Sagresman

1. Introduction

For us the Mirror article of October 24 “Madeleine McCann detectives examine former suspect's pictures of children after Sunday People probe” is one very positive and major step towards having the real and full truth about the Madeleine case come finally to light.

A step that has gone unnoticed in its importance. Much has been said about it but all have missed how really important we think it is.

First of all it’s an historic article. For the first time in the history of humankind a British tabloid reports on a middle aged man admitting to photographing children of strangers and seems to find that acceptable.

The article has all the ingredients of similar ones in which the minimal suspicion of paedophilia serves to roast without mercy:

“after he told Sunday People investigators he enjoyed taking snaps of children on holiday”,

“Mr Krokowski told our ¬investigators he liked taking pictures of ¬children while he was on trips abroad”,

“he admitted he enjoys taking pictures of ¬children on holiday but ¬that it was for ¬artistic purposes.”

Where is the word “pervert” in the article? And “disgusting”? And the two put together as we have always seen in articles with similar content? Where is the “disgusting pervert”??

Nowhere. And that apparently doesn’t fire up red flags anywhere.

Wojciech Krokowski even goes on to recognise that his wife “had some problems with alcohol and petty crimes over the years” and that isn’t used by the tabloid against them.

Have we changed planets and weren’t informed?

(image from the Mirror)

What if all of the above had been said by Raymond Hewlett? Would the article be anywhere as lenient? No, it would most certainly not.

So why is this article incomprehensibly mild towards Wojciech Krokowski, the photographer of children of strangers?

The reason for us is simple and very important: it’s a clear message to all who are able to read it stating that FULL TRUTH is the way that is intended to proceed in the Maddie case.

Please read it again. Comprehend it fully please. That’s how important this article about Wojciech Krokowski is in our opinion.


2. Wojciech Krokowski, the facts

Wojciech Krokowski comes into the process by the hand of Nuno Lourenço a Portuguese emigrant who says he was on holiday in Sagres with his family from April 23 to May 13.

Nuno Lourenço alleges that on April 29, Wojciech Krokowski tries twice to abduct his daughter in Sagres. First on the Mareta beach and then in the Praça da República.

Let’s stick to facts. Please note that allegations once made become fact to be taken into account even though their content may not be true:

- April 28 – Wojciech Krokowski arrives in Faro airport on April 28, where he hires a Renault Clio. They stay in an apartment in Burgau;

- April 29 – Nuno Lourenço alleges Wojciech Krokowski tries to abduct his daughter first at the beach and then in the Praça da República, Sagres. Nuno Lourenço says he photographs the rented car parked in this town square and produces this photo;

- May 2 – Wojciech Krokowski and wife are captured by CCTV in the Chiado Mall, Lisbon, exiting its FNAC shop. This image surfaces because the owner of a bar in Burgau, the “Beach Bar” has strongly raised the possibility that Wojciech Krokowski could have gone there to buy CDs of Portuguese music, and it’s confirmed that he did indeed purchase 2 of them. We don’t know when the conversation between the owner and Wojciech Krokowski took place but we are told the Polish tourist told the owner that besides Lisbon he would also likely visit Évora, the main city in Alentejo known for its Roman temple of Diana, returning on the same day;

- May 3 – Maddie disappears;

- May 4 – Nuno Lourenço alleges to have seen again Wojciech Krokowski in the Praça da República when he was killing time in the process of hiring a car. Seeing Wojciech Krokowski for the third time apparently disturbs him as he says he speaks about it to his wife when he returns home, we would guess around 15H00. He makes a connection between the attempted abduction of his daughter and Maddie’s disappearance. His wife recommends he speaks to the police about it;

- May 5 – Wojciech Krokowski at 06H45 hands over his rented car in Faro airport and flies back home with his wife. On this same day, after allegedly getting the police number from a newspaper, Nuno Lourenço calls PJ and reports the “Sagresman sighting”.


3. Some important clarifications

As the reader will see, we think that Nuno Lourenço is being very, very economical with the truth. We are not alone in this but we couldn’t agree less with the conclusions others have withdrawn from this, as we hope to show.

The conclusions they reach from this are significantly different from ours but that’s fully their right and we respect that unconditionally.

To disagree on content is in no way disrespect but only the expression of diversity of opinion.

However when someone says that this is Wojciech Krokowski’s rented car, that someone is being factually incorrect:

The picture above is taken by the PJ and that is very clear in the files.

It would be extremely odd for the PJ to photograph Wojciech Krokowski’s rented car in Sagres after it had been handed back over to the rental company in Faro.

Wojciech Krokowski’s rented car is a Renault Clio, the one photographed above is a Vauxhall/Opel Corsa.

PJ, as expected, is only able to photograph the space in the Praça da República where the car had been, where Nuno Lourenço has photographed the vehicle:

This is the photograph of Wojciech Krokowski’s rented car taken by Nuno Lourenço:

To use the wrong vehicle and from it draw conclusions only shows very poor researching and by association ridicules us all who research the case.

As is calling Nuno Lourenço by a name other than his own or by stating that he’s Spanish. He clearly says “he’s of Portuguese nationality” in his statement if there was any doubt about that. He’s a Portuguese emigrant who resides in Germany.


4. Textusa sisters visit Sagres

As we said in our “Praia da Luz” post, we left the village earlier than anticipated and headed for Sagres having changed our plans intending on having lunch there.

We arrived around half past noon in Sagres. A little too early for lunch, we thought.

We all had a very hearty typical English breakfast that morning in a very quaint esplanade in the town where we were staying so no one was really feeling hungry and so we all decided to first visit the “Sagresman sighting” and then either visit the fortress and follow it with lunch or do it the other way around.

