madeleine mccann, the sightings.

madeleine mccann, the sightings.

the uk tabloids had found an exact number, their source unknown, but it was over 8500 different sightings of madeleine mccann, from all over the world, and on places that could not be reached on the same day both. by distance that would be impossible.

not all sightings got much attention, quite a lot are in the pj files. most seem to be outside portugal, so they could hardly been seen as the responsibility to look into them by the portuguese police, even if the wanted they would find some problems that comes with the territory. all that could happen outside portugal would be up to the local police of that one.

it is often very hard to find information about how sightings been handled, only a fraction made it into the british tabloids, and some made it to local news around an area, but most of that is hardly indexed by search engines.

i myself never had to rely on only local or national dutch news. my days started very early and during my first coffee of the day i was used to look through multiple text tv, dutch, german mostly zdf, uk, bbc and belgium vrt. in about 15 minutes you could get a nice round up of what was going on in the world and what the weather could do.

i also left on may 5 for my holidays. si it is hard to know when the story broke in the netherlands, but i just keep our papers delivered, always nice to have a few weeks to read through them. one of our papers at that time was het parool, an amsterdam based newspaper, but a lot of covering of the rest of the world. i got back 2 or 3 june, but there been quite a lot of articles about the case in het parool. much more as i got during the trip in the french and spanish national papers i bought daily.

i could buy at times a dutch paper in france, some days old and usually the telegraaf, a dutch equivalent of the daily mail.

also it did not take that long for the news the mccanns had lived a year in amsterdam. a popular news forum called fok had a topic going from may 8, 2007 on. news about an abduction and even more a young child is something people want to read about.

so we can look into 2 people who think they have seen madeleine in amsterdam, one of them twice. both did seek contact to the dutch police. the first was anna stam, a woman working in a shop for selling party stiff, masks, costumes, clown things, magician things. this sighting is milked greatly by mitchell and the uk news outlets a year later after the pj files became public. usually with a spelling mistake in her name; ana stam.

the pages are not translated and a lot is in dutch. pages 55 to 60 and portuguese 61 to 66.

https://mccannpjfiles.co.uk/ap/A1_5/apenso5_vol_1_Page55.jpg
https://mccannpjfiles.co.uk/ap/A1_5/apenso5_vol_1_Page56.jpg
https://mccannpjfiles.co.uk/ap/A1_5/apenso5_vol_1_Page57.jpg
https://mccannpjfiles.co.uk/ap/A1_5/apenso5_vol_1_Page58.jpg
https://mccannpjfiles.co.uk/ap/A1_5/apenso5_vol_1_Page59.jpg
https://mccannpjfiles.co.uk/ap/A1_5/apenso5_vol_1_Page60.jpg
https://mccannpjfiles.co.uk/ap/A1_5/apenso5_vol_1_Page61.jpg
https://mccannpjfiles.co.uk/ap/A1_5/apenso5_vol_1_Page62.jpg
https://mccannpjfiles.co.uk/ap/A1_5/apenso5_vol_1_Page63.jpg
https://mccannpjfiles.co.uk/ap/A1_5/apenso5_vol_1_Page64.jpg
https://mccannpjfiles.co.uk/ap/A1_5/apenso5_vol_1_Page65.jpg
https://mccannpjfiles.co.uk/ap/A1_5/apenso5_vol_1_Page66.jpg

—--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
these pages are part of this file folder; https://mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/APENSOS_VOLUME_1_5.htm

the date on the fax tells the pj only got this seething information on june 15, 2007.

the statement itself was made on 13 june, 2007 in amsterdam.

even when clarence mitchell presented this sighting as an important one, it was used to put out shaming on the pj after the files became public, and not was told about to team mccann.
it still is out there from all the uk tabloids the lady who saw madeleine in amsterdam, but did she.

the first problem, is there is not even a date put out on this meeting maddie, it was she is sure after queens day, what when we still had our queen beatrix on april 30, each year of her reign. but it was about a month earlier. she works from wednesday to saturday, and it was warm weather.

what is a bit of a problem, because may that year was on the 6th the ending of a longer dry spell in the netherlands. the nearest collection of information is schiphol, only the days she worked can count.

https://weerstatistieken.nl/schiphol/2007/mei


so that would be 2 - 5 may 2007, 9 - 12 may 2007, 16 - 19 may 2007, 23 - 26 may 2007 and 30 may - 2 june 2007, 6 - 9 june 2007. all possible dates before she gave a statement.

it is not common to say it was warm if the temperature in the afternoon keeps under 20 degrees celsius. cities can be a bit warmer, the only days it was 20 degrees or higher were may 4, may 18, may 23,24 and 25. may 30, june 1,2,6,7,8 and 9.
only june 7 and 8 would be called hot with 26.0 and 29.2 degrees celsius.

so that can not help- at all for finding a date this supposedly took place.

the next clou is, the disappearance of the girl had not been in the news she thinks.

the first topic on fok.nl starts on may 8, 2007.

the message contains a copy of the news line up on this forum. of a source hln, dated may 6 2007. hln is a belgium newsoutlet.
it is a source in dutch language;
Brits meisje (3) uit hotelkamer ontvoerd
Gepost door Moniek (moniek2006) - Bron: HLN
Gepubliceerd: zondag 6 mei 2007 @ 15:27
De Portugese politie is met man en macht op zoek naar een ontvoerde peuter. De driejarige Madeleine McCann werd uit haar hotelkamer ontvoerd waar ze lag te slapen met haar twee broertjes van twee jaar oud in de Portugese stad Praia da Luz. Inmiddels zijn al meer dan 30.000 tips bij de politie binnengekomen.

