Fiona Payne – phone data #1

The telephone records from Optimus, TMN and Vodaphone seem to have some bugs in them. Trying to understand the records helps to debug the data and get a better understanding of what was really happening in the phone network.

I have been looking at phone information for Fiona Payne. It appears that Fiona did not take her mobile with her on her first visit to Portugal, covering Madeleine’s disappearance on 3 May 2007. She seems to have been using her husband David’s phone, and one of the two untraced mobiles donated on 4 May 2007.

Eventually, the Paynes left Portugal and went home to England.

Fiona and David Payne returned to Portugal on 29 Jun 2007, and flew out again a few days later.

Fiona’s phone records show 3 entries for 29 Jun 2007 in Luz de Tavira, then 2 in Vila Nova de Cacela, all in quick fire succession, timed around 8:41 AM. These are of the order of 3 seconds apart. Therefore it looks like Fiona had her phone switched off, and when she turned it on again, she got 5 SMS messages on the trot.

Luz, Lagos (where Madeleine disappeared) is far to the west of Faro. Luz de Tavira is to the east of Faro. Vila Nova de Cacela is even further east. Was Fiona on some strange trip towards the Spanish border?

Luz de Tavira and Vila Nova de Cacela are about 20km apart, and the signal flipped from the former to the latter in 5 seconds. Given that our engineer estimates the range of a mast at about 8km, then 2x8km leaves us about 4km short.

Fiona was on Optimus, and one would expect another Optimus mast somewhere in between these two.

To be honest, I was thinking about asking Heriberto if he has a location for an Optimus mast between these two points, then I decided to check the other files first.

David Payne’s first record for 29 Jul 2007 is in Luz (Lagos) at 12:32 (on Optimus).

Gerry McCann’s first record for 29 Jul 2007 is at 8:46 AM in Faro airport. Quite clearly, he is waiting for Fiona and David Payne to emerge. Fiona’s 5 SMS messages at 8:41 now appear to be Fiona turning her phone on in Faro airport while going through the usual airport arrival procedures.

Gerry’s last call in Faro airport is at 9:23 AM. His next is in Montenegro at 9:34. That indicates that Gerry had picked up the Payne’s, the journey to Luz had started, the phone connection was no longer to Faro airport but to another mast around 0.8 miles to the north in Montenegro. The rest of Gerry’s phone contacts are consistent with the party heading back along the A22 to Luz in the western Algarve.

So what is the explanation for the odd Optimus data for Fiona Payne?

Optimus definitely reported a few situations that were impossible in reality. Perhaps these 5 SMS messages were just another Optimus bug.

Perhaps Optimus reported certain events in a rather strange way. Fiona had flown from England to Portugal on the 29^th, turned on her phone, and a network or networks was trying to send her SMS messages via Optimus. It is possible that when a cell phone had been switched off and moved, Optimus reported an intermediate mast, rather than the final connection.

In this instance, sufficient records exist for Gerry’s phone to make sense of Fiona’s data.

There may be occasions when a quirk like this happens and it is not possible to resolve it.

Matthew Oldfield – phone data #1

I have no interest in using the Tapas 9 phone data to analyse their movements. The PJ files have that analysis at http://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/PHONE_TEXTS.htm

What I am using the Tapas 9 phone data for is to gain an understanding of how the network functioned in the environs of Luz, and from there to determine if Scotland Yard has the ability to move the investigation forward using the phone traffic that is allegedly in their hands.

Heriberto is actively pursuing network masts located within Luz. I do not see the point of tackling the same problem, as I am confident Heriberto is capable of producing excellent results, so why duplicate the effort?

Keep tabs on what Heriberto is up to at http://espacioexterior.blogspot.pt/ (If this link does not work for you, change the last 2 letters to the code for your country, or try ‘es’ for España.)

Matthew Oldfield’s phone data is one of the simplest sets possible, but even that illustrates a challenge.

Matthew Oldfield was on TNM only, which makes understanding it easier. Or does it? Heriberto is of the opinion that each mobile operator (Optimus, TMN, Vodafone) connected to only its own customers. This makes sense. However, Heriberto then states that Kate’s phone company had an agreement that her phone could connect to Optimus and TMN, presumably as both turn up in her records.

Let me summarise. The analyst in the JP files says Matthew connected to TMN only. He should be correct, given that his sources were Optimus, TMN and Vodafone.