We came into Sagres by the long straight that is N268 and on the roundabout near the fortress we turned left on Rua de S. Vicente and went to the next roundabout at Praça da República. We entered that square and parked the car on the dead-end located at its Southern corner.

There we walked to the “Pastelaria Marreiros” esplanade (yellow dotted line), the exact same one Nuno Lourenço says he sat at with his family when the alleged abduction there was supposed to have taken place.

There we had tea, coffee and bottled water and talked to each other about the sighting (very little to talk about) but mostly about the historical meaning that Sagres had to the world as it was from there that Henry, the Navigator is said to have opened the doors to globalisation.

Once we decided to leave, we walked to our car and drove out of Praça da República by its only exit, which is the narrow nameless road that Google Maps calls N268-2.

Important to note that if one drives in the Praça da República, the N268-2 is the only way out of it. Not very practical because it makes one go all the way to the fortress but that’s the way it is.

For us it was alright because we intended to visit the fortress anyway.


5. Nuno Lourenço and Wojciech Krokowski at the beach

We won’t go much into what Nuno Lourenço alleges to have happened on the beach between him and Wojciech Krokowski. We will just say that it is as ridiculous as what he later has to say about what is supposed to have happened in the Praça da República.

To say he hears three or four clicks coming from a camera held by a strange middle aged man fully clothed on the beach pointing it to his children and do nothing is absurd.

To say he continues to hear the clicking continuing as the man took “more pictures of 2 children of male gender” sons of a couple next to him and to say he limits his reaction to only looking at said stranger with camera in a “spiteful and aggressive” manner is absurd.

Please note that Nuno Lourenço is fully conscious from the first click he hears of what the man’s intention is and yet allows him to continue taking pictures and when he finally reacts is only with an aggressive look.

But what’s interesting is the conclusion that Nuno Lourenço comes to about this picture taking: the man is taking pictures because he means to abduct.

Who has ever heard of pre-abduction pictures taken in front of the victims parents? Apparently Nuno Lourenço has otherwise he couldn’t have come to the conclusion he does.

According to him it’s perfectly logical for an abductor to first raise suspicions about his presence and only after certifying that he was noticed, abduct.

Note that Wojciech Krokowski, according to Nuno Lourenço, once threatened by the hostile look starts to retreat but does in an absolutely defiant manner: “…they looked at the individual in a spiteful and aggressive manner which made him abandon the sand. Before that and while walking back he took further pictures of the 4 children, of his in a dissimulated manner and of the others with the camera by his face and a knee in the sand”.

Two grown men, Nuno Lourenço and another man, allow this to happen? They allow a stranger who is taking pictures of their children to continue to do so? Especially when Nuno Lourenço thinks the man will use the pictures of his children in “an illicit manner”?


6. The esplanades of Praça da República

If we thought Praia da Luz was smaller and much more compact than we had anticipated then what can one say about Praça da República?

One reading Nuno Lourenço’s statement one is filled with the sensation of space. This is what he says:

“At a certain point in time, and while he drank a coffee he saw the individual enter the pastry shop square [“largo da pastelaria” – we think he means the square where Pastelaria Marreiros is located so is referring to the Praça da República], going around the esplanades by their exterior, always observing the children and went into the referred pastry shop. At that moment, as usual ran around the tables, which caused her to distance herself when she made a part of the circle. Observing this the individual started to walk quickly towards his daughter, to make a coincidence of when she was furthest away from her parents. By chance or fate, her daughter stopped near the deponent and the individual, his supposed intentions foiled, entered again the pastry shop and went out without having bought anything, going to the back of a kiosk that exists in the square. Completely worn out with this situation, in which he doesn’t doubt that his intention was to grab his daughter, got up holding his phone and took several pictures of the individual.”

The “going around the esplanades by their exterior”, “caused her to distance herself when she made a part of the circle”, “to make a coincidence of when she was furthest away from her parents” and “entered again the pastry shop and went out without having bought anything, going to the back of a kiosk that exists in the square” give the idea that all happened in a large area.

But calling a barn Royal Albert Hall doesn’t make the barn any bigger than it really is.

Even more than in Luz, where reality showed us that it wasn’t anywhere as big as we had imagined it to be, we saw immediately in that town square that where Nuno Lourenço described what had happened couldn’t ever have happened because it was much, much smaller than we imagined it would be.

It would be so ridiculous that it does make it impossible to have happened.

First problem Nuno Lourenço has with the story is that he chooses the wrong esplanade to sit at.

The Marreiros esplanade is in the middle of the other esplanades. That means that if his daughter was circling the tables then he would have to be circling all the esplanades. And if she was circling all esplanades then it wouldn’t be possible for her trajectory at the farthest point to  bring her near the deponent no matter how lucky or fateful.

And we’re talking about a 4 yr old and a roundabout at the end of the square. Would any parent let a toddler that age near such a roadway?

If she was circling only the Marreiros esplanade then she would be very close to her father.


7. Let the abduction (?) begin

Nuno Lourenço makes Wojciech Krokowski to be the unthinkable of a prospective abductor. He places the abductor between himself and whole esplanade full of tables and the getaway car.

Nuno Lourenço says that Wojciech Krokowski goes into the pastry shop and as he’s doing that is when he decides to intercept Nuno Lourenço’s daughter. Once foiled in his intent, instead of walking away, Wojciech Krokowski goes back into the pastry shop. Isn’t that the most ridiculous thing a man can do after having just tried and failed to abduct a girl right in front of her father?

He then comes out without buying anything (how does Nuno Lourenço know this?) and heads towards the back of the kiosk that exists on the North end of the square.

Nuno Lourenço watched all passively sitting down.

Only when Wojciech Krokowski goes behind the kiosk does he get up.

