Portuguese detective who led the search for Madeleine McCann vows to 'clean out' her parents as he sues them for damaging his reputation

First topic message reminder :



The Portuguese detective who led the search for Madeleine McCann has promised to 'clean out' her grief-stricken parents by suing them for damaging his reputation.
Goncalo Amaral, 57, claimed in a book that Madeleine died at the McCann's holiday house in Praia da Luz and Kate and Gerry covered it up.
The McCanns won a libel case against Amaral in 2015, but this was overturned on appeal and that decision upheld in another court.
This means Amaral is now able to sue the McCanns for damages potentially totalling tens of thousands of pounds.



http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4415928/Detective-led-Madeleine-McCann-search-sue-parents.html

HoratioTarr wrote:

eddie wrote:

She stated that it 'was covered in sunscreen'  so she washed it - the day after?
Yeah, I'd be doing that after my daughter was "taken by them"

No parent would.    We know that because we're parents.

And the sniffer dog still detected death on it...

Tommy Monk wrote:

HoratioTarr wrote:

No parent would.    We know that because we're parents.

And the sniffer dog still detected death on it...

Even more absurd reasoning.

That now all dogs are incapable of being wrong or mistaken.

That what humans attempt to train them to recognize through alerting to certain odeur, is fool proof. Even as seen though within this case there is countless evidence to where the evidence conflicts and even worse where the animal is guided to areas of interest of which it previously ignores many times. The animal many times sniffed items and never alerted and had to be prompted.

So what do people really know?

Nothing, they again go off confirmation bias.

Tommy Monk wrote:

HoratioTarr wrote:

No parent would.    We know that because we're parents.

And the sniffer dog still detected death on it...

Dogs have more than 220 million olfactory receptors in their nose, whereas humans only have 20 million. These dogs have succeeded time and again with locating bodies. Sure they make mistakes, but not very often.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/the-csi-death-dogs-sniffing-out-the-truth-behind-the-crime-scene-canines-835047.html

HoratioTarr wrote:

Tommy Monk wrote:

And the sniffer dog still detected death on it...

Dogs have more than 220 million olfactory receptors in their nose, whereas humans only have 20 million. These dogs have succeeded time and again with locating bodies. Sure they make mistakes, but not very often.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/the-csi-death-dogs-sniffing-out-the-truth-behind-the-crime-scene-canines-835047.html

And have to be trained to understand and isolate the differences

In this instance and where a dog failed to alert to many items and then had to be coached again and again to sniff them. Proves they certainly make mistakes.

So did the dog smell death?

Who knows, but based on the evidence, its inadmissible.

This lovely dog was not even certified as a trained cadaver dog. That bullshit was made up by the owner in order to promote his business.

As a matter of interest there are dogs trained that can smell bodies under 20ft of water. Saw this demonstrated on TV some years ago.

nicko wrote:As a matter of interest there are dogs trained that can smell bodies under 20ft of water.   Saw this demonstrated on TV some years ago.

That is the key word here.

Even then, they can and will make mistakes..

Not that matters

This was not a certified as trained cadaver dog.


The claims that the dog was, are born from the inventions of the owner in order to ply his trade.

What about the dogs smelling death on Kate's clothes. She said she had seen patients who died before going on holiday. What she never washed her clothes? So how often do GP's visit dead people. Unless they die at home, so did she pick their bodies up? Her statement was rubbish.

Didge you're totally waffling. She washed her "missing" daughters toy - the one she slept with from birth, the last thing she touched - and you're waffling on about probability and maths.

We all know it's an odd thing to do. If you don't think so then...not much more to discuss really.

I just think that if they had done something to her, they wouldn't be drawing all this attention to themselves. Wouldn't the younger children have woken up if Maddie had died there and there had been a clean up?

If they didn't do anything, and some bloke writes a book pointing the finger at them, of course they're going to object. He tried to ruin their reputation.

Raggamuffin wrote:I just think that if they had done something to her, they wouldn't be drawing all this attention to themselves. Wouldn't the younger children have woken up if Maddie had died there and there had been a clean up?

If they didn't do anything, and some bloke writes a book pointing the finger at them, of course they're going to object. He tried to ruin their reputation.

One of the causes for concern was the very fact that the twins never woke up - during the "abduction" nor the police and many people going in and out afterwards.

There is something about all that in the PJ Files.

TBH I am not getting dragged back into this debate. It caused me no end of trouble. I had my email account hacked and a whole internet "plot" brought against me (ask miffs and harvesmom). It went on for months and I got threatening emails telling me to stop talking about it. All very weird at the time.
There was a whole bunch of people around at the time saying they worked for the mccanns and were sent to shut down debate. I'm telling you, in all my years on forums and in debates - I have never ever seen the level of weirdness and ugliness that I have seen surrounding this case.

Raggamuffin wrote:I just think that if they had done something to her, they wouldn't be drawing all this attention to themselves. Wouldn't the younger children have woken up if Maddie had died there and there had been a clean up?

If they didn't do anything, and some bloke writes a book pointing the finger at them, of course they're going to object. He tried to ruin their reputation.

He did not! He was not some bloke, he was the lead investigator. Don't forget either, the cop from London who said he had arrested people on less evidence than they had against the McCanns.

The McCanns ruined their own reputation by lying and refusing to cooperate with an investigation

eddie wrote:

Raggamuffin wrote:I just think that if they had done something to her, they wouldn't be drawing all this attention to themselves. Wouldn't the younger children have woken up if Maddie had died there and there had been a clean up?

If they didn't do anything, and some bloke writes a book pointing the finger at them, of course they're going to object. He tried to ruin their reputation.

One of the causes for concern was the very fact that the twins never woke up - during the "abduction" nor the police and many people going in and out afterwards.

There is something about all that in the PJ Files.

TBH I am not getting dragged back into this debate. It caused me no end of trouble. I had my email account hacked and a whole internet "plot" brought against me (ask miffs and harvesmom). It went on for months and I got threatening emails telling me to stop talking about it.  All very weird at the time.
There was a whole bunch of people around at the time saying they worked for the mccanns and were sent to shut down debate.  I'm telling you, in all my years on forums and in debates - I have never ever seen the level of weirdness and ugliness that I have seen surrounding this case.

And still, to this day, you can hear, from a distant corner of Blackpool, the plaintive cry of "Madeleine, the little girl left to cry in the dark."

Miffs2 wrote:

Raggamuffin wrote:I just think that if they had done something to her, they wouldn't be drawing all this attention to themselves. Wouldn't the younger children have woken up if Maddie had died there and there had been a clean up?

If they didn't do anything, and some bloke writes a book pointing the finger at them, of course they're going to object. He tried to ruin their reputation.

He did not! He was not some bloke, he was the lead investigator. Don't forget either, the cop from London who said he had arrested people on less evidence than they had against the McCanns.

The McCanns ruined their own reputation by lying and refusing to cooperate with an investigation

He was removed from the case was he not? If he accused them of covering up their daughter's death, and they didn't do that, why should they just shrug it off?

Miffs2 wrote:

eddie wrote:

Raggamuffin wrote:I just think that if they had done something to her, they wouldn't be drawing all this attention to themselves. Wouldn't the younger children have woken up if Maddie had died there and there had been a clean up?

If they didn't do anything, and some bloke writes a book pointing the finger at them, of course they're going to object. He tried to ruin their reputation.

One of the causes for concern was the very fact that the twins never woke up - during the "abduction" nor the police and many people going in and out afterwards.

There is something about all that in the PJ Files.

TBH I am not getting dragged back into this debate. It caused me no end of trouble. I had my email account hacked and a whole internet "plot" brought against me (ask miffs and harvesmom). It went on for months and I got threatening emails telling me to stop talking about it.  All very weird at the time.
There was a whole bunch of people around at the time saying they worked for the mccanns and were sent to shut down debate.  I'm telling you, in all my years on forums and in debates - I have never ever seen the level of weirdness and ugliness that I have seen surrounding this case.

And still, to this day, you can hear, from a distant corner of Blackpool, the plaintive cry of "Madeleine, the little girl left to cry in the dark."

Ah Jueh, yes I remember her.

Whole thing surrounding this case and the whole shitfest that went on. Very strange.