De hele omgeving rond de Portugese badplaats is inmiddels uitgekamd. De speurders beschikken over een robotfoto -een compositiefoto, gemaakt met de computer- van de ontvoerder. Om Madeleine niet in gevaar te brengen wordt die niet verspreid. Toen het meisje werd ontvoerd waren de ouders aan het eten in een hotel.

translation by deepl;

British girl (3) abducted from hotel room
Posted by Moniek (moniek2006) - Source: HLN
Published: Sunday, May 6, 2007 @ 15:27
Portuguese police are scrambling to find a kidnapped toddler. Three-year-old Madeleine McCann was abducted from her hotel room where she was sleeping with her two two-year-old brothers in the Portuguese town of Praia da Luz. More than 30,000 tips have since been received by the police.

The entire area around the Portuguese resort has now been combed. The investigators have a robotic photo -a composite photo, taken by computer- of the kidnapper. To avoid endangering Madeleine, it is not being circulated. When the girl was kidnapped, the parents were having dinner at a hotel.

—---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

so not being in the news pretty early is hard to understand. even when we would not look further in her statement, doubt is rising.

maybe one day i find the time to translate it in full. but some bits taken will most likely do for now.

a man and a woman entered the shop , most likely between 13.00 and 14.00 hours, they had a boy and a girl with them.

the male spoke portuguese, the woman spoke english with a french accent to anna, the boy between 5 and 7 years of age spoke french with the woman and the girl.
the girl was between 7 and 9 years of age , and spoke also french to the woman and boy.

anna was at the back of the shop near the balloons when a younger girl spoke to her,age3 to 4 years, dark brown hair, shoulder length or just over that. her eyes were dark at glance, but most likely not dark brown, but green brown.

the young girl stepped infront of anna and asked in english; do you know where my mummy is. anna pointed to the woman, and the girl must have answered; she is not my mummy.
she is a stranger. she took me from my mummy.
the girl spoke english without an accent.
anna asked her name and she understood it as; my name is maggy.
when anna repeated the name the girl said; no my name is maddy.
anna asked when the girl has seen her mum last the girl answered; they took me from my holliday.

the words of the little girl are given in english in the statement.

anna said she asked where she was on holiday, and if she was camping or in a hotel, but the girl did not answer to that.

so anna decided to ask if she wanted a balloon, but she rejected.

the woman called the little girl, not as maddy but a longer name.it could have been madeleine, but ana no longer remembered that.

they bought quite a lot together for 237, the woman told they had a small circus in france. thewoman wanted to pay with a credit card, but the store did not accept that.
the woman came back the next morning to pay in cash, between 9.00 and 10.00 hours, she came alone.

with that bit of information it could not have happened on a saturday,this shop always was closed on sundays except during halloween i remember myself. and anna only worked wen- sat. the earliest warm day was friday 18 may 2007.
may 4 was also warmer with 21.2 degrees but not likely to end up in amsterdam with a reasonable calm and collected child with a hair dye in amsterdam.

her co-worker wilfred was behind the till too when they could not pay by credit card. but could remember the transaction that not could be made, but nothing about a young girl.

the question of the police officers why only now come in to tell about this was.
it took her a while before she noticed the news about the girl, and before she made a connection to that. she first spoke about it with her other co-workers, i remember from another source this was a male and a female and they had no memory of anything.

she would try to ask if by the bill it could be found out the correct date, and she had asked her boss about the safety footage, but that took only 1 week and would be overwritten the next week automatically.

all in all it is a strange story, no one else have noticed this girl. without a date, more than writing it down is simply impossible. there is no longer a register of tourists staying in amsterdam, and there is a lot of other accommodation available within an hours drive.
it could be weeks ago.

there is not really a fitting description of the girl that it must have been madeleine.
that there is day in between sending it per fax to portugal, was maybe because they hoped to get a date after this statement.

in later media content anna said there were also photo fits made, but that must have been later, i have not found them in the published files. the known drawings anna said been much better, still both must be made under her guidance of course.

still even it got over a year later almost an uproar in the uk media, information to work from is hardly present ion her statement.

there was another dutch woman, an elderly lady hanna wiechmann, that not only saw madeleine once but twice, she followed a woman with a girl in tow, up to the area of the rijksmuseum in amsterdam, called the police, and the police checked that out and nothing happened. the woman was on holiday and was babysitting the girl that day. i never found official paperwork of it, but usually it is pretty easy to check a person out, the police did act on it, and let them go again.

