The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann (2019) s01e03 Episode Script
Pact of Silence
1 [loud explosion.]
[Jim.]
My career actually began in the army.
I was in the military police, came out, went into the police in Ireland, rose through the ranks to become the head of Special Branch Counter Terrorism in Belfast [explosion.]
and then moved to England and became Deputy Director General of the National Crime Squad.
I'd been offered the opportunity to build this new Child Exploitation & Online Protection Centre and I, you know, thought, "Well, is that a step backwards? Is that something that is, you know, less significant than the work that I've done?" My own ego was preventing me from taking this step into child protection.
You know, you talk about the road to Damascus.
I was sent to speak at a conference in Cambodia and they took me to a dump called Stung Meanchey.
Trucks came in every five or ten minutes and they dumped rubbish across the place, all sorts of noxious substance.
And some families and very small children rummaged through, uh, that garbage every day.
And in that environment, traveling sex offenders would visit and they would rent those children, they would take them to a hotel, bathe them, abuse them, and then dump them back in the street again.
I met a young child, Traynoi.
The charity that had taken me out there recovered her back to their facility, a tiny little child who was simply being used as a commodity, uh, by people because of the vulnerability that existed all around her.
And she later passed from a from a serious blood disease.
And it was a humbling experience for me.
And as I sat on the plane on the way back, I came across an anonymous piece of poetry and it said I can't actually get this out, usually.
"I spent an hour with Laughter We chatted all the way But I barely remember a single thing From what she had to say I then spent an hour with Sorrow And ne'er a word said she But, O, the things I learned the day That Sorrow walked with me" I thought "It's time to pack away your own ego, to pack away the things you think are important because here is an opportunity to do something whereby you can make a real difference.
" [indistinct children chatter.]
[indistinct radio chatter.]
[Sandra.]
It was strange.
Things didn't add up.
What if the other children had the same attention? Could they be here right now? [train passing by.]
This was a story that was gaining global traction.
[male reporter 1.]
reputation is linked to Madeleine's fate.
They have [female reporter speaking Portuguese.]
[male reporter 2.]
Madeleine's disappearance has [Jim.]
The McCanns had mobilized the media.
It was a discussion, you know, on breakfast TV, breakfast news.
she joins us from the Portuguese resort [Jim.]
It was the discussion across breakfast tables.
that it's every parent's worst nightmare [reporter.]
Celebrities including JK Rowling and Topshop boss Philip Green have contributed to a £2.
5 million reward fund.
-[Jim.]
The Prime Minister wanted to know.
-so that we can get Madeleine back [Jim.]
The Home Secretary and others wanted to know.
Everybody that was anyone wanted to be engaged, briefed, you know, and informed about what was happening.
The pressure, the biggest pressure comes from inside the police, not from the media, Sky News, or something like that.
It comes from inside the police.
[Paulo.]
"Okay, let us solve, let's solve.
What do you need? What do you need? Come on! Come on! Bring me results for me to shine.
" [Gonçalo, in Portuguese.]
We have to report to directors.
Directors have to report in political terms in cases like this to ministers.
There's a lot of people who know what is happening.
Too many people.
So there is inherent pressure.
the efforts of the police authorities [Gonçalo.]
Then there was the other pressure that was the media circus.
[indistinct chatter.]
The authorities, the prosecutor, the PJ, were so, so stressed with the media pressure.
[Patricia.]
They were always there.
They couldn't work.
They have to give press conferences.
[camera shutters clicking.]
So much pressure, so much questions.
[indistinct chatter.]
[in Portuguese.]
We couldn't even go out for coffee because we were surrounded.
[reporter.]
Could we ask you, do you have any suspects in the Madeleine inquiry? No.
So much political, uh, involvement.
Every parent I know will be thinking about Maddie's family, her parents [in Portuguese.]
It was all down to political pressure.
There was political pressure.
[reporter, in Portuguese.]
The English Ambassador arrived in Lagos I have been in touch with the National Chief of Police with Cabinet Ministers here in Portugal, with the Prime Minister's office Police family liaison officers from Leicestershire Police have now arrived to act as a point of liaison between the Portuguese police and UK police forces in case there is any way in which police in the UK can further assist.
[in Portuguese.]
The English police are receiving a briefing [Jim.]
ACPO, the Association of Chief Police Officers, as it was then, the National Police Improvement Agency, and Leicestershire Constabulary and the Metropolitan Police, we were all looking to see what we could do to help.
[Jim.]
From the outset, the feedback that was coming in was that there were difficulties arising.
[in Portuguese.]
The National Director of the Judicial Police says that the case is far from settled.
But he guarantees that there are new components to the investigation.
[woman.]
I think the attitude from the Portuguese police was, "We can deal with this.
We don't really need anybody else's help.
" [woman.]
Of course, if you're the parents of a missing child, your natural reaction is going to be, "Well, why aren't you accepting help from other experts?" [in Portuguese.]
The English media and the English people started to criticise the Portuguese media and the Portuguese police for what they were doing.
[Jim.]
It was almost down to, you know, "Our police are better than your police.
We're better than you at this," and vice versa, so there became this extremely unhealthy, extremely frustrating tit-for-tat.
[Rui, in Portuguese.]
They thought that the behavior of Gonçalo Amaral, a leader in the Judicial Police in the Algarve, was shameful.
But he was a police officer with a bulletproof reputation.
[in Portuguese.]
I was called 1,001 different things.
Incompetent, drunk, fat All that stuff.
Police officers are people, too.
They are human beings just like everyone else.
[in Portuguese.]
The Portuguese police have an aura about them and there is a view that the PJ are one of the best forces in the world.
So all of that added to a sense of resentment.
[in Portuguese.]
We were monitored having lunch, who we were with.
They called us every name under the sun.
Insulting us, labeling us incompetent.
Some of the Portuguese police began using phrases like the Brits, the UK authorities were behaving like a colonial power.
Now, that set the political and policing context out there.
[wind whistling.]
[woman.]
I had followed the case, like an awful lot of people.
I'd actually been to Praia da Luz before.
Funnily enough, as a child.
It's a very odd town, in a way.
There's quite a lot of fairly newly developed areas.
A huge number of stray dogs as well.
It gives it a slightly menacing atmosphere.
Coupled with the joy of people going on holiday.
It's a slightly bizarre place.
I was approached by, um, by a headhunter, actually.
Really had, you know, quite an in-depth interview.
My role was to make sure that everybody knew that Madeleine McCann was missing.
[crowd applauding.]
[Justine.]
We went down to the beach to highlight that Madeleine had been missing for 50 days.
A highly charged emotional environment.
It's so emotional.
It's so sad.
[in Portuguese.]
By the grace of God, there will be progress.
[Justine.]
The balloons were an indication of hope, really.
[camera shutters clicking.]
Kate and Gerry are You don't want to make everything about misery the whole time.
[crowd applauding.]
[female reporter 1.]
Fifty days since Madeleine went missing, fifty balloons, each with a photograph of the missing four-year-old tied to it, released by Madeleine's parents Gerry and Kate McCann.
[female reporter 2.]
It's a difficult day to you? Every day is difficult, yeah.
[camera shutters clicking.]
[Justine.]
The story of Madeleine McCann's disappearance had ballooned into an absolutely gigantic news story across the world.
[crowd.]
four, three, two, one [loud cheering.]
Kate and Gerry were very attractive from a news editor's point of view.
Kate had been born in Liverpool, um, Gerry in Glasgow, Catholic backgrounds.
[Robbyn.]
Both had worked their way up from pretty humble beginnings, um, into medical school.
Kate had specialized in anesthetics and then moved into becoming a GP.
Gerry had moved through sports medicine into cardiac work.
Kate and Gerry, in my view, were very much the symbol of aspirational Britain at the time.
[camera shutters clicking.]
The sheer weight of the pressure on them was just overwhelming them.
There were just so many media from all around the world now, making it impossible for them to move.
There was nothing they could do without being followed and reported upon.
It was impossible now to say, "We're gonna put a lid on it.
" The story was running and it was to try and keep it as accurate as possible.
[Justine.]
It wasn't just a case of reacting to what was in the press that day.
There was quite a lot of planning.
-Which camera is? -[man.]
This one.
-No, not him.
-Sky? -Sky? -Okay.
At the time, they didn't talk about the struggle.
They just kept moving.
They just kept going forward.
One of the things I used to say to them regularly was, "You have a plan.