Nuno Lourenço wants us to believe that he sees a man trying to abduct again his daughter – a couple of hours after the same man had been run off by him at the beach (with his very spiteful and aggressive stare which didn’t stop him from taking pictures with a knee on the ground) – and only gets up and reacts AFTER Wojciech Krokowski has gone in and out of the pastry shop right in front of him.

Was he waiting for Wojciech Krokowski to settle his bill before taking any action so as to make sure owner of the pastry shop would be paid? Oh, that wasn’t it because the man didn’t buy anything. He was there to abduct not to purchase!

And what is Nuno Lourenço’s reaction? At the beach it was to stare but here he decides to take action: he goes after Wojciech Krokowski taking photographs of the man!

He says he takes several pictures of the individual but “unfortunately, it didn’t work as he had the finger on the phone’s camera’s lens”. He never takes the finger off the lens for several photos? All several of them? Amazing.


8. Understanding the stage

Nuno Lourenço says this next:

“Even then and when going to the to the back of the kiosk he saw that that the individual was now behind the wheel of a vehicle, of the brand “Renault”, “Clio” model (very recent), silver, noting the licence plate on a piece of paper that meanwhile has thrown away, as he will explain. That individual was accompanied by a woman, sitting on the passenger seat. This time he was able to take a photo of the vehicle, which he supplied to the police and that he exhibits now, insisting [fazendo questão] in showing the time, 18H08 of 29/04/2007 as registered on the phone”.

We have been told that Wojciech Krokowski was forced to leave the beach about 2 hours before by Nuno Lourenço and another man.

What de he do during this time? Was Wojciech Krokowski hiding somewhere to give Nuno Lourenço time to finish his beach time, get himself and his family dressed and walk up to the Praça da República?

Did Wojciech Krokowski sit on a esplanade there for those 2 hours? We think very unlikely as although the space in that town square is pleasant it neither has a scenic view nor does it provide anything else of real interest. It’s one of those kind of places where one is either entertained with conversation and time passes or one doesn’t spend much time there.

Even if he did sit there for over 2 hours, wouldn’t Nuno Lourenço have seen him sitting there when he arrived instead of saying he saw him enter the square?

The only other option would be for Wojciech Krokowski to have driven around for those 2 hours and then return. But if he did drive around and returned there, then Nuno Lourenço should have seen him enter the scene by exiting the car and he doesn’t.

But independent of Wojciech Krokowski having parked the car there before he went to the beach or if he drove around and parked there, choosing that place to park the car is completely absurd for someone wanting to abduct a child.

As we said, once one drives into Praça da República the only possible exit is by doing a a tight and narrow “S” on the square and exit by the very narrow N268-2

No question Wojciech Krokowski wants to abduct. Nuno Lourenço has made that very clear.

So having 4 options of a quick getaway (blue arrows), Wojciech Krokowski decides to chooses as escape route (red arrow) one that requires making corners in a very short space on the very narrow street of the square to get into the also very narrow road that is the N268-2.

Wouldn't have made much more sense if had the car parked in the roundabout, as shown below, leaving his wife behind the wheel, so that when he grabbed the little girl all he had to do was to run those 20 yards, get quickly into the car and both drive away?

Note, the potential abductor even makes his life much more difficult by parking in between 2 cars, which means that he has to manoeuvre to get out of there:

Go figure. Either quite a stupid abductor or a very poor script writer. We opt for the latter.

Now let’s understand distances we are confronted with:

The yellow dotted lines represent the distance of 10 metres. From the Marreiros esplanade to the Wojciech Krokowski’s rented car is parked about 20 metres (21 yards) from it.

The short distance between the esplanade and where the car was supposed to have been parked was what fascinated us the most while we were sitting there on the Marreiros esplanade.

We were certain that if we tried to throw something at the car from that distance we would hit it. We certainly could speak by just slightly raising our voice from where we were to someone standing near or sitting inside a car parked there.

The playing area of a tennis court is 26 yards long making it about 4 yards longer than from the esplanade to the parked car. And as far as we know, tennis players talk to each other without shouting. Any questions on the peculiarity of tennis please address them to one Gerald McCann please.

One cannot help but laugh out loud when picturing the abduction as described by Nuno Lourenço taking place in the esplanade where we were, having to pass by or near us toward a parked driverless car 20 yards away.

We hope that by now the reader has noticed that there’s a non-character in all of this: Nuno Lourenço’s wife, the girl’s mother.

First she watches a man taking pics of her children on the beach and then sees the same man trying to abduct her daughter and thinks best to stay out of both and let hubby take care of all.


9. The Charlie Chaplin & Harry Houdini moments

The stage is set (or should we say the miniscule stage is set?) so let’s go back to Nuno Lourenço’s words and see what we call the Charlie Chaplin moment of this pathetic play: when Nuno Lourenço chases Wojciech Krokowski around the square.

We saw how Wojciech Krokowski, after trying to kidnap a girl in front of her dad continues to stay around.

Walks in the pastry shop and walks out.

Nuno Lourenço, the father of the just-would-be-abducted girl, only then stands up and decides, finally, to do something decisive about it: go after Wojciech Krokowski and take pictures of him.

The red arrow refers to Wojciech Krokowski, the yellow one, Nuno Lourenço. Both arrows are marked with 10 metres marks.

Nuno Lourenço says that he “stood up, holding his cellphone and took several [várias] pictures of the individual, frontally and in a way that he saw he was taking those photos of him”.

So Nuno Lourenço wants Wojciech Krokowski to see him taking the pictures. That means that they are at a short distance one from the other.

But, then the comical magic happens.

Let’s see Nuno Lourenço describe it all in his own words: “when going to the back of the kiosk that the individual was now behind the wheel of a vehicle”.