Raggamuffin wrote:I just think that if they had done something to her, they wouldn't be drawing all this attention to themselves. Wouldn't the younger children have woken up if Maddie had died there and there had been a clean up?

If they didn't do anything, and some bloke writes a book pointing the finger at them, of course they're going to object. He tried to ruin their reputation.

That's another odd thing. Witnesses said Madeleine cried for over an hour one night when left alone. Why didn't that wake up the twins? She had sleep problems apparently, that child. Would you leave a child you knew had problems sleeping alone with two very young toddlers?

HoratioTarr wrote:

Raggamuffin wrote:I just think that if they had done something to her, they wouldn't be drawing all this attention to themselves. Wouldn't the younger children have woken up if Maddie had died there and there had been a clean up?

If they didn't do anything, and some bloke writes a book pointing the finger at them, of course they're going to object. He tried to ruin their reputation.

That's another odd thing.    Witnesses said Madeleine cried for over an hour one night when left alone.  Why didn't that wake up the twins?   She had sleep problems apparently, that child.   Would you leave a child you knew had problems sleeping alone with two very young toddlers?  

No, but they did, and that's something they have to live with. It doesn't mean they did anything to her.

Raggamuffin wrote:

Miffs2 wrote:

He did not! He was not some bloke, he was the lead investigator. Don't forget either, the cop from London who said he had arrested people on less evidence than they had against the McCanns.

The McCanns ruined their own reputation by lying and refusing to cooperate with an investigation

He was removed from the case was he not? If he accused them of covering up their daughter's death, and they didn't do that, why should they just shrug it off?

I dunno Rags, I just know if it was my child missing I would do whatever the police told me to do. I wouldn't set about trying to misdirect the investigation, I wouldn't whine about the speed of a car when being taken to a possible sighting of my daughter, I wouldn't be laughing my head off on Mother's Day, I wouldn't enter into a conspiracy of silence with my mates and I wouldn't have behaved like a bloody diva worrying about people being meeeen because they are jealous.

Raggamuffin wrote:

HoratioTarr wrote:

That's another odd thing.    Witnesses said Madeleine cried for over an hour one night when left alone.  Why didn't that wake up the twins?   She had sleep problems apparently, that child.   Would you leave a child you knew had problems sleeping alone with two very young toddlers?  

No, but they did, and that's something they have to live with. It doesn't mean they did anything to her.

One of the most disturbing things was that awful testimony from the woman who caught Gerry McCann and that other guy making sexually suggestive gestures regarding Madeleine.

There was a similar case concerning one of the detectives on the JonBenet Ramsey murder case. Steve Thomas wrote a book about it and pointed the finger at the Ramseys. The Ramseys sued him, and it was settled out of court when he paid them an undisclosed sum.

HoratioTarr wrote:

Raggamuffin wrote:

HoratioTarr wrote:

That's another odd thing.    Witnesses said Madeleine cried for over an hour one night when left alone.  Why didn't that wake up the twins?   She had sleep problems apparently, that child.   Would you leave a child you knew had problems sleeping alone with two very young toddlers?  

No, but they did, and that's something they have to live with. It doesn't mean they did anything to her.

One of the most disturbing things was that awful testimony from the woman who caught Gerry McCann and that other guy making sexually suggestive gestures regarding Madeleine.  

The Gaspar statements, two doctors. Available online in full.

And the Irish bloke who said he saw a man hurrying along with a small limp child around the time... and he swears it was gerry mccann...

Tommy Monk wrote:And the Irish bloke who said he saw a man hurrying along with a small limp child around the time... and he swears it was gerry mccann...

The Smith family, the photo fit sure looked like Gerry McCann, certainly more believable than egg man.

Who needs detectives of the calibre of Sherlock Holmes when you have a genius sleuth that knows all about the investigation, more than Scotland Yard even.
I would rather trust British detectives to uncover the truth.
That said, I would rather trust Kim Jong-un than Tommy.

There have been many "sightings" and "photofits" - more than most cases you read about.
Makes you wonder.

Angry Andy wrote:Who needs detectives of the calibre of Sherlock Holmes when you have a genius sleuth that knows all about the investigation, more than Scotland Yard even.
I would rather trust British detectives to uncover the truth.
That said, I would rather trust Kim Jong-un than Tommy.

The British police who were sent over to 'help/assist' during the investigation, and having investigated and viewed all the evidence, were all working under the same primary line of enquiry that the girl wasn't abducted by any unknown 3rd party... but that the girl had died in the apartment some time before it was announced that she was 'missing', and that the mccanns were involved in covering it up!!!

eddie wrote:Didge you're totally waffling. She washed her "missing" daughters toy - the one she slept with from birth, the last thing she touched - and you're waffling on about probability and maths.

We all know it's an odd thing to do. If you don't think so then...not much more to discuss really.

And?

No I do not think its an odd thing to do and even based on you thinking its odd. It would be not surprising, as the woman would clearly be in shock.

So again confirmation bias

magica wrote:What about the dogs smelling death on Kate's clothes. She said she had seen patients who died before going on holiday. What she never washed her clothes? So how often do GP's visit dead people. Unless they die at home, so did she pick their bodies up? Her statement was rubbish.

Where is the proof the dog was smelling death?

Thorin wrote:

magica wrote:What about the dogs smelling death on Kate's clothes. She said she had seen patients who died before going on holiday. What she never washed her clothes? So how often do GP's visit dead people. Unless they die at home, so did she pick their bodies up? Her statement was rubbish.

Where is the proof the dog was smelling death?

The fact that the dog was trained to alert to the smell of death... and that the mccanns didn't deny the dogs findings, but instead gave an excuse that kate had been in contact with a dead person some time before they went on holiday...!!!

Tommy Monk wrote:

Thorin wrote:


Where is the proof the dog was smelling death?

The fact that the dog was trained to alert to the smell of death... and that the mccanns didn't deny the dogs findings, but instead gave an excuse that kate had been in contact with a dead person some time before they went on holiday...!!!

Wrong again, both had different types of training and the reports on the claimed cadaver dog, shows it had to be coached to items it had previously sniffed and moved on from. There is no evidence this dog was a certified fully trained cadaver dog.

The evidence from the claimed cadaver dog would be inadmissible in court

Even the report files state clear the problems with this dog not alerting to items to then being coached back to them.

So inadmissable

The dog was highly trained... even having been trained in usa with the FBI at their training location using real dead human remains!!!


The dog was giving positive signals of death throughout the various locations of mccann sniff investigations... clearly displaying that it had positively identified a strong scent of death at all places... the dog was then encouraged to indicate the areas where the smell was strongest!!!


The dog was overwhelmed with smell of death in the apartment... and also gave positive indications on the mccanns hire car that they only hired 2-3 weeks after girls disappearance... the dog also gave positive indications on the cuddle cat toy and other clothes weeks after disappearance and that had all been thoroughly washed...

1) No evidence to back this claim up, only the owner claimed it was

2) The dog could have been barking to anything and as seen failed to alert at items after sniffing them. This would be ruled out in court as inadmissible. This happens in the apartment and the car. The car it even has to be called back by the owner when it ignores it. It had sniffed the toy and moved on to later again be coached back and only later gave an alert.

3) There is no evidence it was alerting to death

The dog was giving the clear indications of having detected what it was trained to detect... and in the way that was recognisable to the handler...!


If you've ever had a dog... you will know full well that it displays very distinctive behaviours under a variety of different specific circumstances...


The handler knows the dog extremely well.. and will have indepth observational knowledge of how the dog behaves in the vast majority of normal circumstances... and will also be very well aware of the displayed behaviour of dog when it is recognising something that it is trained to detect!!!

Seem like a nice chap not only do the McCanne's lose a daughter their other two children will be living in poverty once the parasite finishes his evil deed against them .

A nanny who looked after Madeleine McCann has told how the youngster’s parents were plunged into despair and panic when the ­horrifying truth she had vanished sank in.

The former child minder said she is still haunted by the image of dad Gerry desperately trying to find their missing daughter while she tried to comfort weeping mum Kate who cried: “They’ve taken her.”


Breaking her silence after 10 years, the witness also claimed the resort from which Madeleine vanished was considered so unsafe nannies were handed rape alarms and told to not go out alone.

And she slammed the Portuguese police’s handling of the disappearance, insisting their ­blundering scuppered any chances of finding who had snatched three-year-old Madeleine.

