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Metropolitan Police ‏@metpoliceuk 1m
Portuguese Judicial Authorities announce they have reopened their investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine #McCann - More to follow

Metropolitan Police ‏@metpoliceuk 1m
Portuguese investigation will run in parallel with Met's Operation Grange #McCann

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/madeleine-mccanns-parents-dream-of-finding-her-alive-8904401.html

Madeleine McCann's parents ‘dream of finding her alive’


No longer suspects: Kate and Gerry McCann

JUSTIN DAVENPORT AND GERARD COUZENS
Published: 25 October 2013 Updated: 13:47, 25 October 2013
Kate and Gerry McCann’s fight for justice is driven by the dream that they will one day see their daughter Madeleine alive again, their Portuguese lawyer said today.

Rogerio Alves also revealed that Portuguese police had told the couple they are no longer regarded as suspects, more than five years after the original investigation which wrongly pointing the finger at them was shelved.

The couple were told by police in Lisbon last week that new lines of inquiry absolve them of any responsibility.

Portugal’s attorney general confirmed the inquiry was being reopened at the request of police in Porto. They are understood to have identified new lines of inquiry which suggest that the three-year-old was abducted as she slept in her holiday apartment in Praia da Luz in May 2007. The new inquiry will run in tandem with the Scotland Yard investigation which has also identified a number of new clues. Mr Alves said: “This brings Madeleine’s parents a legitimate expectation not only that the truth will be discovered but also that it will be possible to find Madeleine alive which is the sole aim of all the efforts they have been making.”

Jose Magalhaes e Menezes, the public prosecutor in charge of the origiinal investigation, is expected to oversee the reopened inquiry.

It has also emerged that Madeleine’s parents are set to apply to become private prosecutors — “assistentes” under Portuguese law — in the reopened criminal inquiry, which will enable their legal team to be kept informed of all new developments.

Mr Alves said: “Madeleine is the victim as well as her parents, who are also her legal representatives. According to Portuguese criminal procedural law there is a place for the victims that want to be side by side with the prosecutors.”

Hope for Gerry and Kate McCann as Portugese police are confident they will find Madeleine

PORTUGUESE police are confident they will find Madeleine McCann alive, her parents’ lawyer revealed yesterday.

By Jerry Lawton/Published 26th October 2013

Rogerio Alves, the Portuguese attorney representing Kate and Gerry McCann, said that was the “sole aim” of the officers after reopening the investigation.

He said the detectives have finally admitted to the McCanns, both 45, that they no longer regard them as suspects.

The original investigation, which pointed the finger at the couple, both doctors, was shelved five years ago.

At a meeting with the McCanns in Portugal’s capital Lisbon, police chiefs told them they were confident the “truth will be discovered’ about their daughter’s fate”.

Details of the new line of inquiry were being kept secret by the police because the probe is at such a critical stage any leak could hamper it.

The reopening of the investigation, which was announced by Portugal’s Attorney General on Thursday, follows a two-and-a-half-year internal review of the evidence. The probe will run parallel to the ongoing Met Police inquiry.

Mr Alves said Kate and Gerry were told the “reasons why it was being reopened” at the meeting with Portuguese and British police last week.

He said: “They also know that this new line of inquiry excludes any responsibility of the parents.

“What it means is that the police understand there are new avenues that should be explored.

“This brings Madeleine’s parents a legitimate expectation, not only that the truth will be discovered, but also that it will be possible to find Madeleine alive – which is the sole aim of all the efforts they’ve been making.”

British police also believe the youngster, who disappeared from her parents’ holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal, in 2007, could still be alive. They have spent two years reviewing the original case files and documents from eight teams of private detectives hired by the McCanns and said they have found no evidence she is dead.

Mr Alves, who was hired by the McCanns after they were declared suspects by the original police team, now wants them made “assistentes”, private prosecutors, in the case.

It will mean their lawyers can work with state prosecutors, and even press their own charges against suspects.

Mr Alves added the secrecy order prevented him revealing the new line of inquiry.

He said: “The police asked us specifically not to compromise the investigation and we are all obliged to respect the secrecy order.”

http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/439256/Kate-and-Gerry-McCann-bid-for-access-to-police-files-on-Madeleine

Kate and Gerry McCann bid for access to police files on Madeleine

KATE and Gerry McCann are set to play an active role in the new Portuguese police inquiry into their daughter’s disappearance, it was revealed yesterday.

Their lawyers are preparing to apply for the status of “assistentes” or active participants under Portuguese law.