hannie was not agreeable with the way the dutch police handled it, so called the uk police too, but heard nothing back.

the daily mail told the anna story a bit different;

Earlier this week it was revealed that Amsterdam shop worker Anna Stam told police within days of Madeleine's disappearance in May last year that she thought she had seen her.

big chance the hanny words are simply copied from the newspaper metro. and hustling both stories in the same bowl does not make it more clear.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1041818/Email-warning-Madeleine-stolen-Belgian-paedophile-ring-took-weeks-reach-Portuguese-police.html

and it can be done worse, it was the mirror who paid for anna stam to come to the uk and to make some drawings of the couple she had seen.

but now there is a date when anna saw her maddy sighting, to be may 6, 2007, only that was on a sunday, and anna never worked on sunday, most likely because this shop simply is closed on sunday, with rare exceptions during halloween. with 16,9 degrees celsius never would be called a warm day by dutch people.

anna often ends up in the uk media as ana stam.

"But now I have a good feeling about this. This is the first time something will be done with the information I gave over a year ago."
Anna, 41, spoke out after arriving in London to meet a police artist and representatives of the McCanns.
Pledging to instruct investigators to make Anna's dramatic sighting a priority, family spokesman Clarence Mitchell said: "I'm grateful to the Mirror for bringing her to us.
"Her evidence could be very significant. Our investigators will interview her in the next few days."
Anna saw the couple with the Madeleine lookalike in her party shop in Amsterdam on May 6 last year
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/madeleine-mccann-dossier-did-this-dutch-couple-325131

most articles published at the time in 2008, when the pj files were made available to the media, are still available on gerrymccannblogs, as part of the large collection of nigel;

https://www.gerrymccannsblogs.co.uk/Nigel/id149.htm

by the way not all dutch shop workers are in the habit, when meeting a young child that supposedly started an conversation that could hint at being abducted, of just asking if the want a nice balloon.
the chance is much larger to meet a dutch citizen that follows you and call the police, but later regrets to not kidnap the child themselves when met again, but even they are luckily pretty rare.
the majority will do simply the same as the nationals of all other countries not mingle in others business.

i did found some old comments by dutch people about the news in august 2008, none really took this story as very believable.
one was as helpful to remember the complete media hell broke loose on may 8, 2007 in the netherlands.

with the information from the original statement, even given in dutch, it works great to see how even simple facts can become quite distorted in the follow up in the media. most not even take the time to start from the original source, but simple nick what they can from other sources. and so bad was google translate at that time not even. okay the translation of 'buitenlander' into alien was a bit over optimistic, i did expect more a thing like stranger of person from abroad. only with numbers it had little problems, so most must still have been just reporters handywork and or bad editing.

translation from dutch via deepl.com into english of the statement of anna s. i had to type over the text itself from the pj files pages and get rid of some spelling mistakes in the original dutch text. names and a phone number are by initials only and left out.

the salutation is skipped, but the full document can be found at;

https://mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/APENSOS_VOLUME_1_5.htm

page 55 to 60. original dvd section.

—---------------------------
after we informed the witness what we wished to hear her about, she stated as follows;

'i work in a party goods shop at middenweg 40 in amsterdam (phone; ...). i work there from wednesday to saturday, weekly.
about a month ago, it must have been after Queen's Day, i was in the shop. i don't remember which day it was. i was in the shop together with my colleagues jg and w. i don't know w's surname. it was between 13.00 and 14.00, which is also approximate.
i think it was warm weather. what i also remember is that the disappearance of the girl mccann had not yet been in the news.

i then noticed a man and a woman entering the shop. the man and the woman were in the company of two children. a boy and a girl. i don't know if there were other customers in the shop at that time. it could well have been possible. in any case, i can describe these people as follows.

the man was;
was between 35 and 40 years old.
the man was approximately between 1.70 m and 1.75 m tall.
had a normal to sturdy build.
had dark brown short hair. unknown what kind of hairstyle.
possibly he was wearing a cap.
he had a flaxen moustache. was shaved though.
the man had dark eyes and dark eyebrows.
i think the man was wearing cream-coloured clothing. i don't remember this for sure. i think it was light clothing.
there was nothing else striking about the man.

page 1.

