OFFICIAL INQUIRY FILES and DOCUMENTS
RICARDO ALEXANDRE DA LUZ OLIVEIRA STATEMENT

This information belongs to the Ministério Público in Portimão, Portugal.
It was released to the public on 4 August 2008 in accordance with Portuguese Law

TAPAS BAR WAITER

266 to 268 Witness statement of Ricardo Alexandre da Luz Oliveira 2007.05.06

TRANSLATIONS BY INES

02-Processos Volume II Pages 266 to 268
02_VOLUME_IIa_ Page_266
02_VOLUME_IIa_ Page_267
02_VOLUME_IIa_ Page_268


Processos Volume II

Pages 266 to 268

Witness Statement

Ricardo Alexandre da Luz Oliveira

Date/Time: 2007/01/30 21H00


Occupation: Waiter

Place of Work: Tapas restaurant, OC.

He comes to the process as a witness. He has worked as a waiter in the Tapas Restaurant at the OC since April of the current year.

His working hours are from 16.00 to 24.00 every day except for Fridays and Saturdays which are his days off.

When asked, he says that he serves at the tables in the restaurant, snacks are served between 16.00 and 18.00 and dinner is served between 19.00 and 22.00.

When asked, he says that the meals served are not restricted to guests of the resort and that guests can invite people from outside of the resort. In any case the witness says that it is not usual for people from outside of the resort to dine there.

When asked he says that during his working hours he does not remember having seen anyone who is not a guest dining at the restaurant.

When asked, he says that in order to enter the restaurant it is necessary to present a guest card at the restaurant reception. However, and only for this year the restaurant has been open to public from outside the resort but that in any case he does not remember having seen anyone who was not a guest having had a meal there.
When asked, he says that a few days after guests' arrival he manages to recognise them, however not all of them regularly have meals there.

When asked, he says that the parents of the missing girl, Madeleine, would have dinner every day at the restaurant, since the day they arrived, in a group of 9 people

When asked he says that he never saw the children at dinner with their parents, in other words the children did not dine with their parents.

When asked he says that the parents and the other members of the group would arrive between 20.00 and 21.00 but that they would only begin to dine when all of them had arrived.

When asked, he says that he remembers that it was usual during dinner for one or two members of the group to leave the table for about 10 or 15 minutes and given the fact that on various occasions he saw walkie talkies on the table, he supposed that they went to check on their children who were in their respective rooms.

On 3rd May the witness arrived at his place of work as usual at 16.00 and that he first saw Madeleine's parents at dinner that night at about 20.45.

When asked, he says that he does not remember whether the parents arrived together or whether they were the first or last to arrive at the table.

When asked, he says that he was one of the waiters who served at the table, but he does not remember whether he served Madeleine's parents.

When asked, he says that on 3rd May he only remembers that one guest from the table left for about 10 minutes, given that when he was about to serve the respective plate he was told to hold the food back for a few minutes, and that it was about 15 minutes before the guest returned, at about 21.45.

He does not remember having seen Madeleine's parents leave the table for short instances, but it is possible that someone could have left the table without the witness having noticed.

Dinner would end at about 21.45, a few minutes later the witness looked at the table and saw that there was nobody there and one of his colleagues told them that all the guests had left the table in a hurry. In any case, he remembers having heard shouts from the direction of Madeleine's parents' apartment.

When asked, he says that he does not remember anyone having been absent from the table for a few instants.

When asked, he says that he did not notice anything strange in the functioning of the restaurant nor any guest or individual with any strange or abnormal behaviour.

After hearing the shouts from the apartment he heard about Madeleine's disappearance.
When asked he says that the place where the table that Madeleine's parents dined at did not have a clear view of the apartment, merely the back of the apartment and it was dark when the events occurred and that there is no lighting plus the fact that there is an opaque plastic windshield around the restaurant.

When asked he says that he does not have any knowledge about thefts from the apartments nor having seen any unknown individuals inside the resort.

No more is said. Reads, ratifies, signs.

2941 to 2944 Witness testimony of Ricardo Alexandre da Luz Oliveira (bar worker who served McCanns)
11 Processos Vol XI Pages 2941 to 2944
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Witness Statement

Ricardo Alexandre da Luz Oliveira

Date: 2007.09.07

Having already given a statement to this process, he confirms what is already on record, a copy of which is made available for this investigation

That he comes to the process as a witness and with the hope that he may help in the localisation of the child Madeleine Beth McCann, missing since the 3rd May, 2007, Praia da Luz, Lagos.