It means the couple could be alerted to new leads, receive case files and even request the questioning of witnesses.

Rogerio Alves, the McCanns’ lawyer, said yesterday that the couple had been informed in advance about the reopening of the inquiry at a meeting in Lisbon last week.

He added: “What it means is that the police understand there are new avenues that should be explored.

“This brings Madeleine’s parents a legitimate expectation not only that the truth will be discovered but also that it will be possible to find Madeleine alive, which is the sole aim of all the efforts they have been ­making.” If successful in their bid to be named assistentes, it will be a remarkable turnaround for the couple who were once officially regarded as suspects – arguidos – over the disappearance of three-year-old Madeleine from their holiday apartment in Praia da Luz in May 2007.

Mr Alves added: “The secrecy order that’s been placed on this case prevents me from saying what the new lines of inquiry are. It would be a crime for anyone with information to talk about it.

“Madeleine’s parents are the ones with most interest in abiding by the order and maintaining the efficiency of the investigation. But I can say that the information they got from the Portuguese police directly is that the new lines of investigation absolve them of any responsibility in their daughter’s disappearance.” It is understood the new leads were uncovered by a small team of Portuguese detectives in the northern city of Porto working separately from the Scotland Yard squad assigned to the case.

A source close to the McCanns, both 45, of Rothley, Leics, said: “Given the secrecy order I think it’s vital they do exercise their right to become assistentes so they are kept in the loop.

Henri Exton, MI5’s former undercover operations chief.  Incorrect, this should read Greater Manchester Police

Madeleine clues hidden for 5 years

The new prime suspect was first singled out by detectives in 2008. Their findings were suppressed. Insight reports
The Sunday Times Insight team Published: 27 October 2013

Madeleine disappeared from the Praia da Luz resort in May 2007Madeleine disappeared from the Praia da Luz resort in May 2007 (Adrian Sheratt)

THE critical new evidence at the centre of Scotland Yard’s search for Madeleine McCann was kept secret for five years after it was presented to her parents by ex-MI5 investigators.

The evidence was in fact taken from an intelligence report produced for Gerry and Kate McCann by a firm of former spies in 2008.

It contained crucial E-Fits of a man seen carrying a child on the night of Madeleine’s disappearance, which have only this month become public after he was identified as the prime suspect by Scotland Yard.

A team of hand-picked former MI5 agents had been hired by the McCanns to chase a much-needed breakthrough in the search for their missing daughter Madeleine.

10 months after the three-year-old had disappeared from the Portuguese resort of Praia da Luz, and the McCanns were beginning to despair over the handling of the local police investigation. They were relying on the new team to bring fresh hope.

But within months the relationship had soured. A report produced by the investigators was deemed “hypercritical” of the McCanns and their friends, and the authors were threatened with legal action if it was made public. Its contents remained secret until Scotland Yard detectives conducting a fresh review of the case contacted the authors and asked for a copy.

They found that it contained new evidence about a key suspect seen carrying a child away from the McCanns’ holiday apartment on the night Madeleine disappeared.

This sighting is now considered the main lead in the investigation and E-Fits of the suspect, taken from the report, were the centrepiece of a Crimewatch appeal that attracted more than 2,400 calls from the public this month.

One of the investigators whose work was sidelined said last week he was “utterly stunned” when he watched the programme and saw the evidence his team had passed to the McCanns five years ago presented as a breakthrough.

The team of investigators from the security firm Oakley International were hired by the McCanns’ Find Madeleine fund, which bankrolled private investigations into the girl’s disappearance. They were led by Henri Exton, MI5’s former undercover operations chief.

Their report, seen by The Sunday Times, focused on a sighting by an Irish family of a man carrying a child at about 10pm on May 3, 2007, when Madeleine went missing.

An earlier sighting by one of the McCanns’ friends was dismissed as less credible after “serious inconsistencies” were found in her evidence. The report also raised questions about “anomalies” in the statements given by the McCanns and their friends.

Exton confirmed last week that the fund had silenced his investigators for years after they handed over their controversial findings. He said: “A letter came from their lawyers binding us to the confidentiality of the report.”

He claimed the legal threat had prevented him from handing over the report to Scotland Yard’s fresh investigation, until detectives had obtained written permission from the fund.

A source close to the fund said the report was considered “hypercritical of the people involved” and “would have been completely distracting” if it became public.