—--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

the man did not appear sympathetic. was not in party mood.
that was noticeable.

i think the man spoke portuguese or brazilian. i know people of brazilian descent and i thought his language had similarities with the language of those people.

the woman was;
was between 35 and 40 years old.
the woman was approximately between 1.62 and 1.66 metres tall. she was the same height as me. maybe slightly taller. i am 1.62 metres tall.
had a narrow build. was a bit skinny.
had blonde hair. say golden blonde. the hair was straight and mid-length to the shoulders. she wore fringes.
she had a narrow face.
i thought she was wearing a dress but i really don't remember this for sure.
no other distinguishing features.
she was more talkative than the man. she also occasionally asked me things and also occasionally told me things.
she spoke english to me. with a french accent, i think.

the little boy was;
between 5 and 7 years old.
had dark blond hair. in the model as willem alexander used to wear it. flowerpot model.
i don't know anything about his stature. i think just average.
the boy had a bit of a round face.
the boy spoke french with the woman and the girl.
i don't know anything more about the clothes.

the girl was;
between 7 and 9 years old.
had golden blonde hair. hair down to her shoulders and with fringes. had straight hair like her mother.
the girl also spoke French with her mother and with the little boy.
i don't remember anything about clothing either.

the children were in an exuberant mood. they also got everything they wanted in the shop. i therefore didn't notice another girl.

i was standing at the back of the shop near the balloons and a little girl joined me. i can describe this girl as follows;

she was between 3 and 4 years old.
she had dark brown straight hair with fringes. the hair came down to her shoulders or possibly a bit longer.
she had a white face and what stood out was that she had big eyes.
she had a dark eye look but i don't think she had dark brown eyes. i think it was something like green/brown.
i don't remember what clothes she was wearing. i think she was wearing light clothes.
i don't remember any other details about the girl. what i did notice was that she showed little to no emotion in her little face.

sheet 2.
—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

so the girl came to stand in front of me and asked me in english; do you know where my mummy is?

i then said to the girl that her mother was further down the shop. the girl replied; she is not my mummy.

I then asked who the woman was and the girl said; she is a stranger. she took me from my mummy.

I noticed that the girl spoke very good English. without an accent actually.

i then asked what her name was and she then said; my name is maggy. at least that's what i thought she said. when i repeated the name she said; no my name is maddy.
i remember this because this is quite an unusual name you don't hear much.

i then asked her where she had last seen her mother and she said;
they took me from my holliday.

I asked where the holiday was and the girl couldn't say. i asked her if she was at a campsite or a hotel, but she couldn't say. i told her i liked her and asked her if she wanted a balloon. she didn't want one.

i thought it was all a bit strange and then i heard the woman calling the girl to her. she didn't call her by the name maddy but by a longer name. it's possible she said madeleine but i really don't remember. the girl then walked towards the woman. the girl then also stayed with the man and the woman.

the man and the woman had picked out 237 euros worth of articles. for example, a big afro wig with all kinds of colours. it was an adult wig. they asked if we had any more of those wigs, but this was the last one. they wanted all kinds of fancy dress stuff. clown clothes, but also masks. they were a bit horror-like masks. But also those bloody fake fingers. later I thought it was strange because the woman told me that they had a circus in france and I thought those horror items were a bit scary for a circus. the woman later took all that stuff with her in plastic bags from our shop. the bags said ‘dam's feest en theaterartikel middenweg 40-42 te amsterdam’.

the woman wanted to pay with a credit card but i said we don't accept those. eventually they left without the stuff. the woman came back the next day. she was alone at the time. it was between 09.00 and 10.00. the woman then paid in cash and took the stuff.

i said earlier that the woman was more talkative than the man and also gave unsolicited information.

sheet 3.
—---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

for example, what she said was that so they had a small circus in france and that they were leaving the next day.
so she said this on the day they were sorting out the stuff.
When she wanted to pay, I told her that there were banks nearby and that she could get money there. apparently, this didn't work out because she came back the next day. i asked her if she had to walk far, but she said that they had a station wagon. i didn't see this car, by the way. i also didn't see which way they walked or she walked when they left.

when they wanted to pay by credit card, i think i had the credit card in my hands. i saw that it had a maestro sign on it. i don't remember the colour. i said that we don't accept that. the man said mastercard or goldcard.
my colleague w. was also behind the till at the time. he remembers it. maybe he remembers what kind of card they had. i also discussed this incident with him later. he remembered it but didn't remember anything about the little girl.

you ask whether I would still be able to recognise these people if I saw them again. yes, I think so.

You ask me whether it is possible to find out from the account when the incident took place. I think it is possible. I will also look into this.

you ask me why I didn't come to the police with this story earlier. first, it took some time for it to become public and for me to see the combination between this incident and the disappearance of the girl in portugal. i then discussed the incident with my colleagues to see if they could still remember it, and then i discussed it with my boss pvz and he looked to see if we could find the surveillance footage of the shop on which the incident was registered. it took some time, but in the end it turned out that the computer only records for a week and then rewinds the footage. so the footage is gone. that's why it all took a bit longer.

you ask me when i looked at the photo of madeleine mccann on the internet with my colleague. i think it was about 3 weeks ago. i looked at the photo with my colleagues. only j had seen the girl too. we thought she did resemble the girl only the hair colour didn't match.

the next day when the woman came to checkout, i was in the shop with d. i don't know her surname. i haven't worked in the shop for very long. so she also saw the woman.'

sheet 4.
—---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

every time you read again through bits of the pj files, you end up with interested bit, more the original pj files copies files.

https://mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/ORIGINAL_FILES.htm

there seems from a copy of a police instruction form that under operation task there must have be done a sort of house to house after the facts under the people who been on holiday that week of madeleine her disappearance, of after that.

https://mccannpjfiles.co.uk/ap/A1_5/apenso5_vol_1_Page74.jpg

but there seems no copies send to portugal to be worked from there, i can at least nothing remember to have seen that relates to the questions on this instruction form.

the questions come with the instructions they are the bare minimum. it is undated.
strange no second list to follow was given more in relation to madeleine and family.

the usual problem can be that this become uk documents and by that are not to publish under authorisation of the pj in portugal. still it could have massive amounts of smaller details about that week itself.

