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I'm not so sure now. Talk of him being released so is this an attempt to hold onto him.

Is he not serving a sentence for other sex offences? He's in prison in Germany was what I understood not that he'd been arrested.

It's a truly harrowing story and when I think about it I can't stop thinking about that wee girls last few hours. Afraid, alone, most probably crying looking help or her parents, not knowing what was happening. It really, really gets me.

Does not bare thinking about, harrowing stuff.  This suspect is eligible for parole from his current sentence from this Sunday onwards, can't see that happening. 

It's not beyond the realms of possibility that the child died in the holiday apartment at the hand of the intruder, and then the intruder took the body with them.  This might add some credence to the cadaver dogs picking up a scent of death in the apartment.

The dog handler - Martin Grime - who is highly accomplished and solved many cases with Cadaver dogs has stated a body needs to be in place for 2 hrs before a scent of death develops. So the above would not be possible if the parents and friends were checking every half hour as they stated. It also still does not explain the perplexing fact that scent of death was also discovered in the McCann's hire car, a car they hired after the abduction took place, which led the original detective to believe that they transported the body later and concealed it, after she died from an accident in apartment after being left alone. His theory, not mine. Hopefully the family get closure but this latest suspect seems to be similar to the pedophlle who confessed in the Jo Benet Ramsay case (where parents were also suspects), and it turned out he was someone just looking for attention. There seems to be very little hard evidence other that he boasted to a friend. The original detected also predicted a year ago that this person would be made a scapegoat to close the case.

I don't think anyone is totally blaming Trump for this.

Cuomo made a lot of mistakes early on but has acknowledged this and performed admirably since.

DeBlasio likewise has gotten plenty of criticism Trump is giving himself a ten on how he has performed and deserves all the shit he is currently getting!!

the media do not call out Cuomo or de blassio with any gusto though that's the difference.

I would be very anti-Trump, but living and working in NY I am surprised the easy ride Cuomo and DeBlasio are getting, some even eager for Cuomo to replace Biden. These guys were so slow to shut down and I had taken my children out of school long before these two clowns woke up. Big ego guys like Trump and highly responsible for the situation we are in.

The paradox of a United Ireland is the majority in the North will only vote to join a thriving state but for  Sinn Fein to gain power in the South they have to constantly trump what a piece of shit the Free State is. It's not - it's far superior to the North, far superior to the Uk, and a shame it's constantly put down.

Total Irish killed in War of Independence - 550
Total children dumped in mass grave in Tuam - 800
Total other mass graves -?
Total Irish women incarcerated in Magdalene Launderies - 300,000
Total Irish children born out of wedlock sold by nuns 60,000
Total politicians from Sinn Fein, Fianna Fail and City Councils that have publicly boycotted the church - ?

What's the age profile of the Mayo team these days?

A lot younger than the starting team the last two years i can imagine but i don't think the likes of McCormack,Boland,McDonagh,Diskin,Plunkett,Tracey will reach the heights or consistency of Boyle,Higgins,S O'Shea,A Moran etc at their peaks.

Andy didn't peak till 2012 got injured and probably had his best years 30 plus then . Poty 2016 was it ?

Boyler was that poor he was dropped from the panel in 2009/10 was it  . Horan came in and revived his career . Best days late 20s

Higgins was brilliant from young age granted.

Sos again mid to late 20s peaked.

Point is , there is plenty of time for the newbies  and it's the one positive you can take from hopefully getting at least two qualifiers we can let the young lads play , if horan doesn't approach it like that I give up on him.

Respe, Cillian , Carr would be my ff line for the next game . With diskin getting on at some point.  Fionn mcdinagh would be added to hf line . McLaughlin , Doherty and Darren coen to be dropped . Corn might seem like an odd choice but no need to play him the next day , hell be fine enough for the next one .

Eoin o donghue and James McCormack should also start the next one . Good game for seamie to come back for and fine tune match fitness at the brothers expense.

Start slingerman in goals .

Where has Ryan O'Donoghue gone to? Eoin O'Donoghue should be in corner back. Push Higgins up the field.

Weren't you the expert saying Mayo by 20 points in first gear. I hope they will not be listening to your advice. I would worry more about Kerry as the league may also have made them think they are better than they are.

I think it has become part of the narrative that Amaral is disgraced because of behavior of his police in the case of the Cipriano child and the British press began to label him the disgraced... but it is clear in that case if one digs deep that he helped convict the family of a poor child that was being sexually  abused and likely murdered even tho a body never found - even if Uncle retracted his confession. For the most part those police officers were later exonerated but made a lot of the same mistakes they made in McCann case by not protecting the crime scene.

I can't vouch for whether the dogs were 'happy' or not  , just for the fact that both alerted in the same places.  So the question is why was the scent of human decomposition detected in the apartment, hire car and on the mother's clothes.  There could be a perfectly reasonable explanation?  Or maybe both dogs were wrong.  Either way, dogs are used to assist with the investigation, they cannot be used in court without corroborating evidence.

That seems like a very compelling piece of evidence initially but I think they only rented the car 20+ days after she went missing (open to correction on that) which makes it seem like a false positive from the dogs imo

That's true though the elements in the Portuguese police that made them official suspects were working on the theory a body was concealed and later transported. When this all happened, practically everyone, media and police were treating this as an abduction so there was no suspicion on family, though some social workers had early suspicions. The dogs did also find blood samples ruled inconclusive by the now closed down and somewhat discredited English lab. More advanced testing is now available which could rule family out for once and for all, but equally prove the original police detective correct.

Also this Martin Smith guy cant identify Gerry McCann as being the man holding the child after presumably watching him every day on the news from early May. But then in September he sees him walking from the plane and decides it triggers a memory in him and yes the man was in fact Gerry McCann.

