Madeleine McCann: German Prisoner Identified as Suspect, #38

[Lyall0814]

Business meetings are normally conducted on line in this day and age.

As an aside who on earth requires to ask for FOI on this subject? Seriously ~ is it for a future pub quiz? I can't think what else.

Might be the home affairs select committee asking one day. They gave the police a right roasting today.

(I doubt they'll be interrogating Op Grange though)

 

[RichardKimble]

Might be the home affairs select committee asking one day. They gave the police a right roasting today.

(I doubt they'll be interrogating Op Grange though)

All part of the MET not exactly favourites at the moment.

 

[RichardKimble]

Business meetings are normally conducted on line in this day and age.

As an aside who on earth requires to ask for FOI on this subject? Seriously ~ is it for a future pub quiz? I can't think what else.

It seemed pertinent for the MPS to reply.

 

[mrjitty]

This is the problem with taking a quote out of context MrJ and misconstruing what was said in response to a statement within a conversation.

Please take time to go slightly further back to your initial statement where you will find no one was discussing the police liaison and assistance given to the Portuguese in the terms of advice and expertise - for example I believe access to Holmes was discussed: some of which was unwelcome and some of which was misunderstood.

Well if by 'initially' you actually meant 'after' record spending by Portugalon the investigation then sure - it wasn't resourced once it was archived.

I am not one of the people who think there should be any particular spending limits on these things but I think looking at it from the other side, it is unfair to say Portugal did not spend enough on this.

How much exactly more should they have spent, when in any case, the breakthrough came only over a decade later when CB was dobbed in?

 

[Mex]

It seemed pertinent for the MPS to reply.

So a pub quiz it is then.

 

[Lyall0814]

So a pub quiz it is then.

Taxpayers made the request, Mex. In other countries FOI laws would have them having to answer public questions about investigations and supply requested information Our police wouldn't like that.

 

[Mex]

Well if by 'initially' you actually meant 'after' record spending by Portugalon the investigation then sure - it wasn't resourced once it was archived.

I am not one of the people who think there should be any particular spending limits on these things but I think looking at it from the other side, it is unfair to say Portugal did not spend enough on this.

How much exactly more should they have spent, when in any case, the breakthrough came only over a decade later when CB was dobbed in?

Perhaps I wasn't clear enough in my response.
But there is absolutely no doubt that between the archiving of the MM case in 2008 and the opening of the British investigation in 2013 there was no active inquiry going on but the one financed by her parent's efforts.

That is an awful long time for officialdom to be ignoring the case of a child who was only three when she vanished and whose parents had to rely mainly on charity to keep up the search for her.

 

[mrjitty]

I'll post it again in case it was ignored or not seen.

https://library.college.police.uk/docs/npia/Strategic-debrief-operation-task-2009.pdf

Thanks for reposting

So basically huge resource from 2 police forces through out 2007 and into 2008

I am not sure what more posters expect.

As I've said, in the Morphew case, now into its 3rd year, basically nothing is happening even though the killer is obvious. They are just waiting for the body to turn up. I can think of half a dozen other cases where this happened.

No breakthrough happened in this case until they got a tip. it wasn't down to investigation

So it goes

 

[mrjitty]

Perhaps I wasn't clear enough in my response.
But there is absolutely no doubt that between the archiving of the MM case in 2008 and the opening of the British investigation in 2013 there was no active inquiry going on but the one financed by her parent's efforts.

That is an awful long time for officialdom to be ignoring the case of a child who was only three when she vanished and whose parents had to rely mainly on charity to keep up the search for her.

BOB. That is in fact completely typical.

In the McStay case in California, they were missing for nearly 4 years - including 2 young children. The business partner had murdered them and buried them in the desert. After the initial weeks, there was very little active investigation.

Then the bodies were discovered.

There are 1000s of cases like this. The MM case is unusual for how much police resource has gone into it.

Has there ever been a more resourced case?

 

[RichardKimble]

BOB. That is in fact completely typical.

In the McStay case in California, they were missing for nearly 4 years - including 2 young children. The business partner had murdered them and buried them in the desert. After the initial weeks, there was very little active investigation.

Then the bodies were discovered.

There are 1000s of cases like this. The MM case is unusual for how much police resource has gone into it.

Has there ever been a more resourced case?

Ben Needham never got the same attention.

 

[onemoremiletogo]

There seems to be a few of his cronies with similar stories so I think it’s likely he burgled properties in Portugal. How prolific he was… well the media would have you think it was a daily occurrence.

What I find hard to understand is his lack of serious sex crimes after DM in 2005. We are led to believe by the media and profilers that he is a psychopath with violent sexual urges. In the 12 years between 2005 and 2017, he had little prison time and with a retrospective review of DNA in sex crimes, there is nothing to connect him to relevant crimes over this period.

"Friends" testimonies, police laziness and repeated incompetence making believe that he was not even caught for the number of crimes committed.
Algarve context, specially in western area with those PSP, GNR and PJ teams during 00s, what a paradise-disgrace for burglars-tourists. Too easy, impunity at large.
Reduced resources, poor training, insufficient support, all this far from explaining the whole problem.

 

[frank-cole]

There is no doubt that both in Britain and those countries on the continent where the BBC Crimewatch programme had been broadcast the response was said to have been unprecedented.

But I think it hinges on what is classified as petty as opposed to serious crime which may have escalated from incidents being ignored.
Me - I would consider it to be serious to waken up and be confronted with strange man in my bedroom.