Speaking of that dreadful night in May 2007, the ex-nanny –who looked after the girl several times – said: “A parent came to me and said there was something going on, and said someone’s looking for a child, I didn’t instantly think it was Maddie.

"A couple of minutes later I walked into Kate crying, friends comforting her, Gerry looking under cars, and it just blew up. I don’t even think she saw me. I just stood next to her and tried to comfort her.

“She was pacing up and down. The worst possible thing had just happened to her.

“I think I said something like, ‘She’ll be found, these things happen all the time.’

“She was crying, but almost in a catatonic state, and Gerry was very distressed. That’s the one thing I really remember from him, looking under the cars. I can’t forget that.

“We were told to start looking in bins in case her body was in there. It was at that point we realised this was serious.”

Along with other staff, the ex-carer, who worked for travel firm Mark Warner at the the Ocean Club resort, sifted by hand in the dark through industrial-sized bins and piping leading into the sea in their hunt for Madeleine.

They also walked Praia da Luz’s small, winding streets searching for the missing girl until they were told, against their wills at 5am, that it was time for bed.

But the woman, who we are not naming, said she is still furious with local police , who she claimed took 90 minutes to arrive on the scene.

And she told how people were in and out of the apartment where Madeleine vanished from – contaminating a ­potential crime scene.

The former nanny added: “I know I didn’t step into that apartment but pretty much everybody else did. So, evidence gone, nothing. There was nobody there to say, ‘We need to lock this off now.’ The police didn’t get there for ages, maybe an hour and a half, so we were looking for her. And at the end of the day, no matter how much you’ve been trained with ­children, we were children, mainly ­teenagers, we’re not police.

“That’s why police were trying to get everyone’s timelines, because they weren’t there.”

She also told how she was interviewed by officers in the wake of Madeleine’s disappearance and later detectives from ­the Met’s Operation Grange handed her two pages of statements they had retrieved from their Algarve compratiots.

Her original statement was four to five pages long, but the one the Portuguese had been working from was only two pages long – missing a number of details from her interview. The woman claimed “whole chunks of information were missed out”.

She added: “I think a lot of things should’ve happened differently. ­Unfortunately the effects were catastrophic.”

And the carer told how she was astonished Kate and Gerry were ever deemed suspects in their own child’s ­disappearance. She is still constantly quizzed by people about the case who ask if “the parents did it”.

She said: “I tell them no, there’s no way at all. A, timings and B, where it was, their r­eactions, the whole thing. Not a chance.”

The woman also told how Madeleine was a favourite among the child minders. Her allocated nanny was Catriona Baker, but others also got the chance to look after her. The carer added: “I remember her character and ­temperament. She was slightly shy, very sweet. Not loud or precocious.

“We obviously give the same care to all the children, but she was a real cutie and a real sweetheart. If you asked her, ‘Can you just pass me that?’ She’d be like, ‘Sure.’

“She was easy for us, and you were happy to sit and help out this pretty little girl who’s really nice.”

While the Ocean Club was clearly popular with British holidaymakers like the McCanns, from Rothley, Leics, the former child minder claimed it was considered an unsafe place for those who worked there.

After she arrived she was stunned when a fellow nanny passed on a message from hotel staff to never venture off the site alone.

She added: “I just couldn’t get over how different it was to other Mark Warner resorts.

“We were told, ‘Here’s a rape whistle, don’t go anywhere by yourself, ever.’ There’d been a girl attacked the year or so before in Praia da Luz. It didn’t sound like a family resort to me.

“I just got the feeling the locals didn’t want us there.” It emerged in 2014 that 11 years earlier a 10-year-old British girl had been sexually assaulted “in the heart” of Praia da Luz.

The victim came forward three years ago after a Scotland Yard appeal revealed a string of potentially linked sex assaults on young UK girls across the Algarve between 2004 and 2006.

Mark Warner, which operates in resorts all over the world, quit Praia da Luz in 2015.

Madeleine vanished as her parents ate with friends at a tapas bar just 40 yards from where she slept next to twin siblings, Amelie and Sean.

But the former nanny, who couldn’t face child minding again after the Algarve horror, said dining while kids were in the apartments was “really normal” in such resorts. And she insisted there was no evidence Kate and Gerry would ever neglect their kids. She said: “I remember thinking, even before I knew them, how they were the picture perfect family.”

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/what-really-happened-night-madeleine-10245222

Tommy Monk wrote:

The dog was giving the clear indications of having detected what it was trained to detect... and in the way that was recognisable to the handler...!

B
If you've ever had a dog... you will know full well that it displays very distinctive behaviours under a variety of different specific circumstances...


The handler knows the dog extremely well..  and will have indepth observational knowledge of how the dog behaves in the vast majority of normal circumstances... and will also be very well aware of the displayed behaviour of dog when it is recognising something that it is trained to detect!!!

Exactly, one was trained to cadaver the other to human blood. Anyway, even the McCanns accepted the dog detected cadaver.

Miffs2 wrote:

Tommy Monk wrote:

The dog was giving the clear indications of having detected what it was trained to detect... and in the way that was recognisable to the handler...!

B
If you've ever had a dog... you will know full well that it displays very distinctive behaviours under a variety of different specific circumstances...


The handler knows the dog extremely well..  and will have indepth observational knowledge of how the dog behaves in the vast majority of normal circumstances... and will also be very well aware of the displayed behaviour of dog when it is recognising something that it is trained to detect!!!

Exactly, one was trained to cadaver the other to human blood. Anyway, even the McCanns accepted the dog detected cadaver.

Wrong, the owner claimed one was trained to cadaver. Of which is irrelevant.

He claimed he did this, in other words the dog was not a certified Cadaver dog

The report clearly shows the dog not alerting to items after sniffing them and going by items to later to be coached back to them

That would be inadmissible in a court of law

Now there was no discrepancies with the dog that can detect human blod

Really?! Goodness me, I wonder why the McCanns tried to explain away cadaver then?

To educate the thickies here

For there to be a positive proof of an alert of death, requires corroborating evidence.

There is none and again the Dog was unreliable. It sniffed the toy and even chewed the toy and did not alert. Later it had to be coached back to the toy and only then made an alert.

Without corroborating evidence, it would be inadmissible in court.

Hence people claiming the Dog alerted to death are as seen ignorant to the abilities of Cadaver dogs and the law.

If the dog was trained by Portuguese dog handling trainers, bloody sure it would be crap at what is does. 
The police botched the investigstion big time from the second they walked into the apartment. After that, the investigation descended into a fiasco.

Miffs2 wrote:Really?! Goodness me, I wonder why the McCanns tried to explain away cadaver then?

This is also another example of confirmation bias, lies and poor interpretation




30. When they heard about the dogs’ findings, the McCanns reacted strangely, claiming that…
The ‘smell of death’ may have been found on Kate’s clothes because she was said to have been close to six corpses in her last two weeks at work, on the pink soft toy ‘Cuddle Cat’ because she ‘sometimes took Cuddle Cat to work’, or that the ‘smell of death’ could have come from rotting meat that Gerry McCann was taking to the local rubbish dump from time to time.
 
If Madeleine’s DNA, were to be found in the boot of their car, it may have come from the children’s dirty nappies they claimed they were carrying in the boot.
 
Any blood found in the flat might have come from Madeleine ‘grazing her leg’ or suffering a nosebleed. In fact, with the help of Martin Grime’s bloodhound, the police found blood underneath the tiles below a window in the living room of the McCanns’ apartment.
 
Verdict - False and misleading. According to their statements the McCanns couldn't explain why the dog(s) barked. The forensics didn't identify any of the samples as blood. They did identify someone's DNA in the samples from (underneath) the tiles: the DNA of a Portuguese forensics officer who collected the samples.  
Source - Media articles and the Police Files 
 

 
Summary of Verifiable Facts 
 
[list="margin-right: 0px; margin-left: 3em; padding-right: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border: 0px; font-family:"]
[*]None of the claims, regarding what the McCanns claimed, made by the MMRG are true.
[*]Most of the claims by the MMRG are based on tabloid stories, unnamed sources, speculating journalists.  
[*]Apparently during the heat of the summer, July-August, there were occasions when the car smelled, and witnesses blamed it on the leakage from a rubbish bag or the twins nappies.
[*]Forensics who examined the cellular material didn't identify it as 'blood,' nor did they identify Madeleines DNA in any of the samples.  
[/list]
 
 
Extracts from newspaper articles, with relevant sections highlighted in red
 

Kate has been close to six bodies in last two weeks at work

Apparently the source for this claim is Correia da Manha, a Portuguese tabloid. It was impossible for us to find the original. However the British newspapers copied it into their articles. There's no video interview we could find to hear Kate McCann say it herself, nor any newspaper interview.
 
