01:00:40 1578 "Was he behaving or acting differently when he returned?”
Reply "No, just plain old fashioned Gerry. No change whatsoever.”

 

01:29:46 1578 "Do you think she would have gone readily with a stranger?”
Reply "Err no I don’t, I don’t think so, err she was, she was, she was certainly more confident than my E**a, but you know I think if you look at the gene pool, me and Jane are slightly more kind of err sort of reticent sort of people and certainly you know Gerry and to a lesser extent Kate are certainly more slightly more extrovert so she’s coming from, she’s coming from an extrovert background but I don’t think just because you come from an extrovert background means that you’re, you’re, you’re fanciful and, and necessarily will sort of dismiss risk even as a kid. My E**a you know would, would, wouldn’t say boo to a goose you know when even a relative comes to the house and she’ll kind of hold your leg for a little while and I think Madeleine’s maybe not as shy as E**a but from, from the brief meetings they had I don’t think she, she came across as a, as a reckless child who just sort of disappeared you know was always out the gate of the house or anything like that you know she was always in the house, she didn’t do anything daft. But I think that’s about all I can say if I’m honest

 

 

 Gerry was on the phone to a family member back home, for someone that is such a strong character he is usually so calm, decisive, confident. He was lying on the floor in hysterics, he had a high voice crying like a baby, I didn't know what to say.

 

00.47.07 4078 “As you got to know Gerry and Kate how did you find them?”
Reply “Yeah, they’re, erm, I mean, they’re very similar sort of people. I mean, they were absolute, they absolutely loved their kids and there’s no question to any of us that they had anything to do with this. Erm, they were appropriate, friendly, they had the same, I mean, we’re all medics, so you’ve got that in common anyway. Erm, but, yeah, I mean, you see them on the cameras on TV and they’re all sort of, they are all sort of very, very sort of focussed, very, you know, sort of (inaudible) but they know what they want and they can explain it, they are articulate. I mean, he’s a, sort of an academic sort of medic, so, you know, it’s sort of a competitive field where you compete for grants and staff and all that sort of thing, so you need to know what you’re doing, you need to be sort of fairly on the ball and that’s just how he is, I mean, it’s just, if he’s got a project, he’s sort of very focussed and sort of fairly, fairly driven. Erm, but, absolutely, sort of great parents. I mean, most of my memory from Italy is of sort of, you know, I think, I think Madeleine may have had quite a bit of attention when she was younger. She was mostly in and out of sort of the apartment, didn’t see much of her there. I saw more of Gerry when we were playing sort of football and things. But, yeah, you know, just a normal. I mean, he’d done quite a lot of sports, erm, on a Wednesday night particularly and when we went to the bar after we spent a lot of time talking about sort of, you know, could it have been slightly different could I have been a professional footballer, you know, this is how, I enjoyed it and how far I got and we talked about sort of what I’d done and there was quite a lot in common, erm, in common with that. Erm, Kate sort of initially was much sort of quieter but when you sort of talked to her she’s, erm, sort of just friendly and sort of warm and just a normal person”.
4078 “And how would you describe Madeleine?”
Reply “Erm, yeah, sweet, lovely, you know, sort of very sort of outgoing and, erm, you know, enthusiastic, bounds of energy, sort of memories of her as they’re running round the bits when we sort of chased her, it was always ‘I want more. I want more. Be a monster. Be a monster’ and running round, yeah”.
00.49.15 4078 “Sad memories for you all, or mixed memories probably, I should imagine, bitter sweet?”
Reply “Yeah, erm”.
4078 “And you said the Wednesday you stayed later and you went for a drink after the meal at the Tapas?”
Reply “Yeah, we might have had one, erm, so about sort of half an hour or so later that we went back. But the reason, now we mention it, but I think that was on the Thursday, when we went to the table, I didn’t sit next to Gerry, because we had this conversation, he said, you know, he’d bored the pants off me yesterday when we were talking about his sports (inaudible)”.
4078 “Right”.

 

 

00.21.10 4078 “Okay. So Gerry has gone off almost straight away after you got back?”
Reply “Yeah”.
4078 “And then Jane followed him?”
Reply “Yeah. Now I don’t remember that particularly well, I mean, I know from what discussion, it may be in my statement from months ago remembering better, but it wasn’t unusual for people to be leaving the table to sort of check, so it doesn’t stand out particularly in my mind. But I remember Gerry specifically going because I thought, well I’ve just checked (inaudible) and then, you know, well I hadn’t been in so I couldn’t really check and, you know, they’re his kids, it was quite right that, if that’s what he wants. But I don’t particularly remember Jane doing that, but I might have done at the time, it’s just it’s now sort of faded because it didn’t see important”.

