Scientific Cops Look Abroad for Work

25 September 2008
Intelligence Online
BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE AND LOBBYING/FIRMS

Forensic Science Service Ltd., a public firm that makes most of its money working for police forces in the United Kingdom, has retained the services of the American lobbying firm Van Scoyoc Associates to help it land contracts from U.S. federal agencies and police forces in the American states. Although it is government-owned, Forensic Science Service doesn’t enjoy a monopoly in the U.K. and finds itself competing with private groups. As a result, it wants to diversify its sources of revenue by carrying out forensic investigations on behalf of foreign police forces. Forensic Science Service has already made contact with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Van Scoyoc, the company hired by Forensic Science Service to drum up business for it, already has several British customers. In one instance, the firm represented the private security concern ArmorGroup.

Continue Reading... Labels: 2008, Forensic Science Services

Ex-cops approached for hunt

11 September 2008
The West Australian

Some of Britain’s most experienced police detectives are being approached to join a team to help find Madeleine McCann. The Find Madeleine Fund has asked for lists of suitable retired or soon-to-retire officers from forces across the country. The fund, which is now being bankrolled by Brian Kennedy, owner of Sale Sharks rugby team, has approached several police forces around the country, including Greater Manchester. Madeleine, 3, of Rothley, Leicestershire, disappeared from her family’s holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal, in May last year.

Continue Reading... Labels: 2008, Brian Kennedy, Clarence Mitchell, Find Madeleine Fund, Leicestershire Police, Madeleine McCann

Super cops join search for Maddie

10 September 2008
Daily Star
Ohn Mahoney
Ex-police help hunt

A crack team of retired supercops is being hired to help the hunt for Madeleine McCann. Scotland Yard, Cambridgeshire and Greater Manchester (GMP) forces have been approached for lists of former detectives who could bring fresh leads. The elite squad of officers – all retired or close to collecting their pensions – will be recruited by the Find Madeleine Fund and told to re-examine previous evidence. The fund is being bankrolled by leisure tycoon Brian Kennedy, 48, who owns Sale Sharks rugby union club and boasts an estimated £350 million fortune.

Continue Reading... Labels: 2008, Brian Kennedy, Clarence Mitchell, Find Madeleine Fund, Madeleine McCann

Wanted: Our ex-top cops to join hunt for Maddie

9 September 2008
Manchester Evening News

Top former detectives from Greater Manchester Police could be recruited to help find Madeleine McCann. Chief Supt Steve Heywood, head of the force's serious crime division, has been asked to provide a list of retired or about-to-retire officers. Madeleine was snatched while on holiday in Portugal just a few days before her fourth birthday in May last year. The Find Madeleine Fund was set up with help from individual donations and is now being bankrolled by Brian Kennedy, boss of Sale Sharks rugby union club.

Continue Reading... Labels: 2008, Brian Kennedy, Clarence Mitchell, Find Madeleine Fund, Leicestershire Police, Madeleine McCann

McCanns look to ex-cops

9 September 2008 
Wigan Observer

Chief Supt Steve Heywood, head of Greater Manchester's serious crime division - which covers the Wigan area - has been asked to provide a list of retired or about-to-retire officers.Madeleine was snatched while on holiday in Portugal in May last year.The Find Madeleine Fund was set up with help from individual donations and is now being bankrolled by Brian Kennedy, boss of Sale Sharks rugby union club.

Continue Reading... Labels: 2008, Brian Kennedy, Clarence Mitchell, Find Madeleine Fund, Madeleine McCann

English cops would have found Maddie

English cops would have found Maddie
Ross Hall
7 September 2008
The News of the World

Kate and Gerry McCann believe missing daughter Madeleine would have been found now if she had disappeared in England rather than Portugal.

Gerry said: "English police have more experience in kidnaps, they are more alert to the problem.

I don't have any doubt it would have been different if Madeleine had disappeared here."

Maddie, five, vanished from her parents' holiday apartment in Praia da Luz in May last year.

The couple, both 40, from Rothley, Leics, told a Portuguese mag they now keep their other two children, three-yearold twins Sean and Amelie, constantly by their side. Kate said: "We now think about everything that can happen - predators and kidnappers. In shopping centres we never let go of them."

The don't believe the dozens of witnesses reinterviewed by their investigators will lead to Maddie. They think the breakthrough will come from someone linked to the kidnapper.

