The Tapas Nine: McCann friends whose loyalty comes at a cost
By NEIL SEARS - More by this author »
Last updated at 00:41am on 15th September 2007
Madeleine: the seven people dining took turns to check on the missing child
The seven people dining with Gerry and Kate McCann at the Ocean Club tapas bar on the night of May 3 have all steadfastly defended their friends.
But their loyalty has had a cost.
According to reports from Portugal, all have come under suspicion and face further police questioning because their accounts allegedly clashed.
The group - most of them doctors and professionals - was made up of:
Dr Russell O'Brien, 36.
A consultant in acute medicine at the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital, he knew Gerry McCann from Leicester.
He was on holiday with his partner Jane Tanner and their two young daughters.
At 9.25pm he left the restaurant for around 25 minutes to check on one of the girls, who was ill.
He has been subject to a vicious Portuguese press campaign alleging he was absent for over an hour when Madeleine went missing. He has threatened to sue, insisting: "These reports are completely untrue and extremely hurtful."
images at link.
Clockwise from top left, Fiona Payne, Jane Tanner, Russell O' Brien, Rachael Oldfield Read more...
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Jane Tanner, 37
Dr O'Brien's partner. She arrived late at the tapas bar after treating their sick daughter.
On the way, she passed the McCanns' apartment and saw a man carrying a child. Crucially, her description of the child's clothes matched Madeleine's pink pyjamas.
Dr Matthew Oldfield, 37,
Dr Oldfield, an endocrinologist at Kingston Hospital in South-West London, went to check the McCann children at 9 25pm.
But he did not look inside the flat - simply listened from outside to ensure Madeleine and the twins were not crying.
Rachael Oldfield, 36,
Dr Oldfield's wife, a former lawyer who is now a recruitment consultant.
She is one of four witnesses who claim to have seen the first suspect, British expat Robert Murat, near the McCanns' flat.
Last month she angrily dismissed reports that police had intercepted phone calls and emails between the McCanns and their friends which contradicted the group's earlier statements.
Mrs Oldfield accused Portuguese police of "throwing mud when we are not able to defend oursleves"
David Payne, 41
Mr Payne is a senior research fellow in cardiovascular sciences at Leicester University
He and his wife and mother-in-law joined the group at 8.55pm.
They are believed to have been the only ones using a baby monitor to check on their two children.
Mr Payne has said: "All these smears and rumours are overshadowing the important thing, which is to get Madeleine back."
Dr Fiona Payne, 34.
Mr Payne's wife, she is understood to have told police she saw Mr Murat shortly after Madeleine vanished.
Dr Payne and her husband stayed on in the Algarve to support the McCanns. When the couple were made official suspects, she said: "It's an outrage - a preposterous accusation."
Dianne Webster.
Dr Payne's mother. She has given no public interviews.
n.sears@dailymail.co.uk
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I agree with you. It STINKS!
When would the McCann’s have had time to transport a dead body in a foreign land to some hideaway place? What vehicle would they have driven to take the kid away to hide her? Did they use a rent-a-car the day of the child’s disappearance? Or did they use their own vehicle and did it have any DNA or blood in it? Doesn’t sound like any other car with blood in it the day of the disappearance has been tested or spoken of by anyone.
Where would the McCann’s have taken the body? They are in a foreign land. Why would they kill their own kid? There are 3 of them. So they just arbitrarily decided to bump off their oldest girl? If they allegedly sedated their kids, were any sedatives found by anyone? Was it checked for? Did either of the other two children show any signs of sedation? Did they wake up right away when the McCann’s discovered Madeleine was gone, or were they groggy and hung over from being sedated also? And who would ever be over-sedating their 3 kids anyway? Is there any track record of them ever doing anything like this before? As doctors, do you really think they would be over-sedating their own children? How much mileage was on the speedometer of the car rental? Why did they rent it and where did they say they went? Do they have witnesses as to where they went in the rental car? Where are the police answers to all of these questions? And by the way, if the children were sedated, and Madeleine allegedly was over-sedated, why would there be any blood on the walls. Over-sedation does not cause bleeding.
I believe the Portuguese police wanted the McCann family out of Portugal. It was bad PR for them, and bad for the tourist trade which had already taken a dive because of this incident. The McCann’s were being adamant about not wanting to leave Portugal without Madeleine. This is the trumped up charge by the police to get the onus off of themselves for their lousy investigation, and to get the McCann’s out of Portugal. It worked, didn’t it. Now, just like Beth Holloway, they lose the ability to ever find out the truth as to what happened to their daughter. Beth Holloway had the same rotten treatment by a foreign gov’t that just wanted her out of their hair the same as in this case. Must not affect the tourist trade.
Now the McCanns are back in Britain, far away from the scene of the crime, and have no ability to keep the investigation alive. The Portuguese got rid of them back to their own country, and the reason they let them go back was because that’s what they wanted all the time, to get them out of Portugal. You watch, the case will now miraculously just fade away, leaving the suspicions now on the McCann’s heads, and the police can now just forget about having to do anything more, because they didn’t want to do anything more. The McCann’s lose.
Dr. Baden, whose the coroner guy who is always on Fox News, thinks this is all trumped up. He says a car would stink to high heaven if a decomposed body had been in it, and that there would be no blood after 25 days, just liquid goo. And that the parents both being doctors, they would never have put a decomposed body, even if wrapped in plastic, into the boot of a car where it might leak. And that even if the McCann’s had sedated their kids w/medicine, it wouldn’t be enough to cause one of them to die. Plus he says the parents transported all of Madelaine’s clothes in the boot of the car when transferring them from where they had been staying to another villa, which could leave some traces of DNA and hair in the boot. Also, he says it is easily ascertained whether hair is from a dead person as versus one who was still alive, under the microscope. Therefore, any hair found in the boot, if it came from transferring clothes, would be found to have been from Madelaine before she died, rather than afterwards. I trust Dr. Baden. He knows this is a setup.