Questioned if he was the person who called the reception to tell them that a child had gone missing, he states that he cannot definitively remember if he did or not. He admits that he could have been the one to call.

Clarifies that on that night when he took the dinner orders, the entire group was seated. He remembers that there were nine adults? four men and five women. He did not notice any strange behaviour on their part.

Asked to describe the positions in which the group sat, he states that he can only recall that of the taller man (Russell), as he saw him leave the table, and the older woman, who remained seated after the rest of the group had left the table. Russell, he notes, was seated looking toward the front of the apartments and the older woman occupied a seat that was more or less facing away from the apartments. He is not able to describe the groups clothing that night.

He states that on that night, after having received the orders, he went into the bar. Immediately, he put two white wine and two red wine bottles, along with a bottle of water, on the table. He cannot be sure that he served more wine that night. The appetiser/starters were served by one of his colleagues. After 25 to 30 minutes, it was the witness who served the main dishes. He remembers that at this moment, the taller male, whom he now knows to be Russell, had left the table. He did not know where he had gone. The witness was asked to keep Russell's meal warm. After a certain amount of time (he is not able to be exact), he was asked to serve Russell, who had returned to the table. He remembers that the rest of the group had practically finished their main courses. Asked if he remembers having seen all the elements of the group at this time, he cannot remember exactly. He also cannot state the length of time Russell was away from the table. The witness states that he had already served all the clients of the bar and for this reason, believes that Russell was away for some time.

He served Russell and shortly thereafter, he was alerted to strange movements in the restaurant perimeters. He refers to the movements of two men from said group? David Payne and Matthew, who appeared to be searching the gardens the areas near the bar. The witness went to the esplanade zone and saw that the table that had previously been occupied by nine adults was now occupied only by the older woman, called Dianne Webster. It was also at this time that he saw that Russell's food was only half eaten and that the others had all finished their dinner.
David Payne and Matthew were nervously searching the area.

The witness went to them, he does not remember which one, and asked what was happening. One of them responded to the witness in English stating 'A GIRL IS MISSING?' that a child had gone missing. After a few moments, around 5 or 10 minutes, he heard screaming from the apartment zone and saw a woman on the balcony of 5 A. He did not understand what she was saying. As it was night, and given the distance from the Tapas bar to the apartment, he was not able to determine if there was someone else next to the woman on the balcony. At that moment his colleague, Joe, met up with him and asked the witness to call the police, and that a child has gone missing and could not be found. Immediately afterwards, Joe left toward the street. He does not know who gave this information to Joe but the witness (or his colleague who believes the witness did so) called the reception asking them to inform the police.

Questioned, he affirms that the group would normally consist of nine people (including Madeleines parents), and would normally dine around 20H30 and 20H40. They would not all arrive at once and before they all arrived, some would have cocktails. On the day of the disappearance, all were seated at the table between 20H35 and 20H45. He remembers them arriving as usual. Had they arrived late, this would have been noted by the staff. He does not remember if they were served cocktails. When they were all together, the group sat at the table, he took their orders, including the starters. As already mentioned, on this occasion, he would immediately take two white and two red bottles of wine and one bottle of water to the table. Their main courses would normally be ready 25 to 30 minutes after their order? a time they used to consume the starters. After starters, the group would normally spend about 15 minutes finishing the main course. Generally, during dinner, he would serve four bottles of wine (two white and two red), which the group completely consumed. On that day, he did not serve any more wine. It was also normal for certain members of the group to order dessert. After this, they would normally stay at the table until after 23H00 but would always leave before 00H00, the time when the bar closed. One or more of them, on another night, asked for an after-dinner drink. He remembers this clearly because they asked for Amareto and the bar did not stock it.

The witness served almond bitters to all. He remembers that this happened on Wednesday. He does not remember if they had more after-dinner drinks. He does remember that on Wednesday, certain elements of the group got up, with their after-dinner drinks, and headed to the bar and stayed there until about 00H00/00H10. This was the only night where the group elements were in the bar after closing. He also remembers that they would normally be the last clients to leave. Wednesday was the last night they were at the bar after dinner.

When questioned, he states that his colleague Joe is of British nationality and that he left at the end of August to go and live with his parents in England.

And nothing more was said.
Reads, ratifies, signs.

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