TimesOnline 10.09.2007

Mrs McCann is reported to have explained that in her work as locum GPshe came into contact with six corpses in the weeks leading up to Algarve holiday.

 
There's also an Express article that since has been pulled/removed from the public domain ("Questions for the McCanns") which said:

Why did a dog detect the smell of a corpse on your clothes? A British dog trained by police to find dead bodies is alleged to have detected something on Mrs McCann’s bible, jeans and T-shirt and also on Madeleine’s favourite Cuddle Cat toy. Kate McCann is believed to have replied that she came into contact with at least six corpses in her work as a doctor. And it is possible Madeleine’s toy could have become contaminated from Mrs McCann’s clothes.

 
 

Kate took CuddleCat sometimes to work

No source found for this claim.
 

The ‘smell of death’ could have come from rotting meat that Gerry McCann was taking to the local rubbish dump from time to time

Not the McCanns, but 'a' friend, an unnamed source claimed this.
 
Telegraph

A friend dismissed reports of scientific findings that could have aroused suspicion, saying traces of Madeleine’s DNA allegedly found in the back of the car they hired 25 days after she disappeared could be explained easily. He also sought to explain why sniffer dogs - trained to detect the "smell of death" - allegedly became so excited when shown the boot of the car. "Kate and Gerry had to transport all their rubbish to a communal rubbish dump half a mile away," the friend said. "There was a regular run with the boot of the car being full of rubbish including bags of rotting fruit, rotting meat and soiled nappies belonging to the twins."

 

If Madeleine's DNA were to be found in the boot of their car, it may have come from the children’s dirty nappies they claimed they were carrying in the boot.

Again this 'friend', an unnamed source was speculating about it.
 
Telegraph

The friend said a pair of Madeleine's unwashed pyjamas had been among the clothes thrown into the back of the car when the McCanns left the holiday apartment. They left in a hurry, throwing their belongings into carrier bags, plastic sacks and even loose, because they were trying to avoid the media. "The seats were taken out and everything [went in] including Madeleine's flip flops," said the friend. "They would have included traces of skin, sweat and body fluids. DNA can easily have been transferred in such circumstances." He claimed body fluids in the spare tyre well under the upholstery in the boot of the vehicle could also have come from dirty nappies belonging to their twins.

 

Any blood found in the flat might have come from Madeleine ‘grazing her leg’ or suffering a nosebleed.

 
Dailymail 10.09.2007

But could there be a simpler explanation? Madeleine was filmed on a home video tripping on the plane out to Portugal. Did she cut herself then bleed on to a shoe or clothing which was put in the car when the McCanns moved from their Ocean Club apartment to a rented villa?

 
 
Extracts from the files, with relevant sections highlighted in red
 
Here's what Kate and Gerry actually said to the PJ when questioned about the smell on the (Kate's) clothes, CuddleCat:
........... that's NOTHING, because it wasn't even mentioned in the "arguido" interviews. The PJ returned the clothes the next day.
 
Arguida Interview Kate McCann 07.09.2007
--- The viewing ended and after signs of cadaver odour in her bedroom next to the cupboard and behind the sofa against the window of the living room, she said that she can not explain anything more than that already mentioned.
--- Also signalled, now by the dog of the detection of human blood behind the sofa mentioned above, she said that she can not explain anything more than that already mentioned.
--- Signalled the cadaver odour in the car that they rented about one month after the disappearance, registration 59-DA-27, she said that she can not explain anything more than that already mentioned.
--- Signalled the presence of human blood in the trunk of the same vehicle, she said that she can not explain anything more than that already mentioned.
--- Confronted with the result of the collection of DNA from MADELEINE, which analysis was carried out by a British laboratory, from behind the sofa and trunk of the vehicle, situations previously described, she said that she can not explain anything more than that already mentioned.
 
Arguido Interview Gerry McCann 07.09.2007
 -- After viewing the films and after the signalling of cadaver odour in their room next to the wardrobe and behind the sofa against the window in the living room, he says that he has no comments, neither has he any explanation for this fact.
--- Also, the dog that detects human blood signalled human blood behind the sofa mentioned above, he says that he cannot explain this fact.
-- Regarding the cadaver odour in the car that was rented at the end of May, (xx)-DA-27, he says he cannot explain more than what he already has.
--- Regarding the presence of human blood in the boot of the same vehicle, he says that he has not explanation for this fact.
-- When confronted with the fact that Madeleine's DNA was collected from behind the sofa and in the boot of the vehicle and analyzed by a British laboratory, situations also described before, he says that he cannot explain.
--- When asked if on any occasion Madeleine was injured, he says that he has no comments.
-- When questioned, he says he is the usual driver of the car. In addition to G. the car could also be driven by his wife Kate, sister in law Sandy and a cousin of Kate's by the name Michael.
-- When asked if he has anything to add he says that he has not seen any proof that his daughter Madeleine is dead, and therefore he will continue to search for her in the hopes she is alive. He knows nothing more than what has been said.
-- The lawyer for the defence says he wishes the arguido to be asked again if Madeleine bled. To which he said it was common for Madeleine to have nosebleeds. He says that he doesn't know if in fact his daughter bled while on holiday in Portugal because he does not want to be influenced by the news in the Press, regarding the detection of human blood in the apartment where his daughter disappeared.
 
Note:

• The PJ lied to Gerry McCann about the 'human blood in the boot of the car, 'Madeleines DNA collected behind the sofa and in the boot'. The forensics report makes that very clear.
  
• Most of the samples had to be analysed using LCN techniques, and in most (relevant) cases the material of the sample couldn't be identified.  
  
  
• None of the cellular material examined was identified as Madeleines DNA. However, they did identify the DNA of one of the Portuguese forensic technicians.
  

 
 
Sandy Cameron
Whilst in the villa, a gardener would arrive every week or about every 15 days. This was organized by the estate agency. The gardener would leave black rubbish bags near the gate, and on at least one occasion, I used the vehicle to remove these bags. The collection of rubbish in Portugal is not made as it is in the U.K., and for this reason, it was necessary to take the rubbish to a tip (disposal area) which was called 'recycling area' near the back of the Ocean Club. I used the Renault Scenic for this reason on many occasions. 
On one occasion, I believe it was on July of 2007, I took Patricia to the supermarket. We carried bags in the boot (trunk) of the Renault Scenic; bought various items including fresh fish, shrimp and beef. When we unloaded the shopping bags, we noticed that blood has run out of the bottom of the plastic bag. After this shopping trip and still in the month of July 2007, I began to notice a strange odour in the car. I did not give it much importance and assumed it was likely due to the leakage from the rubbish bags or from the blood which had escaped from the shopping bags. As a result, we removed the carpet from the boot (trunk) in order to clean it. I tossed (beat) the boot carpet to remove any particles and cleaned it with a wet cloth and left it to air out.
 
Michael Wright
I drove the car regularly in August and September, doing the shopping at the supermarket, taking the house and garden rubbish to the recycling area in PdLand also taking the twins to creche and to the beach, and trips to the airport. I was also a passenger in the car at various times, mainly in June and July when Gerry and Sandy drove.
I never observed anything strange in the vehicle at any time that I was in it. 
I noted some disagreeable smells on a number of occasions which I judged to have come from the twins' nappies. Discarded nappies were collected in rubbish bags and held until thrown into the [rubbish] bins, [thereby] provoking smell.
I have no knowledge of anything spilling from any article nor of any cleaning of the car after such a hypothetical spill.
 

In fact, with the help of Martin Grime’s bloodhound, the police found blood underneath the tiles below a window in the living room of the McCanns’ apartment.