Keep your focus.
" My impression was that Gerry McCann was a devastated father and as a result, he had talked to lots of people and I was one of the people he called.
One of the things I said is that the attention span of the public is really short.
Today's crisis on the front page of the local newspaper is replaced by another one tomorrow.
[Ernie.]
So you need to fight for Madeleine.
You need to make sure that the world doesn't forget that your daughter's out there.
We treated it as as you would a political campaign, actually.
[male reporter.]
A short time ago, Gerry and Kate boarded a private jet, provided to them by Sir Philip Green, the boss of Topshop, minimising their time away from the twins.
[Phil.]
As a parent, you fight tooth and nail for your children.
You'd do anything for them.
And to sit there and do nothing and just follow the police advice, say nothing, do nothing, I think that's impossible.
[camera shutters clicking.]
They want to do anything they think that would help the child.
It's not a tour.
We're having a series of very brief visits.
[woman.]
There are a certain number of people who do find this whole roadshow slightly abhorrent.
[indistinct chatter from reporters.]
We are here to ask the Spanish public for help.
I don't want to spend time, you know, talking about press conferences.
I want to spend time talking about the investigation, really.
[Justine.]
They weren't interested in becoming celebrities themselves.
They were interested in finding their daughter.
There's quite a big difference there.
[kids cheering.]
Madeleine, Madeleine! [indistinct overlapping dialogue.]
[cheering.]
Madeleine, Madeleine! I think everyone's seen today the support that the Moroccan people are giving Kate and I.
[kids cheering.]
[Gerry.]
that if they see Madeleine or someone who looks very much like Madeleine [Susan.]
They wanted to see the Pope.
She felt like the Pope could add power to the prayers of finding Madeleine.
[male reporter.]
What do you think of what they're doing? Is it time to stop what's been called "the roadshow"? It is not a word they like.
[Justine.]
You could tell that there was a certain level of hostility.
[female reporter.]
How do you deal with the fact that more and more people seem to be pointing the finger at you, saying the way you behave is not the way people would normally behave if their child is abducted? And they seem to imply that you might have something to do with it.
[stammers.]
To be honest, I don't actually think that is the case.
I think that's a very small minority of people that are criticising us.
Um -You know -[camera shutters clicking.]
The facts are out there.
We were dining very close to the children and we were checking on them very, very regularly.
Um, you know, we are very responsible parents and we love our children so much and I think it's only a very few people that are actually, um criticizing us.
I have never heard before that anyone considers us suspects in this and, um, the Portuguese police certainly don't and without going into too much detail, uh, about the circumstances, we were with a large group of people, um, and, you know, there is absolutely no way Kate and I are involved in this abduction.
[distant chatter.]
[male reporter.]
Luz itself is now crammed with thousands of holidaymakers, but it is still one little girl that dominates here.
Every twist and turn in this case is followed by the Portuguese media, but the tone is different to the UK, more critical, more speculative as the weeks move on.
I think this case gets so important, so big, just one girl and lots of people, lots of kids kidnapped.
[camera shutters clicking.]
[Patricia.]
Right now, in this moment, you have 1,667 missing children cases.
Okay? [Sandra.]
This was the beginning of the mixed feelings.
If it was with a Portuguese couple, uh, a normal Portuguese couple, they wouldn't have that help.
They wouldn't have that influence that the McCanns had.
[Gerry.]
It's hard work.
[in Portuguese.]
There is a philosopher, Ortega y Gasset, who said, "When the heart rules the head, passion takes over reason.
" These cases with children and helpless people are always cases that appeal to our emotions and make it harder to keep that control.
[in Portuguese.]
The Judicial Police is investigating the strange disappearance of an 11-year-old boy in Lousada.
Rui Pedro disappeared yesterday without a trace The Portuguese start feeling, "Oh, look, we have a missed boy, Rui Pedro, and nobody did this.
[Sandra.]
Nobody come to the streets making live reports every day.
" [reporter, in Portuguese.]
The family of Rui Pedro still believe that he is alive.
At the scene of the disappearance, there is only the bicycle of Rui Pedro.
There are no other leads.
[in Portuguese.]
We don't know what happened to Rui Pedro.
[Homayra.]
Rui Pedro's mother wants to see if she can find her son.
After the bust of what was back then considered as the biggest cyber pedo-criminal network, which was called the Wonderland Club.
[female reporter.]
Wonderland, an extensive and sophisticated club of paedophiles with its own committee, rules, and vetting procedures.
Over 1,000 police and child protection officers in 13 countries simultaneously raided 105 Wonderland members.
[woman.]
We had 750,000, that's three-quarters of a million, different images of paedophilia.
[Homayra.]
After the Wonderland bust, there were CD-ROMs and films which were actually scenes of rape, but from those CD-ROMs were extracted pictures of children.
The only places where the parents can come and see the photos is Geneva.
Not the CD-ROM, the photos.
And among those parents is Rui Pedro's mother.
And she would like to have access to the seized material.
Maybe her child would be amongst those faces.
I felt very, very sad for her because Rui Pedro was actually amongst the children whose photo was identified on Wonderland ring.
I'm sorry to say this, but for me, she was already a more than broken woman.
She was She was like a ghost.
That visit was not helpful.
She came with a lot of hope in her heart, but she went back empty hands.
Rui Pedro is amongst the children who were identified, but the child wasn't there physically.
He's still missing.
The way the Madeleine McCann case was conducted, uh, by the authorities in Portugal and the authorities in Britain was so different from the other cases, in terms of resources, in terms of funding uh, in terms of media.
And I started to wonder, "What if the other children had the same attention? Could they be here right now?" I can assure you that in Portugal, the money that police spent, or the government spent, to the investigation of that eight or nine Portuguese childs is not one percent of the money that we spent on Madeleine.
Why? Why don't they invest in our children? [in Portuguese.]
They have everything available to them, even a helicopter, things like that.
I never had that nine years ago.
I didn't have it.
I didn't have anything.
[wind blowing.]
Police in Malta are investigating reports of possible sightings of Madeleine McCann after tourists claim that a girl matching the four-year-old's description [male reporter.]
Bosnian newspapers are full of pictures and stories about a possible sighting of Madeleine McCann in a city of high religious significance.
[female reporter.]
A Dutch newspaper publishes a letter claiming to know the location of her body.
There were myriad reports as to what had happened to Madeleine coming from all over the planet.
We think it's important that the Portuguese authorities have immediately the information about this letter so they can [Anthony.]
Some of them clearly nonsense, but even the ones that you thought were nonsense had to be followed up.
[male reporter.]
Plainclothes officers visiting the area where it's feared Madeleine's body might be buried.
[Anthony.]
They were understaffed and over-stressed and just not capable of doing everything.
But it appears to be very difficult to establish what the exact location is that they are looking for.
A photograph of a young girl resembling Madeleine McCann is being analysed by British lots of information regarding couples with little childs with, uh, blonde hair and a lot of them or all of them have been checked.
[female reporter.]
Could this petrol station in Marrakesh be a crucial link in the search for Madeleine? A couple on holiday there believe they saw her with a man.
[Mari.]
She had this, um, pretty face and long, blonde hair and on the side to the shoulders.
Green eyes and she had a little, like, sad look in her face.
She said with, uh, an accent then, "Can we see Mummy now?" [Mari.]
A little blonde girl in that petrol station is just well No, that was not a very normal thing to see.
We got back to Spain later on that night.
[speaking Spanish.]
I put the television on and then I said to Mari, "There's a little girl missing.
" [speaking Spanish.]
[Ray.]
And Mari came in and said, "That's the little girl I seen at the petrol station.
" It was so strange, what I saw, and when I saw the picture, it just hit me.
[Ray.]
You tried to ring the Spanish police and they didn't seem to want to know or understand.
Then you tried to ring the Portuguese police and they didn't seem to want to know.
[Mari.]
Nobody was interested.
[dial tone humming.]
[female reporter.]
The petrol station is one of the few places in Marrakesh with CCTV, but with no reason to keep the tapes, they were recorded over.
[Ray.]
If we'd have known a little girl was missing, then we could have probably done something about it.
We didn't know the thing in her eye.
By looking at her, you could have said, "Yes, it's her," or, "No, it's not her.
" But we didn't know and I think that is the most upsetting part about it, that we had a very close encounter, one would say, but we didn't know.
[Ernie.]
Law enforcement has to ask for help.