This is where Nuno Lourenço is standing when he photographs the vehicle:

For the first 10 yards or so, they are interacting with each other but then in less space than that of a tennis court, Wojciech Krokowski gains such a distance from his “adversary” in such a way that it allows him to get to the car and get inside before Nuno Lourenço is able to see that!

Nuno Lourenço doesn’t see him getting in the car but sees him already in it. He’s very precise about that detail.

Either that kiosk has Twilight Zone properties or Wojciech Krokowski was running while Nuno Lourenço was limping along for the first to gain such an advantage in such short distance. No other explanation.

But this falls to the ground as Nuno Lourenço later says “after taking the picture, and having passed a few minutes, the couple took off in a calm and orderly manner”. So no hurry on Wojciech Krokowski’s part. It’s the kiosk that must have teletransporting properties.

But the magic doesn’t stop there.

As we saw Nuno Lourenço says that he sees Wojciech Krokowski behind the wheel of the car. He also says “that individual was accompanied by a woman, sitting in the passenger’s side. This time he was able to take a photograph of the vehicle, which he supplied to the police…”

The detail of the picture that is in the files:

We have now the Harry Houdini moment. Where are Wojciech Krokowski and his wife? Aren’t there supposed to be 2 people inside that car when the picture was taken? It clearly shows it’s empty!

So basically he’s telling us that a driverless car just drove away right in front of him.

And the magic simply doesn’t stop! It continues when he says “he noted the licence plate on a piece of paper which he meanwhile threw away”.

Let’s suppose that this piece of paper was some receipt he had in his wallet or pocket but one has to ask from where does the pen or pencil appear?

Nuno Lourenço has gone to the beach with his family. From the beach they head for an esplanade. From the esplanade he gets up on an impulse to go after Wojciech Krokowski to photograph him. His hands busy with his cellphone camera  So where in this whole scenario does a pen or pencil in his hand at that moment make sense? It doesn’t.

Only if he stopped at the kiosk to buy or ask for one and that would certainly explain why he let Wojciech Krokowski out of his sight long enough to give him time for him to get into the car without being seen.

However, not only nowhere in his narrative does he suggest he asked anything from the kiosk as to do that he would need to know Wojciech Krokowski was going to get into a car something he only realizes after he passes by the kiosk.


10. Let’s abandon absurdity to see the absurd

Now with all the details of what Nuno Lourenço says happened let’s stop for a moment and look at what he is really proposing for us to believe.

We will not be comical about it and will state only fact. As will be seen the ridiculousness of the thing stands out by itself without any outside help.

Nuno Lourenço says that a man tries to abduct his daughter in his presence. First at the beach although we don’t understand how nor when. Then at the Praça da República.

There, this man would have picked the little girl up right in front of her father and would have run to a car parked 20 yards away.

At the car he would have to open the back door and put the girl inside, close the door, go around the car and get in the driver’s seat as the other person with him, a woman, cannot act as a runaway driver as she is sitting in the passenger’s seat.

The man has to start the engine and has to manoeuvre to get out of the parking space, the drive away in a very narrow “S”, the escape route we have shown above and which is the only way out of Praça da República.

This would allow for many to see and register the licence plate of the car. A car that the man had rented in his real name so quickly traceable to him, as fact it would prove to be.

All of the above done in front of the girl’s father and mother, all in the space (except the “S” bit) of a tennis court.

Very, very poor scriptwriting we must say.

We hope that the reader can now picture how we laughed out loud when envisioning the above while sitting in the Marreiros esplanade and discussing this.


11. To report or not to report

Nuno Lourenço thinks Wojciech Krokowski has tried to abduct his daughter twice in two completely separate locations and in a 2 hour time difference.

Nuno Lourenço appears to be the first to understand what a real threat Wojciech Krokowski represents but decides not to report this to authorities.

He has Wojciech Krokowski’s licence plate and instead of taking it to the police he says he throws the paper away: “thinking that the licence number no longer had interest, as they had given up on their intention, he threw the paper with the licence plate away, not knowing if into a bin or to the floor”.

This is a man who supposedly just tried to kidnap his daughter. One would have hung on to that bit of paper for dear life. He’s gone to the trouble of following the man around and taking photos but throws away the licence number. Sheer nonsense

Instead Nuno Lourenço’s reasoning seems to be this, as Wojciech Krokowski had shown giving up on his intent to abduct then he no longer represented a threat.

But hadn’t Wojciech Krokowski, according to Nuno Lourenço, shown the same kind of loss of interest in abducting on the beach 2 hours earlier?

He had but 2 hours later, according to Nuno Lourenço, decided to prowl and attack again on the square.

Nuno Lourenço was a material witness that Wojciech Krokowski was set on abducting. That he could momentarily be convinced not to but he was set in doing so.

Wojciech Krokowski was such a potential abductor who had shown to be so obsessed that he even attacked the same family in the same afternoon in separate locations but not that far from one another.

Nuno Lourenço of all people should have realised that Wojciech Krokowski was a time bomb set to explode very soon and somewhere near.

Instead Nuno Lourenço seems to have preferred to ignore the threat.

He doesn’t even remember what he did with the paper with licence number, just that he threw it away. That’s how nonchalant he is about the incidents that involved the possible abduction of his own daughter.

Nuno Lourenço is only prompted to speak to the police after his third encounter with Sagresman.


12. Third encounter

Nuno Lourenço has arrived in Portugal on April 22 and intends to leave on May 13. On May 4 he decides to rent a car. He goes to a Travel Agency called “Turinfo”.

Nuno Lourenço says that it’s a car rental company but it’s not, it’s a Travel Agency. The nearest car rental company is in Lagos which makes sense.

