat Deciders that SY cannot afford any more scandals and much less one with the magnitude of Maddie.

But, as we said, there is life outside Maddie, and as Greece, Ireland and Portugal have known in recent years, public funds in all European Governments aren’t what they were and irrelevant of personal opinions on the necessity or not of its application one word has become familiar to all of us in Europe: cuts.

As in budget cuts.

So, with nothing to do with Maddie, Government announced a £600M cut in the Met budget over the next for the next 3 years. Completely within context with modern times.

For those with some difficulty in math, it’s exactly 60 Operations Grange. Less than that if the tab of this operation keeps growing.

Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, QPM, present Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis (head of London's Metropolitan Police Service) reacted to these cuts. He went on BBC 2’s Newsnight and defended his organisation.

On this appearance he showed concern with mental-health related cases. Because other public services are also under pressure, emergencies often end up with police called and 40% of cases in London are concerned with mental health issues.

The cuts other services suffered ended up meaning a greater workload for the police as it was picking up the pieces of work other agencies - hospitals and social services - had passed onto them.

He also says that the sex offenders register has grown since its inception in 2002. It’s unsustainable for police to monitor it and it is growing.

The closest he comes to the Maddie case is to say that older, historic inquiries (child sex abuse, so nothing to do with Maddie) are going to take longer and be done more slowly.

It's harder to get corroborating evidence in these processes and that may require more officers – if one links this specifically to Maddie, which we think one shouldn’t, then he’s suggesting SY are trying to find corroborating evidence.

He says nothing about closing older, historic cases but that's because of cuts in resources there will have to be a discussion on priorities.

A decision on what to ration. Society will have to decide on priorities needed and that police, probation service, health service and fire service must work together effectively.

Spending will be reduced on everything and he wants a conversation with the public about their priorities.

He defends SY by noting that the Met has saved £600M over 3 years and was the  only force in the country which has retained its numbers. That they are capable of adapting, even when money is tight.

This conversation would take place, in our view, regardless of Maddie case.

Hogan-Howe is defending, as he should, the corporate interests of the organisation he leads and, in our opinion, did quite a good job on BBC 2 that night.

If one has to connect this interview with Maddie, then one could say he implies that if the case comes up with no results then questions may arise from the public in case Police officers lose their jobs because of cuts.

Following suit, the Metropolitan Police Federation met, in synch with Hogan-Howe, seeking to reinforce the idea that their members’ jobs were on the line.

Up to here, as the reader can easily understand, all this has nothing to do with Maddie. All to do with the appropriate defense of rightful corporate interests.

It’s the highest hierarchy of the Met simply expressing their discontent about the foreseen cuts, which not only is their right but is also their duty.

4. From cuts to Maddie

Enter the scene Jerry Lawton.

Since the proven/not proven facts court audience in January little or nothing has been released about the case so, probably pressed by his bosses, Lawton had to find something to write about Maddie. SY's discontentment about its budget cuts was a window of opportunity and he seized it.

Lawton would most likely know Metropolitan Police Federation chairman John Tully's opinions about the cuts in resources and probably asked him about what was to happen about the Maddie review.

The timing was not because Brenda Leyland’s inquest was coming up but simply because it was then that SY was voicing that older/historic cases had to be reprioritised.

We imagine Lawton asked Tully “will the Maddie case close because of cuts?”

The discussion had nothing to do with Maddie up to that moment, but when Lawton threw the line and Tully took the bait it became part of it.

This is what Tully said, as per Daily Star (March 18):

“It is time to re-focus on what we need to do to keep London safe.

We no longer have the resources to conduct specialist inquiries all over the world which have nothing to do with London.

The Met has long been seen as the last resort for investigations others have struggled with elsewhere.

But we have made £600m of cuts. We have closed 63 police stations across London. Another £800m of cutbacks are anticipated over the next four years.

It is surprising to see an inquiry like the McCann investigation ringfenced. I have heard a few rumblings of discontent about it from lots of sources.

When the force is facing a spike in murder investigations it is not surprising there is resentment of significant resources diverted to a case that has no apparent connection with London.”

Tully’s reply if read in the right context is, in our opinion, saying the following:

“Will the Maddie case be closed? Hell, no but it damn well should. It’s depleting our resources completely and taking people who are needed to do real policing instead of participating in a farce in times when Police officers have their jobs at risk!”

Not only that what he said led to misinterpretation as it is incorrect. Because the Maddie review is not budgeted by the Met but by the Home Office.

Cuts to SY do not affect the review as any cut in the review will not affect SY in terms of budget.

Tully also is not right about human resources. These are indeed being diverted to a task “outside” SY but are being paid out Home Office’s budget and once they end their mission and “return” their salary will weigh, again on the Met’s budget.