However, in the entry that interests me, the TMN record says Matthew’s phone was in contact with Luz 3. Optimus has a 3-lobe mast on the Luz water tower. TMN has a 2 lobe mast on 2 Primeiro de Maio. From this, I conclude that although the data came from TMN, it recorded that Matthew connected through the Optimus mast on the water tower.

Hopefully, Scotland Yard has details from the phone companies to clarify this potential source of misinformation.

On 7 May 2007, Matthew connected with Luz 3 (12:04:35), then very rapidly connected with Budens (12:06:07), then very rapidly reconnected with Luz 3 (12:06:55).

The graphic below connects the Optimus mast on the water tower in Luz to a mast near Budens. If you take Heriberto’s data on the TMN phone mast on top of 2 Primeiro de Maio, you get a remarkably similar picture, despite the fact that the TMN mast has only 2 lobes.

Here is my first assumption. The mast I have located in Budens is the TMN (or Optimus) mast called Budens. This is logical, given that the range of masts is rated as 5km to 8km when in countryside, and given that the two masts are 8km apart. Mapping a 5km radius around both does not lead to any significant black holes (out of range), so this assumption is a reasonable assumption, but it is still an assumption.

Here is my second assumption. Heriberto has published azimuth data for the Optimus tower in Luz. I have assumed that adjacent lobes split the territory evenly between them. This is a rather simplistic assumption. It is more likely that adjacent lobes have a fair degree of overlap with neighbours. It is also a rather major assumption as I don’t know if each lobe has the same power or covers the same range. For the moment, this is a work in progress.

Based on this, the green lines are the boundaries for Luz lobe 3, the one in Matthew’s record.

My third assumption is very risky indeed. On the yellow line from the mast in Luz to the mast in Budens, I have added a yellow dot half way between. I do not have azimuth information for the Budens mast, therefore I do not know if is 2-lobe or 3-lobe, or which way any lobe points. Nor do I have information for the relative ranges of the 2 masts i.e. whether one reaches farther than the other. Half way is a very crude assumption indeed.

Even on that basis, Matthew’s record yields some useful information.

The red dots on the map are the phone masts I have located near Almádena and in Burgau.

There are almost certainly masts missing in or near this map. Salema is mentioned in the phone records, and that is just to the left edge of the map. To the north, Barão São João is large enough that I would expect at least one mast to be nearby.

So, Matthew pings off Luz 3, then Budens, then back to Luz 3 within 2 minutes 20 seconds. How can this be explained?

The reality is that there are several explanations The main scenario that is truly unlikely is that Matthew’s phone was actually in Luz or in Budens at the time. That would require a glitch in the phone records, and these very definitely did happen, but it is the least likely cause.

Next, we have the dead spot explanation. This goes that Matthew had entered a dead spot for TMN, presumably in Luz, and Budens took over for a brief while. I suspect that Luz did have a problem spot, mainly because the largest building in Luz, LuzTur, does not have a mast, and it should be a bit of an obstacle. However, with a TMN mast just south of this, and the water tower to the north-west, any LuzTur dead zone should get filled in without Budens coming into play.

By far the simplest explanation is that Matthew was somewhere between Luz and Budens, quite probably about half-way.

4km from Luz is around 2.5 miles, so it raises the question as to how, on the 7^th May 2007, Matthew achieved this. Taxi? Out for a jog? Lift from a friend? By this time, Luz was truly awash with helpers.

There are 2 things that really interest me about this little nugget of information.

I have seen Burgau appear on the phone records for the Tapas 9 frequently. Almádena also turns up a few times. It certainly turns up on Gerry (Optimus and Vodaphone) and Kate’s (Optimus and TMN) records. Given the length of time the McCanns were in the Algarve and the number of trips they made to the west of Luz, it would be strange if Almádena did not turn up.

However, the key point is Burgau and Almádena did not turn up in Matthew’s record (TMN, or possibly Optimus and TMN). Matthew’s records show Luz, Portimão (where the PJ interviews took place) and Budens.

For me, a more critical point is the coverage of the telephone traffic in the possession of Scotland Yard.

The media report suggest Burgau to Lagos. If so, analysing movement to the west of Luz is going to prove incredibly tough. You need out to Budens and Salema to have a decent chance of picking up anything moving to the west.

The other nugget is how much traffic actually passed through Optimus, and through its mast on the Luz water tower. That mast tells you who was in the (very) general vicinity of block 5 (lobe 2), plus whether they then headed north (lobe 1), or went west (lobe 3).