 
 

286/2007-CRL (17) Cement-glue [grouting] between the floor tiles identified as number 2 A DNA profile that appeared to be from at least two sources was obtained through LCN from cellular material recovered in that area. In my opinion, the major part of the profile matched that of Lino Henriques. Breaking [departing] from the principle, for it to have had a DNA contribution from Lino Henriques then the remaining information in the smaller part of the result is too meagre to permit a meaningful interpretation.

 
Note: Lino Henriques is a Portuguese forensic analyst who collected the samples.
 
 
 
Compare MMRG statement with the actual FACTS
 
MMRG quote: When they heard about the dogs’ findings, the McCanns reacted strangely, claiming that…
The ‘smell of death’ may have been found on Kate’s clothes because she was said to have been close to six corpses in her last two weeks at work, on the pink soft toy ‘Cuddle Cat’ because she ‘sometimes took Cuddle Cat to work’, or that the ‘smell of death’ could have come from rotting meat that Gerry McCann was taking to the local rubbish dump from time to time.
 

If Madeleine’s DNA were to be found in the boot of their car it may have come from the children’s dirty nappies they claimed they were carrying in the boot.

Any blood found in the flat might have come from Madeleine ‘grazing her leg’ or suffering a nosebleed. In fact, with the help of Martin Grime’s bloodhound, the police found blood underneath the tiles below a window in the living room of the McCanns’ apartment.
 
Actually: The McCanns' reactions were normal; they couldn't explain why the dog(s) barked. The PJ lied to them about finding Madeleine's blood and DNA. Other people (mostly journalists) speculated about what may have caused the alerts, or what may have resulted in finding Madeleine's DNA in the apartment or in the boot of the car. At that time the files had not yet been released, so the McCanns didn't know about what really was written in the forensic report. Nowhere in the forensics reports is it mentioned that blood had been found/identified. None of the samples was identified as Madeleine's DNA.
 
None of the witnesses had any suspicions about the smell in the car which they occasionally noticed. 
 
Conclusion
 
The claim by the MMRG, regarding what the McCanns claimed, is false and misleading. 

Like many of the others (see Table) this claim is based on inaccurate reporting of the British media.

Extracts from Amaral's book, with relevant sections highlighted in red
 
Apparently this is (part of) the source for the claims of the MMRG, because it most certainly isn't in the files, which were released by the PJ.
The relevant portion from Chapter 16 of Amaral's book is quoted below:
 
Quote:

Harrison also suggests that we use the skills of two totally remarkable dogs: the first an EVRD (Enhanced Victim Recovery Dog), achieves outstanding performance in the detection of human cadaver odour; the second, a CSI dog (Crime Scene Investigation) is capable of smelling the tiniest trace of blood, knowing how to recognise its human origin. To convince us of their capability and the extraordinary work carried out by these very special detectives in the course of over 200 investigations, he screens a video for us, showing their training and their intervention on the ground.   More recently, it’s Eddie who helps to find a body buried under a flagstone at the former orphanage, Haut-de-la-Garenne, in Jersey, setting for a terrible case of paedophilia and child murder.

 
Amaral has got it wrong. There was no body. It was something that looked like it was a piece of a skull fragment. But it wasn't according to the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit
 
Quote:

In an email on April 8, the Oxford laboratory told Jersey police the fragment ‘ain’t bone’. It followed this up with a detailed letter on May 1, which Mr Harper claims not to have received, confirming the find was not bone but, in view of its curvature, more likely to be a seed casing or piece of coconut.

 
 
 
Extracts from the files, with relevant sections highlighted in red
 

Martin Grime Personal Profile

'Eddie' The Enhanced Victim Recovery Dog (E.V.RD.) will search for and locate human remains and body fluids including blood to very small samples in any environment or terrain. The initial training of the asset is conducted using pig as the subject matter for solid hides and human blood for fluid. The dog has also been trained to identify 'dead body' scent contamination where there is no physically retrievable evidence, due to scent adhering to previous material such as carpet or the upholstery in motor vehicles. ...
In six years operational deployment in over 200 cases the dog has never alerted to meat based foodstuffs. The dog has never alerted to 'road kill'.
 
'Keela' The Crime Scene Investigation (C.S.I.) dog will search for and locate human blood to such small proportions that it is unlikely to be recovered by the forensic science procedures in place at this time due to its size or placement. In order for the dog to locate the source the blood must have 'dried' in situ. Any 'wetting' once dried will not affect the dog's abilities. Blood that is subjected to dilution by precipitation or other substantial water source prior to drying will soak into the ground or other absorbent material. This may dilute the scent to an unacceptable level for accurate location.It is possible however that the EVRD will locate the scent source as it would for 'dead body' scent.
 

Martin Grime Rogatory Interview

The dog EVRD also alerts to blood from a live human being or only from a cadaver' 
The dog EVRD is trained using whole and disintegrated material, blood, bone tissue, teeth, etc. and decomposed cross-contaminants. The dog will recognize all or parts of a human cadaver. He is not trained for 'live' human odours; no trained dog will recognize the smell of 'fresh blood'. They find, however, and give the alert for dried blood from a live human being.
 
 

The alerts by Eddie

In apartment 5A:
* between 20h16 (typing error in the report shows 21h16) and 20h30 the "cadaver" dog alerted:
- at 20h20 in the area of the wardrobe of the main bedroom.
- at 20h22 in the lounge, specifically behind the sofa next to the window that overlooks the street.
Between 21h49 and 22h00, in the garden adjacent to apartment 5A, accessible from by way of the veranda and steps, the cadaver dog alerted in a garden-bed directly below the verandah.
 
Clothing and belongings Family McCann 
* in two pieces of clothing belonging to KATE HEALY.
* in a piece of clothing of the minor MADELEINE.
* in the plush toy, possibly belonging to MADELEINE (it was detected cadaver odour, when the plush was inside the residence – at the date occupied by the family)
(note: watching the video of the dog and the alerts, the piece of clothing by the PJ attributed to Madeleine belongs probably in fact to her younger brother)
 
The car (hired by the McCanns on May 27th)
* signalled the key of the vehicle;
(note: though it's not mentioned in the PJ Report, watching the video shows the dog alerted to the lower part of the driver's door, in one compartment of which was the car's key card)
 
 

The alerts by Keela

Apartment 5A - 31.07.2007 
* between 20h47 and 21.20 the "blood" dog alerted:
- at 21h10 in the lounge, specifically on the floor behind the sofa next to the window that overlooks the street.
 
On the 1st of August a forensic team collected samples at the apartment.  Here's the relevant part of their report :
Quote

He advised further that after the recovery of the tiles the animal specialised in detection of human blood should perform another search of the area from where the tiles had been recovered to verify [check for] the existence of possible human blood in the area from where the tiles had been lifted.

 
Apartment 5A 03.08.2007
19.19 The dog “marked” an area of tiles in the living room, next to the window and behind the sofa.
19.20 The dog “marked” the lower part of the left white coloured curtain of the window behind the sofa.
 
The car (hired by the McCanns on May 27th)
* signalled the key of the vehicle;
* signalled the interior of the vehicle’s boot;
 
 

Analysis of alerts by the Central Division of Information Analysis - PJ  who had their doubts about them.

 
Quote:

From the screening of the videos, referred previously, done when the dogs were working, some doubts arise. We don't want and we can't take the place of the trainer, we only wish to alert, with this paragraph, to some facts, that according to us, need further clarification. If the dog is trained to react when he detects what he is looking for, why, in most of the cases, we see the dog passing more than once by that place in an uninterested way, until he finally signals the place where he had already passed several times' On one of the films, it's possible to see that 'Eddie' sniffs Madeleine's cuddle cat, more than once, bites it, throws it into the air and only after the toy is hidden does he 'mark' it (page 2099). Whys didn't he signal it when he sniffs it on the first time' Apart from all that was said about the dogs, we must also take into attention the results of the forensic analysis that was performed by the experts on the Scientific Police Laboratory on the day immediately after the facts, and already mentioned where no vestige of blood was found.

 

Forensics

Nowhere in the forensics report is it mentioned that blood was found. DNA was identified but it wasn't Madeleine's. Most of the samples had to be analysed using LCN techniques, and in most (relevant) cases the material of the sample couldn't be identified.
 
