Witness Statement

Nuno Goncalo Marques Vincente Dos Ramos Bernardo 

Date: 2007/05/06

Occupation: Waiter

Place of Work: Ocean Club

He comes to the process as a witness. The witness is an employee of the OC, P da L, Lagos where he works eight months a year, beginning in March and ending in September. When asked he says that he began work there last year.

When asked, he says he lives with his parents at the address mentioned previously.

He works in the Tapas restaurant where he is a waiter and serves meals on the terrace and at the tables.

He adds that during the day this commercial space serves more as a pool bar serving light snacks and drinks to the guests that frequent the space. When asked he says that during the day the Tapas restaurant has a receptionist who controls entry into the area, because of this it is not possible for people who are not staying at the resort to enter. The same applies for the pool which is exclusively reserved for resort guests.

However, the same does not occur at night, at times it is not possible to have a tight control of entrance as there is no receptionist and it is possible to attend guests from outside who are not staying at the resort. He adds, however, that this situation is unusual and the witness does not recall the last time that this occurred.

When asked, he says that since he began work there he has always worked from 09.00 to 17.00. When asked, he says that he does not carry out any other functions apart from those mentioned.

When asked he says that the place where he works is mainly frequented by people from the British Isles, English, Irish and Scottish guests because the company that owns the resort, MW is English and works mainly with tourists of that nationality. As regards tourists from other countries, he says that they are very few.

Last Thursday, after having finished his shift at about 17.30 he went home where he had dinner with his family and at about 22.15 he accompanied two of his cousins, Pedro aged 23 and Joao aged almost 17, brothers who live in Lagos to the Ocean Club resort as Joao had never visited the Tapas restaurant and the witness wanted to show him it.

They arrived there at about 22.30 in the midst of great commotion of people, many of them MW employees.

He asked his work colleague Jeronimo, whom he calls Joe, who was working in the restaurantand who told him that a little girl had gone missing from a group of English people who were having dinner at the Tapas restaurant.

A search was organised by MW staff of all the adjacent areas, P da L, the village, accompanied by local people. Because of this, the witness joined a group that was searching the beach area, without any results. When asked he said that while the searches he was involved with were underway, searches led by the authorities also took place.

When asked he said that he only saw Madeleine’s parents on the news the following day. He does not remember them inside the restaurant or having served them, but he thinks that is possible given the number of people in the restaurant and the fact that they were mainly British. But he does remember that almost every night there was a reservation of a table for nine people in the restaurant for dinner. This table was situated opposite the bar and facing the apartmentsbut there was plastic wind shield which did not enable a clear view outside.

When asked, he says that he did not see anything unusual during the days before the disappearance or any strange behaviour. He says that this type of situation is not common in the area or at the resort.

But he says there are frequent thefts from the apartments, he does not know how they occur nor who could be responsible. He has no further information.

Reads, ratifies, signs.