These cases are huge and the typical law enforcement agency doesn't work a case like this very often.
I mean, maybe never.
[distant police siren.]
[Justine.]
In Britain, we had the most amazing organisation called CEOP.
Gerry and I had been to see the person who led CEOP at the time, a gentleman called Jim Gamble, who did absolutely amazing work.
consider who else is there They used counter-terrorism methods to enable them to find children that were being exploited and their work was just unbelievably thorough.
I received a call from Leicestershire Police to say that Gerry McCann would like to visit CEOP.
So I went back to say, "Well, I'd be happy," but I wanted a reassurance that he was not a suspect and I was given a categoric reassurance, and he visited CEOP.
And I have to say the first time I met Gerry McCann in person, um [clicks tongue.]
I think it's harsh to say, but I probably didn't really like him.
-[man.]
Mr.
McCann, how you doing? -Yeah, good, thank you.
Good.
[Jim.]
So it wasn't a warm engagement.
I've met many survivors of abuse and their families and there is a feeling of empathy, there's a feeling of warmth, but Gerry was very cold and very controlled.
[Gonçalo, in Portuguese.]
Gerry seems like a very controlling person.
He's someone that knows how to dominate others very well and maintain his pose.
What you have to remember are there is a huge amount of work going on in the background.
[Gonçalo.]
He's a surgeon, so it's not easy to catch him off balance.
[Margarida.]
I haven't read this article in ten years.
[laughs.]
Reading it again, it's interesting because by printing this, um, it became, um, a change in the whole story that was being told by media.
The article is called "Pact of Silence" and it was printed on the 3rd of June 2007.
[in Portuguese.]
Tonight's guest on Edição das Dez is journalist FelÃcia Cabrita [Margarida.]
The most famous journalist back then in our team was FelÃcia Cabrita.
[in Portuguese.]
My guest on Jornal Nacional is FelÃcia Cabrita [Margarida.]
Because of the work she had done on Casa Pia, a paedophile case that really stirred things a lot in the media and politics in Portugal.
[indistinct chatter.]
[in Portuguese.]
Casa Pia is a state-owned institution that provides children from poor backgrounds with shelter and education.
Therefore, they are responsible for taking proper care of those children.
What we found was that, instead of being cared for, of being nurtured and raised in a supportive environment, there was this scheme, since as early as the '60s, where American millionaires with private jets would travel to Portugal, obviously with the connivance of higher-ups in the Casa Pia hierarchy, and would do whatever they wanted to those kids.
[in English.]
So it was a story that really shocked the public in Portugal and paedophile became a subject.
[Felicia, in Portuguese.]
"It's been a month since Madeleine McCann [police siren wailing.]
vanished without a trace.
" [distant dogs barking.]
"A few kilometres from Lagos, in the Ocean Club Resort in Praia da Luz, the faint illumination further densifies the ambience.
At the reception which leads to the tapas restaurant, there is nobody.
Getting inside is easy.
" I only started investigating this case about three weeks after the press started covering the story.
I found it very strange.
The police in Portugal in regard to this case were not focusing on the family, but only on the actual kidnapping and we know that in most cases, the culprit is someone who is close to the child.
[reporter, in Portuguese.]
One month without Madeleine, but her parents retain an unshakable faith that she will be found.
Sunday Mass is part of the McCanns' routine.
Devoted Catholics, they have been given a key to the chapel so they can pray in peace.
[in Portuguese.]
And while the Mass was happening and everyone was focusing on it, I decided to go and eat at the Ocean Club.
Maybe because I'm known in Portugal, the staff let me stay and choose the table I would like to sit in and I chose exactly the same table that the McCanns used to have dinner at.
[in Portuguese.]
They always had dinner at the same time at that table, which was always reserved.
[in Portuguese.]
And this is where I find the first contradiction in relation to the parents' statement.
[Gerry.]
But, you know, you've seen the proximity of the restaurant.
There was a line of sight to the apartment and it was not dissimilar to having dinner in your garden.
[in Portuguese.]
The table, despite what they say, sits far from the apartment and has limited visibility to it because when they dined there, there was plastic behind them that wasn't very transparent as to allow them to see the back of their apartment block.
[Felicia, in Portuguese.]
From the position I was in, it was completely impossible to see the apartment or room where they had left the children to sleep.
As an investigative journalist, I have to ask, "Why?" Why would you lie about such a simple thing? [birds chirping.]
Joining the McCanns on the holiday were a group of friends, um, David and Fiona Payne, Matt Oldfield and his wife Rachael, along with Russ O'Brien and his partner Jane Tanner, and the mother of Fiona Payne, a lady by the name of Dianne Webster.
Six of the group were doctors and between them, they had eight small children, several of them toddlers.
We had the feeling that something was off with the timeline.
The parents all decided that every 20 minutes or half an hour, they would get up and one or the other of them would go and check on their own children.
And sometimes they would also check on the children of their friends or one of the children of their friends.
[Margarida.]
Some of them said that they were going to see the children through a window.
Others were saying that the adults would come in the room to see how the children were doing.
[in Portuguese.]
The parents' versions in terms of timing don't match.
Their version is chaotic and it doesn't match with the employees', who were working and served them in the hotel version.
If they kept the time they said they were at dinner and were leaving to see the kids, we would be in an opera by Stravinsky.
One would sit, the other would leave.
It would have been hysterical.
[Paulo.]
You say that you used to go there every 20 minutes, but he said he goes there every half an hour and she said every hour.
[in Portuguese.]
It seemed as though no one was at the table and were all off to the apartment.
[Gonçalo.]
What is emphasised is that they say there was a security system in which everyone was looking after everyone else, but that's not quite how it happened.
As is normal on holiday, people are very relaxed.
They drank a lot of alcohol and sometimes they would walk home to pee.
One is accepting the word of the McCanns and their friends for this timeline, and that they sat down together and wrote out their timeline and then 24 hours later, they revised their timeline and worked it out again.
[watch ticking echoes.]
[Gonçalo, in Portuguese.]
The child's father said, in his first statement, he said He said he got in through the front door.
He contradicted himself in a subsequent statement and in his second statement, he admitted to having entered through through the back door, which he usually left open.
[in Portuguese.]
That's a major difference.
[Felicia, in Portuguese.]
The McCanns do not stand up to investigation.
[in Portuguese.]
The child's mother said that, "When I went to look for my child, I peeped under the bed and I didn't see her.
" She couldn't have peeped; the mattress went all the way to the floor.
[Felicia, in Portuguese.]
There are questions in the air.
Why leave the children alone? Why did they not use the babysitting service the hotel provided? They didn't use it.
[Felicia, in Portuguese.]
You see a man who emotionally supports someone and then is suddenly transformed into a suspect.
[reporter.]
The only official suspect in the investigation into the abduction of Madeleine McCann is being questioned again today by police in Portugal.
[camera shutters clicking.]
There was what you call a confrontation took part took place in a very small office in the PJ building, um, and they were with three of the McCann group.
[in Portuguese.]
There were statements which said that Robert Murat had been near the apartment on the night and they spoke of Robert Murat as though he could had been involved in the disappearance.
So a little-- a tiny little room with a little desk and a couple of police officers in there and, um, they went through each of them, um, and asked them their view and version of this, and each one of them basically said they'd seen me there that night.
And I-- I, again, basically said that that was not true.
And then towards the end of that interview, um, one of those members of the group basically came out and said, "I know it was him because I recognise his eye," which I am blind in one eye.
I have a detached retina, but it's As you may see, it is slightly recognisable.
It's not recognisable in the dark.
The fact is, is that people who do know me were there that night.
The police were there that night.
And none of them saw me.
[Murat.]
The only person who saw me were these three people.
And that for me is strange in itself.
Um, do I believe they were confused? No.
I think they, whatever the intention was um had the intention of saying what they said.
[in Portuguese.]
None of it makes sense.
[Margarida.]
It was strange and things didn't add up.
I remember that only one of the friends, Jane, said she saw a man.
[in Portuguese.]
Just like we say the wine from Porto gets better with time, that statement got better over time.
There were more and more details in Jane Tanner's statement.
[Gonçalo, in Portuguese.]
So much so, it lost so much credibility because she kept on adding so many details, even saying that she knew the person, describing what the baby was wearing, describing what the kidnapper was wearing.
The word that we ended up using as a title, "pact," came from David Payne when he said that they had agreed with Gerry not to talk about what happened.
[in Portuguese.]