Continue Reading... Labels: 2008, Lori Campbell, Madeleine McCann, News of the World, Ross Hall

Hunt team has its deal 'dropped'

August 26, 2008
Europe Intelligence Wire


A firm of private investigators hired to hunt for Madeleine McCann has reportedly had its GBP 500,000 contract dropped. The US-based Oakley International had been given a six-month contract and was paid from the Find Madeleine Fund.

Continue Reading... Labels: 2008, Brian Kennedy, Clarence Mitchell, Find Madeleine Fund, Madeleine McCann

Stranger in shadows ignored by detectives

George Brooks / Burke

Stranger in shadows ignored by detectives
Maddie 'sighting' on CCTV at Brussels bank
11 August 2008
The Sun
Veronica Lorraine in Praia da Luz

PORTUGUESE cops failed to probe a possible sighting of Maddie's abductor near her family's holiday apartment, police case files reveal.

Babysitter Margaret Hall was looking after a little girl in the flat eight months before the McCanns arrived.

When she investigated a noise outside, she saw a shoe in the shadows. She cried out and a man stepped out shouting, "No, no". Margaret said he was almost certainly Portuguese.

She told detectives she returned to the apartment "in a state of shock".

Couple

But police regarded the incident as "outdated" as it occurred so long before Maddie went missing, their 20,000-page dossier shows.

Police also failed to interview pizza worker George Brooks, 61, of Liverpool, who saw a suspicious couple carrying a child near the local marina hours after Maddie vanished.

Mr Brooks spoke to the McCanns' private detectives. But by the time Portuguese police visited his restaurant they were told he had left.

In another possible lead, Ernesto Mochacho, 23, told police of a "tall, thin Englishman in his 40s" who was taking photos of kids on a beach where the McCanns took Maddie.

They asked him to get in touch if he saw him again. But Ernesto added: "I never saw him after that."

The McCanns' spokesman Clarence Mitchell said last night: "Kate and Gerry hoped from the outset that the police were following up every lead."

Continue Reading... Labels: 2008, Clarence Mitchell, George Brooks, George Burke, Madeleine McCann

Cops ignored it

George Brooks / Burke

Cops ignored it
11 August 2008
Mirror
Victoria Ward in Praia da Luz

Newly-released evidence reveals a man tried to abduct a child at McCanns' flat 8 months before Maddy was taken..

A SUSPECTED abductor was spotted spying on Madeleine McCann's flat before she vanished - but Portuguese police ignored the tip-off, it emerged yesterday.

British babysitter Margaret Hall was caring for a girl aged six in the same apartment when she saw the prowler lurking in the dark and peering inside.

A statement and his description were passed to officers - who dismissed it as irrelevant, their files on the bungled probe reveal.

Last night a friend of Madeleine's parents Kate and Gerry branded the police reaction "astonishing".

The couple's private Metodo 3 detectives will now urgently pursue the potentially vital lead.

Family spokesman Clarence Mitchell said:

"Kate and Gerry hoped from the outset that police were following up every lead in the most thorough and professional manner possible.

"Where any information is found to not have been followed up, our private investigators are working on it, all of it."

Their zeal is in marked contrast to that of local cops, who shrugged off the report as "of no relation to the...investigation" and never bothered to contact Margaret.

British police intelligence has suggested Madeleine may have been snatched on May 3 last year days after being snapped by a spotter for Belgian paedophiles.

Margaret had reported her autumn 2006 sighting to Metodo 3 in November 2007 and they informed police. Parents of the youngster she was looking after were out for the night and had warned her about rodents in Apartment 5A at Praia da Luz's Ocean Club complex.

Margaret encountered the prowler as she went to check for rats at about 12.30am.

The Metodo 3 statement given to official detectives reveals:

"She left by the main entrance and, in a dark area, with movement sensitive lights, she noticed something moving and thought it was a rat.

"She was shocked when on closer examination she saw it was the brown shoe of a man who was peeping in the dark area outside the apartment.

"She shouted and the man came out of the darkness, activating the lights. He walked towards her and said, 'No, no'."

The prowler was said to be aged 23-25, of Mediterranean appearance and with long, black curly hair. He wore light trousers and a checked blue shirt.

Margaret is convinced he had a Portuguese accent.

Kate and Gerry's pal Jane Tanner has told police that on the night Madeleine vanished she saw a dark-haired man in beige trousers carrying a child and hurrying from the direction of the flat.

Margaret reported her sighting to her boss but he was more bothered about a rat infestation.

The babysitter - who spent six months working for the Ocean Club complex until November 2006 - contacted Metodo 3 via their helpline.

