Process 201/07.0 GALGS Vol. XIII, pages 3425 - 3428
Polícia Judiciária
Witness Statement
Date of the diligence: 2007.06.13 Time: 12H00 Place: CID of Portimão
Name: Yvonne Warren Martin
Profession: Social Services and Child Protection Manager
This diligence is accompanied by this PJ’s interpreter who is present in this Department, Mr Carlos Moura, as the deponent neither speaks nor reads the Portuguese language.
The deponent says that she has been living in Portugal for seven years on a part-time basis, in other words, she lives a few months of the year her home in Sargaçal and for the rest of the year lives in England, where she still works.
Last month of May, more precisely on the 4th of May 2007, the deponent was in Portugal, enjoying a holiday, when at about 07h00 she turned on the television and saw, on an English news channel (BBC or SKY NEWS), an appeal for British citizens on holiday in the Algarve to offer all possible support to a British couple that was on holiday in Praia da Luz and whose underage daughter had disappeared on the 3rd of May 2007.
As she works directly with situations of children at risk, and as she was very close to Praia da Luz, she went there with the intention of giving all possible support to the couple, and arrived there at about 09H30.
She clarifies that she did not leave immediately for Praia da Luz because she still had some personal things to do at home but left at around 09H00.
Initially, she could not locate the exact site where the family was spending their holidays. Upon seeing a police patrol car that passed close by her, she asked those policemen if they could show her the right location. She was thus accompanied by the patrol car to the apartment from where the child had disappeared and where the parents were staying.
On location there was a group of three people, two being males and one female.
She approached the group and identified herself.
Two members of that group, a male and a female, identified themselves as being the parents of the missing child, which is to say, the McCann couple.
The couple was visibly upset, and the mother was crying intensely.
The third person never identified itself, and upon the deponent’s insistence the couple replied that he was a close friend of the family.
She adds that this third person looked familiar to her.
Using the information that she had obtained on the news, she started by questioning the couple about how often they had checked on the children, obtaining the reply that people went to see them every hour.
As is normal and routine in her line of work, she questioned the couple whether Gerry was the biological father of the missing child, to which he replied that he was.
She clarifies that she asked this question because during the course of her 25 years of service working with children at risk, it is very normal that when a couple has a child and where the father or the mother is not a biological parent, the latter has a tendency to come and “fetch” his child.
After having obtained the verbal response from Gerry, the mother, Kate, asked what was going on as those questions should be asked by the police, which should be on location already and large numbers to find her daughter, who had been taken by a couple.
At this moment, the deponent noticed that the couple began to show doubts about her capacity and she immediately exhibited her official documents and credentials issued by the British government to calm them down.
Gerry took her documents and showed them to the third person, telling him that they were authentic and with a police certificate.
At this moment, the deponent wishes to clarify that, in England, anyone who works directly with children, whether a doctor, police officer or social worker, has to have a proper credential issued by the police and that this was one of the documents she showed to the McCanns.
Because she found it strange that Kate told her that her daughter had been taken by a couple, she tried to separate her from the other two individuals so that both could speak under more privacy, suggesting to Kate that they should go inside the apartment, which prompted for Kate to react aggressively and against such an idea and told her that they could speak on the street.
The deponent then asked her whether anyone from the Medical Centre had been with her as she was very agitated and needed some support, she answered no.
At this point, Kate told her that her daughter had disappeared 13 hours ago. It was about 10 in the morning.
Meanwhile a fourth individual came towards the group and identified himself as a journalist, and the deponent alerted the couple to the kind of statements they were about give and if it wouldn’t be better for them to remain silent.
At this moment, the third person, who was always near to the couple and the deponent, moved the couple away from her and the three of them talked in a hushed voice for some time.
After this, and leaving the couple behind him, he approached the deponent again and told her that the couple didn’t wish to speak any more with her, or with anyone else.
The deponent replied to him that if the McCann couple felt the need to talk to her later, she would be at their full disposal.
As she said earlier, this third person of the group is familiar to her, and thinks that she may have come across him in the course of her work, as a suspect or a witness.
Therefore, she describes him as tall man, height about 1,80 m, about 35 years old, of normal physical complexion, with short, dark hair, with a round face and with a scar on the left side of his face covering part of the eyebrow and cheek, using graduated glasses of small dimension with rectangular lenses, he spoke with a southern English accent and was wearing cream coloured trousers and a dark coloured polo shirt.
When asked whether she could identify him from a photograph or personally, the deponent said yes.