That's why a police reconstruction was needed to work to uncover the factual truth of the matter.
[Sandra.]
The truth is, they are the keys for the untold story that is what happened on the hours before her disappearance.
What is anybody scared about that the dinner guests can say which is not going to totally back up the story on what happened that night? [Kelvin.]
And I don't understand why [stammers.]
Do the dinner guests just want to forget what happened? Have they been asked by the McCanns not to say anything? Has somebody else asked them? "There must be," people thought, you know, "Where there is smoke, there is fire.
They must be hiding something.
" [Kelvin.]
How do they view what happened that night? After all, it will cast a shadow over them.
[Gonçalo.]
The act of abandoning the children, leaving them alone for such a long time, was not unique to the missing child's parents.
Every one of their friends did it.
So there seems to be an alliance between everyone to protect someone.
[male reporter.]
So little information and so much media coverage, speculation pours in.
And this week, unattributed sources said the McCanns and their friends were coming under scrutiny.
This is actually a private road.
[camera shutters clicking.]
I noticed that there was-- there was a shift going on in terms of, you know, how the McCanns were regarded.
Journalists were working in a vacuum when it came to facts.
[indistinct chatter.]
Look, come on, boys, just belt up.
[female reporter.]
You know, we are doing our job, you know.
[Justine.]
And there was hostility from the Portuguese police.
[in Portuguese.]
The Judicial Police's initial theory pointed towards Madeleine's kidnapping.
Now there is less and less interest in that line of inquiry.
[reporter, in Portuguese.]
The Portuguese and British authorities have intercepted phone calls and emails from the McCanns and their inner circle.
It is far more likely that a parent or family member is responsible in these situations than a random stranger.
So law enforcement obviously should interview the parents, uh, should, in many cases, polygraph the parents, should talk to those close to the child, close to the family and rule that out.
[male reporter.]
This is the official website dedicated to finding Madeleine McCann.
Her father Gerry writes a daily blog, or diary, and the latest entry is remarkable for its emotional tone from a man who, until recently, had seemed so composed in public at least.
[in Portuguese.]
Gerry McCann finishes by addressing the kidnapper or killer directly.
"If you've done something you regret, it is not too late to do the right thing.
" [Jim.]
When Gerry talked about the possibility of writing an appeal, I helped construct a letter by just providing some advice about what I think you would say.
You know, I'd do it along the lines of sometimes people, you know, make mistakes, terrible mistakes in life that they never intended, but that ultimately it's never too late to do the right thing.
But in shaping that, I was actually talking to Gerry.
I think it was the only way of delivering that message or reflecting that thought.
If it's something that happened, if it was a mistake, you know, it's never too late just to come out and stop all of this.
[female reporter.]
Portuguese police say vital evidence may have been destroyed in the case of Madeleine McCann.
About 20 people crammed into their hotel room after the four-year-old went missing.
[Jim.]
If we have a break-in, we want to seal the door.
We want to know that that scene is as it was or as close as possible to the time the crime took place.
So that you can then reflect on that, um under the microscope, so to speak, as the investigation moves forward.
[man, in Portuguese.]
Of course it was a difficult case.
We are talking about an apartment used by tourists.
So it is natural that there are other guests coming and going into the apartment and natural that hotel maids go into the apartment.
So there's always a lot of people, naturally, who may have left biological traces.
[Sandra.]
The criminal police arrived to the crime scene four hours after she vanished.
The flat was full of people.
[Robbyn.]
What they were interested in was finding the child so they immediately began joining in the search.
They did nothing to seal off the apartment and people came and went.
[in Portuguese.]
A father who just lost his child-- Will he think "I can't let anyone in"? I think we cannot demand that from them.
If I am a mum, I want to recover my, uh, my daughter.
I know this is a crime scene.
I don't let anyone go in there.
[Sandra.]
The first thing that rational and intelligent people do, and they are, is to preserve the crime scene, is to help the authorities to find what happened.
They didn't do that.
[male reporter.]
When Kate McCann went to check between 9:45 and 10 p.
m.
, she found that the shutter of the window on their ground floor apartment was open and Madeleine was gone.
[Anthony.]
I mean, the shutters business is-- There's conflict about the shutters.
According to Kate McCann, when she went into the children's room and realised that Madeleine didn't appear to be there, she looked around and one thing in particular struck terror into her.
The window was wide open and the shutters on the outside were raised all the way up.
[in Portuguese.]
The first issue is whether they opened from the outside.
If someone came through, could you open them from the outside? [Robbyn.]
But she screams and everybody comes running, et cetera, sprinted back to the apartment and then in the children's room, Gerry lowered the shutter at the open window.
Rushing outside, he made the realisation it could be opened from the outside.
[in Portuguese.]
Fiona Payne's mother, one of the first things she does is try to open the blinds, but is unable to do so.
[Anthony.]
The police reported that the the shutters had been almost closed by the time the police got there.
[in Portuguese.]
When the police arrived, nothing was as the child's mother described, which was the window had been wide open, the blinds completely lifted, wind coming in with a clear means of escape.
That state of affairs was not seen or reported by anyone else, which raises some suspicion.
Whether the window was open or closed is only relevant to the couple's hypothesis.
The other issue is that in the forensic inspection in which fingerprints were collected by our colleagues who were on duty that first night, the only fingerprint they find on the window-- on the glass on the inside-- it's a palm print of the right hand of the mother of the child, tilted so as to open the window.
Not to close it, to open it.
That's the only fingerprint there.
There's no gloves imprint, only that fingerprint.
That's when we start thinking about the parents as suspects because that's a staging of a crime.
It's staged.
Good boy! Steady! [Martin.]
When the dog indicates in the field, it will either be human decomposition or human blood.
Here.
Good boy.
Human decomposition is very persistent, very pungent, to the point where we've been able to locate, in blind searches, graves 40 years after the body has been removed and the body was only there for a short period of time.
With blood, the crime scene investigators have been to the house and somebody has cleaned the blood up to the point where nobody can see it.
That doesn't mean there isn't any there to find.
With floorboards, some blood might drip through the gap and, um [Martin.]
Morning, Joe.
run around the back of the floorboard, which won't be able to be seen, but it'll still be there.
The odour will still be coming through the gap in the floorboards and the dog will pick it up and respond to it.
Okay.
Hey! [Martin.]
The FBI invited me over to America and we assisted with the development of their canine program and they were quite, um, sceptical about the blood dog at the time and they got 12 identical pieces of cloth, they put a tiny spot of blood in the center of one of the cloths, they washed it three times, I think, and they put them in a line-out for me when I got there and said, "Tell us which one it is.
" Keela, find.
Keela went up the line and not only identified the right cloth, but the exact spot where the blood had been.
Good boy! [Martin laughs.]
What a clever boy! That's nice.
No licking! Good boy.
[Robbyn.]
Gonçalo Amaral, at that point in the summer, chose to do something that had been suggested long since by the British police.
He took them up on an offer of more expert help in their search efforts.
[in Portuguese.]
You have to be an experienced person and have a logical mindset which allows you to make hypotheses and follow a specific line of investigation, knowing that this direction might be a dead end and that you might have to turn back and then go in a different direction.
[Justine.]
The dogs coming over wasn't regarded as in any way negative.
[in Portuguese.]
These British dogs are unique in the world.
They are the only ones capable of sniffing the first odors emitted by the cadaver when the body ceases to function.
He had two dogs, one was sniffing cadavers and the other blood.
The more experts you have working on a case, surely the better it is for everybody.
[in Portuguese.]
Gerry McCann, he was scared of the dogs coming.
And then, of course, there was a surprise.
[indistinct chatter.]
On the first day of the searches involving Eddie and Keela, they were taken to apartment 5A.
[Robbyn.]
First, Eddie, the dog trained to scent human cadaverine, the scent of a corpse, was brought into the apartment.
Eddie's behavior changed the moment he came through the door of the apartment.
He became tense and aware.
[dog panting.]
[Martin.]
He would work very well in large area searches and his response to finding was to bark.
[panting continues.]
[Robbyn.]
The dog handler, Martin Grime, said that Eddie didn't alert in any other situation except when he scented that which he was seeking, the scent of a human cadaver.
[panting continues.]
[barking loudly.]
I didn't know which details the McCanns took off and why they took off those details.
[Sandra.]
I was 100 percent sure that they didn't share the whole information they had.
Something very different from what they've told the world happened.
[barking loudly.]
