Algarve Cabbie - 'Maddie Was In My Taxi'

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/uk/madeleine-mccann-got-into-the-back-of-my-cab-the-night-after-she-vanished-7706355.html

Madeleine McCann got into the back of my cab the night after she vanished



Taxi driver: Antonio Castela claims to have seen Madeleine

Kiran Randhawa

02 May 2012

A taxi driver who could help solve the mystery of Madeleine McCann’s disappearance has been ignored by Portuguese police, it was revealed today.

A lawyer for her parents told how the man, who says he saw the toddler a day after she vanished, is a crucial witness who could provide vital clues in the case.

Today, on the eve of the fifth anniversary into her disappearance, the cab driver told the Standard, how he has never been interviewed by detectives.

Antonio Castela says a young girl, who looked like Madeleine, got into the back of his taxi with four adults near the Spanish border in the Algarve, the night after she went missing.

Despite telling the Policia Judiciaria, the Portuguese police's investigative unit, what he saw, he has never been questioned.

The 72-year-old said he picked up three men, a woman and a child at 7:50pm on the May 4 2007, from Monte Gordo, about an hour's drive from Praia da Luz, where Madeleine vanished the night before.

He drove them two miles to the Hotel Apolo in Vila Real de Santo Antonio near Faro, where they got into a blue jeep and drove away.

He said: "The little girl, who looked like Madeleine was sat on the lap of a man sitting at the back of the cab. I remember thinking it was odd because they did not speak a word during the entire journey apart from at the end when the man sat in the passenger seat said to me; how much?"

Speaking from his home in Vila Real de Santo Antonio, he added: "Only when I heard about Madeleine going missing and seeing her picture on the TV did I contact the police as the little girl in the back of my taxi had that same distinct mark in her eye as Madeleine does."

Mr Castela, who has been a taxi driver for 23 years, said the girl, who was dressed in pink pyjamas, was awake, but did not speak and was just "staring ahead" as though she had been doped.

"After I went to the police, I never heard anything from them again" he said. "They did not seem to take me seriously and never questioned me. They simply took down the details and that was it. I am amazed that it has been five years and nobody has ever asked me what I saw that night. I am absolutely certain it was her."

Kate and Gerry McCann's lawyer in Portugal, Isabel Duarte, said Mr Castela's account is one of several important leads that the Portuguese police have failed to follow up.

Scotland Yard, which last year launched a £2million review of all known evidence in the case, says there are 195 new leads in the case adding they believe she is still alive.

A team of detectives, based in Oporto in northern Portugal, has been appointed to re-examine the case but so far say there are no credible new facts to justify re-opening the investigation.

Kate and Gerry McCann said today they have "no doubt" that the Portuguese authorities will eventually re-open the investigation into their daughter Madeleine's disappearance.

Police in Portugal said last week they had found "no new element" to justify re-launching their inquiry into how the little girl vanished on a family holiday to the Algarve in May 2007. But the McCanns, speaking on the eve of the fifth anniversary of Madeleine going missing, added their voice to calls from Scotland Yard for the case to be re-opened.

Mr McCann, 43, said: “I think the most important thing is that a lot of the investigation opportunities are in Portugal.


“I think it’s fairly clear that the case will have to be re-opened for those to be pursued adequately.

“We weren’t expecting a knee-jerk reaction by any means. This is an ongoing dialogue, and I am sure the investigation will get opened again in due course.

“I have no doubt about that. It will get re-opened.”

His wife, 44, added: “It’s certainly the best way that we’re going to find Madeleine, and who took her. If people want to find Madeleine, and want to find the person who took her, then we need the case to be re-opened.”

The officer leading Scotland Yard’s review of the original investigation into Madeleine’s disappearance spoke last week of his belief that the case can still be solved and said there is evidence she could still be alive.

Detective Chief Inspector Andy Redwood said the Metropolitan Police would like the case to be re-opened, but stressed that the decision was one for Portugal.

Mr McCann said: “The only way everyone will be able to move on is for the case to be solved, and that is for Madeleine to be found and the perpetrators brought to justice. Until then it’s not going to go away. It can’t go away.”

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Well well! As some of us are aware, this incident has been discussed before; as we are also aware, NO effort was made to investigate it further by Gonc.

In past discussions of it, we never did manage to find out why Gonc didn't want it looked into, indeed, tried to pretend it hadn't happened.

If I remember correctly, Bonny.
This mans son was a GNR officer!