On the samples three DNA profiles were identified:

- A low level incomplete DNA profile which matched the corresponding components in the DNA profile of Gerald McCann was obtained from cellular material on the key card(286C/2007-CRL(12)).
- 286A/2007-CRL 5A & B Swabs collected from the wall of the apartment ... In my opinion, Fernando Viegas could have contributed DNA to this result.
- 286/2007-CRL (17) Cement-glue [grouting] between the floor tiles identified as number 2...In my opinion, the major part of the profile matched that of Lino Henriques.
 
All three of the above mentioned people are (were at the time) still very much alive. Fernando Viegas and Lino Henriques are Portuguese Forensic experts.
 
 
Compare MMRG statement with the actual FACTS
 
MMRG quote:

• On British police advice, the Portuguese asked top dog handler Martin Grime to bring his springer spaniels, Eddie and Keela, to Praia da Luz.
  
• Eddie is trained to detect the scent of human corpses; Keela is a bloodhound.
  
• Eddie had never given a false alert in over 200 previous outings.
  
• He alerted to the odour of a human corpse in these locations: four different places in the McCanns’ apartment, two of Dr Kate McCann’s clothes, one of the children’s T-shirts, on the pink soft toy, ‘Cuddle Cat’, and in two places in the car the McCanns hired.
  
• Eddie did not alert to a corpse scent anywhere else in Praia da Luz.
  
• Keela detected blood, which may have been Madeleine’s blood, at some of these places.
  

 
Actually:

• On advice of Mark Harrison, the PJ asked a dog handler, Martin Grime, to bring his dogs to Praia da Luz.
  
• Eddie is trained to search for and locate human remains and body fluids including blood. The dog has also been trained to identify 'dead body' scent contamination. Keela is indeed trained to detect blood. Both dogs will alert to dried blood of live human beings.
  
• In six years operational deployment in over 200 cases the dog has never alerted to meat based foodstuffs. The dog has never alerted to 'road kill'.  Yet in training the dog has alerted to a 1 cm cube of pork soaked in petrol for 1 week and then burnt until only a residue remains. That's according to the handler, Mr Grime. He hasn't provided any records of the dog's successes and failures to substantiate his claims. He worked at South Yorkshire Police Force from 2003 to August 2007. During that period he was deployed on 37 occasions. That's an average of 9 per year. Eddie was seven in 2007..........
  
• He alerted to two different places in the McCanns’ apartment, the garden,  two of Kate McCann’s clothes, one of the children’s T-shirts, on the pink soft toy, ‘Cuddle Cat’. He was not deployed in the car, so he didn't alert to two places in the car. He did however alert to the driver's door, in one compartment of which was the car's key card. Eddie alerted to the key card.   
  
• None of the alerts by Keela have been confirmed by forensics as being blood. No blood or DNA of Madeleine was found/identified. The DNA that was identified belongs to three living persons.
  
• Portuguese forensics examined the apartment the day after Madeleine disappeared. No vestige of blood was found. 
  

 
 
Conclusion
 
The claims by the MMRG are both false and misleading. There's no forensic supporting evidence to verify what the dogs alerted to. The only DNA that was identified belongs to three (living) men. Is the MMRG suggesting that Madeleine is dead? Why would anybody want to declare a missing child dead without any evidence of such?
 
"Eddie did not alert to a corpse scent anywhere else in Praia da Luz".  Is the MMRG suggesting that no one ever died in Praia da Luz? 

Summary of Verifiable Facts
[list="margin-right: 0px; margin-left: 3em; padding-right: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border: 0px; font-family: \"Segoe UI", "Lucida Grande", Arial; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"]
[*]Two sniffer dogs were brought from England to the McCann holiday apartments in Praia da Luz on 31st July 2007.  
[*] One (Eddie) was an Enhanced Victim Recovery Dog (E.V.R.D.) - human remains, body fluid (including blood deposits). The other (Keela) was a Crime Scene Investigation (C.S.I.) dog - human blood deposits.
[*]Neither of these dogs is able to differentiate between different people and would therefore alert to ANY blood or death scent.
[*]It was claimed that the dogs "alerted" to possible blood and the "scent of death" in several places including the car the McCanns hired several weeks after Madeleine went missing.
[*]No human remains were found.
[*]The dog alerts are not considered evidence in their own right, since  the dogs are considered to be an investigative tool only.  This was emphasised by their handler in his rogatory statement.
[*]The US case which the McCanns were interested in was the Zapata case.  In this case, the court decision not to allow the dog evidence without a body was based upon studies which demonstrated that the dogs were incorrect between 62-78% of the time. 
[*]The cadaver dog used in the McCann case, hit the headlines again when it was identified as the same dog used in the Haut de La Garenne (Jersey Children's Home) investigation.  Media reports about the findings of the investigation suggest that the dog alerts had been false. 
[*]In March 2011, Skynews reported that a review by the the National Policing Improvement Agency had concluded that "Police sniffer dogs used to find missing people and dead bodies "urgently" need better training and monitoring".  Eddie, the dog in the Madeleine McCann case was specifically mentioned in this Sky News report.  (See An Official Viewpoint below)
[/list]
 
Discussion
This "fact" will be addressed in parts.
 

Part One - "The McCanns also claimed that sniffer dogs were ‘notoriously unreliable’".

As with all of their "facts", the Madeleine McCann Research Group do not provide sources.  Once again, the quote they have used is inaccurate.  The two available primary sources of Gerry McCann commenting on the dogs are provided below.  In neither does he use the word "notoriously".  Whilst arguably a minor point of difference in the sentiment of the quote, we feel it is important to highlight the disturbing level of inaccuracy which has been found in the MMRG's leaflet - especially when many primary sources are freely available and would not take long to check.
 
The first is an interview with sassy Felgueiras on 5th November 2009. The relevant portion is quoted below.  It can be found at approximately 5.30 minutes into the interview.
 
Quote:

Gerry McCann :I can tell you that we have obviously looked at evidence about cadaver dogs and they are incredibly unreliable. sassy Felgueiras: Unreliable Gerry McCann :Cadaver dogs. Yes, that’s what the evidence shows if they are tested scientifically.

 
 
The second is from Gerry McCann's blog Day 988:-
 
Quote:

The dogs: We realise that the behaviour of the dogs was the turning point in the investigation for the PJ. The use of dogs has proved to be problematic and unreliable in previous cases. (please refer to the Jersey 'Haut de La Garenne' case and other research published about their use and reliability). It is vital to note that alerts by such dogs are classified as intelligence rather than evidence, as police officers familiar with their use will verify. These alerts must be supported by forensics in order to be used as evidence. The results of the forensic examinations did not identify any blood or Madeleine'sDNA. To suggestor use the dogs' reactions as evidence is simply wrong and abusive.

 
 

Conclusion

Misquotation.  Although this is a minor technical point, it is important to highlight it in view of the extensive inaccuracies of quotations which have been found in the MMRG leaflet.  Basic fact checking is an essential part of research.  Failure to produce sources or to provide accurate quotations is indicative of a general lack of regard for the integrity of information.
 
 

What the experts say

The following is taken from an article in The Sun newspaper in 5th September 2008:-
 
Quote: 

EXPERTS say sniffer dogs can play a vital role in fighting crime - but warn it is "madness" to rely on their findings. The animals are used to lead police to evidence, but do not provide evidence themselves. One expert told The Sun: "The dogs can identify traces of blood, but it's crazy to draw major conclusions just from what they find. "Any evidence they find should be used as a starting point. It's madness just to rely on the findings of the sniffer dogs."   Handler Martin Grimes, who worked with his dogs on the Maddie case, admitted the animals offered no more than "a guide". He said: "They can identify traces of blood and detect the smell of a decomposing body, but that is as far as they go." Martin said his dogs Keela and Eddie would only give him an indication when they find what they are trained to detect.   Unreliable He said: "Blood could be invisible to the naked eye, but Keela will detect it. It doesn't matter if it's hundreds of years old.  "Eddie smells for the scent of a decomposing human body. He can detect any part of a human body that is decomposing - hair, bones, flesh, anything. "The smell of a decomposing body is very difficult to get rid of. It can easily be transferred to clothing and on to a person." A spokesman for the McCanns said: "Dog alerts can be unreliable. The handler himself makes it clear in the police report that such alerts are meaningless without corroborative evidence. There was no such evidence. "Gerry and Kate are not interested in dwelling on mistakes that were made. They and their investigation team wish to focus entirely on finding Maddie."