Kate and Gerry McCann: now officially not suspects, say the Portuguese authoritiesKate and Gerry McCann: now officially not suspects, say the Portuguese authorities (Adrian Sheratt) Oakley’s six-month investigation included placing undercover agents inside the Ocean Club where the family stayed, lie detector tests, covert surveillance and a forensic re-examination of all existing evidence.

It was immediately clear that two sightings of vital importance had been reported to the police. Two men were seen carrying children near the apartments between 9pm, when Madeleine was last seen by Gerry, and 10pm, when Kate discovered her missing.

The first man was seen at 9.15pm by Jane Tanner, a friend of the McCanns, who had been dining with them at the tapas bar in the resort. She saw a man carrying a girl just yards from the apartment as she went to check on her children.

The second sighting was by Martin Smith and his family from Ireland, who saw a man carrying a child near the apartment just before 10pm.

The earlier Tanner sighting had always been treated as the most significant, but the Oakley team controversially poured cold water on her account.

Instead, they focused on the Smith sighting, travelling to Ireland to interview the family and produce E-Fits of the man they saw. Their report said the Smiths were “helpful and sincere” and concluded: “The Smith sighting is credible evidence of a sighting of Maddie and more credible than Jane Tanner’s sighting”. The evidence had been “neglected for too long” and an “overemphasis placed on Tanner”.

The new focus shifted the believed timeline of the abduction back by 45 minutes.

The report, delivered to the McCanns in November 2008, recommended that the revised timeline should be the basis for future investigations and that the Smith E-Fits should be released without delay.

The potential abductor seen by the Smiths is now the prime suspect in Scotland Yard’s investigation, after detectives established that the man seen earlier by Tanner was almost certainly a father carrying his child home from a nearby night creche. The Smith E-Fits were the centrepiece of the Crimewatch appeal.

One of the Oakley investigators said last week: “I was absolutely stunned when I watched the programme . . . It most certainly wasn’t a new timeline and it certainly isn’t a new revelation. It is absolute nonsense to suggest either of those things . . . And those E-Fits you saw on Crimewatch are ours,” he said.

The detailed images of the face of the man seen by the Smith family were never released by the McCanns. But an artist’s impression of the man seen earlier by Tanner was widely promoted, even though the face had to be left blank because she had only seen him fleetingly and from a distance.

Various others images of lone men spotted hanging around the resort at other times were also released.

Nor were the Smith E-Fits included in Kate McCann’s 2011 book, Madeleine, which contained a whole section on eight “key sightings” and identified those of the Smiths and Tanner as most “crucial”. Descriptions of all seven other sightings were accompanied by an E-Fit or artist’s impression. The Smiths’ were the only exception. So why was such a “crucial” piece of evidence kept under lock and key?

The relationship between the fund and Oakley was already souring by the time the report was submitted — and its findings could only have made matters worse.

As well as questioning parts of the McCanns’ evidence, it contained sensitive information about Madeleine’s sleeping patterns and raised the highly sensitive possibility that she could have died in an accident after leaving the apartment herself from one of two unsecured doors.

There was also an uncomfortable complication with Smith’s account. He had originally told the police that he had “recognised something” about the way Gerry McCann carried one of his children which reminded him of the man he had seen in Praia da Luz.

Smith has since stressed that he does not believe the man he saw was Gerry, and Scotland Yard do not consider this a possibility. Last week the McCanns were told officially by the Portuguese authorities that they are not suspects.

The McCanns were also understandably wary of Oakley after allegations that the chairman, Kevin Halligen, failed to pass on money paid by the fund to Exton’s team. Halligen denies this. He was later convicted of fraud in an unrelated case in the US.

The McCann fund source said the Oakley report was passed on to new private investigators after the contract ended, but that the firm’s work was considered “contaminated” by the financial dispute.

He said the fund wanted to continue to pursue information about the man seen by Tanner, and it would have been too expensive to investigate both sightings in full — so the Smith E-Fits were not publicised. It was also considered necessary to threaten legal action against the authors.

“[The report] was hypercritical of the people involved . . . It just wouldn’t be conducive to the investigation to have that report publicly declared because . . . the newspapers would have been all over it. And it would have been completely distracting,” said the source.

A statement released by the Find Madeleine fund said that “all information privately gathered during the search for Madeleine has been fully acted upon where necessary” and had been passed to Scotland Yard.

It continued: “Throughout the investigation, the Find Madeleine fund’s sole priority has been, and remains, to find Madeleine and bring her home as swiftly as possible.”

Insight: Heidi Blake and Jonathan Calvert. These two got done for £180,000 libel damages in July - and they still work there?