That's right, Maggs - and a very garbled version of it all turned up in places like CdM. The impression was given that it happened on the 3rd, which makes a nonsense of it, but according to this report:


The 72-year-old said he picked up three men, a woman and a child at 7:50pm on the May 4 2007

Who knows? There has always been something odd about it.

bb1 wrote:That's right, Maggs - and a very garbled version of it all turned up in places like CdM. The impression was given that it happened on the 3rd, which makes a nonsense of it, but according to this report:


The 72-year-old said he picked up three men, a woman and a child at 7:50pm on the May 4 2007

Who knows? There has always been something odd about it.

That's it, Bonny. Everyone was led to believe that this happened on the 3rd of May. So who twisted that, and then ignored it?
This is disgusting.

I am trying to run this to ground, Sabot. Here it is:

http://www.gerrymccannsblogs.co.uk/press/11feb8/TELEGRAPH_29_02_08.htm

A taxi driver has reportedly claimed to have taken Madeleine McCann and Robert Murat for a ride in his cab on the night the toddler vanished.
He told the Sun: "I noticed her eye because my son was born with a defect much the same. I saw her kind of twist her chin a few times in my rear-view mirror.
"I remember she was in pink pyjamas and wondered why they hadn't dressed her."
He described the adults as casually dressed and the woman as a slim blonde.
Mr Cardoso said he had informed the police of the apparent encounter but as well as Metodo 3, the private detective agency hired by the McCanns.
But the McCanns spokesman Clarence Mitchell told the newspaper: "We are dismissing this primarily because the timings are entirely wrong.", 67, alleges that Madeleine was with three men and a woman who were waiting at a taxi rank in Monte Gordo near the Spanish border.
The Sun newspaper reports that he took them on a short journey to a hotel where the group transferred to a jeep with foreign number plates.
Mr Cardoso claimed the girl in the back of his taxi at 8.10pm on May 3 was wearing pink pyjamas and had a distinctive mark in her eye.
He said he later recognised one of the men as Robert Murat after watching a television programme.
The claims have shocked Madeleine's parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, who have rejected them for being incompatible with the known chain of events that night.
Murat was made an official suspect, or arguido, two weeks after the little girl disappeared but has always denied any involvement in the case.
Mr Cardoso said he drove the group in silence for about two miles from the Hotel Apolo in Vila Real de Santo Antonio near Faro, with the man who he believed to be Murat sat beside him in the front passenger seat.
He claimed the girl he thought was Madeleine was awake but said nothing during the trip and stared straight ahead.

He told the Sun: "I noticed her eye because my son was born with a defect much the same. I saw her kind of twist her chin a few times in my rear-view mirror.
"I remember she was in pink pyjamas and wondered why they hadn't dressed her."
He described the adults as casually dressed and the woman as a slim blonde.
Mr Cardoso said he had informed the police of the apparent encounter but as well as Metodo 3, the private detective agency hired by the McCanns.
But the McCanns spokesman Clarence Mitchell told the newspaper: "We are dismissing this primarily because the timings are entirely wrong."

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Quite; it's a nonsense if it was the 3rd. BUT - if it was actually the 4th, and someone has been deliberately bandying the wrong date around, it's a whole new ball game.

Well someone in The PJ fucked up the date, and I do believe that this is what happened.
Apart from that it all makes sense, except that it wasn't Robert Murat or Kate McCann.

I am suddenly seeing a deliberate attempt to discredit this sighting.

I just don't know what is going on here, Sabot, but I do know that the first thing the Yard would do is check the date...if it was the 4th, then the child was almost certainly a very much alive Madeleine McCann.

And no, I don't think she was with Murat, but with yet another bloke with glasses, and a blonde woman.

bb1 wrote:I just don't know what is going on here, Sabot, but I do know that the first thing the Yard would do is check the date...if it was the 4th, then the child was almost certainly a very much alive Madeleine McCann.

And no, I don't think she was with Murat, but with yet another bloke with glasses, and a blonde woman.

Hence the need for a nearly blonde child. And it certainly doesn't sound like a Paedophile Ring.
I think I'm feeling angry

And I very much doubt that the taxi driver mixed up the date. He was there on the spot and he will have known that it was the day after the disappearance.

We'll have to wait and see, but if it did indeed happen on the 4th - then the whole situation is turned on its head.

And yes, I can see abductors calling a cab if their car had broken down, or something - remember, the hue and cry was only just getting started.

As ever, time will tell.