[barking continues.]
[theme music playing.]
[Jim.]
My career actually began in the army.
I was in the military police, came out, went into the police in Ireland, rose through the ranks to become the head of Special Branch Counter Terrorism in Belfast [explosion.]
and then moved to England and became Deputy Director General of the National Crime Squad.
I'd been offered the opportunity to build this new Child Exploitation & Online Protection Centre and I, you know, thought, "Well, is that a step backwards? Is that something that is, you know, less significant than the work that I've done?" My own ego was preventing me from taking this step into child protection.
You know, you talk about the road to Damascus.
I was sent to speak at a conference in Cambodia and they took me to a dump called Stung Meanchey.
Trucks came in every five or ten minutes and they dumped rubbish across the place, all sorts of noxious substance.
And some families and very small children rummaged through, uh, that garbage every day.
And in that environment, traveling sex offenders would visit and they would rent those children, they would take them to a hotel, bathe them, abuse them, and then dump them back in the street again.
I met a young child, Traynoi.
The charity that had taken me out there recovered her back to their facility, a tiny little child who was simply being used as a commodity, uh, by people because of the vulnerability that existed all around her.
And she later passed from a from a serious blood disease.
And it was a humbling experience for me.
And as I sat on the plane on the way back, I came across an anonymous piece of poetry and it said I can't actually get this out, usually.
"I spent an hour with Laughter We chatted all the way But I barely remember a single thing From what she had to say I then spent an hour with Sorrow And ne'er a word said she But, O, the things I learned the day That Sorrow walked with me" I thought "It's time to pack away your own ego, to pack away the things you think are important because here is an opportunity to do something whereby you can make a real difference.
" [indistinct children chatter.]
[indistinct radio chatter.]
[Sandra.]
It was strange.
Things didn't add up.
What if the other children had the same attention? Could they be here right now? [train passing by.]
This was a story that was gaining global traction.
[male reporter 1.]
reputation is linked to Madeleine's fate.
They have [female reporter speaking Portuguese.]
[male reporter 2.]
Madeleine's disappearance has [Jim.]
The McCanns had mobilized the media.
It was a discussion, you know, on breakfast TV, breakfast news.
she joins us from the Portuguese resort [Jim.]
It was the discussion across breakfast tables.
that it's every parent's worst nightmare [reporter.]
Celebrities including JK Rowling and Topshop boss Philip Green have contributed to a £2.
5 million reward fund.
-[Jim.]
The Prime Minister wanted to know.
-so that we can get Madeleine back [Jim.]
The Home Secretary and others wanted to know.
Everybody that was anyone wanted to be engaged, briefed, you know, and informed about what was happening.
The pressure, the biggest pressure comes from inside the police, not from the media, Sky News, or something like that.
It comes from inside the police.
[Paulo.]
"Okay, let us solve, let's solve.
What do you need? What do you need? Come on! Come on! Bring me results for me to shine.
" [Gonçalo, in Portuguese.]
We have to report to directors.
Directors have to report in political terms in cases like this to ministers.
There's a lot of people who know what is happening.
Too many people.
So there is inherent pressure.
the efforts of the police authorities [Gonçalo.]
Then there was the other pressure that was the media circus.
[indistinct chatter.]
The authorities, the prosecutor, the PJ, were so, so stressed with the media pressure.
[Patricia.]
They were always there.
They couldn't work.
They have to give press conferences.
[camera shutters clicking.]
So much pressure, so much questions.
[indistinct chatter.]
[in Portuguese.]
We couldn't even go out for coffee because we were surrounded.
[reporter.]
Could we ask you, do you have any suspects in the Madeleine inquiry? No.
So much political, uh, involvement.
Every parent I know will be thinking about Maddie's family, her parents [in Portuguese.]
It was all down to political pressure.
There was political pressure.
[reporter, in Portuguese.]
The English Ambassador arrived in Lagos I have been in touch with the National Chief of Police with Cabinet Ministers here in Portugal, with the Prime Minister's office Police family liaison officers from Leicestershire Police have now arrived to act as a point of liaison between the Portuguese police and UK police forces in case there is any way in which police in the UK can further assist.
[in Portuguese.]
The English police are receiving a briefing [Jim.]
ACPO, the Association of Chief Police Officers, as it was then, the National Police Improvement Agency, and Leicestershire Constabulary and the Metropolitan Police, we were all looking to see what we could do to help.
[Jim.]
From the outset, the feedback that was coming in was that there were difficulties arising.
[in Portuguese.]
The National Director of the Judicial Police says that the case is far from settled.
But he guarantees that there are new components to the investigation.
[woman.]
I think the attitude from the Portuguese police was, "We can deal with this.
We don't really need anybody else's help.
" [woman.]
Of course, if you're the parents of a missing child, your natural reaction is going to be, "Well, why aren't you accepting help from other experts?" [in Portuguese.]
The English media and the English people started to criticise the Portuguese media and the Portuguese police for what they were doing.
[Jim.]
It was almost down to, you know, "Our police are better than your police.
We're better than you at this," and vice versa, so there became this extremely unhealthy, extremely frustrating tit-for-tat.
[Rui, in Portuguese.]
They thought that the behavior of Gonçalo Amaral, a leader in the Judicial Police in the Algarve, was shameful.
But he was a police officer with a bulletproof reputation.
[in Portuguese.]
I was called 1,001 different things.
Incompetent, drunk, fat All that stuff.
Police officers are people, too.
They are human beings just like everyone else.
[in Portuguese.]
The Portuguese police have an aura about them and there is a view that the PJ are one of the best forces in the world.
So all of that added to a sense of resentment.
[in Portuguese.]
We were monitored having lunch, who we were with.
They called us every name under the sun.
Insulting us, labeling us incompetent.
Some of the Portuguese police began using phrases like the Brits, the UK authorities were behaving like a colonial power.
Now, that set the political and policing context out there.
[wind whistling.]
[woman.]
I had followed the case, like an awful lot of people.
I'd actually been to Praia da Luz before.
Funnily enough, as a child.
It's a very odd town, in a way.
There's quite a lot of fairly newly developed areas.
A huge number of stray dogs as well.
It gives it a slightly menacing atmosphere.
Coupled with the joy of people going on holiday.
It's a slightly bizarre place.
I was approached by, um, by a headhunter, actually.
Really had, you know, quite an in-depth interview.
My role was to make sure that everybody knew that Madeleine McCann was missing.
[crowd applauding.]
[Justine.]
We went down to the beach to highlight that Madeleine had been missing for 50 days.
A highly charged emotional environment.
It's so emotional.
It's so sad.
[in Portuguese.]
By the grace of God, there will be progress.
[Justine.]
The balloons were an indication of hope, really.
[camera shutters clicking.]
Kate and Gerry are You don't want to make everything about misery the whole time.
[crowd applauding.]
[female reporter 1.]
Fifty days since Madeleine went missing, fifty balloons, each with a photograph of the missing four-year-old tied to it, released by Madeleine's parents Gerry and Kate McCann.
[female reporter 2.]
It's a difficult day to you? Every day is difficult, yeah.
[camera shutters clicking.]
[Justine.]
The story of Madeleine McCann's disappearance had ballooned into an absolutely gigantic news story across the world.
[crowd.]
four, three, two, one [loud cheering.]
Kate and Gerry were very attractive from a news editor's point of view.
Kate had been born in Liverpool, um, Gerry in Glasgow, Catholic backgrounds.
[Robbyn.]
Both had worked their way up from pretty humble beginnings, um, into medical school.
Kate had specialized in anesthetics and then moved into becoming a GP.
Gerry had moved through sports medicine into cardiac work.
Kate and Gerry, in my view, were very much the symbol of aspirational Britain at the time.
[camera shutters clicking.]
The sheer weight of the pressure on them was just overwhelming them.
There were just so many media from all around the world now, making it impossible for them to move.
There was nothing they could do without being followed and reported upon.
It was impossible now to say, "We're gonna put a lid on it.
" The story was running and it was to try and keep it as accurate as possible.
[Justine.]
It wasn't just a case of reacting to what was in the press that day.
There was quite a lot of planning.
-Which camera is? -[man.]
This one.
-No, not him.
-Sky? -Sky? -Okay.
At the time, they didn't talk about the struggle.
They just kept moving.
They just kept going forward.
One of the things I used to say to them regularly was, "You have a plan.
Keep your focus.