Perhaps this is all that's needed to spell out the Anna Stam alleged sighting, from a source close to you.  The initial story as published by one of the favoured British tabloids for all things McCann related, the Daily Mirror..





But whatever you do, don't go the the police - at least not the Portuguese police.

Clarence Mitchell was never far away from the action was he.  It was said he was seconded to Portugal by the British government as a point of liaison between the parents McCann and the press and media - 'to control what comes out in the media', I believe was the wording used at some stage to explain his function working for the British government.

Well he certainly did that alright, he gave it 100%.  It helps to be an egotist when it comes down to public relations, those in control of image presentation think themselves bigger than the names they're appointed to represent - look no further than Robert Maxwell, who curiously also features in the many faceted mystery of Madeleine McCann's disappearance.  Not directly of course, nonetheless floating about on the perimeters would be more appropriate to say.

Clarence Mirchell has always appeared to me as yet another one of those with little to offer but a big mouth!  These sort of people can lie through their teeth [sic] without a care in the world - it's as well some believe what they say, it takes all sorts.

"He lies with as many teeth as he has in his mouth"

The head of the Portuguese police federation, Carlos Anjos

Granted many of the stories reported conflicted more than a bit but I guess things get a bit out of control when you're in control.  It certainly kept the world guessing so 10/10 for ingenuity.

Still, why stand in the way of a good story.

Portuguese police accuse McCanns' spokesman Clarence Mitchell of 'lying through his teeth'

12 April 2012

Madeleine: Police say they are taking 'significant' steps to find her

The head of the Portuguese police federation, Carlos Anjos, accused Clarence Mitchell of engineering a fight with officers to sabotage a reconstruction of the disappearance.

Police statements made by Kate and Gerry McCann were leaked to the media last week as they travelled to Brussels to promote a campaign for a child alert system.

The statements revealed Maddie was left crying the night before she vanished on May 3.

At the time, Mr Mitchell accused police of masterminding the leak to overshadow the visit.

But Mr Anjos told the respected Portuguese newspaper Jornal de Noticias: 'He is a liar and a Machiavellian.

"Mr Mitchell wants to discredit the Policia Judiciaria and invent excuses so the McCanns do not come to Portugal to participate in the reconstruction of the night she disappeared.

"He lies with as many teeth as he has in his mouth. Finally we know what side truth is on."

Spokesman: Clarence Mitchell makes a statement on behalf of Kate and Gerry McCann last year

A second Portuguese newspaper, Diario de Noticias, claimed police believed Mr Mitchell had leaked the police statements to Spanish television journalist Nacho Abad.

Mr Mitchell said yesterday: "It is categorically untrue and utterly ridiculous to suggest that I in any way leaked documents to embarrass Kate and Gerry.

"Why on earth would I? I will not stoop to answer Mr Anjos's wild allegations. All we have ever wanted is for someone to find Madeleine, without this kind of distraction."

He said the McCanns, from Rothley, Leicestershire, were considering the request to take part in a police reconstruction.

Hunt for Maddie: Portuguese police search the area around Priai da Luz where Madeleine disappeaered. Tensions between the police and the McCann family have grown since Kate and Gerry became formal suspects in the case

It is not the first time that Mr Anjos has caused controversy in the 11-month investigation.

He said that police have "bigger problems" than finding Madeleine, accused her parents of using "diversionary tactics" and hindering the investigation, and said Mr McCann, 39, was "indescribably negligent".

Meanwhile the journalist, Mr Abad, said the statements did not come from Mr Mitchell or the McCanns. He refused to reveal his source, however.

https://www.standard.co.uk/hp/front/portuguese-police-accuse-mccanns-spokesman-clarence-mitchell-of-lying-through-his-teeth-6684961.html

The British press and media, including social media, appear to know more about the case of Madeleine McCann's disappearance than the official police investigation.

i was started today to simply look again through all listed sightings in the pj files, but you can not see if something was truly followed up or not, many pages are not published, many others are only given with a attachement in an email but that itself is usually not printed in the files.

witnesses like this anna, or ana for the uk branch, are simply horrible, there is absolutely nothing in her statement that can bring the welcome thought in your mind that you can look into something. something simple as did speak french, does not equal to being french, small circus in france does not equal being a french national, and i travelled quite a lot through france and there are actually loads of smal circuses or circus acts during the fair every french town and even villages of over 2 people organise each year. certainly in 2007.

