inside SIC Studio]
Journalist on Studio:
And tomorrow, 3rd of May marks a year since
Madeleine McCann disappeared. There in Praia da Luz,
Maria Joăo [name of the other Journalist], good
evening, is there any ceremonial service predicted?
[Cut to journalist on
location]
Maria Joăo:
Here, in the Ocean Club, no, nothing is going to
happen here to mark the date, just a mass that will
be done tomorrow at 18:30pm in the church of Luz. A
bilingual mass which is going to mark one year since
the disappearance of Maddie. In relation to the
process, there are no new developments expected for
the next few days. Only in the 15th
the Judge of Criminal Instruction from Portimăo’s
Court is going to reassess if the process continues
or not under Secrecy of Justice. It’s very likely
that the process continues like in the last year.
Who broke the silence, while we're on the subject,
were the Portuguese employees from the Tapas Bar,
the restaurant where the couple McCann had dinner in
the night of Maddie’s disappearance. Those 8
Portuguese employees didn’t see their contracts
renewed this year. They were obliged in the last 12
months to be silent, forbidden to talk with
journalists. Since they contracts were not renewed
they decided to talk. SIC has spoken with the cook.
[Cut to medium shot of
2 people behind a tree]
Voice over Introduction:
She doesn’t ‘show’ her face but a year later and
without working in the Ocean Club, Manuela decided
that she wasn’t obliged to the silence anymore. The
cook [chef] who prepared a ‘Robalo’ [Snook fish/
Sargeant fish] with cuscus [signature dish of the
Arab world] and the pepper steak meal the McCanns
had to dinner in the night Maddie disappeared was in
the griller area 3 meters away from the table of the
couple.
[Shot of interior of
the Ocean Club, focus on the Tapas Bar]
Manuela, the cook:
They had already eaten the main course, [Cut to
blurry image of a woman’s face, with a strong
southern accent from Algarve], because it was
already around 9:30pm when she gave the alarm.
Voice over:
This former employee from the Tapas tells that
immediately various colleagues left their work posts
to help the searches. Meanwhile, in the hours that
followed, during most of the time the McCanns stayed
inside the apartment.
Manuela:
My colleagues were
indignated [angered/offended], because they went…
One of them even had his feet all red, tired… and he
was offended because he went to search though he
wasn’t anything related to the girl, and the parents
didn’t. [Cut to apartment] They stayed indoors, in
the apartment.
[Various shots around
the Ocean Club, archive footage of Police and Media]
Voice Over:
A year ago, suddenly
everything changed in the Ocean Club. The quiet
resort, ideal for family holidays, was invaded by
police and journalists.
Manuela:
The Ocean Club, the
Tapas turned into a pandemonium [chaos]. No one
could get out, no one could get in. Even if we were
married, our husbands couldn’t get in, neither our
friends. Everything was surrounded… The security
officers didn’t know the employees. They thought the
employees were journalists. In the beginning
everything was really complicated.
Voice Over:
The Judiciary went in a full scale operation to
Praia da Luz. For more than a month the
investigators created a kind of headquarters in one
of the apartments of the Ocean Club. All the
employees from the resort were heard.
Manuela:
They all went in two…
in two hours by two hours, two [referring to the
number of people –in pairs], during sometime. Close
to a month. We were almost 200 employees.
Voice Over:
Manuela remembers of seeing Madeleine sometimes.
Manuela:
When the Parents would
put her at the crčche, in the babysitters, the
kitchen was next to it.
Journalist on location:
How was Madeleine’s routine during those holidays?
When she entered there, in the Ocean Club?
Manuela:
She got in, was
delivered to the babysitters. The babysitters would
do a class; they would do a group course with the
girls. Between 4pm and 4:30pm they had something to
eat. In the morning they had a fruit lunch
[breakfast?]… And then the parents would come to
pick them up at 5 o’clock in the afternoon.
Journalist:
In the middle of all those children do you remember
Maddie?
Manuela:
Because she entered
there, she would wave goodbye, or say hello…She was
really nice [lovely/polite]. She was always smiling.
Voice Over:
After the
disappearance of the girl, several family members of
Kate and Gerry came to the Algarve.
Manuela:
I remember that the family members instead of being
worried with the family, would go to the pool,
rented the tennis court, played tennis… Instead of
being worried with the child that was disappeared!
Voice Over:
The majority of the employees who was in the Tapas
in the night of the Maddie’s disappearance as
already left the resort.
Manuela:
The contract ended and they sent us to unemployment.
Journalist:
All the team that was in the Tapas that night?
Manuela:
All the team that was there in that night.
Voice Over:
After the
disappearance of Maddie, the McCanns stayed in the
Ocean Club for more 65 days. In July they moved to a
house in the outskirts, away from the journalists
eyes. It was there that they stayed until the 9
of September, the day that they went back to
England.
