“My Search for Madeleine” - Jon Clarke, 2021
Jon Clarke Through the Looking Glass
“Why sometimes I believe six impossible things before breakfast”.
Some impossible things to believe
Everyone understands that multiple witnesses to an event will produce slightly different multiple versions differing in small particulars, according to their detailed recollection and understanding of the event at the time.
In the McCann parallel universe we have become familiar with the phenomenon of single witnesses producing multiple and contradictory statements.
• we have curtains pulled wide open – AND drawn tight closed
• we have shutters smashed, forced and jemmied – AND totally unmarked
• we have a photo taken in hot bright sunshine – on a cold and overcast day
• we have a man in the apartment for 30 seconds – AND for 30 minutes
• we have a man using the locked front door – AND the unlocked patio door
• we have people without watches - remembering they stood up at 9:04 ‘by his watch’
In ‘Alice through the Looking Glass’, The Red Queen exclaims “Why sometimes I believe six impossible things before breakfast”.
For most people that is fantasy. For Clarke it is clearly a daily reality.
Jon Clarke. Press owner, Editor, self-proclaimed investigative journalist and Super-sleuth, is clearly in a league of his own. He has single-handedly produced no fewer than eight separate versions – so far discovered – of one event, every one of them either impossible or demonstrably false by application of the most basic logic and examination of contemporaneous video film and photographs.
There are five separate details of his initial involvement which Clarke changes ad libitum.
• Time of the initial phone call
• Time of his arrival in PdL
• Number of journalists present on his arrival
• Entry to Apartment 5A
• Speaking to the McCanns
And there are at least eight sources of ‘information’. Many are written by Clarke or were clearly under his editorial control. All are different.
• Article Olive Press 2017. (OP17)
• Article Olive Press 2019. (OP19)
• Interview with Sandra Felguerias within the Netflix transcript. (SFIG)
• Netflix publicity 2019. (NET19)
• Netflix Documentary - transcript 2019. (NET-TRANS)
• Article CLOSER Magazine 2020. (CLOSER)
• Article BELLA Magazine 2021. (BELLA)
• "My Search For Madeleine” - Jon Clarke 2021. (BOOK)
All are quoted in detail in the Appendix, with links and references, so there shall be absolutely NO DOUBT that what follows is an accurate record – of what we have been told.
Let us take each detail in order, and then rationalise and compare with the known facts in each case.
Time of the Phone call
OP17 – – – – 0715
OP19 – – – – 0700 - 0730
SFIG – – – – – 0700 - 0730
NET19
NET-TRANS – 0700 - 0730
CLOSER
BELLA
BOOK – – – – 15 minutes before he left, which was before 0700
Arrival in Praia da Luz
OP17 – – – – 1145. [if we assume that is Spanish time = 1045 Portuguese]
OP19
SFIG
NET19
NET-TRANS
CLOSER
BELLA
BOOK – – – – 0945 - 1015 local time (Portuguese)
Number of Journalists Present
OP17 – – – – Only reporter on the scene till late that evening, (apart from Kate/Kay Burley)
OP19 – – – – First Journalist on the scene
SFIG
NET19– – – – First UK Print journalist
NET-TRANS
CLOSER – – – One of the first journalists on the scene
BELLA
BOOK – – – – First British journalist on the scene
Entry to 5A
OP17– – – – – I was firstly able to walk into the apartment
OP19
SFIG
NET19
NET-TRANS – – – it [tape] went up and I looked in
CLOSER
BELLA
BOOK – – – – up the short flight of stairs to the apartment 5A . . .I walked inside the open front door
Speaking to the McCanns
OP17 – – – – in the apartment
OP19 – – – – as they were leaving
SFIG
NET19
NET-TRANS – – – as they were leaving; I think I tried to speak to them
CLOSER – – – – few hours after arriving met Gerry and Kate; later that day
BELLA – – – – – at a press conference that night
BOOK – – – – – in the apartment
It is important to examine some of these issues
ARRIVAL: We know that Clarke must have arrived in PdL around 0945 Portuguese time at the very latest to have been filmed watching the McCanns leaving in the police vehicles to go for their interviews, the departure timed roughly at 1000. So each one of his times is inaccurate.