" My impression was that Gerry McCann was a devastated father and as a result, he had talked to lots of people and I was one of the people he called.
One of the things I said is that the attention span of the public is really short.
Today's crisis on the front page of the local newspaper is replaced by another one tomorrow.
[Ernie.]
So you need to fight for Madeleine.
You need to make sure that the world doesn't forget that your daughter's out there.
We treated it as as you would a political campaign, actually.
[male reporter.]
A short time ago, Gerry and Kate boarded a private jet, provided to them by Sir Philip Green, the boss of Topshop, minimising their time away from the twins.
[Phil.]
As a parent, you fight tooth and nail for your children.
You'd do anything for them.
And to sit there and do nothing and just follow the police advice, say nothing, do nothing, I think that's impossible.
[camera shutters clicking.]
They want to do anything they think that would help the child.
It's not a tour.
We're having a series of very brief visits.
[woman.]
There are a certain number of people who do find this whole roadshow slightly abhorrent.
[indistinct chatter from reporters.]
We are here to ask the Spanish public for help.
I don't want to spend time, you know, talking about press conferences.
I want to spend time talking about the investigation, really.
[Justine.]
They weren't interested in becoming celebrities themselves.
They were interested in finding their daughter.
There's quite a big difference there.
[kids cheering.]
Madeleine, Madeleine! [indistinct overlapping dialogue.]
[cheering.]
Madeleine, Madeleine! I think everyone's seen today the support that the Moroccan people are giving Kate and I.
[kids cheering.]
[Gerry.]
that if they see Madeleine or someone who looks very much like Madeleine [Susan.]
They wanted to see the Pope.
She felt like the Pope could add power to the prayers of finding Madeleine.
[male reporter.]
What do you think of what they're doing? Is it time to stop what's been called "the roadshow"? It is not a word they like.
[Justine.]
You could tell that there was a certain level of hostility.
[female reporter.]
How do you deal with the fact that more and more people seem to be pointing the finger at you, saying the way you behave is not the way people would normally behave if their child is abducted? And they seem to imply that you might have something to do with it.
[stammers.]
To be honest, I don't actually think that is the case.
I think that's a very small minority of people that are criticising us.
Um -You know -[camera shutters clicking.]
The facts are out there.
We were dining very close to the children and we were checking on them very, very regularly.
Um, you know, we are very responsible parents and we love our children so much and I think it's only a very few people that are actually, um criticizing us.
I have never heard before that anyone considers us suspects in this and, um, the Portuguese police certainly don't and without going into too much detail, uh, about the circumstances, we were with a large group of people, um, and, you know, there is absolutely no way Kate and I are involved in this abduction.
[distant chatter.]
[male reporter.]
Luz itself is now crammed with thousands of holidaymakers, but it is still one little girl that dominates here.
Every twist and turn in this case is followed by the Portuguese media, but the tone is different to the UK, more critical, more speculative as the weeks move on.
I think this case gets so important, so big, just one girl and lots of people, lots of kids kidnapped.
[camera shutters clicking.]
[Patricia.]
Right now, in this moment, you have 1,667 missing children cases.
Okay? [Sandra.]
This was the beginning of the mixed feelings.
If it was with a Portuguese couple, uh, a normal Portuguese couple, they wouldn't have that help.
They wouldn't have that influence that the McCanns had.
[Gerry.]
It's hard work.
[in Portuguese.]
There is a philosopher, Ortega y Gasset, who said, "When the heart rules the head, passion takes over reason.
" These cases with children and helpless people are always cases that appeal to our emotions and make it harder to keep that control.
[in Portuguese.]
The Judicial Police is investigating the strange disappearance of an 11-year-old boy in Lousada.
Rui Pedro disappeared yesterday without a trace The Portuguese start feeling, "Oh, look, we have a missed boy, Rui Pedro, and nobody did this.
[Sandra.]
Nobody come to the streets making live reports every day.
" [reporter, in Portuguese.]
The family of Rui Pedro still believe that he is alive.
At the scene of the disappearance, there is only the bicycle of Rui Pedro.
There are no other leads.
[in Portuguese.]
We don't know what happened to Rui Pedro.
[Homayra.]
Rui Pedro's mother wants to see if she can find her son.
After the bust of what was back then considered as the biggest cyber pedo-criminal network, which was called the Wonderland Club.
[female reporter.]
Wonderland, an extensive and sophisticated club of paedophiles with its own committee, rules, and vetting procedures.
Over 1,000 police and child protection officers in 13 countries simultaneously raided 105 Wonderland members.
[woman.]
We had 750,000, that's three-quarters of a million, different images of paedophilia.
[Homayra.]
After the Wonderland bust, there were CD-ROMs and films which were actually scenes of rape, but from those CD-ROMs were extracted pictures of children.
The only places where the parents can come and see the photos is Geneva.
Not the CD-ROM, the photos.
And among those parents is Rui Pedro's mother.
And she would like to have access to the seized material.
Maybe her child would be amongst those faces.
I felt very, very sad for her because Rui Pedro was actually amongst the children whose photo was identified on Wonderland ring.
I'm sorry to say this, but for me, she was already a more than broken woman.
She was She was like a ghost.
That visit was not helpful.
She came with a lot of hope in her heart, but she went back empty hands.
Rui Pedro is amongst the children who were identified, but the child wasn't there physically.
He's still missing.
The way the Madeleine McCann case was conducted, uh, by the authorities in Portugal and the authorities in Britain was so different from the other cases, in terms of resources, in terms of funding uh, in terms of media.
And I started to wonder, "What if the other children had the same attention? Could they be here right now?" I can assure you that in Portugal, the money that police spent, or the government spent, to the investigation of that eight or nine Portuguese childs is not one percent of the money that we spent on Madeleine.
Why? Why don't they invest in our children? [in Portuguese.]
They have everything available to them, even a helicopter, things like that.
I never had that nine years ago.
I didn't have it.
I didn't have anything.
[wind blowing.]
Police in Malta are investigating reports of possible sightings of Madeleine McCann after tourists claim that a girl matching the four-year-old's description [male reporter.]
Bosnian newspapers are full of pictures and stories about a possible sighting of Madeleine McCann in a city of high religious significance.
[female reporter.]
A Dutch newspaper publishes a letter claiming to know the location of her body.
There were myriad reports as to what had happened to Madeleine coming from all over the planet.
We think it's important that the Portuguese authorities have immediately the information about this letter so they can [Anthony.]
Some of them clearly nonsense, but even the ones that you thought were nonsense had to be followed up.
[male reporter.]
Plainclothes officers visiting the area where it's feared Madeleine's body might be buried.
[Anthony.]
They were understaffed and over-stressed and just not capable of doing everything.
But it appears to be very difficult to establish what the exact location is that they are looking for.
A photograph of a young girl resembling Madeleine McCann is being analysed by British lots of information regarding couples with little childs with, uh, blonde hair and a lot of them or all of them have been checked.
[female reporter.]
Could this petrol station in Marrakesh be a crucial link in the search for Madeleine? A couple on holiday there believe they saw her with a man.
[Mari.]
She had this, um, pretty face and long, blonde hair and on the side to the shoulders.
Green eyes and she had a little, like, sad look in her face.
She said with, uh, an accent then, "Can we see Mummy now?" [Mari.]
A little blonde girl in that petrol station is just well No, that was not a very normal thing to see.
We got back to Spain later on that night.
[speaking Spanish.]
I put the television on and then I said to Mari, "There's a little girl missing.
" [speaking Spanish.]
[Ray.]
And Mari came in and said, "That's the little girl I seen at the petrol station.
" It was so strange, what I saw, and when I saw the picture, it just hit me.
[Ray.]
You tried to ring the Spanish police and they didn't seem to want to know or understand.
Then you tried to ring the Portuguese police and they didn't seem to want to know.
[Mari.]
Nobody was interested.
[dial tone humming.]
[female reporter.]
The petrol station is one of the few places in Marrakesh with CCTV, but with no reason to keep the tapes, they were recorded over.
[Ray.]
If we'd have known a little girl was missing, then we could have probably done something about it.
We didn't know the thing in her eye.
By looking at her, you could have said, "Yes, it's her," or, "No, it's not her.
" But we didn't know and I think that is the most upsetting part about it, that we had a very close encounter, one would say, but we didn't know.
[Ernie.]
Law enforcement has to ask for help.
These cases are huge and the typical law enforcement agency doesn't work a case like this very often.
