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The friends who were dining with the parents of
Madeleine McCann on the night she disappeared have offered to speak to police
again after concerns about contradictions in their evidence.
Kate and Gerry McCann hope that the seven friends will help to clear them of
involvement in their daughter's disappearance and provide new clues about a
mystery abductor.
The friends are Russell O'Brien, 36, and his partner, Jane Tanner, 37, Matthew
Oldfield, 37, his wife, Rachael, 36, David Payne, 41, his wife, Fiona, 34, and
her mother, Dianne Webster.
The group, who have become known as the Tapas Seven, were dining with Mr and
Mrs McCann at a restaurant on the Ocean Club complex on Praia da Luz during the two hours before Madeleine was reported
missing at 10pm on May 3.
The Spanish newspaper El Mundo reported yesterday
that two of the friends had contacted Portuguese detectives asking to be
“re-questioned so they can ‘correct' details of their original statements”.
The newspaper reported: “These two members of the group have asked for their
identities to be kept secret because they fear that as a result of the
‘clarifications' they intend making about what happened the night Madeleine
disappeared, they may be pressured by people linked to the McCann family.”
The key inconsistency being investigated by detectives is a claim by Mr
O'Brien, an A&E consultant, that he was looking after his own daughter in
the 30 minutes before Madeleine was reported missing, the Portuguese newspaper Correio da Manha
reported today.
Mr O'Brien is reported to have told the Polícia Judiciária in his initial
statement that he had asked for the sheets on his daughter's bed to be changed
because she had vomited.
However, the newspaper quoted a source at the Ocean Club saying: “No person in
that group requested any cleaning service, neither during that evening nor on
the following days.” It added: “The cleaning staff never saw beds that had been
vomited upon, and none of the English guests spoke to them about it”,
The Diário de Notícias
newspaper claimed that the McCanns' friends had wanted to clarify the amount of
alcohol drunk during the evening of Madeleine's disappearance and the number of
checks made on their children.
The group is reported to have told police that they had ordered six bottles of
wine, but two remained virtually untouched by the time Madeleine was reported
missing. Leaks from the police investigation suggested that the group usually
ordered drinks before dinner, drank up to 14 bottles of wine with their meal,
and liqueur afterwards.
Clarence Mitchell, the McCanns' spokesman, said that the friends had all been
contacted after the El Mundo report and insisted it
was “totally untrue”. He said that the couple's friends had said they were
happy to be reinterviewed by police if it resolved
any apparent inconsistencies and hastened the McCanns being cleared.
“Contrary to a report in the Spanish press today, and after consultation
amongst Gerry and Kate McCann's friends, I can deny that any approach has been
made by their lawyers asking to amend or change the witness statement of any of
them. This report is simply untrue,” he said.
“Kate and Gerry's friends, who were with them on May 3, have consistently told
the truth and remain happy, indeed they are keen, to be reinterviewed
by the police if necessary to clarify any inconsistencies in the statements
that the police may think they have identified.
“The friends believe that if such interviews or reinterviews
take place it can only lead to Gerry and Kate being eliminated from the inquiry
swiftly.”
The McCanns were made arguidos, official suspects, by Portuguese detectives in
September the day before they finally flew back to Britain
after four months in Portugal.
The Times reported on Monday that the McCanns' lawyers had included the names
of their seven friends on a list of twenty-five people they have asked
Portuguese police to reinterview.
The couple believe that the witnesses will prove they were not involved in
Madeleine's disappearance and could provide vital evidence about her abductor.
The list includes employees of the Ocean Club, the British nannies at the
resort who looked after Madeleine and a number of other holidaymakers in Praia da Luz who have not been interviewed fully by police.
The seven friends are likely to request to also be made official suspects
before being reinterviewed so that they have the
right to have a lawyer present and to allow detectives to question them about
any suspicions.
Dr Payne, a cardiovascular researcher from Leicester,
was the last person not part of the McCann family to see Madeleine, when her
father asked him to check on his wife and children at 6.30pm.
Ms Tanner, from Exeter,
claimed she had seen a stranger carrying a girl from the McCanns' ground-floor
apartment at about 9.15pm, However, another witness
says he was outside the apartment at the same time but did not see them.
Dr Oldfield, an endocrinologist at Kingston Hospital in southwest London, has
said that he entered the McCanns' apartment to check on the children about 30
minutes before Madeleine was reported missing by her mother. He told police
that although he had seen the two-year-old twins Sean and Amelie, their elder
sister's bed was out of his sight.
Mrs Payne, Mr O'Brien and Mrs Oldfield are reported to have told police that
they saw Robert Murat, the other official suspect, at the Ocean Club on the
night Madeleine disappeared. Mr Murat, 33, insists he spent all evening with
his mother.
Mills denies Kate McCann parallel
Heather Mills, the estranged wife of Sir Paul McCartney, denied today that she
had compared herself to Mr and Mrs McCann in her complaint about media
coverage.
In an interview last week she had said: “Look what they're doing to the
McCanns. The woman has lost, and the poor father, have lost their daughter.
What are we doing as a nation?
“What are we doing persecuting a woman that is devastated behind closed doors
and trying to hold it together, as I have for 18 months?.”
However, she told GMTV this morning: “I didn't compare myself to the McCanns,
and then they wrote that I did, so all they're doing is giving us more
ammunition to use in the case.”
Fiona Phillips, the GMTV presenter, later told MS Mills that they had received
an e-mail from Madeleine's grandmother, Susan Healey, praising her for speaking
out and thanking her for supporting Mr and Mrs McCann.
Mills replied: “I can't imagine what they're going through, and that's really,
really kind of them. I would never compare myself to them in that situation, nobody can ever imagine what they're going
through.
“One day, when they can have the freedom to tell their story, then I'm sure
that will be very cathartic for them as well.” |
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