and when you get yourself together after over a month!!! and it happened in a large and busy city like amsterdam, who in its right mind thinks the police can actually still do something wit it? for short city trips may and june are very busy. so tourists everywhere. may means there is also the may holidays so no school for a week, but not all parts have it exactly the same.

finding a tourist in amsterdam is easy, finding the right one based on this is impossible.

and by giving it so much attention, they do not have to talk about all other sightings world wide, brazil, india, all over spain, france, belgium, swiss, malta, greece, germany, denmark, finland,uk and egypt, and i am only at volume 6.

it is remarkable how many work they all put in, but that are all sightings with substance you can actually check on, car registration, plain seats, hotels.

the drawings are not very unique too. even the combination of the two is not. saying you have a photografic memory, what follows not from the statement and saying another year later the photofits been bad, well she gave the hints.

so yes, she was not praised at all by the dutch, and for the uk and team mccann with their mitchell is was just some pr.

and it did help the copy of the statement only was in the original dutch and a translation into portuguese, so no one would look for it or would take the time to translate it, before writing a piece to sell a paper.

it is even a shame only this was used from the pj files, if the media used the given translations that started out the next year, or just did some on their own, they had not time after time have to use a covered bit from it. but as long as click bait sells way better over truth it can't be helped much i am afraid.

in itself how much i dislike the work guys like mitchell do, he is very good in it. normally in a case like this there is no reason to pay one for doing this stuff. it just became another sideshow in itself. and maybe i miss spelled sideshow a bit.

we can solve that question by reusing some of the words of kate mccann; if the british media and press thinks that.

we are lucky to have the pj files and for the english media most is still saved in the nigel collection on gerrymccannblogs. finding the same from other language areas is much harder. it is over here often much too old for still on the website and still much too fresh for the archives. it is still somewhere, at least the printed stuff. but many video material can hard to get access too.

the last two days, i saw on facebook something i find disturbing, if you use their search facility to look for new posts or news madeleine mccann is now named as public figure.

The internet has gone bonkers in the last couple of weeks, during the transition period from old to new - that's to say from an acceptable level of intelligence to Artificial Intelligence.

So appropriately named.

Perhaps it will prove it's worth in time but as it stands most unlikely.  In days of yore you could find anything Madeleine McCann related with comparative ease but now it's little or nothing.  No surprising now referred to as a public figure - it's AI terminology don't you know, it can't even speak English!

It's making life very difficult and not at all pleasant, one is forced to resort to technology which takes the fun of life away.  How can you live happily and peacefully when nailed to a bit of plastic with a mind of it's own?

Such a pity that time has taken it's toll, the many most useful platforms dedicated to the name Madeleine McCann have long since gone and with it goes all that useful information documented by such dedicated serious strangers.  Okay, it's still possible to find specific information if you look hard enough but it's time consuming and tedious for anyone with the attention span of an ailing fidgety flea.

Understandable of course, people have lives to live and there is a limit to the amount of times you can go over the same old time worn theory and opinion.  That's where it's all gone belly-up, rather than sticking with the PJ files and associated commentary, the majority favour nonsense and speculation and garden fence gossip over and above a realistic approach.

another aspect that played a large role was the different languages around. so if you did search for something in the media google always serves you well with the english productions, it even got much worse when i no longer could make use of google.com, but had to use google.nl with google.com you got much more variety in languages. with the .nl you can mark some choices, and i make use that, but still even if you put a check to german and french, you would not get anything from there. you have to use wording with a name that is very german or very french and still half will be in english.

and in this case people of all kind of nationalities are present. and the english media world have a strict policy in this case to only see one single line, even there is never surfaced any evidence in that one.

and most in dutch, what already can be fit under the term historic news, was covered and stored on at least one website and hyves a kind of prelude to facebook. but when both just pulled the plug it also ended the wild idea we all been lured into, that all that is out on the internet will be there forever, maybe that can be, but not in a way we can still make use of it.
often you have still thinks in your memory, but being able to check it again works much better as asking around in other also by memory sources.

but the majority of sighting had never got much attention outside the investigation, if you look through the ones in the published files for most there is an indication of work done, it seems an uk police officer did most of the contact through soca and interpol. and there are many sightings that are looked into in all the countries they were done. most done by indivuals are also made known to the portuguese investigation. only the results of other uk nationals that been around in praia da luz could be great to look through. it could fill in a lot of background during the first weeks.

ai is only crawling trough second or lower quality stuff, most good stuff is excluded to make use of, so it is a lot easier to use your own mind. even when the human mind is all but perfect, it still is more versatile, and more stubborn to get to the sources needed.

i think i know why i have still no mingling ai in my search engines, me and my pc are to old to being seen fit to play with it. so i think i have to look at the other device. i still hate windows 10. after every major update you have to find all the stuff that hides somewhere in the dark , but you not ask for and do not want. so if this one is really outdated i think i opt for open source and there are other search engines too. i am much to stubborn for ai. i just have too many years invested in my own mind to give up that easily.

certainly with these kind of cases, it is always nice to look at all different perspectives, and a pre-selection would go against that too much.