I mean, maybe never.
[distant police siren.]
[Justine.]
In Britain, we had the most amazing organisation called CEOP.
Gerry and I had been to see the person who led CEOP at the time, a gentleman called Jim Gamble, who did absolutely amazing work.
consider who else is there They used counter-terrorism methods to enable them to find children that were being exploited and their work was just unbelievably thorough.
I received a call from Leicestershire Police to say that Gerry McCann would like to visit CEOP.
So I went back to say, "Well, I'd be happy," but I wanted a reassurance that he was not a suspect and I was given a categoric reassurance, and he visited CEOP.
And I have to say the first time I met Gerry McCann in person, um [clicks tongue.]
I think it's harsh to say, but I probably didn't really like him.
-[man.]
Mr.
McCann, how you doing? -Yeah, good, thank you.
Good.
[Jim.]
So it wasn't a warm engagement.
I've met many survivors of abuse and their families and there is a feeling of empathy, there's a feeling of warmth, but Gerry was very cold and very controlled.
[Gonçalo, in Portuguese.]
Gerry seems like a very controlling person.
He's someone that knows how to dominate others very well and maintain his pose.
What you have to remember are there is a huge amount of work going on in the background.
[Gonçalo.]
He's a surgeon, so it's not easy to catch him off balance.
[Margarida.]
I haven't read this article in ten years.
[laughs.]
Reading it again, it's interesting because by printing this, um, it became, um, a change in the whole story that was being told by media.
The article is called "Pact of Silence" and it was printed on the 3rd of June 2007.
[in Portuguese.]
Tonight's guest on Edição das Dez is journalist FelÃcia Cabrita [Margarida.]
The most famous journalist back then in our team was FelÃcia Cabrita.
[in Portuguese.]
My guest on Jornal Nacional is FelÃcia Cabrita [Margarida.]
Because of the work she had done on Casa Pia, a paedophile case that really stirred things a lot in the media and politics in Portugal.
[indistinct chatter.]
[in Portuguese.]
Casa Pia is a state-owned institution that provides children from poor backgrounds with shelter and education.
Therefore, they are responsible for taking proper care of those children.
What we found was that, instead of being cared for, of being nurtured and raised in a supportive environment, there was this scheme, since as early as the '60s, where American millionaires with private jets would travel to Portugal, obviously with the connivance of higher-ups in the Casa Pia hierarchy, and would do whatever they wanted to those kids.
[in English.]
So it was a story that really shocked the public in Portugal and paedophile became a subject.
[Felicia, in Portuguese.]
"It's been a month since Madeleine McCann [police siren wailing.]
vanished without a trace.
" [distant dogs barking.]
"A few kilometres from Lagos, in the Ocean Club Resort in Praia da Luz, the faint illumination further densifies the ambience.
At the reception which leads to the tapas restaurant, there is nobody.
Getting inside is easy.
" I only started investigating this case about three weeks after the press started covering the story.
I found it very strange.
The police in Portugal in regard to this case were not focusing on the family, but only on the actual kidnapping and we know that in most cases, the culprit is someone who is close to the child.
[reporter, in Portuguese.]
One month without Madeleine, but her parents retain an unshakable faith that she will be found.
Sunday Mass is part of the McCanns' routine.
Devoted Catholics, they have been given a key to the chapel so they can pray in peace.
[in Portuguese.]
And while the Mass was happening and everyone was focusing on it, I decided to go and eat at the Ocean Club.
Maybe because I'm known in Portugal, the staff let me stay and choose the table I would like to sit in and I chose exactly the same table that the McCanns used to have dinner at.
[in Portuguese.]
They always had dinner at the same time at that table, which was always reserved.
[in Portuguese.]
And this is where I find the first contradiction in relation to the parents' statement.
[Gerry.]
But, you know, you've seen the proximity of the restaurant.
There was a line of sight to the apartment and it was not dissimilar to having dinner in your garden.
[in Portuguese.]
The table, despite what they say, sits far from the apartment and has limited visibility to it because when they dined there, there was plastic behind them that wasn't very transparent as to allow them to see the back of their apartment block.
[Felicia, in Portuguese.]
From the position I was in, it was completely impossible to see the apartment or room where they had left the children to sleep.
As an investigative journalist, I have to ask, "Why?" Why would you lie about such a simple thing? [birds chirping.]
Joining the McCanns on the holiday were a group of friends, um, David and Fiona Payne, Matt Oldfield and his wife Rachael, along with Russ O'Brien and his partner Jane Tanner, and the mother of Fiona Payne, a lady by the name of Dianne Webster.
Six of the group were doctors and between them, they had eight small children, several of them toddlers.
We had the feeling that something was off with the timeline.
The parents all decided that every 20 minutes or half an hour, they would get up and one or the other of them would go and check on their own children.
And sometimes they would also check on the children of their friends or one of the children of their friends.
[Margarida.]
Some of them said that they were going to see the children through a window.
Others were saying that the adults would come in the room to see how the children were doing.
[in Portuguese.]
The parents' versions in terms of timing don't match.
Their version is chaotic and it doesn't match with the employees', who were working and served them in the hotel version.
If they kept the time they said they were at dinner and were leaving to see the kids, we would be in an opera by Stravinsky.
One would sit, the other would leave.
It would have been hysterical.
[Paulo.]
You say that you used to go there every 20 minutes, but he said he goes there every half an hour and she said every hour.
[in Portuguese.]
It seemed as though no one was at the table and were all off to the apartment.
[Gonçalo.]
What is emphasised is that they say there was a security system in which everyone was looking after everyone else, but that's not quite how it happened.
As is normal on holiday, people are very relaxed.
They drank a lot of alcohol and sometimes they would walk home to pee.
One is accepting the word of the McCanns and their friends for this timeline, and that they sat down together and wrote out their timeline and then 24 hours later, they revised their timeline and worked it out again.
[watch ticking echoes.]
[Gonçalo, in Portuguese.]
The child's father said, in his first statement, he said He said he got in through the front door.
He contradicted himself in a subsequent statement and in his second statement, he admitted to having entered through through the back door, which he usually left open.
[in Portuguese.]
That's a major difference.
[Felicia, in Portuguese.]
The McCanns do not stand up to investigation.
[in Portuguese.]
The child's mother said that, "When I went to look for my child, I peeped under the bed and I didn't see her.
" She couldn't have peeped; the mattress went all the way to the floor.
[Felicia, in Portuguese.]
There are questions in the air.
Why leave the children alone? Why did they not use the babysitting service the hotel provided? They didn't use it.
[Felicia, in Portuguese.]
You see a man who emotionally supports someone and then is suddenly transformed into a suspect.
[reporter.]
The only official suspect in the investigation into the abduction of Madeleine McCann is being questioned again today by police in Portugal.
[camera shutters clicking.]
There was what you call a confrontation took part took place in a very small office in the PJ building, um, and they were with three of the McCann group.
[in Portuguese.]
There were statements which said that Robert Murat had been near the apartment on the night and they spoke of Robert Murat as though he could had been involved in the disappearance.
So a little-- a tiny little room with a little desk and a couple of police officers in there and, um, they went through each of them, um, and asked them their view and version of this, and each one of them basically said they'd seen me there that night.
And I-- I, again, basically said that that was not true.
And then towards the end of that interview, um, one of those members of the group basically came out and said, "I know it was him because I recognise his eye," which I am blind in one eye.
I have a detached retina, but it's As you may see, it is slightly recognisable.
It's not recognisable in the dark.
The fact is, is that people who do know me were there that night.
The police were there that night.
And none of them saw me.
[Murat.]
The only person who saw me were these three people.
And that for me is strange in itself.
Um, do I believe they were confused? No.
I think they, whatever the intention was um had the intention of saying what they said.
[in Portuguese.]
None of it makes sense.
[Margarida.]
It was strange and things didn't add up.
I remember that only one of the friends, Jane, said she saw a man.
[in Portuguese.]
Just like we say the wine from Porto gets better with time, that statement got better over time.
There were more and more details in Jane Tanner's statement.
[Gonçalo, in Portuguese.]
So much so, it lost so much credibility because she kept on adding so many details, even saying that she knew the person, describing what the baby was wearing, describing what the kidnapper was wearing.
The word that we ended up using as a title, "pact," came from David Payne when he said that they had agreed with Gerry not to talk about what happened.
[in Portuguese.]
That's why a police reconstruction was needed to work to uncover the factual truth of the matter.