 

Additional Note

The misquoted phrase "notoriously unreliable" can be attributed directly to the Secretary of the "Madeleine Foundation" in a letter to the Prime Minister.
 
Quote:

"The McCanns have rebutted this evidence by claiming that the evidence of these dogs is (I quote) ‘notoriously unreliable’, yet despite that claim, Mr Grime’s dogs have been used successfully dozens of times to alert to the scent of places where corpses have lain for a period."

 
Once again, no source was provided.
 
 
"Dogs don't lie"
 

Haut de La Garenne

In his blog, Gerry McCann referred to the Jersey 'Haut de la Garenne' case.
 
Below are some media articles which were published during the investigation into the Jersey Children's Home followed by the actual findings.
 
 

Media Reports during the investigation

 
From Sky News:-
 
Quote: 

"A sniffer dog trained to find human remains has had an "extremely strong reaction" in a cellar at a former children's home where police are digging for bodies - as another "suspicious" bricked-up room is discovered.   Police at the former home Jersey's deputy chief police officer Lenny Harper said the sniffer dog started barking soon after entering the cellar, which it is trained to do when "it makes a discovery". He said the animal's response was similar to when a child's skull was found at the premises on Saturday."

 
 
From The Times:-
 
Quote:

“Police fear grim finds in Jersey cellar after sniffer dog reaction“

 
 
From The Telegraph (with a picture of Eddie - the McCann case cadaver dog):-
 
Quote:

“Sniffer dog hunts for more bodies in Jersey children's home”

 
 
From The Guardian:
 
Quote:

“Six more bodies feared buried in Jersey home”

 
 

Actual Findings

 
Despite the “extremely strong” reactions of these top dogs which had been used in the McCann case and about whom the McCann’s persecutors will claim a 100% success rate, the Haut de La Garenne investigation ended with the following headlines:-
 
From the Daily Mail:-
 
Quote:

“£4m Jersey 'House of Horrors' investigation shut down after police chiefs admit NO children were murdered in care home”   They revealed that 'human remains' found at the former home were almost all animal bones and that only three might be human. These dated from between 1470 and 1670  -  hundreds of years before the care home opened.

 
 
From the BBC:-
Note that the piece of Victorian coconut shell was the "child's skull" which Eddie the cadaver dog had "an extremely strong reaction to" (see Sky News report above)
 
Quote:

[list="margin-right: 0px; margin-left: 3em; padding-right: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"] [*]After being examined by experts from the British Museum, a fragment thought to have been from a skull turned out to be a piece of Victorian coconut shell. [*]"Shackles" found in rubble turned out to be "a rusty piece of metal", and there was no evidence to suggest it had been used for anything suspicious. [*]There was no blood in the cellar, and the bath blood was said to have been found in had not been used since 1920. [*]The "secret underground chambers" were just holes in the floor, "not dungeons or cellars". [*]Most of the 170 pieces of bone found in the search came from animals. Three were human and two of these dated from between 1470-1670 and 1650-1950 respectively. [/list]   Mr Warcup said: "Our assessment is that the forensic recoveries do not indicate that there have been murders of children or other persons at Haut de la Garenne.

 
 

Example of McCann Persecutors' response to Haut de La Garenne

 
Quote:

“The fact that there was a piece of coconut shell where Eddie alerted is irrelevant: it just happened to be there. No body or body parts found does not mean that there never was a body in that place or that the dog failed.“(Anna Esse on MissingMadeleine forum)

 
 
The fact remains that if it weren’t for the discovery and sophisticated forensic testing of these fragments, all we would have had to go on were the “extremely strong” dog alerts upon which the McCann’s persecutors place so much faith!
 
 
 

Part Two - They quoted a U.S. case where a cadaver dog’s alert was said to be wrong.

The media reported that the McCanns were in touch with the lawyers of Eugene Zapata who had been charged with the murder of his wife based upon the evidence of sniffer dogs.
 
From The Times:-
This case is one in which no body was found.  Note that the County Judge refers to research which proved the unreliability of sniffer dogs in his explanation of why dog alerts are not considered admissible evidence in their own right.
 
Quote:

“Now [The McCanns’] lawyers have requested the case files from the ongoing murder trial of Eugene Zapata in Madison, Wisconsin.  His estranged wife, Jeanette, a 37-year-old flight instructor, vanished in October 1976 after taking her children to school.  Her body has never been found.  Detectives suspected that Mr Zapata killed her but did not have enough evidence to go to court. Mr Zapata, 68, was charged with murder last year after sniffer dogs were brought in. They allegedly detected the scent of human remains in a basement at the former family home. But Dane County Judge Patrick Fiedler ruled that the evidence was inadmissible, saying that the dogs were unreliable. He quoted analysis of the three dogs’ performance record which showed that they were, respectively, incorrect 78 per cent, 71 per cent and 62 per cent of the time.  The judge told the court: “The state has failed to convince me that it’s any more reliable than the flip of a coin.” The jury is considering its verdict.   A source close to the McCanns’ legal team said: “The court papers, giving the legal submissions, are on their way to the McCann team for consideration. At the moment there are no formal charges and therefore there is no formal allegation against which the McCann team can work. We are having to work a little bit in the dark.  “But given that we understand the central plank of what the police are alleging involves sniffer dogs – albeit British ones, which are said to be particularly good – this is important and relevant, and will be raised with the police and brought to the judge’s attention.”

 
 

Part Three - "Months later, the dog’s alert was proved right"

Misleading.  Despite his wife’s body not being found, Eugene Zapata changed his plea to guilty.  This does not change the reason why the alerts of sniffer dogs on their own are not admissible in court as "evidence".  The reason they are not is because they have been found to be unreliable 78-62% of the time - too high an error margin upon which to base a charge of murder.
 

Jaycee Dugard

Another case where cadaver dogs have been used recently is that of Jaycee Dugard.
 
From The Telegraph:-
 
A spokesman for the case said this:-
 
Quote:

Sgt Nelson would not say where in the yard the dogs picked up a scent and warned that the indications do not always prove accurate. "They picked up a scent that may or may not be a sign of some remains," Sgt Nelson said.”

 
 

So are dog alerts unreliable?

There is no doubt that these dogs do sterling work and their efforts are frequently rewarded by the discovery of missing persons or their remains. However, there is good reason why sniffer dog alerts are not admissible as evidence on their own and that is the evidential proof of their unreliability.
 
The fact is, these dogs are used as a tool to find bodies. All the experts quoted above are at pains to emphasise this. The final proof of the dog's success is the discovery of forensic evidence. Although there was much media speculation and many false stories about the forensic evidence in the Madeleine McCann case, the final and official conclusion was that there was nothing to suggest that Madeleine McCann had died in Praia da Luz or that her parents had harmed her. The fact that stories to the contrary were in circulation at all was a crime in itself.
 
When searching for human remains, these dogs indicate places where investigators can dig. If the investigators do not find remains in the first place the dog alerts to, they don’t give up, they keep searching and often, they are rewarded with the discovery of the corpse they were looking for. In Praia da Luz, the dogs found no body.
 
 

Scent Article Method Dogs

It is a also a fact that cadaver and blood dogs cannot differentiate between the scents of different people. For that, you would need a Scent Article Method dog known as a SAM dog. These are the scent dogs which most of us have in our imaginations.  SAM dogs which we see being offered a sniff of the missing person’s clothing and which then track down the person to the exclusion of all other scents. However, there are only a handful of these SAM dogs in the UK and these are hired out at significant cost to police constabularies throughout the country.  McCann case dogs, Eddie and Keela are not SAM dogs.

 

Martin Grimes - McCann sniffer dog handler - Report about McCann Findings

 
Martin Grime is the handler of the dogs, which were used in the McCann case. The following are extracts from his report in the McCann case regarding whether his dogs’ alerts were proof that Madeleine McCann had died in apartment 5A. 
 