Snip
‘Significantly, there were lots of calls from British people who were in Praia da Luz around the time of MM’s disappearance who had never previously spoken to the Met, so there’s lots of information coming through there,’ he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
_________________________________________

The suspect may have been in the villa or looking around for some time before committing the offences or being disturbed, either by a parent coming in or the child waking up, officers said.
He remained calm even when disturbed, they added.
The incidents had previously been discounted by Portuguese investigators because they were spread over a wide geographical area and there had been no apparent attempts at abduction.
Madeleine McCann Crimewatch: 'Unprecedented' response to police appeal | Metro News


"These offences are very serious and no one has been charged in connection with them. We also need to eliminate this man from our inquiries and ascertain whether these offences are linked to Madeleine's disappearance," he said. remained calm even when disturbed,

"If you have been a victim of a similar crime please come forward even if you reported the incident to police in Portugal, or anywhere else, please do not assume we have been made aware of it."
Madeleine McCann police seek intruder who attacked girls at holiday homes | Madeleine McCann | The Guardian

From the above Guardian link it was strenuously denied that crimes had been ignored. My opinion on that is that the DCI would have worded his appeal differently had that been so.

Great point! If a serial offender was targeting children’s bedrooms in a UK region, the obvious patterns would be noticed, we’d all on be on high alert, people would be briefed regularly & the area would be like a ghost town whilst they sought out the offender. Unfortunately for the children in that area of the Algarve, the warnings weren’t in place, the policing was inadequate & those young children continued to be targeted.

IMO the acknowledgment &/or explanations/justifications for the good or bad policing (as a whole) in that area at that time, is seemingly relative to some opinions on who was responsible in 1 case - the MM case.

IMO there are many signs that show that the police in that region weren’t capable of handling the high level of serious sexual crime, spanning multiple cases.

 

[Lyall0814]

Great point! If a serial offender was targeting children’s bedrooms in a UK region, the obvious patterns would be noticed, we’d all on be on high alert, people would be briefed regularly & the area would be like a ghost town whilst they sought out the offender. Unfortunately for the children in that area of the Algarve, the warnings weren’t in place, the policing was inadequate & those young children continued to be targeted.

IMO the acknowledgment &/or explanations/justifications for the good or bad policing (as a whole) in that area at that time, is seemingly relative to some opinions on who was responsible in 1 case - the MM case.

IMO there are many signs that show that the police in that region weren’t capable of handling the high level of serious sexual crime, spanning multiple cases.

Who says there was a single serial offender?

 

[Denis R Tandib]

All the points about police resourcing and competence are moot IMO. Well-funded investigations by police from three countries have reviewed the crime for years. At least two private companies have also taken a look at it.

All have the same result: no conviction.

IMO, if CB is ultimately convicted (doubtful IMO) it won’t be because of funding or superior investigative police work, it will be due to luck.

HB’s information was the break in the case and it had nothing to do with funding or competence.

 

[onemoremiletogo]

CB and others ran free as they wanted years and years repeating and repeating.

In the case of portuguese police forces my point is more on how immensely unprepared (also in the attitude, behavior and composture) they were towards the greed of the tourism phenomenon in the Algarve region. The petty crime progression and escalation. Up to the unrecoverable and irreplaceable of human lifes.

 

[RichardKimble]

All the points about police resourcing and competence are moot IMO. Well-funded investigations by police from three countries have reviewed the crime for years. At least two private companies have also taken a look at it.

All have the same result: no conviction.

IMO, if CB is ultimately convicted (doubtful IMO) it won’t be because of funding or superior investigative police work, it will be due to luck.

HB’s information was the break in the case and it had nothing to do with funding or competence.

The weight and truth of the evidence will find a suspect out and lead to a conviction, clearly its not there with CB despite 6 years of investigating him.

 

[Denis R Tandib]

CB and others ran free as they wanted years and years repeating and repeating.

In the case of portuguese police forces my point is more on how immensely unprepared (also in the attitude, behavior and composture) they were towards the greed of the tourism phenomenon in the Algarve region. The petty crime progression and escalation. Up to the unrecoverable and irreplaceable of human lifes.

I don’t think this is exclusive to the Portuguese Police - mistakes, incompetence and corruption are rife in all professions and all locations.

Take a look a the David Breckenridge case in Australia. The police appealed for information on his murder for four years. An important part of the appeal was how he travelled to the place he was murdered. There was a bus ticket in his wallet that showed where he had got onto the bus and the time but the police didn’t run it through the ticketing machine.

 

[onemoremiletogo]

I don’t think this is exclusive to the Portuguese Police - mistakes, incompetence and corruption are rife in all professions and all locations.

Take a look a the David Breckenridge case in Australia. The police appealed for information on his murder for four years. An important part of the appeal was how he travelled to the place he was murdered. There was a bus ticket in his wallet that showed where he had got onto the bus and the time but the police didn’t run it through the ticketing machine.

We are talking about people safety.

In the Algarve I really think there was terrible disproportion in relation to crime repetition and increase and how inact and incompetent Police forces were. And during so much time. I'm definitely not going with the banalization and generalization of mistakes, incompetence in this context.

 

[Mex]

All the points about police resourcing and competence are moot IMO. Well-funded investigations by police from three countries have reviewed the crime for years. At least two private companies have also taken a look at it.

All have the same result: no conviction.

IMO, if CB is ultimately convicted (doubtful IMO) it won’t be because of funding or superior investigative police work, it will be due to luck.

HB’s information was the break in the case and it had nothing to do with funding or competence.

I really do agree that luck can solve cases. Sometimes you make your own luck. But unless you put in the hard work you've got no chance.

 

[Okapi]

All the points about police resourcing and competence are moot IMO. Well-funded investigations by police from three countries have reviewed the crime for years. At least two private companies have also taken a look at it.

All have the same result: no conviction.

IMO, if CB is ultimately convicted (doubtful IMO) it won’t be because of funding or superior investigative police work, it will be due to luck.

HB’s information was the break in the case and it had nothing to do with funding or competence.

Possibly luck and lost loyalties.