Nearly 8 years ago, the media was telling you that the PJ had all the phone data required to make sense of 3 May 2007, implying that an arrest was an arm’s length away. If you have read all of this post, you should have a fair idea of why Scotland Yard is still struggling on the phone analysis front.

Madeleine – mobile phone coverage

I make a simple and sincere offer to all my visitors.  A Wordpress blog is not the most interactive base in existence in 2015, so if you (yes, YOU) raise a comment or idea that conforms to 2 simple tests, I will be happy to post it up as a new thread.

Test 1.  It has to be legal.

Test 2. It has to be civil.

Here is an example.  One person has been working on the phone maps I have constructed.  Said person can identify the source, or remain anonymous, as is this person’s right.

The graphic shows transmitters around Luz, and their potential range.

“I am attaching the map. Very rough indeed, to give only an idea… I consider the power of the masts similar to each other. And I focused on the three PdL antennas, which I believe are A, B, C … The yellow lines means when two antennas have the same coverage. So a mobile phone in zone A would activate antenna A, etc.”

 

Madeleine v the SY stand-off

In a recent comment, my most regular commentator (Loops) made an extremely valid point, one that I would like to explore and explain.

Essentially, the comment boils down to whether I can achieve more with public files than Scotland Yard can achieve with the public files, the private investigator files, the intelligence they have gained from appeals such as Crimewatch, the intelligence they have gathered from interviews in Portugal, and much more besides.

The short answer is I believe I can. Of course, it is now essential to justify this bold assertion.

The root of the problem is what I will describe as the Luz stand-off (aka the Algarve stand-off aka the Portugal stand-off). SY is working in Portugal according to Portuguese laws and simultaneously is trying to keep the good will of the Portuguese legal authorities. Without the help of legal authorities here, they are fighting with at least one hand tied behind their back, and probably with their legs hobbled together.

In order to ensure the goodwill of the authorities, thereby ensuring continued co-operation from the same, they have to accept a constraint placed upon them by Portuguese laws.

They cannot engage directly with the citizens of Portugal.

This is one heck of a handicap.

If Smithman happens to be Portuguese AND has nothing to do with the case, the chances of SY eliminating him from enquiries, whilst NOT engaging with the citizens of Portugal, is possibly a definition of zero.

It was pointed out recently on the MiscarriageOfJustice forum, that while a Crimewatch appeal was broadcast in a number of countries (the list is something like the UK, Ireland, Germany and the Netherlands), a request by Portuguese TV broadcasters to air an equivalent in Portugal was refused.

Allegedly the BBC turned the idea down, but that is neither here nor there. The point is simple. No equivalent was run in Portugal, the country in which Madeleine McCann disappeared.

I can point to numerous other instances of Scotland Yard being limited in the way that an investigation in the UK would not. I don’t think I need to bang on about this. This is the reality of the situation. There is a distinct gap between Scotland Yard and the people of Portugal in general, the people of the Algarve in general, and the people of Luz in particular.

Let me return to Smithman. I may be wrong as I cannot claim to be well plugged-in to Portuguese media. However, to the best of my knowledge there is very little awareness within Portugal that information on Smithman is being sought by SY.

In summary, I believe there is a key information source that SY is not able to tap in to.

Now Loops (the commentator in question) raised a pertinent point. Considering phone data, did I think I could squeeze information from the public records that SY, with access to public and private records, could not?

The short answer is no and yes, so let me address the no part first,

SY should have much more data than I have, plus they should have better insight into how to analyse such data. Or do they?

I assume that each of the 3 mobile operators of the time – Optimus, TMN and Vodaphone – not only supplied call data but also information about geographical location of masts. If so, SY will not benefit from anything I trawl up, and they are streets ahead of anything I can do.

But notice that nasty word assume. The PJ files are fairly hit-or-miss, so whether the information collected at the time included geographical location of masts is up for grabs. I know of enough errors to suggest the PJ were simply going by mast names, not by precise geographical co-ordinates.

So let me work on the assumption that the files did not contain precise geographical locations. In that case, if I was in SY doing an analysis on call data in the region, one of the first things I would do is request that each of the 3 operators – Optimus, TMN and Vodaphone – provided this information, so I could match the files up properly. Perhaps someone did, and perhaps someone did not – I don’t know.

Let’s continue with the assumption that SY has much more phone data than I have, and that SY also has precise geographical locations. Do they need me at all?

What I have that SY does not have is a good understanding of how Luz, the area immediately around Luz, and the Algarve in general, works. This means that there now exists a way to close the gap, the stand-off between the citizens here and SY in London. It is a way of getting to tap into the local community that is otherwise denied to SY.