 

 

4078 "Okay. And what did you think of them at that stage?”
Reply "Yeah they were nice, normal people, yeah you know, sort of, that’s the thing, I mean
Gerry, the sort of person Gerry is, I could never see us being best buddies because
he’s very, we’re very different. I think he’s very err he’s quite forthright and so I
don’t think we’d ever be best friends but there’s no problem there or anything like
that you know, I feel bad saying that because it makes it sound like there is a problem
but there’s not but you know it’s not, whereas Kate I was really, I was getting to
know Kate quite well but yeah I think Gerry is sort of like more of a man’s man
maybe.”
30.44 4078 "Yeah.”
Reply "That sounds terrible, I don’t mean that at all.”
4078 "No.”
Reply "But you know I think out of the two I was probably, I know Kate better than I know
Gerry.”
4078 "Right, it was a very specific question I asked anyway, so what you’re saying is his
character is the sort of character that you probably wouldn’t naturally have…”
Reply "No I think he’s, we’re probably very different, I think he’s err yeah I’m trying to put
it in to words because if I say he, he doesn’t intimidate me in any shape or form but
you know what I mean I think he’s probably the person out of the whole group that I

would feel least comfortable with, you know, just on, just chatting because we
probably haven’t got as much in common.”

 

 

 

 

Gerry had had a lesson then and was going into length degree to Kate about his style of tennis and I was joking that Kate was actually listening to this and finding it incredibly boring cos it’s the sort of thing, you know, they, as a couple, they did have amazing sort of patience with each other than (inaudible), I wouldn’t have that with David talking to me (inaudible),

 

 

 

 Gerry kicked in to his sort of you know, action mode, which er he was ringing people, who do we need to ring, the British Embassy, I think he was trying to get hold of the British Embassy and just get somebody erm who was English speaking, who might be able to help, erm say early, I know he phoned his sister, he was phoning relatives, just telling anybody you know, you’ve got to help us, what can you do, can you think of anything, erm he was flitting in and out, I was aware, so I stayed in the apartment but I know Gerry was in and out, speaking to the Police when they arrived, erm you know they were, Gerry, his way of coping is to do, to, to feel like he’s doing something in a positive way and that’s definitely how he got through the night. I don’t know how he did the things he did, even made the calls he made”.

 

“Did you not find that peculiar, the fact that he didn’t want to just sit around and mope and?”


Reply
“No cos I know Gerry and he’s just as I said earlier, he’s not, he’s not that sort of character, he never sits down anywhere, he’s a very positive, always got energy, always, he’s just one of these people that you know, makes you feel lazy you know almost, cos he’s just, he’s a very upbeat person and pragmatic as well and he’s right, you know, sitting, sitting there crying isn’t gonna help bring her back, he did his fair bit of sitting there crying believe me but he, he wasn’t, you could see him trying not to allow himself that time just to sit and get sort of down, cos it wasn’t gonna help her and I don’t think I ever saw him sit and relax or have a drink or do nothing, was constantly either on the phone or the computer, you know he was constantly doing something and that carried on I’d say even you know when we went back in July and he was still in that mode and that made me worry more for him actually, cos I think Kate at least, I think you’ve got to grieve you know and I think if you don’t, you think it’s all gonna build up and I was more worried for Gerry that, that he didn’t seem to be giving himself that time to, to be upset”.

01.14.30
1485
“Yes. I think, so you think he didn’t give himself time to, you think he was more in the motivation mode than in the, the grieving mode?”


Reply
“I think after the first sort of, the first day they were both useless and I think they’re both in shock and they were both the same but there was a definite change in Gerry, erm party because of you know, I don’t want to sit here and say what wasn’t done, you know, in fact there were a lot of things that, that provoked a lot of anger amongst us that we felt should have been done that wasn’t done in that, those early hours in that first day and, but, what, what’s anger going to get, you’re stuck in a country where your child has gone missing, you’ve got to work with the Police, you can’t, you know, you can’t react and to, and, you know, give out bursts of, you know, why hasn’t this happened because you know it’s not going to happen. And Gerry, that’s the way he was seeing things, he was very, erm, aware that he had to work with the, with the Police here and be sensible about their approach with the media and everything and Kate’s very reactive, you know, she’s, she’s a completely different personality and, you know, if she’s angry she’ll show she’s angry and when she’s upset she’ll show she’s upset, whereas Gerry can be, erm, he’s more able to, to sort of see through all that and just think, hang on what’s right for, what’s right, what’s going to get us further forward here, you know, getting upset and screaming at the Police isn’t going to get us anywhere and he’s always sort of pulling Kate back a bit really and saying, ‘Look, that that’s not going to help, we’ve got to do this’, erm and that’s just the way they are, and that’s the way, before this happened, that’s the personalities they are. So, no, it didn’t surprise me the way Gerry reacted at all because that’s, in any situation, that’s why he’s good at his job, you know, he’s, he’s a very pragmatic person, in an emergency he’s the person you’d want to call on because he thinks straight and he thinks clearly, whereas not all of us do”.