9. The McCanns claimed they were dining yards from their children, said they could see their room, and said it was ‘just like being in your back garden’. In truth, the children’s room was 120 yards away and the children’s room was on the far side of the apartment block and they couldn’t see their room.
Verdict - False, misleading and misquoted.
Source - Media articles, Google Earth.
Summary of Verifiable Facts
- The McCanns never said they could "see their children's room".
- The McCann's apartment could be seen from their dining table at the Tapas Bar.
- The McCann's apartment was 77.38 metres from their dining table not 120 "yards" (a yard is 0.9144 metres).
Discussion
There are two issues here:
- The distance between the Tapas Bar and the apartment.
- The MMRG's claim that the McCanns said they could see their children’s room.
Starting with no. 2 (above) first -
2. The MMRG's claim that the McCanns said they could see their children’s room
As with the other "facts" in their leaflet, the MMRG do not provide a specific source for this statement. A precise quote could not be found. However, there are two separate quotes made by Gerry McCann. Find below.
From the Daily Mail on 25th July, 2007:
Quote:
| Speaking on ABC's Good Morning America, the heart consultant said: "We were dining 50 yards away and we could see the apartment from where we were. It's like we were sat in our back garden, all be it at the end of our garden.
"The kids were sound asleep and they were being checked regularly. We didn't think we needed a babysitter. "We are good parents and what we did felt perfectly reasonable at the time. |
From Christian Today on 1st May, 2008:
Quote:
| The couple described why they decided to leave their children asleep in their holiday apartment while they ate with friends at a nearby restaurant. "It seemed a fairly natural sort of thing to do, it was so close," Gerry McCann said. "You could actually see the apartment and it didn't feel that different to dining out in the back garden. It was the furthest thing from my mind that something like that might happen." He added: "We have to live with the fact that we weren't directly there and if we were then you know possibly, probably it wouldn't have happened." |
Conclusions
Yet again, the MMRG has misquoted the McCanns. It is a well published fact that the McCann children's room was on the road side of the complex and that the Tapas Bar was in the centre of it.
Why would Gerry McCann attempt lie about it?
Now let us examine issue no. 1 as mentioned above.
1. The distance between the Tapas Bar and the restaurant
Thanks to Google Earth, it is easy to obtain a “directly above” aerial image of the complex. Let us consider two measurements;
1. Line of Sight ("as the crow flies")
Using the ruler feature of Google Earth, the following shows the distance "as the crow flies" between the McCann table at the Tapas Bar and their apartment. The distance is calculated as 50.82 metres.
(Thanks to Internet poster Sidmouth.)
2. Walking Distance
If they were walking the distance, they would probably stick to the proper paths which take a more roundabout route. Again, using Google Earth, the distance is calculated as 77.38 metres.
(Thanks to Internet poster Sidmouth).
Conclusion
It is doubtful that Gerry McCann’s priority would be to measure the distance in feet and inches, but his claim of 50 metres is significantly closer to 77.38 metres than the Madeleine McCann Research Group's claim of 120 yards (which is 109.7 metres).