So, in brief, whilst remaining strictly in accordance with Portuguese laws, I can do something that SY cannot. I can open up a conduit between the locality and Operation Grange.

Does this matter? Is SY interested?

My method of operation is to drill down through a particular topic. When I think I have extracted all that I can extract, if the result is relevant to OG, I email SY the information.

Does SY take what I am saying into account? Does SY discard it because I am not supplying first-person evidence of the night in question? Does it get lost in SY’s long list of nutter amateur enthusiasts?

To tell you the truth, I don’t know and I don’t care. I can only do what I do at my end – I cannot control the SY end.

One of two outcomes will prevail in the Madeleine McCann case. One is that it will be resolved, whether by SY, by an informant, by a confession or whatever. The other is that the case will not be resolved, and it will be shelved again.

I am not predicting which outcome will happen. I would simply prefer that the outcome arrives sooner, rather than later, hence my efforts to make this happen quicker.

I would like to wrap up with the ‘yes’ answer to the question. Can I do more with less information? Given the amount of local intelligence available to me, currently not available to SY, I can make a decent job of it.

I have learned a great deal of information from other bloggers and forums. I would be astonished if SY has the time to monitor and evaluate these sources, or the contextual intelligence to make an informed decision.

I am therefore returning to the public domain key parts of the puzzle, just as I have gleaned information from people unconnected to the PJ files.

I can’t solve the Madeleine case. I can move it forward. SY may or may not take note. However, the difference with me is I am entitled, by law, to put this information into the public domain, allowing other analysts to use it.

The stand-off between Scotland Yard and the citizens of Portugal is being diminished.

The understanding of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann is being progressed.

My heartfelt thanks to Loops for cattle-prodding me on this concept. It made me think a lot harder about the idea.

Madeleine – what is in the phone records?

It is my belief that the phone records hold the key to cracking the Madeleine McCann case.

Please note my use of the word ‘belief’. Since I do not have access to the full set of phone records, I am in no position to state with certainty that this is the case.

On the 20^th Dec 2007, the Daily Mail had a report on the telephone records. Caveat emptor.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-503581/Madeleine-police-trace-EVERY-phone-day-vanished.html

Madeleine police trace EVERY phone call made on day she vanished, by Vanessa Allen. (Note – Vanessa quickly changes to phone calls made within a half-hour time period that day.)

Paulo Rebelo, then head of the enquiry had seized thousands of records relating to telephone calls made in the area of Burgau to Luz to Lagos on 3^rd May 2007.

Officials had begun checking on up to 1,000 locals on 3^rd May, with particular emphasis on calls made between 9.30pm and 10pm.

Detectives can use the “triangulation method” to pinpoint users who were in Praia da Luz on May 3. Mobiles give out signals every time they make or receive a call or text message, and when they are switched on and off.

Those signals are logged by phone masts and by measuring the strength of the signal to local masts, experts can identify precisely where a phone was used.

OK, end of article, time for some thoughts.

Other newspapers were running similar stories, though that does not make any of them true.

In 2014, people were supposedly made arguidos on the basis of phone calls to each other around the time Madeleine disappeared, again according to the media.

I have rechecked the October 2013 Crimewatch. There is no mention of mobile phone traffic. The attribution to Andy Redwood that the entire mobile phone data was being targeted rather than trawled must come from another source.

So, you have your paws on the phone data, legally via a court order, not ‘seized’, and you look at it and WHAT?

Who knows whether there were 1,000 locals at the time? Or the full list of visitors in Luz, whether at the Ocean Club or at numerous other establishments in Luz? Or just dropped into town for a beer and a chat with mates? Each of these had a valid reason to use a mobile phone, a reason that had nothing to do with Madeleine McCann.

Triangulation? If the telephone data had triangulation information this case would not be running now. It would have concluded years ago.

All of the telephone data I have seen is much cruder. It tells you which cell the phone was in, as indicated by which mast it was talking to. As long as a phone and a mast were actually talking to each other.

Luz happens to be nearly 100% covered by a single mast. From that you get to know, roughly because there can be errors, whether the mobile phone was in Luz when it talked to the mast.

This means the phone data is a bit of a nightmare to interpret, and it will get much worse before it gets better. However…

It is my belief that the phone records hold the key to cracking the Madeleine McCann case.

Madeleine McCann v the Luz gardener

The papers are reporting each other along much the same lines.