Language has always been a bone of contention for me, people don't seem to realise how difficult it is to accurately translate from one language to another. They read something and get completely the wrong end of the stick for that very reason - they don't understand. There might be similarities between one language and another but that's where it begins and ends, similarities.

I can give so many examples but won't bore the reader with that at the moment, perhaps dribs and drabs as and when they arise.

All the available translation tools across the internet are certainly very useful for trivia, matters of little or no importance but when it comes down to trying to fathom a police investigation, it's wise to avoid translation issues. Even buying a bag of beans can lead to disasterous results - think about it, you're likely to end up with a sack of woodworm!

That is why accredited translators are available and always used appropriately.

I remember questioning long ago, how a native Englander with little or no knowledge of Portuguese could communicate what was said to be very important information to the Portuguese police when the sender can't speak the language. I was told they used google translate .... I rest my case! It could make the difference between life and death, especially when in the wrong hands.

Having said that, google translate has improved ten fold over the years but it's still got a long way to go towards perfecting the craft - if ever. Judging by the ability of AI as it stands, I wouldn't hold my breath!

for a first witness statement there is hardly an official translator used. they are not cheap and not widely available, and often there is no time to get them in, or you have simply to many witnesses. nowadays you can make use of translators that can do their work by phone contact, still not ideal but sufficient for a first statement.

the murat style people to translate are very common in use, it often was just ask around in families of officers and your own social network. and it not really is a big problem in witness statements, those will have to go through a selection, and as soon as you have the idea they indeed have sound information, what actually is quite rare in most cases, you call the translator in.

life or dead situations can easily be handled nowadays through 112, all other you have to make an appointment or fill out a form online. so witnesses walking in a police station is not even that usual anymore.

the problem with the apps is mostly when you have no idea at all about another language, that means no control at all.
for the dutch police it still is common that officers have at least basic knowledge of multiple languages, german gets rarer and spanish is winning out over french in today's world. english usually is overestimated, but still enough to work it out with the use of an app with it.

suspects is different they have a right to be heard in their native language, sometimes that can result in having not one, but two translators. most immigrants use their own children in stead of an official one.

but even with an official fully accredited and licensed translator it never is ideal. it will become even a future problem, because most cannot live on such work only, and other translations are more and more made through apps.

in this case with mostly english witnesses that had a need to have their words translated, most portuguese police officers would have had a basic understanding of the english language, not well enough for doing the translation on their own, but just enough to know if a common translator was doing well enough. they had quite a lot of education in their bags, and you can hardly do that level of education without basic english. not using it because you do not feel confident enough is not the same as did not understand a word.

i must say, now i am reading through the sightings again, it are usually at best one or two sentences i put through deepl from the portuguese statements, they use a pretty classic format. for me portuguese is even easier as spanish, and this is very different from reading a book. it took me long enough, i only was used to portuguese as language in scientic articles and papers. most from brazil even. that too is always made by a scientific format and order.

i was even quite impressed what deepl made from that dutch statement, because most of it was spoken language, and i had to change only 1 or 2 little things. google translate i no longer use, never did much, i do use the word to word option, that works very well. the apps makes me lazy for german, and the original link gives other the opportunity to make their own effort if they want. text translations are quite boring to handle, mostly because i have not to translate german or english for myself. for french that is still more difficult to jump into thinking in french while reading it. i can follow the french news easily, at least if spoken by guys, i have no clue why.
still it is always nice to read about the same story from different perspectives, for this case that means reading over the borders too.

i do agree if you want to work from things in the pj files in other languages and most originals are of course in portuguese, and use it as information, checking translations given works better. even multiple apps too. up to 2017 i could use a native portuguese coworker of my partner who was also fluent in dutch, so if i wanted to know how a portuguese would understand or would use specific wording or if wording could have also other meanings, that worked great too.

what also did help was that the portuguese public department had their own english translation of their law on their website somewhere, i use the portuguese penal procedure code most, this one;
https://gddc.ministeriopublico.pt/sites/default/files/documentos/pdf/code_of_criminal_procedure_english.pdf

this is the whole bunch;

https://gddc.ministeriopublico.pt/pagina/portuguese-legislation-english

you still miss out on the jurisprudence of course, but the basic law is always nice to have and to start from.

the majority of the sightings are not translated in the translation part of the files. most are not that interested and worked already too without any usable information. where that did not happened it is usually understandable, because there simply is nothing to start from.

Ah yes but the PJ file translations available for scrutiny have been through so many hands it's impossible to totally rely on accuracy.  I have found a number of examples of misleading translations in the files circulating social media from Portuguese to English.  For some it's like a feather in the cap to have the world believe you are bilingual or multilingual, this might be the case but only on conversation level, not fit for official translations.  Word for word translation just doesn't work, so many variations to consider.