Sagres and more specifically the parking area in front of the fortress must be the place in Portugal with the most rented cars per square yard.

But Sagres is a place one goes to in a rented car not one where one rents one.

Sagres is a destination not a point of entry/exit of the country. One rents car at Faro, or any major city in the Algarve but not in places like Sagres.

“Turinfo” is listed on the internet with an address of Praça da República. We were there and didn’t see it.

We saw restaurants/esplanades, lodgings and a surf-shop (the building in front of which Wojciech Krokowski’s car is photographed).

One the south side of Praça da República we have the “Mareta Beach Boutique Bed & Breakfast”, the “Algarve Surfcamp and Surfschool Amaro” and the “Rosa dos Ventos” restaurant:

On the North just coffee shops/restaurants and with the “RetroSailor Beach Shop” at the North tip:

On the cul-de-sac that exists on the South corner of the square we have lodgings called “Alojamento Particular” and “Mareta Beach Boutique Bed & Breakfast”:

We did not see any Travel Agency or anything named “Turinfo” on that town square but we won’t say or imply it doesn’t exist because as said, it’s listed on the internet. If anyone could tell us where it is, we would be grateful. We simply would like to know where it is located in Sagres.

We do find it strange that the owner, or manager, of the Travel Agency is the only one there who can rent a car to a client as Nuno Lourenço seems to say “the worker present said that he had to return at 13H30, time of her boss’s arrival”.

One has to wonder what that employee has been hired to do in the agency.

What is interesting is where Nuno Lourenço decides to go to kill the time: to a Restaurant called “Rosa dos Ventos” located at the South corner of the square.

“Rosa dos Ventos” and on the other side of the square “Marreiros” and other restaurants, have esplanades, where he can sit and enjoy a coffee and from where he can see the agency’s boss arrive, but instead he decides to go inside “Rosa dos Ventos”, instead of sitting outside in the esplanade, as shown in the picture below:

The photo above is taken by the PJ. The esplanade in the foreground is in front of “Rosa dos Ventos”.

Nuno Lourenço is clear he says he’s inside the restaurant: “looking to the outside, he saw the individual of the photos, dressed exactly the same way but without the hat. He went around the square and disappeared, not seeing him or the car again, because he was on foot and alone.”

From inside “Rosa dos Ventos” one has a clear vision of the Southern part of the square, so if Wojciech Krokowski passed by in a car, not only would it be a huge coincidence to be looking outside when he passed as he wouldn’t be able to detail what clothes the man was wearing.

Nuno Lourenço is saying clearly that Wojciech Krokowski is on foot.

But if  Wojciech Krokowski is indeed on foot and Nuno Lourenço gets disturbed by seeing him again shouldn’t he have exited the restaurant and followed the man even if only out of curiosity?

No, we seem to return into a world of magic again.

Wojciech Krokowski is seen on foot in front of “Rosa dos Ventos” going North (going around the square) and then as suddenly he got into the car days before he simply vanishes. Or doesn’t, we’re not sure. Nuno Lourenço speaks of being unable to follow him because he’s on foot and so implying Wojciech Krokowski has used a car in this encounter but doesn’t detail when or where he got in it. All very confusing, all just too fictional.

It’s not only the kiosk that’s haunted, it’s that entire square.

This is supposed to have happened between 13:00 and 13:30.

He then says “on arriving home he told his wife what had happened who told him to go to the police, now knowing about the disappearance of another child, with strong and haunting similarities to his daughter, (censored), which can be seen by the comparison of images. This way and on seeing the telephone number of this police [PJ] in a daily paper, right in the morning he called the picket, alerting to what happened”.

We are supposing he arrived home around 15:00 at the latest. He’s clearly disturbed, tells the wife about the encounter and she agrees with him that he should call the police. But, fascinatingly, he decides to procrastinate until the next day.

The world is being turned upside down about Maddie and he makes a clear connection between what happened to him and what may have happened to Maddie but decides best to wait waits until the next day to go buy a paper to get the number to call the police. However disturbed he may have been he saw no urgency in reporting, evidently.

Did he really need to buy a paper to know the number to make the call? As far as we know, 112 is the number for emergencies for Europe. Both in Portugal where he is and in Germany where he resides.

But even if he didn’t know that, all he had to do was to head down to nearest coffee shop or restaurant, they all have the nearest GNR number handy.

He sees Wojciech Krokowski for the third time on the 4th but decides to inform police only on the 5th.


13. Why a second visit to Sagres?

One question must be asked, what is Wojciech Krokowski doing in Sagres again?

He supposedly was there on the 29th, so what is he doing there on the 4th?

Sagres like Praia da Luz is a “one-hit” town. For Praia da Luz that one-hit is the beach, for Sagres it’s the fortress.

Once that is visited no need to visit it again 5 days later. It doesn’t make sense.

Both the promontory and the fortress are well worth a visit, no question about that but having only a week holiday as Wojciech Krokowski appears to have had, it’s not worth a repeat with so many beautiful things to see in the region and in the country.

As we’ll see later on Wojciech Krokowski shows interest in seeing Évora and Lisbon in a single day. Both of those he visits in 1 day but then seems to have spent 2 days of his week visiting something that is visited and well visited in just a few hours.

And Sagres is not something one visits because one is passing near by it, it’s an objective. To go there one plans to go there as it’s quite far from anything else.

It makes no sense to have been there on the 29th and then return there on the 4th.


14. Starting to put the pieces together

Let’s now focus on hard fact. Because we are encountering hard facts that need to be looked at and it’s from these that one withdraws valid conclusions.