A man was interviewed in Faro last week.  He was a gardener who worked near 5A.  Some go a bit farther and imply he was working near 5A on 3rd May 2007.  Then they put him in a bar that is sometimes in Luz and sometimes in the Ocean Club.  They have him drinking there until 7 PM, then a mysterious missing 2 and a half hours.  Then he returned to the bar at 9:30 PM.  Finally, he gave a DNA swab in 2007.

The gardener’s statement is on file, along with other evidence relating to him.

He was interviewed on 12 May 2007, and as yet, I cannot find exactly why the PJ was so interested.

He worked in the Ocean Club precisely one afternoon per week, always a Wednesday afternoon.  He looked after the garden in front of block 4 (not the pool side).  He would work for 2 hours or less.  The last time he was in the Ocean Club was Wednesday 2nd May 2007.

On 3rd May 2007, he worked in 2 other gardens in Luz, not connected the Ocean Club.

Then he left Luz and went to his village of residence, Espiche, and entered a local bar, one where he is well known, called the Arco Iris.  The pub looks to be quite small.

At 7 PM, he left the pub and went to his residence in Espiche, the address of which is on file.  There he had a wash, then he cooked a meal and ate it.  Then he returned to the Arco Iris at 9:30, and chatted to someone he knew who was from the Espiche campsite.

Gerry’s final check was around 9:05 PM, which doesn’t leave a great deal of time, if the gardener really was back in the pub 25 minutes later.  However, Espiche is only a 15 minute walk from Luz, therefore it can be done, and the gardener had a Citroen C15, so unlike Tannerman and Smithman he didn’t have to walk around Luz with a kidnapped child in his arms.

He gave his consent for a DNA test on 12 May 2007, and you can make your own mind up as to whether that was checked or not.  He gave his consent for a search of his accommodation, and that was carried out.  He gave his consent for a search of his Citroen, and that was carried out.

So what actually links him to the case?

He would park his Citroen in front of block 5 when he was working on block 4, out of habit.  I doubt if Scotland Yard recalled him for that, though you never know.

The only thing I can scrape up so far is that Espiche is served by two cellphone towers.  These are almost equidistant from Espiche.  Perhaps in the Arco Iris you connect to the one near the N125.  Perhaps in his home the signal goes through the cellphone tower in the north of Luz, therefore appearing to make him back in Luz.  Perhaps it is something quite different, whether in the phone records or otherwise.

The gardener has had 7 years to quietly slip out of the Algarve and locate himself elsewhere, and he did not take the opportunity.  He got official notice that Scotland Yard wanted him to be re-interviewed, and he did not flee.  His DNA is already on file, and his home and car have been searched.

So far, I am failing to be impressed by this line of enquiry.  It appears to be on a par with the quality of reporting on the story.  Hopefully I will be proved to be wrong.

The McCanns – Scandal At Chaplins

The Madeleine McCann story has many rumours circulating around it. One is the Scandal At Chaplins.

In brief, the McCanns allegedly had a late night at Chaplins on Tuesday, 1^st May, and this is far too far away for half-hour checks or baby monitors.

This rumour was/is still doing the rounds in Luz (5 months ago). I first heard about it from then someone who had recently heard about it, in the stories emerging when Scotland Yard was coming to dig up Luz in June 2014.

The Chaplins story surfaced early on, not later than 24 July 2007 in a user comment section of the Daily Express. It seems this user comment got deleted fairly rapidly and the whole thread was removed later when there was a McCann-story clean sweep.

The person who retained the comment for posterity did a bit of digging and added that Tuesday night was quiz night at Chaplins, and that after dining had ceased it acted more as a bar, with a happy hour when all drinks were half-price for an hour from 11:30pm to 00:30am the next morning.

Tuesday night 1^st May was also the night of the crying incident, according to Pamela Fenn, who lived in the apartment directly above 5A. She gave a statement to the PJ that she heard a child crying in 5A from 10.30pm to 11.45pm. She also stated that from the sound it was by a child older than the twins, and that the crying stopped after she heard the patio door being opened by the parents when they returned.

The user comment in the Express mentioned Mrs Fenn (though it misspells her name) and the tale of crying from 10.30pm to 11:45pm.

Chaplins was (and still is) a restaurant just south of the church. As the crow flies, the distance is 350m to 5A, but a straight line route is not possible and in early May it was made longer because of major engineering works on two roads. 350m definitely rules out a baby monitor.

The minimum walking distance is 500m. At standard walking pace that is 5 minutes there, and 5 minutes back, so unless a proper rota, involving at least all 8 parents, was in place, the idea of half-hour checks is fanciful.