She adds that after having spoken to the McCann couple, she spoke to the resort manager, and after identifying herself, asked him whether there had been a break-in to enter the apartment where the child was, to which he replied no but that the door was open as were the shutters of one of the windows, which, according to Kate, should have been closed but were found open.
Nothing more was said. Reads, ratifies and signs.
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Process 201/07.0 GALGS Vol. XIII, page 3429
Polícia JudiciáriaPhotographic Recognition File
On the 13th of June of 2007, at this CID of Portimão, Yvonne Warren has presented herself before me, José Monteiro, Inspector, to perform a photographic recognition.
Because this was solicited from her, she described the suspect, and she was presented with photographs of the several individuals that composed the McCann couple’s holiday group.
From the visualisation of the photographs, it resulted that she recognised David Anthony Payne, an individual that is portrayed in several pictures, as being the one that she mentioned in her statements and whom she supposedly already knew from another circumstance.
The present file is going to be signed, after being duly translated by the interpreter.
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Process 201/07.0 GALGS Vol. XIII, page 3430
Yvonne Warren Martin
Places where she has worked:
1. Gateshead, Tyne & Wear
2. Southshields, Tyne & Wear
3. Newcastle, Tyne & Wear
4. York, North Yorkshire
5. Hull, Kingston Upon Hull
6. North Tyneside, Tyne & Wear
7. Plymouth, Devon
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Process 201/07.0 GALGS Vol. XIII, pages 3431 - 3433
Polícia JudiciáriaWitness Statement
Date of the diligence: 2007.11.14 Time: 10H30 Place: CID of Portimão
Name: Yvonne Warren Martin
Profession: Social Services and Child Protection Manager
The deponent comes to the process as a witness. Since she doesn’t speak Portuguese this diligence will be carried out in the presence, and with the intervention of Mrs Filipa Maria da Conceição Silva, a translator who will translate all questions and answers into English.
The deponent has given a previous statement to this police force regarding the facts in question. That diligence was carried out on the 13th of June 2007 and resulted in the witness statement that was read out to her during this diligence. The deponent confirms the complete integrity of that statement, and everything was fully reproduced for this file. The deponent was also shown the page attached to her previous statement, listing the places of work where she carried out her professional activities as Social Services Manager for Child Protection, having also confirmed that these were the cities where she carried out her professional functions.
She states that in truth, in the course of her contact with Madeleine’s parents, which she described in detail in her previous statements, Kate told her that the child had been taken by a couple. Given the development of that encounter, the details of which are contained in her previous statement, she did not have the opportunity to ask in depth about this question or about any other.
Concerning to the individual who was close to Madeleine’s parents when she met them, and who she later identified as David Payne, she reaffirms that the same individual seemed familiar to her, possibly because said individual intervened in a situation related to a professional activity of the deponent. She clarifies that neither on that occasion, nor now that time has passed, she was able to remember the exact place or the situation in which she may have come to know David Payne, but that she continues to think that the same individual is familiar to her but cannot state the particular situation. She has considered the possibility that that she may have come to know him professionally through work, possibly having been colleagues at work or having worked at the same place but she cannot be certain where she met him, as she does not remember exactly.
She mentions that about two weeks after Madeleine’s disappearance, at a time when the police made an appeal for information concerning a man who has been spotted in the Luz area, carrying a child, and whose clothing was described, she wrote an anonymous letter to the British police, telling them the following: regarding the various details she observed during her contact with the McCanns it is her opinion that they could be in some way involved in the disappearance of Madeleine. She found them aggressive at first, and their reaction after she showed Madeleine’s parents her credentials, also seemed strange to her.
Afterwards she was informed that there were no signs of a break-in in the apartment. Knowing that they are doctors she found it absolutely abnormal that they left their children alone at home.
Associating all of this with her professional experience, which tells her that in 99.99 % of missing children cases, the parents or other family members are involved, she felt it was her duty to inform the police of this.
She did this anonymously because she did not want to be bothered by the media. Furthermore she states that according to what she remembers, when she met with Madeleine’s parents, David Payne, who was with them, was wearing a dark polo shirt, blue or black coloured, cream coloured long trousers, of linen or cotton, and dark shoes (slipper or trainer type without a back strap). In her opinion, this clothing matches perfectly with the clothing the Police described the man (carrying the child) to be wearing at the time.
All these coincidences made the witness think that the parents and their friends could possibly be involved in the disappearance of the child.
She further states that one of her main aims when she wrote the anonymous letter was for the British police to check the paedophile or child abusers registers to see if David Payne is on that list.
Nothing more was said. Reads, ratifies and signs.