The first and evident fact is that Nuno Lourenço photographs a vehicle that has been rented by Wojciech Krokowski. And he describes Wojciech Krokowski to perfection. Which means he simply didn’t choose a vehicle randomly. It was that one he wanted to photograph

Second fact is that the photographed car is on Praça da República, meaning that Wojciech Krokowski had been indeed in Sagres and had been in that particular town square.

The fact that Nuno Lourenço is clearly inventing a story doesn’t invalidate that he’s using a real car rented by a real and traceable person who he’s not supposed to know from anywhere.

The three facts above show that he’s clearly directing PJ in Wojciech Krokowski’s direction. Specifically in that particular tourist’s direction.

Nuno Lourenço’s plot although absurd in the telling is very objective and quite linear. One just has to not be distracted by the absurdity he has glued on it.

Nuno Lourenço’s plot starts with him being suspicious about Wojciech Krokowski before Maddie disappears. The reason for that is that for him it has to be so.

To be suspicious only after Maddie disappeared would empty out Wojciech Krokowski role in the plot because then, supposedly, Maddie’s abductor should have his abducting appetite quenched and not draw upon himself any more of “abductive” attention.

The supposed interaction between them on the 29th is to create the idea that Nuno Lourenço suspects Wojciech Krokowski to be a potential abductor. It’s the opening act.

To link Wojciech Krokowski to Maddie, which is an absolute necessity, the suspicions must befall on him prior the little girl disappearing.

Wojciech Krokowski again enters the plot in Sagres when Nuno Lourenço needs an excuse to call authorities after Maddie has disappeared.

To link the need to call authorities and link Wojciech Krokowski can only be done after Maddie has gone, otherwise there would be no link between him and the little girl.

Calling the authorities, could only have been done on the 4th but is only done on the following day for a reason.

Maddie disappears on the night of the 3rd, Wojciech Krokowski has to leave Portugal early on the 5th and as he’s staying in Burgau and flying out in Faro so the only day to link him to Nuno Lourenço is the 4th. Reason why Wojciech Krokowski is in Sagres that day.

But to put PJ really on Wojciech Krokowski’s heels Nuno Lourenço must call the authorities only on the 5th. He has to allow Wojciech Krokowski time to fly out of the country before warning PJ.

If he called PJ on the 4th, the police would quickly track the man down, talk to him and find out he had nothing to reveal and abandon there and then any and all investigation concerning the man. The false lead would not even survive a day.

We have written before that immediately after Maddie’s disappearance there followed a critical period when it was absolutely required to keep PJ distracted with false leads under the penalty they could focus their investigation on where they shouldn’t, which would be on Praia da Luz and on the people holidaying there in the off-season.

Once Wojciech Krokowski flew out of the country he would become a false lead that would continue to be followed.

Long-distance investigations always involve a degree of bureaucracy and time wasted doing it and he would have left the country just before he was to be considered a person of interest to the case.

There had to be a reason to call authorities and that could only be arranged on the 4th and authorities could only be called on the 5th after he left, as they were.

The fact that Wojciech Krokowski was used as a false lead means that he accepted to be one. The fact that the rented car is photographed in the Praça da República shows that very clearly. He placed himself in Sagres so that Nuno Lourenço could point the finger at him.

He has nothing to fear. They can ask him any and all questions about the case and he knows – because it’s true – that he has nothing to do with Maddie, he has nothing he can help the authorities with.

The longer they are busy with him the more PJ wastes time and is distracted.

However, and that’s Wojciech Krokowski’s usefulness, he can report back exactly what diligences the police have taken with the investigation where he’s concerned.

Wojciech Krokowski is a false lead that can provide feedback on how PJ is literally being entertained by following him.

But, one may ask, and one should, if all was as we say it was then how could the rented car have been photographed on the 29th in the Praça da República?

In our opinion it wasn’t.

In our opinion It was photographed on the 4th, explaining Nuno Lourenço’s insistence to show when the photograph was taken: “this time he was able to take a photo of the vehicle, which he supplied to the police and that he exhibits now, insisting [fazendo questão] in showing the time, 18H08 of 29/04/2007 as registered on the phone”

Why does he insist in showing this particular data about his picture of the car but then there’s no mention of him wanting to show all the others ones he supposedly took and were botched by his finger in front of the lens?

We think that it would be useful for the police to see them. To see how many pictures he defiantly took of Wojciech Krokowski or if police experts could extract some information from them. And he could prove how really clumsy he had been at that crucial moment as the botched up pictures would speak for themselves.

Oh, he must have deleted them just like he threw away the paper with the licence plate. That would be very convenient. We’ll pretend (NOT) we will believe that.

Nuno Lourenço, although botching up his lines of the script – reminding us so much of Stephen Carpenter in that aspect – achieves – unlike Stephen Carpenter – fully the objectives intended: he sends PJ after Wojciech Krokowski and PJ does go after him.


15. The Burgau connection

Some say that Nuno Lourenço’s statement has a profound effect on the PJ. Said like that it leads one to believe that PJ valued this lead more than any other when that clearly was not the case.

There is more in the files about this lead than about others leads because this one has one thing the others don’t: it has the licence plate which is palpable, it can be followed up.

And that’s what PJ does. It does what it should have done, if follows a lead that can be followed. The Wojciech Krokowski lead has the exact same value as any other.

It led to more information? Yes, it did. Why? Because it could be followed. That simple. No other conclusion should in our opinion be taken from it.

And because it could and was followed, it led PJ to go up to the next level in this false lead: Burgau.

The licence plate led to a name, the name to an apartment in Burgau. From the apartment to a bar, the “Beach Bar” also in Burgau and from that bar to FNAC Chiado in Lisbon to close the circle.

Burgau shows very clearly a network of people involved in propagating this false lead.

This is where the FNAC lead is implanted. Continuing to send PJ after a real palpable person and so keep it entertained.