Police set to interview former handy men who worked at Madeleine holiday club

POLICE probing Madeleine McCann’s disappearance want to interview two odd-job men who worked at the Algarve holiday club where she ­vanished.

The pair had worked inside the McCann family’s apartment two days before she was snatched. They later told police a gang of gypsies were responsible for burglaries in the area.

The Portuguese men are just two of 41 on a Scotland Yard list of “people of interest”. They were employed at the Ocean Club in Praia da Luz.

A separate case review by Portuguese police has also come to the conclusion that resort employees could hold the key to Madeleine’s disappearance in May 2007.

Both forces have run exhaustive background checks on a number of people questioned during the original inquiry. But according to Portuguese public prosecutors the investigations turned up “very little”.

More than 130 employees were quizzed by detectives led by former police chief Goncalo Amaral in the original inquiry .

They included the two maintenance workers who fixed a window blind in the McCanns’ holiday apartment two days before the three-year-old went missing.

Luis Ferro and Mario Moreira were ordered to flat 5A to mend a broken blind in parents Kate and Gerry McCann’s bedroom around 10am on May 1, 2007.

During an interview four days after Madeleine vanished Mr Ferro blamed gypsies for a spate of thefts in the area but offered no information on how the youngster disappeared. The handyman told officers he saw Roma stealing firewood from one of the resort’s warehouses about four months before the girl’s disappearance.

Mr Moreira, who had been working at the Ocean Club for 20 years when he was interviewed, said he had not noticed anything strange in the days leading up to Madeleine’s disappearance and was at home at the time. Police involved in the initial probe reported at the time: “Nothing relevant or useful for the ongoing investigation came out of the interviews.

“Nothing was obtained from them that permitted us to follow any new line of investigation.”

Most of the staff working at the Ocean Club when Madeleine disappeared have now moved on. And there is no suggestion the two maintenance workers are in any way connected to Madeleine’s disappearance. The case was reopened earlier last week by ­Portugal’s attorney-general after police in the country unearthed fresh leads. A source close to the case said: “The original inquiry had holes in it. New material relating to what happened before and after Madeleine’s disappearance has been unearthed.

“Connecting that with information in the existing case files has led to more than reasonable suspicions about what happened to Madeleine that night.”

J B Littlemore ‏@JBLittlemore 49s
@rebeccasherl @h20igo NSY CANNOT drive PJ into re-opening case. End of. #Mccann It will be PJ's own work presented to AG that will -re-open.

victoriaisangry ‏@snook1111pie 8m
@rebeccasherl @JBLittlemore @h20igo It's not reopened yet. PJ are following protocol by working through rogatory letters from SY

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2487987/Madeleine-McCanns-parents-suspects-Portuguese-detectives-didnt-abandon-case.html

Police chief blamed Kate and Gerry McCann for Madeleine's disappearance 'to ensure Portuguese detectives didn't abandon case'
Goncalo Amaral was said to have been 'against shelving of original probe'
Kate and Gerry McCann are suing Mr Amaral over his claims in 2008 book
He alleged couple faked the abduction to cover up her death in Portugal
McCanns say book turned people against them when they needed help
By GERARD COUZENS
PUBLISHED: 20:24, 5 November 2013 | UPDATED: 20:24, 5 November 2013
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comments
A former Portuguese police chief blamed Madeleine McCann's parents for the three-year-old girl's disappearance to ensure detectives carried on looking for her, a former colleague claimed today.
Antonio Paulo dos Santos told a Lisbon court he believed his friend Goncalo Amaral penned a book pointing the finger at the couple because he was against the shelving of the original investigation.
Kate and Gerry McCann are suing Mr Amaral over his claims in his July 2008 book The Truth of the Lie that they faked their daughter's abduction to cover up her death in their holiday apartment.

His book was released three days after the Portuguese police probe into the girl’s disappearance was archived and the McCanns were told their status as official suspects or arguidos was being lifted.
Defence witness Mr dos Santos, who worked with Mr Amaral in the early Nineties and remains in close contact with him, spoke at the hearing this afternoon.
He said: ‘Everything that's in the book appears to be in the case files. It's not fictional. They are the conclusions of a factual analysis by Goncalo Amaral as the head of the police investigation.

‘I think the main reason he wrote the book was so that the case would continue to be investigated. When he published the book I presume he didn't agree with its archiving.’
Today's libel trial hearing was the first since Portuguese authorities announced last month they were reopening their probe into Madeleine's disappearance more than five years after it was shelved.
The morning court session started with a disappointment for the defence when it emerged a key witness was on honeymoon and his evidence had to be rescheduled for a later date.