Closing the Maddie case will only aggravate SY’s budget problems, not ease them.

But we understand his position as a Federation representative with members’ jobs on the line and seeing £10M spent on an apparently fruitless investigation outside the UK.

Tully’s tweet on March 18 “I've no problems with the content of the article, although I didn't say what the headline suggests -Inference taken I suppose” seemed to be pulling back from what was written about what he said but acknowledged that could be interpreted that way:

Basically recognising that he took the bait.

The rest of the media were stunned. It was a surprise for all. The vast majority preferred to be silent about it. Only the Express' “Is the hunt for Madeleine McCann over? Police urged to return and 're-focus' on UK” and Daily Mail's “It's time we ended the search for Maddie so officers can focus on threats to the public, says police union chief” echoed the Daily Star.

Third-grade press reporting first-grade news while the first and second-grade media just ignored it. 

Besides these 2 tabloids at the time only the Portugal Resident also referred this issue with the article “British police ready to drop Maddie probe as London faces increasing terrorist threat”.

However, as we explained, something that was not supposed to be a move in the Maddie case, had become one.

But this move had a peculiarity, as it came from neither the Government Black Hat Deciders nor the Swinging Black Hat Deciders. It came from SY, expressing the enormous discontent felt within the organisation about the whole Maddie case.

SY didn’t mean to say it out loud but Lawton made it audible.

SY showed that it is really not happy at all about having to do this job. Up until June last year it tolerated it but since that painted wall in Luz and the traffic signs with the grafiti that followed the humiliation became intolerable, too great a burden to bear:

Even if without that intention of saying, SY told both Government Black Hat Deciders and Swinging Black Hat Deciders to make up their minds about the case. Close it, shelve it, prosecute somebody but just take SY out of the madhouse inferno they were put in and show some respect for the organisation.

5. Closure of case

About the closure of the case, it is a real possibility which we have repeatedly warned about. We have said that the case is now down to 2 possibilities: truth or archival. No other.

But naming the 2 means both are real. Both can happen depending on the political courage required for each option.

Closing the case benefits only one side, the Black Hats.

As we have been saying since 2012, for the Black Hats it shouldn’t have ever been reopened. It was a mistake. To return it to its original state would be a blessing for them.

But Jones is quite accurate in summing it up in a few words how all began “then, in 2011, at the behest of David Cameron and Home Secretary Theresa May, Scotland Yard’s finest were called in to clear up the mess.”

He who has started it is the only one who can finish it.

Even if it’s the Home Office to announce the fate of the process, it won’t be the Home Office doing it but doing it on behalf of Nº10.

Only Nº10 has the power for this decision. Cameron today or whoever tomorrow. No one else.

Even in this McCanns have got it wrong in the only comment, in the Daily Star on March 19, known to have originated from them, from a friend, “it is up to the Met, the Prime Minister and the Home Office to decide the longevity of the investigation – not the Police Federation which has its own agenda”.

No, it’s not up to the Met, nor even up to the Home Office. The McCanns have only got one in three right.

It's a rather apathetic and dispassionate reaction from the parents on receiving the news that the nation is possibly about to abandon all its efforts in finding their daughter who they believe to be alive. After all, these were the same parents who mustered up the courage needed to write directly to the Prime-Minister four years ago.

6. Considerations on possible closure

SY may moan and groan however it likes and it will serve them very little.

If a mother gives her son a broom to sweep up his room, it’s useless for him to whine about how the broom would be better used in the living-room. It’s for the bedroom, end of story.

And if the mother takes away the broom and gives the son the same task to do with a toothpick, then the room will be swept with that toothpick. The job may take longer, but no matter how much moaning and groaning there is, until the  mother changes her mind, it will be with a toothpick that the room will be swept.

But in this case, it was not a toothpick mother has given son, but the most modern hi-tech vacuum cleaner in the world and on top of that announced to the whole neighbourhood that she had done exactly that. Now how pleased will she be if the son comes back and tells her “sorry, the room floor is still as dirty as it was, I just wasn’t able to clean it with this hi-tech vacuum cleaner you gave me to do the job”?

To dash the mother’s hope of a clean floor after having publicly committed herself so adamantly to that objective would be as well received as in dashing the high hopes of a Prime-Minister, or as Jones so eloquently puts it “at least, that was the Prime Minister’s hope, and perhaps his expectation, when — apparently moved by a personal appeal from the McCanns — he ordered a team of Met detectives to be removed from their other duties and assigned to the case, codenamed Operation Grange”.