Quote: 

There is always a possibility of contamination of odours by transferral. EVRD does not make a distinction; he responds with a certain behaviour for which he was trained when he recognizes an odour. He does not identify the reasons for the presence of the odour nor does he identify suspects. Forensic confirmation and specialized investigation methods will determine the reasons and the suspicions. In order to undoubtedly affirm there must be a confirmation of the alert signals made by the dog. It is my view that it is possible that the EVRD is alerting to 'a cadaver scent' contaminant. No evidential or intelligence reliability can be made from this alert unless it can be confirmed with corroborating evidence. The dog alert indications MUST be corroborated if to establish their findings as evidence. My professional opinion as regards to the EVRD's alert indications is that it is suggestive that this is 'cadaver scent' contaminant. This does not however suggest a motive or suspect as cross contamination could be as a result of a number of given scenarios and in any event no evidential or intelligence reliability can be made from these alerts unless they can be confirmed with corroborating evidence.

 
 

An Official Viewpoint

 
Sky News reporting on the findings of the National Policing Improvement Agency:-
 
Quote:

"Police sniffer dogs used to find missing people and dead bodies "urgently" need better training and monitoring, according to an official report.   The Government's National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA) said specialist victim recovery dogs are not trained to approved standards, with no way of gauging their competence.  The NPIA reviewed the use of the specialist sniffer dogs two years ago, but its report has only now surfaced following a request by Sky News.  "There is no consistency in what the dogs can do and how it is done," the report states.  "Furthermore, there is no national standard for accrediting dogs and handlers or record keeping of the success rate they achieve."   The report added the dogs, which are trained to detect the smell of dead bodies, have "the potential to cause complications in an inquiry".  "There is an urgent need to have national policy on their training, accreditation and deployment," it concluded. The review uses a kidnap investigation to highlight how dogs have tied up valuable police time.  The animals detected human remains in old furniture that had been bought from houses where the owner had died.  The use of victim recovery, or cadaver dogs, has proved to be controversial in a number of high-profile cases in recent years.  A South Yorkshire Police spaniel called Eddie was said to have sniffed out the "scent of death" at the Haut de la Garenne children's home in Jersey and the apartment from which Madeleine McCann disappeared in Portugal.  But in both cases nothing more was found and South Yorkshire Police say Eddie is no longer working with them. Sniffer dogs hindered the police probe into Shannon Matthew's disappearance Victim recovery dogs from four different police forces were used during searches for kidnapped schoolgirl Shannon Matthews in Dewsbury in West Yorkshire in 2008.  The dogs found evidence of dead bodies, but officers later discovered the corpses were nothing to do with her disappearance.  "The properties searched contained a high level of second-hand furniture bought from dwellings where someone had died,"  according to the NPIA report. "This resulted in numerous indications that required further investigation to confirm whether they were connected to the investigation, or to previous owners of the furniture."   The Association of Chief Police Officers told Sky News it was consulting individual police forces and hoped to have national training standards for the dogs later this year. "

 
 
Conclusions
There is no doubt that sniffer dogs can be useful in police work, but it is clear that there are issues with regard to the establishment of standards of training, monitoring and accreditation.  A dog alert on its own is not considered evidence on its own and the reasons for this are fundamentally clear - EVRD dogs can tell us that they can smell "something", but not "what" or "who" that might be.  This is further complicated by the ease of scent transferal and the fact that the scent can linger for years.  Therefore, we have Eddie the sniffer dog alerting to ancient bones at Haut de La Garenne and the dogs in the Shannon Matthews case alerting to the "scent of death" on second-hand furniture which had come from a house where someone had died.  None of the dog alerts in the Shannon Matthews case turned out to be related to the case. 
 
Additionally, the proven error rate of sniffer dogs is significant and proves that it is not an exact science upon which we can rely to charge anyone with a serious crime.
 
Finally, it should be remembered that as medical doctors, both of the McCanns are likely to come into contact with corpses.
 
 

Post Script

 
From The Daily Mail (4th October 2009):
 
Quote:

"Eddie the sniffer dog - the animal that had supposedly found the 'scent of death' in the Portuguese flat where Madeleine McCann disappeared - no longer had a licence for UK police forensic work when Harper started using him in Jersey. "

I posted all the evidence which refutes claims made by some here, as to how they use confirmation bias and undervalue or worse ignore evidence that refutes there claims.

I am open to all possibilities here and have not ruled out foul play.
What others do is selective over what they have read in the media, as Nems did above. When you show they are in error, either continue to deny or then throw in other aspects that they think backs their case.

Hence why their reasoning is poor, biased, with a closed minded mentality, as its born from finding the pair guilty. Not on facts, but based on being angry at the parents from dining out not being with their children. They then as seen interpret and are selective over evidence to attempt to cast them as guilty of far worse. Whilst at the same time ignoring countless evidence which refutes their claims.

The childminder said Gerry was distraught, so distraught that the next day he was playing tennis!

Then we come to Kate's remark 'They've taken her' who is they.

I am with Thorin on this. Whilst it cannot be said without absolute certainty that the McCanns weren't involved in Maddie's disappearance, it begs the question why you would not only dedicate the next 10 years of your lives exclusively to seach for the girl, but to continue to fundraise for the sole purpose of continuing the search. This would make no sense if they knew she wasn't alive.
I suspect those doubters on here with their daft conspiracy theories will crawl back under their rocks and go into denial mode lest a pretty, blond doe eyed 13 year old who has faint and distant memories of being called Maddie is discovered.

magica wrote:The childminder said Gerry was distraught, so distraught  that the next day he was playing tennis!

Then we come to Kate's remark 'They've taken her' who is they.

Again you show no understanding of being in shock.

Does playing tennis means he was not distraught? Just trying to do something normal, where you focus on a game, can help combat the shock of dealing with such a traumatic situation

You see its assumption you and others make not even understanding how or what you would do when  facing said situation. You then believe something is wrong. You see you don't use evidence but assumptions in your views here 

Having said that, how do we even know that he did play tennis?

This claim comes from one waiter of which there is no corroborating sources

See how again you are selective in what you read and believe?

Then to Kate's remark, is simple a remark you wish to read into.
Its clear she believes someone has taken her.

Tommy Monk wrote:

The dog was highly trained... even having been trained in usa with the FBI at their training location using real dead human remains!!!


The dog was giving positive signals of death throughout the various locations of mccann sniff investigations... clearly displaying that it had positively identified a strong scent of death at all places... the dog was then encouraged to indicate the areas where the smell was strongest!!!


The dog was overwhelmed with smell of death in the apartment... and also gave positive indications on the mccanns hire car that they only hired 2-3 weeks after girls disappearance... the dog also gave positive indications on the cuddle cat toy and other clothes weeks after disappearance and that had all been thoroughly washed...

And didn't kate say this first...?

"We let her down"

Medical jargon for someone dying...

Tommy Monk wrote:

Tommy Monk wrote:

The dog was highly trained... even having been trained in usa with the FBI at their training location using real dead human remains!!!


The dog was giving positive signals of death throughout the various locations of mccann sniff investigations... clearly displaying that it had positively identified a strong scent of death at all places... the dog was then encouraged to indicate the areas where the smell was strongest!!!


The dog was overwhelmed with smell of death in the apartment... and also gave positive indications on the mccanns hire car that they only hired 2-3 weeks after girls disappearance... the dog also gave positive indications on the cuddle cat toy and other clothes weeks after disappearance and that had all been thoroughly washed...

And didn't kate say this first...?

"We let her down"

Medical jargon for someone dying...

And again Tommy perfectly illustrates my points

I just posted countless evidence which shows his views are in error

What does he do?

Ignore the evidence

Thorin wrote:

magica wrote:The childminder said Gerry was distraught, so distraught  that the next day he was playing tennis!

Then we come to Kate's remark 'They've taken her' who is they.

Again you show no understanding of being in shock.

Does playing tennis means he was not distraught? Just trying to do something normal, where you focus on a game, can help combat the shock of dealing with such a traumatic situation

You see its assumption you and others make not even understanding how or what you would do when  facing said situation. You then believe something is wrong. You see you don't use evidence but assumptions in your views here 

Having said that, how do we even know that he did play tennis?

This claim comes from one waiter of which there is no corroborating sources

See how again you are selective in what you read and believe?

Then to Kate's remark, is simple a remark you wish to read into.
Its clear she believes someone has taken her.

I'm sure if my child went missing, I would be out scouring the area not playing tennis.

The night before she went missing, Maddie was crying and told her mum she called for her but she didn't come. She also mentioned someone in her room. So the next night they did the same thing and left them alone, as you do.

Have to agree with Magica on this.