PHONE CALL: On his own admission he stopped for a coffee and toast en route, and adding all the times together - (Ronda to coffee at Utrera, coffee etc, round the Seville ring road at peak time, then on to PdL) gives us about 4h 45m. Subtracting that and the half hour before that for the phone call gives 0430 UK time, 0530 Spanish time. Which means that then entire media circus, the Politicians and diplomatic must have been on full alert by 0330 BST, and that all his times are inaccurate.
NUMBER OF JOURNALISTS: Contemporaneous news film exists and is easily accessible, showing at least SIX journalists at the scene with Clarke clearly the most recent arrival. He is also seen speaking to, or in close proximity to, Len Port, a British ex-pat journalist who had been on the scene since 0830, and had been filmed walking the ground. Port has written a mature and measured account of the situation he found and as it developed through the morning.
ENTRY TO 5A. Despite Clarke’s frequent insistence that he entered and spoke to the McCanns in apartment 5A the scene was in fact taped off, there were police officers around to enforce it, Scenes of crime operatives were working inside, and crucially – the McCanns were not in 5A. They were simply not there. They had been moved out at 2am, the apartment secured for photographs and then locked up overnight. The McCanns were firstly in the Payne’s first floor apartment 5H and then by that evening were moved into the first floor 4G. It is for that reason that the McCanns emerged from the stairwell to go to the cars before being taken away, just as Clarke was filmed walking in the opposite direction past the group of police officers, the dog vans and the Scenes of crime operative. Following that he doubled back, crossed the road, and is filmed emerging from between parked cars to stand helplessly in the middle of the road as the cars drive past him.
SPEAKING TO THE MCCANNS. There is no question of Clarke’s having spoken to the McCanns in 5A, because they weren’t there.
Film mentioned above shows Clarke not speaking to them “as they left” in the cars, but simply standing in the road as they pass.
“A few hours after arriving” can only mean after 2030, eleven hours after arriving, when they returned from Portimão. Kate McCann is very clear in her autobiography about what happened on their return, and it did not include being interviewed by any journalist, even if their minders and close friends had allowed it.
“at a press conference that night” must refer to the torchlight reading of the Press statement by Gerry McCann at 2200 to coincide with the News Bulletins in the UK and elsewhere. The news-reel shows the statement, and then Gerry and Kate moving swiftly back into the shadow of the stairwell and the safety of their friends, family and the minders who had arrived during the day. It also shows that they took no questions and did not speak to anyone,.
Not even Clarke.
It is therefore considered highly unlikely that Jon Clarke spoke to the McCanns that day, or at all.
He has failed to identify a credible ‘window of opportunity’ for him to have done so. He has also failed to provide a verbatim, or even approximated record of any conversation or interview.
INTERESTING NOTE:
Even Martin Brunt, the highly experienced and trusted Crime Correspondent for Sky News, who was there for ten days did not manage to speak to them. See Refs
14 years later the McCanns refused to speak to Clarke. Book
They clearly want nothing to do with him. Mitchell gave him the message “It is thanks, but no thanks,”
To sum up,
Are any of Clarke’s “versions of the truth” true or credible ?
Phone call – NO
Arrival – NO
Journalists present – NO
Entry into 5A – NO
Speaking – NO
If there is another definitive version – the objective Truth, which fits the known facts AND the video and photographic evidence, then the world is waiting to hear it.
But for the moment we wait.