[Sandra.]
The truth is, they are the keys for the untold story that is what happened on the hours before her disappearance.
What is anybody scared about that the dinner guests can say which is not going to totally back up the story on what happened that night? [Kelvin.]
And I don't understand why [stammers.]
Do the dinner guests just want to forget what happened? Have they been asked by the McCanns not to say anything? Has somebody else asked them? "There must be," people thought, you know, "Where there is smoke, there is fire.
They must be hiding something.
" [Kelvin.]
How do they view what happened that night? After all, it will cast a shadow over them.
[Gonçalo.]
The act of abandoning the children, leaving them alone for such a long time, was not unique to the missing child's parents.
Every one of their friends did it.
So there seems to be an alliance between everyone to protect someone.
[male reporter.]
So little information and so much media coverage, speculation pours in.
And this week, unattributed sources said the McCanns and their friends were coming under scrutiny.
This is actually a private road.
[camera shutters clicking.]
I noticed that there was-- there was a shift going on in terms of, you know, how the McCanns were regarded.
Journalists were working in a vacuum when it came to facts.
[indistinct chatter.]
Look, come on, boys, just belt up.
[female reporter.]
You know, we are doing our job, you know.
[Justine.]
And there was hostility from the Portuguese police.
[in Portuguese.]
The Judicial Police's initial theory pointed towards Madeleine's kidnapping.
Now there is less and less interest in that line of inquiry.
[reporter, in Portuguese.]
The Portuguese and British authorities have intercepted phone calls and emails from the McCanns and their inner circle.
It is far more likely that a parent or family member is responsible in these situations than a random stranger.
So law enforcement obviously should interview the parents, uh, should, in many cases, polygraph the parents, should talk to those close to the child, close to the family and rule that out.
[male reporter.]
This is the official website dedicated to finding Madeleine McCann.
Her father Gerry writes a daily blog, or diary, and the latest entry is remarkable for its emotional tone from a man who, until recently, had seemed so composed in public at least.
[in Portuguese.]
Gerry McCann finishes by addressing the kidnapper or killer directly.
"If you've done something you regret, it is not too late to do the right thing.
" [Jim.]
When Gerry talked about the possibility of writing an appeal, I helped construct a letter by just providing some advice about what I think you would say.
You know, I'd do it along the lines of sometimes people, you know, make mistakes, terrible mistakes in life that they never intended, but that ultimately it's never too late to do the right thing.
But in shaping that, I was actually talking to Gerry.
I think it was the only way of delivering that message or reflecting that thought.
If it's something that happened, if it was a mistake, you know, it's never too late just to come out and stop all of this.
[female reporter.]
Portuguese police say vital evidence may have been destroyed in the case of Madeleine McCann.
About 20 people crammed into their hotel room after the four-year-old went missing.
[Jim.]
If we have a break-in, we want to seal the door.
We want to know that that scene is as it was or as close as possible to the time the crime took place.
So that you can then reflect on that, um under the microscope, so to speak, as the investigation moves forward.
[man, in Portuguese.]
Of course it was a difficult case.
We are talking about an apartment used by tourists.
So it is natural that there are other guests coming and going into the apartment and natural that hotel maids go into the apartment.
So there's always a lot of people, naturally, who may have left biological traces.
[Sandra.]
The criminal police arrived to the crime scene four hours after she vanished.
The flat was full of people.
[Robbyn.]
What they were interested in was finding the child so they immediately began joining in the search.
They did nothing to seal off the apartment and people came and went.
[in Portuguese.]
A father who just lost his child-- Will he think "I can't let anyone in"? I think we cannot demand that from them.
If I am a mum, I want to recover my, uh, my daughter.
I know this is a crime scene.
I don't let anyone go in there.
[Sandra.]
The first thing that rational and intelligent people do, and they are, is to preserve the crime scene, is to help the authorities to find what happened.
They didn't do that.
[male reporter.]
When Kate McCann went to check between 9:45 and 10 p.
m.
, she found that the shutter of the window on their ground floor apartment was open and Madeleine was gone.
[Anthony.]
I mean, the shutters business is-- There's conflict about the shutters.
According to Kate McCann, when she went into the children's room and realised that Madeleine didn't appear to be there, she looked around and one thing in particular struck terror into her.
The window was wide open and the shutters on the outside were raised all the way up.
[in Portuguese.]
The first issue is whether they opened from the outside.
If someone came through, could you open them from the outside? [Robbyn.]
But she screams and everybody comes running, et cetera, sprinted back to the apartment and then in the children's room, Gerry lowered the shutter at the open window.
Rushing outside, he made the realisation it could be opened from the outside.
[in Portuguese.]
Fiona Payne's mother, one of the first things she does is try to open the blinds, but is unable to do so.
[Anthony.]
The police reported that the the shutters had been almost closed by the time the police got there.
[in Portuguese.]
When the police arrived, nothing was as the child's mother described, which was the window had been wide open, the blinds completely lifted, wind coming in with a clear means of escape.
That state of affairs was not seen or reported by anyone else, which raises some suspicion.
Whether the window was open or closed is only relevant to the couple's hypothesis.
The other issue is that in the forensic inspection in which fingerprints were collected by our colleagues who were on duty that first night, the only fingerprint they find on the window-- on the glass on the inside-- it's a palm print of the right hand of the mother of the child, tilted so as to open the window.
Not to close it, to open it.
That's the only fingerprint there.
There's no gloves imprint, only that fingerprint.
That's when we start thinking about the parents as suspects because that's a staging of a crime.
It's staged.
Good boy! Steady! [Martin.]
When the dog indicates in the field, it will either be human decomposition or human blood.
Here.
Good boy.
Human decomposition is very persistent, very pungent, to the point where we've been able to locate, in blind searches, graves 40 years after the body has been removed and the body was only there for a short period of time.
With blood, the crime scene investigators have been to the house and somebody has cleaned the blood up to the point where nobody can see it.
That doesn't mean there isn't any there to find.
With floorboards, some blood might drip through the gap and, um [Martin.]
Morning, Joe.
run around the back of the floorboard, which won't be able to be seen, but it'll still be there.
The odour will still be coming through the gap in the floorboards and the dog will pick it up and respond to it.
Okay.
Hey! [Martin.]
The FBI invited me over to America and we assisted with the development of their canine program and they were quite, um, sceptical about the blood dog at the time and they got 12 identical pieces of cloth, they put a tiny spot of blood in the center of one of the cloths, they washed it three times, I think, and they put them in a line-out for me when I got there and said, "Tell us which one it is.
" Keela, find.
Keela went up the line and not only identified the right cloth, but the exact spot where the blood had been.
Good boy! [Martin laughs.]
What a clever boy! That's nice.
No licking! Good boy.
[Robbyn.]
Gonçalo Amaral, at that point in the summer, chose to do something that had been suggested long since by the British police.
He took them up on an offer of more expert help in their search efforts.
[in Portuguese.]
You have to be an experienced person and have a logical mindset which allows you to make hypotheses and follow a specific line of investigation, knowing that this direction might be a dead end and that you might have to turn back and then go in a different direction.
[Justine.]
The dogs coming over wasn't regarded as in any way negative.
[in Portuguese.]
These British dogs are unique in the world.
They are the only ones capable of sniffing the first odors emitted by the cadaver when the body ceases to function.
He had two dogs, one was sniffing cadavers and the other blood.
The more experts you have working on a case, surely the better it is for everybody.
[in Portuguese.]
Gerry McCann, he was scared of the dogs coming.
And then, of course, there was a surprise.
[indistinct chatter.]
On the first day of the searches involving Eddie and Keela, they were taken to apartment 5A.
[Robbyn.]
First, Eddie, the dog trained to scent human cadaverine, the scent of a corpse, was brought into the apartment.
Eddie's behavior changed the moment he came through the door of the apartment.
He became tense and aware.
[dog panting.]
[Martin.]
He would work very well in large area searches and his response to finding was to bark.
[panting continues.]
[Robbyn.]
The dog handler, Martin Grime, said that Eddie didn't alert in any other situation except when he scented that which he was seeking, the scent of a human cadaver.
[panting continues.]
[barking loudly.]
I didn't know which details the McCanns took off and why they took off those details.
[Sandra.]
I was 100 percent sure that they didn't share the whole information they had.
Something very different from what they've told the world happened.
[barking loudly.]
[barking continues.]
[theme music playing.]