The Spanish private sleuths met Portuguese police on November 14 last year and passed on the tip-off. But Portuguese officers dismissed it out of hand because the sighting came around eight months before Madeleine vanished.

Their 30,000 pages of case notes reveal:

"The director of M3 (Metodo 3) handed us a small notepad with information relating to Madeleine's disappearance.

"They said the information had come from their Spanish Madeleine helpline.

"We notice that it reports facts which took place in August/Sept of 2006, which seems to us outdated and of no relation to the material under investigation."

British nanny Charlotte Pennington worked at the resort last year and said she had heard reports of a suspicious man lurking around apartments.

Meanwhile, it has emerged police failed to quiz Liverpool man George Brooks, 61, who saw a suspicious couple carrying a child in Praia da Luz hours after Madeleine vanished.

By the time police finally visited the restaurant where he worked, he had left and they made no further effort to contact him.

Several holidaymakers also told police about a man behaving strangely near Praia da Luz.

Metodo 3

Spanish private investigators, based in Barcelona, are said to be being paid £50,000 a day to hunt for Madeleine. Since taking on the case it has received 16,000 calls from potential witnesses.

Continue Reading... Labels: 2008, Brian Kennedy, Clarence Mitchell, George Brooks, George Burke, Madeleine McCann, Metodo3

'Kidnapper in the shadows' outside Maddie's bedroom

George Brooks / Burke

'Kidnapper in the shadows' outside Maddie's bedroom
11 August 2008
Daily Mail
Vanessa Allen in Praia da Luz

Police failed to investigate a previous suspected abduction attempt from Kate and Gerry McCann's holiday apartment, it was disclosed yesterday.

A babysitter spotted a man lurking in the shadows outside apartment 5A while she was looking after a young girl inside.

But Portuguese police searching for missing Madeleine McCann dismissed her account as 'irrelevant' and refused to investigate.

The failure, one of a host of missed opportunities, was revealed in the mammoth files released last week.

It emerged as police in Belgium continued to trawl through CCTV footage from a bank in Brussels where a security guard reported seeing a girl resembling Madeleine last week.

The McCanns' private detectives are working on a theory that Madeleine was abducted and taken to Belgium on the orders of a paedophile gang who had seen a photograph of her taken by a 'spotter' in Portugal.

Family spokesman Clarence Mitchell said their detectives were working on all the missed clues in the police files.

He said:

'Kate and Gerry hoped from the outset that the police were following up every lead in the most thorough and professional manner possible. Where any information is found not to have been followed up, our investigators are working on it, all of it.'

The case files showed that Margaret Hall, a babysitter at the Mark Warner resort, was interviewed by detectives working for the McCanns from the Spanish-based agency Metodo 3 last year. They handed their report, marked 'Very Confidential', to the Portuguese police. It said Miss Hall had been in apartment 5A with a young girl in September 2006 - eight months before Madeleine's disappearance - when she heard a noise outside.

She went to investigate, the statement said, adding: 'In a dark area she noticed something was moving and thought it was a rat.

'She was shocked when, on closer examination, she saw it was the brown shoe of a man. She shouted and the man came out of the darkness, activating movement-sensitive lights. He walked towards her, saying "No, no".'

The incident happened on a Thursday night - the same night Madeleine was taken. But an internal Portuguese police memo said the report 'seems to us to be out-dated and of no relevance to the material under investigation'.

Detectives also failed to question George Brooks, 61, from Liverpool, who reported seeing a couple carrying a child near the local marina only hours after Madeleine vanished. A friend of the McCanns, of Rothley, Leicestershire, said last night: 

'The way the Policia Judiciaria dismissed a lot of the leads is astonishing. At the moment Kate and Gerry are concentrating on the Belgium sighting, as it was the most recent.'

A guard at the KBC bank in Brussels says he saw a blonde, blue-eyed girl with a Moroccan-looking woman last Monday.

The McCanns now have detectives working around the world at a reported cost of £166,000 a month.

Among the possible sightings they are following up, also apparently ignored by the Portuguese, is one by a British yachtsman on the Caribbean island of Margarita last May.

Trevor Francis, 64, of Worthing, West Sussex, said: 'I saw the little blemish in her right eye. She was the absolute image of Madeleine.' He said the girl was in a restaurant with three women who looked Spanish. She seemed 'sullen' and refused to eat.

Continue Reading... Labels: 2008, Brian Kennedy, Clarence Mitchell, George Brooks, George Burke, Madeleine McCann, Metodo3