OP19 – – – – First Journalist on the scene
SFIG
NET19– – – – First UK Print journalist
NET-TRANS
CLOSER – – – One of the first journalists on the scene
BELLA
BOOK – – – – First British journalist on the scene
Entry to 5A
OP17– – – – – I was firstly able to walk into the apartment
OP19
SFIG
NET19
NET-TRANS – – – it [tape] went up and I looked in
CLOSER
BELLA
BOOK – – – – up the short flight of stairs to the apartment 5A . . .I walked inside the open front door
Speaking to the McCanns
OP17 – – – – in the apartment
OP19 – – – – as they were leaving
SFIG
NET19
NET-TRANS – – – as they were leaving; I think I tried to speak to them
CLOSER – – – – few hours after arriving met Gerry and Kate; later that day
BELLA – – – – – at a press conference that night
BOOK – – – – – in the apartment
It is important to examine some of these issues
ARRIVAL: We know that Clarke must have arrived in PdL around 0945 Portuguese time at the very latest to have been filmed watching the McCanns leaving in the police vehicles to go for their interviews, the departure timed roughly at 1000. So each one of his times is inaccurate.
PHONE CALL: On his own admission he stopped for a coffee and toast en route, and adding all the times together - (Ronda to coffee at Utrera, coffee etc, round the Seville ring road at peak time, then on to PdL) gives us about 4h 45m. Subtracting that and the half hour before that for the phone call gives 0430 UK time, 0530 Spanish time. Which means that then entire media circus, the Politicians and diplomatic must have been on full alert by 0330 BST, and that all his times are inaccurate.
NUMBER OF JOURNALISTS: Contemporaneous news film exists and is easily accessible, showing at least SIX journalists at the scene with Clarke clearly the most recent arrival. He is also seen speaking to, or in close proximity to, Len Port, a British ex-pat journalist who had been on the scene since 0830, and had been filmed walking the ground. Port has written a mature and measured account of the situation he found and as it developed through the morning.
ENTRY TO 5A. Despite Clarke’s frequent insistence that he entered and spoke to the McCanns in apartment 5A the scene was in fact taped off, there were police officers around to enforce it, Scenes of crime operatives were working inside, and crucially – the McCanns were not in 5A. They were simply not there. They had been moved out at 2am, the apartment secured for photographs and then locked up overnight. The McCanns were firstly in the Payne’s first floor apartment 5H and then by that evening were moved into the first floor 4G. It is for that reason that the McCanns emerged from the stairwell to go to the cars before being taken away, just as Clarke was filmed walking in the opposite direction past the group of police officers, the dog vans and the Scenes of crime operative. Following that he doubled back, crossed the road, and is filmed emerging from between parked cars to stand helplessly in the middle of the road as the cars drive past him.
SPEAKING TO THE MCCANNS. There is no question of Clarke’s having spoken to the McCanns in 5A, because they weren’t there.
Film mentioned above shows Clarke not speaking to them “as they left” in the cars, but simply standing in the road as they pass.
“A few hours after arriving” can only mean after 2030, eleven hours after arriving, when they returned from Portimão. Kate McCann is very clear in her autobiography about what happened on their return, and it did not include being interviewed by any journalist, even if their minders and close friends had allowed it.
“at a press conference that night” must refer to the torchlight reading of the Press statement by Gerry McCann at 2200 to coincide with the News Bulletins in the UK and elsewhere. The news-reel shows the statement, and then Gerry and Kate moving swiftly back into the shadow of the stairwell and the safety of their friends, family and the minders who had arrived during the day. It also shows that they took no questions and did not speak to anyone,.
Not even Clarke.
It is therefore considered highly unlikely that Jon Clarke spoke to the McCanns that day, or at all.
He has failed to identify a credible ‘window of opportunity’ for him to have done so. He has also failed to provide a verbatim, or even approximated record of any conversation or interview.
INTERESTING NOTE:
Even Martin Brunt, the highly experienced and trusted Crime Correspondent for Sky News, who was there for ten days did not manage to speak to them. See Refs
14 years later the McCanns refused to speak to Clarke. Book
They clearly want nothing to do with him. Mitchell gave him the message “It is thanks, but no thanks,”
To sum up,
Are any of Clarke’s “versions of the truth” true or credible ?
Phone call – NO
Arrival – NO
Journalists present – NO
Entry into 5A – NO
Speaking – NO
If there is another definitive version – the objective Truth, which fits the known facts AND the video and photographic evidence, then the world is waiting to hear it.
But for the moment we wait.