Criminologist and university professor Paulo Sargento was expected to support Mr Amaral and say he did not believe Madeleine had been abducted from her Algarve holiday apartment.
In October 2007 he created a 3D reconstruction of the night on May 3, 2007 when Madeleine disappeared - and concluded any abductor would only have had eight minutes in which to strike.

He later came up with a computer edit based on witness statements of a long-haired bearded man which the McCanns' spokesman Clarence Mitchell insisted at the time could cause confusion.
Mario Sena Lopes, editor of Guerra & Paz which published Mr Amaral's controversial book, admitted he could not guarantee all copies had been returned after the McCanns successfully injected it.
The couple secured a temporary injunction in September 2008 before a court upheld the ban in February 2010 after a challenge from Mr Amaral. The injunction was lifted again in March 2011.
Mr Lopes, who is still Mr Amaral's literary agent, told the hearing: ‘There are always booksellers who do not respect the orders of the distributors.’
He also admitted knowing the book had been circulated in Brazil but insisted Guerra & Paz had nothing to do with it.
Luis Vale Frois, former managing director of a firm which distributed a DVD of a documentary based on Mr Amaral's book, said it was inevitable pirate copies would find their way onto the Internet.

He told the hearing: ‘If this week you release a series on TV, next week it's already on the internet with Portuguese subtitles.’

Mr Amaral, removed as head of the Madeleine McCann probe in October 2007 after criticising the British police, attended court for the trial as he has done every day since its start in September.

He has been critical of a new British police appeal about the six-and-a-half year-old mystery, branding it a ‘PR campaign of intoxication and misinformation.’
But he declined to comment today on the reopened Portuguese police investigation into Madeleine's disappearance.
Mr Amaral's lawyer Vitor dos Santos insisted outside court: ‘We are not going to make any comment about the criminal investigation. This is a civil case and when it's over my client will be free to speak. No lawyer should make any statements about people being absolved or not being absolved from an investigation.
'This is not the time to be saying anything about it because it makes no sense to do so.’
The McCanns claim Mr Amaral's book turned Portuguese people against them when they most needed their help in finding their daughter.
The ex-police chief is denying defamation and insists everything in the book was contained in police files. Former police colleagues have given evidence backing his argument.
The McCanns, of Rothley, Leicestershire, have applied to take the witness stand as well as Mr Amaral.
Judge Maria Emilia Melo e Castro is expected to rule on their application at the end of the month. The case, scheduled to finish in December, continues.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2487987/Madeleine-McCanns-parents-suspects-Portuguese-detectives-didnt-abandon-case.html#ixzz2jo3p1j2D
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From The Times

For haters of the poor McCanns it’s open season
Janice Turner

What a hard week for Kate and Gerry McCann. Every fragment of hope from a new Scotland Yard lead comes with regret: if only six years ago Portuguese police had done their job. These new e-fit figures seen loitering in stairwells or carrying a sleeping child towards the sea are so shadowy and long-scattered that it is like searching for people who appeared in a dream.
And the McCanns know that the price of another public appeal is refuelling the anger of those who hate them. No tabloid newspaper, however bile-spewing or intrusive, has ever published such vile, defamatory and cruel words as those written about the McCanns by ordinary British citizens.
Even the Daily Express, house journal of the Madeleine trolls, did not photoshop her parents’ heads on to the Moors murderers Myra Hindley and Ian Brady as someone did on Twitter this week. I regularly receive updates from strange organisations — if that is the right term for anonymous e-mail accounts writing mainly in block capitals — purporting to expose the “truth” about the McCanns’ lies.
Online is a bizarre netherworld of people who, against all evidence, refuse to believe Madeleine was not killed by her parents. Well, they seem “cold”, a bit creepy, look at them loving being on TV.
Madder than Diana conspiracists, more visceral than 9/11 deniers, the McCann trolls exude the ancient gut fury of lynchings and witch trials. For some, Madeleine allows them to vent class rage: “a poor mum who left her babies to go down the boozer wouldn’t get any sympathy”. For others, particularly mothers, the case permits a heady, puffed-up righteousness: “I’d never neglect my kids like that.”
Even if Madeleine was found alive, some would insist she was an imposter, that DNA tests were further lies. McCann trolls wouldn’t let mere truth spoil the thrill of a good hate.

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