My own first hand experience of police and witness liaison tells a completely different story, although admittedly not very recent.  A British embassy or consulate abroad maintains a dossier of accredited interpreters/translators to assist the individual, be it victim, witness or suspect.  Yes you have to pay for the service and it is expensive but essential, for your own well being if no other reason.  I concede matters are a whole lot different now with global digitalization taking life by storm, we are however talking about an incident that happened over 17 years ago, technology has developed considerably since 2007/2008.  I have to say, no one seems to know what they are doing any more - or why they're doing it, talking again from personal experience.

As the majority of consulates have been closed (a bit like British high street banks), they now have one super plush place where you can spend the morning and afternoon supping tea waiting for the appointment booked for you to see flesh and blood - or is it robot?  That is about 700km away - transport etc at your own expense and they don't do telephone or online appointments.  Frankly it's made life a million times more difficult but for what purpose?

Nothing connected with a police investigation but I've recently been told by a British government agency, by e-mail (they say they've written to me 3 times but I haven't received anything) to provide specific details of a matter of personal concern.  Each document requested demanded must be translated into Engllish by an accredited translator, CV must be included, and the original documents and translations certified by a professional of authority - such as a barrister or the Pope!  That is only to get my hands on what is rightfully mine.  Go figure.

Then of course you need to put total trust in the online social media interpreters/translators, total strangers with no way of knowing who nor why nor the degree of accuracy.  Like so many aspects of this case, people instantly believe everything they read without due consideration for background detail nor authenticity.

Any serious police investigation requires due diligence in every aspect, that includes interpretation and translation.

Robert Murat?  I don't know the man, it was said he worked for the police as an interpreter/translator in Norwich, his home town, also for the Portuguese police.  I can't say in what capacity as like most others I don't know his true position.  The little information known about the man from police witness statements etc would indicate his position to be official rather than a casual contact who just happened to be in the locality.

There have been some very bizarre claims as regards Mr Murat's involvement but it's all based on nothing, rumour and stories built on shifting sands - no shortage of that over the years!  Poor bloke, he couldn't sneeze without arousing suspicion in the public domain, I hope he's managed to rebuild his life after being under the watchful eye of the Portuguese Judiciary and a bastion of armchair detectives.  If memory serves me well, one such online opinion had him working for MI5 (or was it MI6?) and was ordered to fly out to Portugal within hours of Madeleine McCann's disappearance in order to .... well, to what exactly but we won't even go there, don't wish to discredit the forum with idle chat - unless there is good reason for so doing!

we had complete book works with available services as we would call it. but there are usually two things that are the spanner in the works, and that is time and money. so it is often just what you can afford in both. so for a first selection, it works very well to just look at your hometurf.

another way is simply give the witness a pen and paper and let then simply write out their information,fax it to a translator and let is check out and translate.

grabbing bits from other sources as the pj files themselves is indeed not the best way to work, just look it up for your self, bring it to next level by translate it yourself. how others fix that is up to them. and they can pick the way that suits them best.

most witnesses that send in their words have done that to sources they had little trouble with being understood. looking through them i get the idea this is already a first selection of many more, it is not usual to see so much together that have at least one checkable bit of information. geographic, addresses or car register numbers at least.

most would never leave the informal stage of the investigation, so when you decide you want a formal statement that is often by appointment and easier to arrange a translator if needed.

there is also a big difference between legal paperwork, and the usually very common spoken language of a witness.

That would all depend on the nature of any one investigation and the jurisdiction, the law might run parallel from one territory to another but day to day working differences will always apply - as would the particular way of working of the senior police officer, the case coordinator.

Of course the preliminary stages of any investigation would involve talking to possible witnesses informally, thus wouldn't go beyond the police notes if of no value - but retained should developments require further notice.  Also it would depend on how the police investigation views a particular witness, it's not unusual first off for a witness to be taken in for questioning and giving a formal statement, rather than the informal approach when undertaking door to door questioning, so to speak.

If, by example, a witness statement from a native Englander was later taken by a representative British police constabulary, in English, that statement will be retained by the constabulary and may or may not be conveyed to the official foreign investigative force, depending on it's relevance.  In short, in the case of missing Madeleine McCann any number of witnesses may have given statements to a British police force which wouldn't be known to the public - unless of course the press and media get hold of it, then it can be considered worthless.

Circumstances differ widely from one territory to another when it comes down to day to day working and the nature of any investigation.

So we, the public, have no idea of the case detail in it's entirety.  Hence any police investigation should be left with the police unless they require public involvement, in which case they will ask for it.

With the case of Madeleine McCann, for 16+ years the amateur detectives have been hard at it, trying to solve the case (unofficially) with scant information from which to work.  The case will never reach a court of law - too much water under the bridge!

As previously said, there is still a tendency to think how matters are today, forgetting MBM disappeared 17+ years ago - things were a whole lot different back in 2007.  However, the necessity of appointing a professional interpreter/translator persists whether funded by the individual (the witness) or the police.  Again circumstances dictate proceedings.