The FNAC lead provides PJ with a CCTV image of Wojciech Krokowski.

With the CCTV image it is confirmed that Nuno Lourenço has described Wojciech Krokowski correctly, thus proving he was speaking the truth about a man he supposedly had never seen before. With that CCTV image and Nuno Lourenço’s description Wojciech Krokowski evolves from being a possible person of interest to a real person of interest, bordering being a suspect.

And if Nuno Lourenço decribes the person who rented that car he photographed so accurately then the supposed abduction attempts were also accurately described. That CCTV image makes the Wojciech Krokowski threat to be a real thing.

But to put this image in PJ’s hands, one had to direct PJ to Lisbon, more precisely to the Chiado mall where there’s a FNAC. How is it known that this image even exists? Because Wojciech Krokowski knows he had been there and knows he bought 2 CDs there.

It’s common knowledge that security videos are stored for a week at least. The fact that Wojciech Krokowski knew he had been there and that he paid for the 2 CDs with a credit card makes it possible to makes this CCTV end up in PJ’s hands: all that is required was to have him pay the rental car with that same credit card he used in FNAC.

When those payments were matched and the time of payment in FNAC determined, then most certainly there would be a video footage of him there that could be found. And so it was.

Probably PJ would get to this image by itself by running an analysis on what other payments had been made by that credit card during that period in the country but just like Smithman had to force contact with the Smiths, so did the tellers of this tale have to do the same with the Chiado FNAC. They had to make sure PJ went to that particular FNAC store.

Enter the scene the owner of the “Beach Bar” in Burgau where the apartment where Wojciech Krokowski stayed with his wife is.

It’s not an employee that speaks to the PJ, it’s the owner of the bar. The files say proprietário (owner) and not gerente (manager) or empregado (worker/employee). That is very important which can be seen later on.

We don’t know when the conversation between the bar owner and Wojciech Krokowski took place. We have read and heard it referenced that CCTV video or images of Wojciech Krokowski there were given to the PJ. We have no knowledge of such CCTV footage/images.

As far as we know, in the files there are only the following CCTV images:

- the Paraíso bar pictures where the T9 appear on the afternoon of the 3rd;

- a couple on a gas station with a girl, proven not to be Wojciech Krokowski and wife as some have speculated;

- Wojciech Krokowskiand wife coming out of FNAC Chiado (Lisbon).

We know of this conversation from a report of an external diligence done on May 5 by Inspectors Davide (?) Gomes and Hugo Ferreira of PJ.

In it the bar owner speaks of a very convenient football tale, in our opinion to confirm that Wojciech Krokowski is indeed Polish and to show the police that they were on the right track.

In that conversation what we would like to call the reader’s attention to is how the owner comes up with this most amazing question that Wojciech Krokowski supposedly asked him: where could he buy Portuguese music CDs in… Portugal?

Maybe in the same kind of places he can buy CDs of Polish music in Poland we would say.

But guess where the owner tells him he can do that, where he can buy such a rarity which is to find a Portuguese music in Portugal?

The bar owner says he told Wojciech Krokowski that he had 2 options. One was in a shopping mall in Albufeira – which according to Google Maps is 83 kms away (why not recommend Lagos?) – or in Lisbon more specifically the in the FNAC shop of the Chiado mall (which is 329 Kms away).

There were other FNAC shops in Lisbon, currently there are 8: FNAC Aeroporto de Lisboa, FNAC Amoreiras, FNAC Chiado, FNAC Colombo, FNAC Vasco da Gama, FNAC Alfragide, FNAC Almada (a mall which is very visible and easily accessed by anyone entering Lisbon from the South by car by the 25 de Abril bridge) and FNAC Oeiras.

Isn’t that just telling the PJ, “if you look there, in the FNAC at Chiado, you’ll be pleasantly surprised, trust me, wink, wink, nudge, nudge, hey?”

Imagine the reader is a foreign tourist sitting in Torquay on holiday and asks a owner of a pub where one could buy a CD of English music and is told to travel all the way to London, and specifically to Piccadilly Circus to do that!

Putting that CCTV image in PJ’s hands completes the plot to create and maintain a false lead which is needed to keep PJ entertained:

- Wojciech Krokowski knows he was in FNAC Chiado on the 2nd and he bought 2 CDs there with a credit card;

- It’s easily deduced that there must be a CCTV image of the couple there;

- It’s known that Wojciech Krokowski will leave Portugal on the 5th.

All that is left to be found is a volunteer to send PJ up this creek.

Nuno Lourenço is chosen. He supposedly is not in Praia da Luz and he has a daughter the same age as Maddie.

Wojciech Krokowski parks the car in Praça da República on the 4th and Nuno Lourenço photographs it. The cellphone data is manipulated so photo is registered as taken on the 29th.

That done, all left to do is to call authorities once Wojciech Krokowski’s plane takes off.

PJ would then be sent running in circles around Wojciech Krokowski, going to Sagres, Burgau, Germany and Poland and stay well away from Luz.

All would lead to nothing but that was the whole idea. Very simple and effective, time wasted, attention diverted and no one would know better. All would in the end be summed up to an exaggerated reaction by a Portuguese emigrant on holiday against a tourist innocently photographing because of the hysteria that arose from Maddie’s disappearance.

No one would know better.

But there is one person pivotal and shows that there is a network behind this story: the bar owner.

He is the one who provides the independent validation to Nuno Lourenço’s otherwise absurd tale. He is the one that makes the pieces of the story to come together so making it very clear it was all a collective effort.

The bar owner, we repeat not employee, who nudged PJ into finding the FNAC Chiado CCTV image we believe was Ralph Eveleigh, Robert Murat’s uncle.

