Friends in High Places

There are around 1500 police stations in the UK.  One might therefore suppose that it is a relatively unusual event for a particular station in a relative backwater to play host to both the Prime Minister and Home Secretary for a chat about the intricacies of community policing.  Yet such was the honor accorded to the otherwise rather unremarkable Beaumont Leys station in North Leicestershire, about 5 miles from Rothley, home of the McCanns.  Now Rothley comes under the Charnwood West Police District, but guess where they are based?  Yes, Beaumont Leys. 

https://leics.police.uk/local-policing/charnwood-west/lpd_commander

Contact Chief Superintendent Andy Lee
You can contact Chief Superintendent Andy Lee by:
Post
Beaumont Leys Police Station
2 Beaumont Way
Leicester 
LE4 1DS

What a coincidence also that the date of this visit 12 September 2007 was just 3 days after the McCann’s returned to the UK from Portugal after being made formal “arguidos” after some frenetic political arm-twisting by Brown on behalf of the McCanns.  One imagines that the top brass of the Leicestershire Constabulary was on hand to welcome such distinguished visitors. 

What was the real purpose of Brown’s trip?  It’s nigh on impossible to believe that the trip was really about community policing – a topic on which Brown displayed precisely zero interest throughout rest of his entire political career.  Even had it been and the selection of Beaumont Leys had been entirely random, he would have been advised to rearrange the trip with another station or just allow Jacqui Smith to attend given the obvious impropriety of visiting a station handling a case which he had taken a keen and public interest in.  Moreover, one has to question whether the timing just a couple of days after the McCann’s became “arguidos” and returned to the UK was accidental.  If this was not a fluke accident and the trip was arranged at the last moment, it would of course be even more suspicious given the busy diaries that a PM and a HS would one presume normally have.

If there were an ulterior motive for the trip, it would most plausibly be to establish a personal relationship and communication channel with the key senior police officers in charge of overseeing the McCann case, or at least to flag to such officers, the direction in which the Prime Minister was keen to see the case move.

So, what do we know about how the Case was handled by the Leicestershire Police?  Well I think it can be fairly summarized as either: (1) Incompetent to the point of absurdity or (2) Trying their best to absolve the McCann’s from responsibility.

Amongst the many seeming incompetence’s several are standouts:

(1)   The failure to inform the Portuguese police of the Gaspar allegations concerning the worrying behavior of Gerry McCann and David Payne on a previous holiday for 5 months I believe, until conveniently Amaral had been removed from the Case (Largely due to the Lobbying of the British Government and Leicestershire Police)

(2)   The decision to ignore the evidence of Dr Julian Trotman, brought forward as early as May 2007 that probably he was the inspiration for Jane Tanner’s Tannerman as he was bringing back his daughter from the Night Creche at around that time and wearing clothes similar to those described by Jane Tanner.  This vital piece of evidence was buried for 6 years until finally revealed by Scotland Yard in 2003.  Crucially it allowed the much stronger and more independent evidence from the Smiths to be downplayed and largely ignored for all that time.

(3)   The incredibly softball style with which the key witnesses were interviewed with seemingly no desire to follow up on the obviously potentially pertinent clues that did emerge.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzahAJN8GYI