Oh, look at the Source of the May 3rd date...

http://joana-morais.blogspot.com/2008/02/taxi-driver-story-and-rogatory-letter.html

The son, a police officer of the GNR, advised the father to phone to the Judiciary Police of Portimão. “ He (the son) dialled the number and I said what I am telling you (to the journalist of 24 Horas newspaper)”, he remembers to 24horas.

That rag!

And even worse - or better:

From Correio da Manhã: A source connected with the investigation guaranteed that the facts told by António Castela were "investigated" and the “lead was proven false”.

If it hadn't been 'investigated' or 'proven false', and the wrong date bandied about by the notorious sources connected to the investigation, then we are in murky water indeed.

I don't make a habit of jumping to conclusions, but this stinks.

Yes, and the smell is getting worse. If the McCanns were deliberately given the wrong date, then I do not want to think about the implications.

I really don't think this would have been resurrected if the Yard hadn't done a bit of investigating of their own?

I have just seen it pointed out that there is no reference at all to this cab driver's story in the files. Is this true? If so it goes to prove that Isabel Duarte is absolutely right that the initial PJ investigation co-ordinated by Amaral was a complete shambles.

bb1 wrote:Yes, and the smell is getting worse. If the McCanns were deliberately given the wrong date, then I do not want to think about the implications.

I really don't think this would have been resurrected if the Yard hadn't done a bit of investigating of their own?

No, nor do I. And I can remember that the taxi driver was confused at the time because The PJ weren't interested. But surely his son will know what day it was.

And I wonder now if one of the PIs spoke to him. The problem is that only The PJ have jurisdiction in Portugal. And don't we now know why.

greenink211 wrote:I have just seen it pointed out that there is no reference at all to this cab driver's story in the files. Is this true? If so it goes to prove that Isabel Duarte is absolutely right that the initial PJ investigation co-ordinated by Amaral was a complete shambles.

If The PJ spoke to the taxi driver, which would appear so, then this should have been in The Files, especially as Robert Murat was mentioned. Even if The PJ later decided that it wasn't relevant.

It is much more likely that Goncalo Amaral decided it was a bit too relevant. This is on a balance of probabilities. No Police Force would or should decide to omit a statement just because they thought it wasn't worth mentioning.

greenink211 wrote:I have just seen it pointed out that there is no reference at all to this cab driver's story in the files. Is this true? If so it goes to prove that Isabel Duarte is absolutely right that the initial PJ investigation co-ordinated by Amaral was a complete shambles.

I can't find any statement in the files, Greenink. The story first seems to surface in the Portuguese press with the May 3rd date, which means it is just one of those odd coincidences, but not relevant.

However - if it actually happened on the 4th, it's a different story altogether.

I've noticed the forkers are in full cry because it was dismissed by Clarence Mitchell. Well yes, it would be, wouldn't it, if he and the McCanns had been given the wrong date.

And if they were given the wrong date then this has to have been deliberate.

It is looking once more like the PJ, the PT press and others may have something to answer for here.

Oh yes, and I can see exactly who is involved in this. In order to 'prove' something or other, Anna Esse posted a link to the story on her own blog.

Quote:

Here is an article from the Belgian site, Enfants Kidnappés, dated February 28th.

It ends:

The PJ confirmed having been contacted by the taxi driver and his witness statement taken at the time. But these claims had been rejected after verification.

Bl**dy Levy again!

We have no way of finding the correct date - but I am pretty sure Scotland Yard will.

And why is there no statement in the files that anyone can find? There is all sorts of nonsense on record there, so why is this missing?

greenink211 wrote:It is looking once more like the PJ, the PT press and others may have something to answer for here.

It's looking like a bit more than that to me. But it will all come out. For a start, why wasn't it in The Files? Secondly, who decided that it wouldn't be? Thirdly, Why?

The version we know - and the McCanns and Clarence Mitchell were given - seems to have come from D. Levy and Portuguese tabloids.

I don't think any more needs said, does it?

bb1 wrote:The version we know - and the McCanns and Clarence Mitchell were given - seems to have come from D. Levy and Portuguese tabloids.

I don't think any more needs said, does it?

Where did they get it from?

That doesn't seem to be clear, Sabot.

Maybe the PJ told Levy they had been contacted, and Levy rewrote to suit? I don't know, I have no idea what is going on - besides something.

Same story:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/taxi-drivers-madeleine-mccann-sighting-ignored-7706974.html

Quote:

A taxi driver who believes he picked up Madeleine McCann the night after she vanished has claimed that Portuguese police ignored his report.

If today's reports are correct, and it was the day AFTER......

We know that Levy is a lying arsehole, but he wouldn't have made this up on his own.