If not him then it would be someone close to him as the Eveleighs owned that bar at one time. It’s possible the person who spoke to police may have been renting from Ralph Eveleigh and be referred to as proprietário (owner) because although a rentor he would effectively be the owner of the business using the rented space.

Virginia Blackburn's Daily Express article of November 26 2007 “'Madeleine's gone!' shrieked Kate. What really happened on the night a little girl disappeared” seems to say that it is indeed Ralph Eveleigh who owns the bar at the time: “Murat's uncle ran a bar in nearby Burgau: that, too, was searched”.

We suggest that Nuno Lourenço and Wojciech Krokowski are part of – or connected to – that circle of people who were there enjoying off-season holidays with a very specific reason, one they did all for it not to be known.

That group of people who directly or indirectly obstructed justice and have ultimately destroyed Mr Amaral’s life for the last 8 and half years, time he will never be able to get back.

If one includes in this group as one should Everleigh, Yvonne Martin and the Alvor couple, one can easily see that the obfuscating was not circumscribed geographically only to Praia da Luz.

Why so many involved? No one could have then predicted the proportions things would take. With the backing of the powerful choosing to tell a “harmless” lie (harmless in the sense that the parents of the victim were also in on it so no one was being harmed) instead of risking having their reputation ruined with the truth seems to be the natural thing to have done.

Also, no one predicted that PJ Files would be made public and that they would be subject to such passionate scrutiny. 

It must be horrible to live in permanent fear, permanent defensive mode, always looking over one’s shoulder and all because of a “harmless” mistake.  


16. The Mirror article

The Mirror article recovers Wojciech Krokowski out of nowhere.

For us there can only be one reason for that to happen: to show that the swinging is now in the crosshairs of whoever is deciding in the Maddie case.

Like Euclides Monteiro served to expose the body route and so warning all those involved in it that their a heads were about to roll, Wojciech Krokowski now serves to say that things are now heading outside the T9.

And by using Wojciech Krokowski, someone who has no connections to the Ocean Club, Mark Warner or Praia da Luz, it’s saying that this “outside T9” is really outside. As in guests as well. As in the full truth.

Mr Amaral is clear in his book that PJ went around Luz questioning about Wojciech Krokowski (pg 72): “we’re left with proceeding with the reconstitution of the steps of the Polish couple while they enjoyed holidays in the Algarve, we want to know if they were seen in Praia da Luz, if they could be related with Maddie’s disappearance. The couple’s photo, meanwhile taken from a Lisbon mall surveillance system, where they went on May 2, is shown to various witnesses, in restaurants of Praia da Luz, in which Tapas and Millenium restaurants are included, no one recognises them”

Wojciech Krokowski and his wife weren’t seen setting foot in Praia da Luz. If they did, they did like we did, they just passed through the town.

Knowing that, the following passages of said article are for us very interesting:

“But Mr Krokowski, who describes himself as an “obsessive photographer” told us he still had every single picture he took the day Madeleine vanished and handed them over so we could pass them to Operation Grange.

(…)

Speaking about the photos from his holiday in 2007, Mr Krokowski said he was happy to hand them over.

He added: “We are not the type of people to lie on the beach so we travelled a lot in that area between Sagres and Burgau and I have plenty of photos from our time there but the police never asked for them.

“I thought once maybe I should show those photos. They are not just ¬landscapes, there are lots of people. Maybe something in there could be helpful.

“I collect all my photographs, I still have them from that trip, of course you can have them if they could help in anyway.””

There are only so many pictures one can take of the Praia da Luz beach. We were there so we know that for a fact.

Let us just highlight the following fom the quotes above:  

“he still had every single picture he took”

“was happy to hand them over”

“we travelled a lot in that area between Sagres and Burgau and I have plenty of photos from our time there”

“they are not just ¬landscapes, there are lots of people. Maybe something in there could be helpful”

But what we really, REALLY want to highlight are the following 2 paragraphs of the article:

“Officers are scouring ­dozens of images from the camera of businessman Wojciech Krokowski, from Poland.

They are focusing on those he took while in Praia da Luz around the time Madeleine went missing – on May 3, 2007.”

So he was in Praia da Luz after all. And if the pictures he supposedly took there were only of the beach and its scenery would they be the focus of anything?

Could the message be any clearer? We don’t think so.

It’s clear, very clear that the intention is to finally burst the bubble.


17. Conclusion

Are we optimistic?

We never, ever put aside the archival hypothesis. We think it’s a foolish option to take and have said so repeatedly but we are fully aware that the foe has proven all these years that it will not give up easily.

The wider circle, the one that really matters, the one that is sustaining – not deciding – the whole edifice of this hoax has finally been told that it is time for them step on the stage and face the lights. And that it’s time for them to face the public’s reaction.

The Met has been told to send the clear message that the time to play cops is over. No more binder paper carrying in the cobbled streets of the Algarve for the cameras. They “are now following a small number of focused lines of inquiry” and we get to know that the “enquiry has not reached a conclusion, there are still focused lines of investigation to be pursued.”

And the lines are not only focused but that they “still have very definite lines to pursue which is why we are keeping a dedicated team of officers working on the case.”

Or in other words, it’s time for the Met to close shop and to start coming to conclusions.

And it’s not forgotten to remind all that “Operation Grange is working to support the Portuguese investigation and this work continues” and that “the Portuguese police remain the lead investigators and our team will continue to support their inquiry. They have extended every courtesy to Operation Grange and we maintain a close working relationship. I know they remain fully committed to investigating Madeleine's disappearance with support from the Metropolitan Police”

Meanwhile, the linking the word “fraud” to the McCann fund in the public’s mind seems to be going very well.

We see no reason to be other than optimistic.