The Smiths actually did an e-fit for the McCann's private investigators, which the investigators decided not to release, opting instead to focus on the man their friend Jane Tanner saw. When the UK police reopened the case, they released it saying Smithman is now the likely abductor, but ruled out the McCanns. They also ruled out the Jane Tanner sighting as an innocent holiday maker collecting his child at the creche. Incidently, they did all that in the Panorama special that stated Martin Smith had changed his mind about who he saw - which he later called the BBC asking them to retract this. It says a lot about the quality of the police work both in the UK and Portugal on this case.

Was leaving the kids like that a more common thing years ago? I've heard a few people of my parents generation say they would have done it too.

Not in a foreign country while you are getting drunk up the road. I would say it is bordering on extreme negligence. I have very little doubt those kids were not full of calpol or something similar to keep them asleep.

Not in any way excusing it, but there does seem to be a misconception that the kids were left in an apartment and the folks went down the town for a feed and some drinks.

This was an enclosed facility. Food and drink were at the on-site restaurants/bars a very short distance from the accommodation. The only people who could access were residents and staff. Albeit the security for these type of enclosed holiday venues could generally be circumvented quite easily I'd imagine.

It's more akin to leaving your children in a hotel room when you pop down to the hotel restaurant or bar. I wouldn't do it, but it's done all the time.

Except in this sad circumstance, their Villa was nearby but off the complex on the corner of two public roads, and not within sight of the tapas bar where they dined.

Gerry was photographed on tv for 140 days constantly but the Irish guy only recognised him when he dandered off the plane?

He had given an immediate statement describing the man he saw. The later statement he gave to Gardai explains why he then put a name to his original description. The translations of the official police files made public along with his statement here:
http://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/MARTIN_SMITH.htm

Going to watch the first few eps of this tonight - been reading the comments here on it, don't see much mention of the Irish family, the Smiths, presumably they don't appear? Have they ever spoke in public afterwards on this ?

Have watched 5 episodes I think. They are mentioned a few times - the first where the father said he realised Gerry McCann was the person he saw carrying the child on the night of the abduction (which became clear to him when he say Gerry McCann carrying one of the younger kids off the plane on their return to the UK), and the next mentioned was where he had retracted his story.

Think it says there are multiple witnesses putting Gerry McCann at the Tapas bar at the same time as Martin Smith said he saw Gerry McCann carrying the child.

It's a bold statement to make and then retract.

See my reply. He never retracted. Somehow it was put into media that he retracted. It does not say much for the research in the Netflix documentary that they are repeating this incorrect piece of information about Martin Smith.

Going to watch the first few eps of this tonight - been reading the comments here on it, don't see much mention of the Irish family, the Smiths, presumably they don't appear? Have they ever spoke in public afterwards on this ?

Have watched 5 episodes I think. They are mentioned a few times - the first where the father said he realised Gerry McCann was the person he saw carrying the child on the night of the abduction (which became clear to him when he say Gerry McCann carrying one of the younger kids off the plane on their return to the UK), and the next mentioned was where he had retracted his story.

A BBC Panorama episode from last year also stated they retracted their story, but later issued a correction when the family contacted them to state otherwise. They were also quoted in a Gemma O'Doherty story in Village Mag last year stating they stood behind their original claim. It's probably a prime example of all the misinformation out there on every side.
https://villagemagazine.ie/index.php/2018/02/maddie-did-the-bbc-bend-the-truth/

[police should always investigate immediate family and friends in situations like this.]

Parents/friends were probably suspects for two reasons:
1) A body has to be in a location a certain amount of time for cadaver dogs to be able to detect scent - which they did in both the apartment, Kate's clothes and McCann's rental car. These were English dogs that had a solid track record.
2) The only independent witness to a possible abduction (father of an Irish family) informed Gardai sometime after the fact that they were 80% certain the man they saw walking what they thought at time was a sleeping child towards the beach that night was Gerry McCann.
None of this is to say they were in any way responsible (find it hard to believe they could be), but police should always investigate immediate family and friends in situations like this.

Completely, agree! What screams guilt to me is Kate WASHED Maddies favourite comfort toy (cuddle cat) before the police came to collect DNA evidence. What mother of a missing child would do such a thing? Why would you want to lose your daughter's smell from it. I believe the theory of the ex-police chief in Portugal, Maddie fell from the window ledge in the living room (there was a sofa to climb on to it). Gerry took charge and covered it all up (he is a cool customer).

Complete and utter tosh.  Do you just believe any garbage you read and then put it up on a discussion board. 

Yes, The mother washed the toy, some 70 days after Maddie disappeared.  Maddie's mother had carried the cuddly toy with her constantly, day in day out for 70 days.

That is of course true, on July 12th. The English sniffer dogs were brought in on July 31st and the toy was one of the items they reacted to. By then it was washed and probably useless for any further forensic evidence. That is not on McCanns but incompetence of local police that these items were not sealed away as evidence at the beginning.

Parents/friends were probably suspects for two reasons:
1) A body has to be in a location a certain amount of time for cadaver dogs to be able to detect scent - which they did in both the apartment, Kate's clothes and McCann's rental car. These were English dogs that had a solid track record.
2) The only independent witness to a possible abduction (father of an Irish family) informed Gardai sometime after the fact that they were 80% certain the man they saw walking what they thought at time was a sleeping child towards the beach that night was Gerry McCann.
None of this is to say they were in any way responsible (find it hard to believe they could be), but police should always investigate immediate family and friends in situations like this.

That said the police files were released to public in 2008 and it lists that 48 questions she refused to answer. Not everything is fake news because it gets recycled in often vicious ways on social media.