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Kate's
notebooks - Madeleine's mother did not like to be
questioned
Reports
of the first day without Maddie tell of discomfort when
faced with the investigators who searched for her daughter
Kate
McCann did not like the Policia Judiciária. On the first day
without Maddie, a few hours after she had seen her daughter
for the last time, in the apartment that they all occupied
in Praia da Luz, the child's mother didn't hide the
discomfort in face of the investigators.
In her
writings, which were apprehended months later by the same
PJ, Kate complained about the treatment that she had been
given during her first questioning: "Nobody offered us a
drink or food. All the policemen were informally dressed and
smoking. No sympathy was shown. […] The police officer who
drove us to the PJ was asking me questions and then he typed
them down. Slow", says Kate, who also didn't like the fact
that she had to return to the Judiciária a short while
later.
"We got a
phone call from the PJ saying that we had to return. We
turned around and returned at 200 kilometres per hour. Scary
once again", Kate continues, sparing the rest of the police
forces no criticism. "The GNR appeared without being certain
of their role – they seemed to be doing nothing", she
underlined.
Kate
equally didn't like to speak to Yvonne, the English Social
Security employee who worked at the Department of Child
Protection and who later told the Leicester police that she
had found the behaviour of the parents and of one of the
friends to be strange. "Also Yvonne. A bit boring, worrying,
because I didn't know who it was", Kate reported.
In the
same writings, and still remembering the 4th of May (the
notes started to be written at a later date, allegedly upon
medical advice), Kate McCann recollects that the British
ambassador offered her help. And that there were also
technicians from the consulate on location, and Madeleine's
mother remembered a conversation with Robert Murat, during
which he told her about his daughter and her similarities
with Maddie.
Notes
of Kate McCann
The GNR
appeared uncertain about their role. They seemed to be doing
nothing.
Nobody
presented the police. No one offered us a drink or food. All
the policemen were dressed informally and smoking. There was
no sympathy shown and it was far from reassuring.
We left
with the PJ and they drove at an exaggerated speed. I was
very angry. Needless, frustrating, I felt so powerless."
May 4
British
woman wanted to help the couple
Yvonne
was on holidays in the Algarve when she heard that Maddie
had disappeared. The technician, who is an expert in cases
of endangered children, rushed to offer her help, but later
guaranteed to the police that she had not been well
accepted. Yvonne also said that David Payne, one of the
friends, had advised the McCanns not to speak to her. She
found the parents' behaviour strange.
Kate admits her daughter's death
Despite
having only admitted it publicly in August, Kate assumed the
possibility that her daughter was dead on the day after the
disappearance. "Is she dead?" she questions herself in her
notebooks, in a register of the 4th of May, after she was
heard at the PJ in Portimao. The hypothesis that her
daughter's disappearance is connected with paedophilia also
haunted her: "Thinking about paedophiles makes me want to
pull the skin off."
Police in force in the Algarve
During
the first days after the disappearance of Madeleine McCann,
the Policia Judiciária only admitted the theory of abduction
of the little girl in public, and mobilised extraordinary
means into the Algarve. The directory of Faro, which is
directed by Guilhermino Encarnacao, was joined by brigades
from Lisbon and elements of the Central Directory of
Banditism Combat (DCCB), including its director, Luis Neves.
With the
investigations centred on the abduction theory and with
extraordinary means mobilised, alerts were sent to the
borders, to the airports and to the Spanish authorities.
The PJ
even asked for the population's cooperation to find Maddie,
and one day later, Guilhermino Encarnacao guaranteed that he
already had a photofit of the child's [abductor], which
would not be publicised.
Praia da
Luz and its surroundings were patrolled by GNR men, car stop
operations were set up on the roads that exit the Algarve,
and the garbage collection was also followed.
A total
of approximately one hundred men from the Policia Judiciária
were moved into the Algarve as early as in the first few
hours after the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, which
happened on the evening of the 3rd of May.
Tomorrow:
The McCanns' relationship with the suspects |