The press may equally holler as loudly as it can, and it hasn’t, it will produce the same effect. There are only two reputations at stake. Cameron’s for an absurdly unrealistic “hoping” which caused a significant waste of time (“a huge number of man-hours have been spent”) and national resources (“eye-watering £10million of taxpayers’ Money”) in times of cuts all across the board and May’s for dashing that enormous “hope”.

According to some, in the line only the present and the future of the Conservative Party. And all just because someone lost their temper in the early hours of a spring evening 8 years ago far away from the country.

But if one wants to convince the administration board to stop the production of a certain item does one remind them that it’s selling like hot potatoes? Because that’s exactly how Jones is selling the closure:

“Given the enduring global obsession with the case, we might think this quite extraordinary. As of today, the Daily Mail’s archive contains 11,450 stories about Madeleine. Googling her name, I found no less than 1,290,000 references — five times more than you get by tapping in ‘Madonna’ — and the number soars higher with each passing day. The public’s fascination has been matched by the exorbitant amount of time and money spent on trying to solve the mystery.”

The public has shown the greatest interest for the subject, even surpassing that shown for the queen of pop, so let’s close it.

Shouldn’t the rhetoric be instead about how that interest was waning?

Then there’s the “must” factor. UK is filled with examples on how its Prime-Ministers usually abide by the Press telling them what they should do on issues they have personally committed to. Not.

But, for reasons less strange than those that made this affair become what it has become, Nº10 may decide it is best to close the case. As we said, and repeat, it’s an option on the table at the moment.

All that is needed is for the public to accept that after interviewing only 14 people (hardy a “plethora” for a case of this magnitude), after “great swathes of wasteland in Praia da Luz were explored with sophisticated gadgetry last year”, after not explaining whether the forensics were indeed requested to Portugal or not and if they were what was tested and what were the results and after the negative propaganda against another country involving an ridiculous number of British little girls being sexually assaulted there (even though the local authorities firmly denied any of them ever having happened).

Note that all of the above is from SY’s mouth. Not from the press but official statements from the Met.

If we were to involve the press the number of unfounded “imminent arrests” announced comes to mind.

But even if Nº10 closes the case, there is one minor detail that is being overlooked: what about the Portuguese process?

Will it close first? Or a little after? Or at the same time? Won’t that make it a little too obvious that shenanigans are going on in both countries about this?

Will it go that the Portuguese will “promise” that they will not come to any sort of result and will re-archive it?

Or will it go that the PJ continues their process and find some result? That would be the worst scenario for UK.

Investigations in Portugal have expiration dates. Deadlines that are to be met. But as all that has to do with time in Portuguese law, the timelines set are but guidelines and can extended if justified.

Has the PJ investigation exceeded the initial deadline? We think it has and that means if it’s still open it’s because someone requested an extension and obtained it. But for that there had to be some sort of justification.

To re-archive the PJ process without any sort of result, seems to us it would be very vexatious to PJ and Portugal.

If these processes, in UK and Portugal, close without results we’re anticipating a certain (high) degree of discontent on the part of the public of both countries. And a disgusted shake of the head from the rest of the world.

Discontent usually leads to the seeking of information and nowadays people looking for details on a subject do not look for them in the media. They have the internet for that. For some reason the expression “let me google it” — used by David Jones in his article — has become so familiar to all, more than any other brand in the world.

People will continue to turn to the media for new news but it's the internet they use to know about all others. 

May we remind all those interested that once the process archived again in Portugal it can be looked at with the exact same public scrutiny as the PJ Files have been for the last 7 years.

So, by all means, UK, do close the process. It’s only history you’re making whatever decision you make.

But please have the message brought to us from where it has to come from and that is only from Nº10.

And Nº10 hasn't given any sign of wanting to do that. Not now, so close to the elections in May.

We're seeing Nº10 closing this process as much as we're seeing Nº10 announcing such a decision via a tabloid. We aren't.

Does anyone remember who conservative Robert Gascoyne-Cecil was? Or, better said, the Most Honourable Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury KG GCVO PC FRS?

No, no one does. But if history was to discover that he, as Prime-Minister (1886-1892), had in some way been involved in protecting Jack the Ripper allowing him to escape justice, we would all remember him today.

Sometimes it’s best not to be remembered than to be remembered only for the wrong reasons.

Gordon Brown is already negatively linked to Maddie.

David Cameron will either win the May elections or is very quickly about to lose the window of opportunity to not follow in the same path, or on the contrary, to be the one who will be registered in history as being responsible for closure of this case by having the truth outed about what really happened to the British little girl with an alleged coloboma in her right eye.

Closure of this case will never be found in the abrupt closure of the case.

Only in a closure with the truth.

Next week we will be taking our Easter break. Then we hope to return to Luz because it’s there that both the material truth and factual lies lay.