The media did not investigate this scandal and report on it. Instead the user comment got removed in a fairly timely manner.

So what is the evidence?

I believe that Pamela Fenn has since passed away and I am mindful of the various allegations made against conveniently dead people in the McCann case.

The mccannjpfiles has her statement on file. It was made on 20 Aug 2007, which is 3½ months later than Madeleine’s disappearance. However, the user comment in the Express was closer to the incident, being dated 24 Jul 2007, around 2½ months out, and the story could have been circulating earlier.

Mrs Fenn states that she did not see the parents return, but that she heard the patio doors open. Perhaps she meant she heard the parents as they went in the patio doors, but I find it hard to believe she could hear the patio doors open, particularly over the crying coming from 5A.

The PJ files have single reference to Chaplins, and it is not connected to this rumour. By sheer coincidence, Aoife Smith, of Smith sighting fame, said in her statement that Chaplins was one of several restaurants the Smiths frequented while in Luz. None of the Smith statements mention being in (or not being in) Chaplins on 1^st May. None mentions seeing the McCanns or other members of the Tapas group before the news broke.  {EDIT  I misspelled Aoife’s name in the original.  It has now been corrected.}

A rumour that Mrs Fenn complained to the Ocean Club and an employee of the Club somehow managed to track the McCanns to Chaplins is not supported by the files. Mrs Fenn made no mention of informing the Ocean Club. Not a single employee refers to a crying incident or of tracking the McCanns to Chaplins. Phone records show contact could not have been made by phone.

No-one in Chaplins that night has given a statement. That is, the waiters, the other diners, the quiz master, those participating in the quiz and those participating in the happy hour are all silent on what would be a major revelation.

You can check through all relevant statements for yourself. I have checked on barmen at the Tapas Bar, waiters at the Tapas Restaurant and chefs/kitchen staff in the Tapas Restaurant. None mentions the Tapas 9 being absent on the evening of 1^st May. Three mention the group being present on 1st May, although as no-one was asked specifically about the 1st May, and the evidence is weak, of the form “they dined at the Tapas Restaurant everyevening from Sunday on”.

http://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/TAPAS_BOOKING.htm has the booking forms for the holiday period. On 1^st May at total of 28 people had reservations at the Tapas Restaurant. All of these are noted as Mark Warner clients. This implies they were entitled to a 3 course meal, plus certain ‘free’ drinks. The meals and drinks had been factored into the booking price, so ‘free’ is not quite correct. One of the waiter statements said the allowance was around one bottle of wine per person.

The booking form notes 1 Sangria (presumably a bottle or jug) as a quiz show prize, plus 6 bottles of white wine and 10 of red, was the total consumption for everyone on a Mark Warner trip (the 28 people, not just the Tapas 9).

It would be surprising to find the 4 people booked in at 8pm were not there when the McCann group arrived around 8:30. I would also be surprised if the 7 individuals booked in at 7:30 had departed within an hour.

Nejoua Chekaya gave two statements, each of which says much the same. She ran a quiz in the Tapas area that night, she was invited by Gerry McCann to join the table, and she discussed banalities with them from around 9:30pm to 9:50pm.

If the McCann group was heading for another quiz starting at 10pm in Chaplins they were cutting it fine.

Gerry’s phone records do not provide evidence one way or other. Kate’s suggest that she was back in 5A as she made or received 6 texts or calls in around 15 minutes from 10:16pm to 10:27pm, after a gap with no activity during the dinner period. I cannot see why she would go to Chaplins for a quiz and then be active on her phone.

This phone timing, of course, edges right up to when Mrs Fenn says the crying started, which does not fit if Kate and Gerry were already back.

The crying episode fits much better with the night of 2^nd May when the Tapas group stayed out later for an after dinner drink. If so, Mrs Fenn was 1 night off when she gave her statement some 3½ months after the event.

If you search on Madeleine McCann and Chaplins, you will get plenty of hits. Most of these originate from before the PJ files were released and are chock full of errors resulting from media reports. Nejouya Chekaya was not the quiz mistress at Chaplins, she was an aerobics instructor in the Ocean Club who ran the quiz in the Tapas area. Blood was not found in the children’s bedroom, or outside the front of the apartment (the car park side). Blood and brain matter was not found on the steps from the patio to the garden gate. The list of errors runs on and on.

Since the media scrupulously avoided the Chaplins story and no hard evidence exists to support any of the variations, I’m writing this tale off as a scandalous rumour.