Silvia Maria Correia Ramos Batista 

Date/Time: 2007/05/07 11H20
Maintenance Services Director
Portuguese

FIRST PAGE BATISTA
She works at Ocean Club since 03/03/1986, as a receptionist for about a year and a half, and as head of Reception for about three years. After and until the present date, as a head of maintenance and services .
The head of maintenance and services, in the area of services, is responsible for the admission of employees and, in the area of maintenance, is responsible for the admission of employees and the good functioning of all equipments of the Ocean Club, including : flats, swimming pools, gardens, fences, etc.
Concerning the admission of staff, it is done in the traditional way, ie when an employee is needed for a particular area the situation is discussed between the various
heads and other employees . Usually some employee or head indicates a person he/she knows and, in most cases, resident in Lagos.
The witness, being a native of Lagos and knowing many people in that
town, tries to find out about the reputation and character of the candidate to the job.
It may happen that employees are looked for in the Centre for Employment of Lagos Either way, is always carried out a labour contract with the employee, for a
minimum of six months. A special form is filled that includes all the data identifying the employee and sometimes informations about his/her previous professional occupation. 
The exception is when you hire a company to provide a service : that company is responsible for its employees, who are nevertheless under the eye of the head of works and maintenance, Mr. Joao Carlos Silva Batista .
She is aware of the events that occurred in the Ocean Club resort, having had knowledge of the girl’s disappearance, by 22H.30 on 03/05/2007, through
a telephone call from the administrator George Robin Crosland .
She immediately went to the Ocean Club resort where later arrived the GNR. A search started immediately throughout the village. Many residents and employees of OC participated. 
On the 03/05/2007 she started working by 09H30, having entered the Ocean
Club through the area of the Club, having walked through the swimming pool area and later having checked the other swimming pools.
At about 13:00 she went to Lagos, with her husband, Mr. Joao Carlos Silva Batista and came back at about 14H30 .
At about18H00 she left the resort and only came back when the circumstances outlined above occurred.
During the day 03/05/2007 she did not detect anything unusual or different.
No strange situation was reported to her.
After the events and in conversation with other employees and heads of the Ocean Club, nothing was reported or commented concerning odd situations, such as the presence of strangers close to the resort.
She states that the Ocean Club Resort has no system of video surveillance.
Ratifies and will sign. ……………………..

SECOND PAGE BATISTA
She’s here as a witness. She is responsible for maintenance in the Ocean Club Resort located in Praia da Luz – Lagos. Because of her profession she knows many people of the English community, who live in Praia da Luz. 
She knows the Murat (sic !) family, who has been there for about 30 years. In particular Mr. Murat and his wife Jenny. Mr. Murat was linked to building business and development of tourism enterprises, in Salema in her opinion. Mr. Murat died some years ago.
The Murat live in a house named “casa Liliana”, near the Ocean Club.
Asked, she said not to remember whether the Murats have any child. 
Asked, she said that on the night when Madeleine McCain (sic…) disappeared (03-05-2007), she was called by her boss, at about at 22:30. As she lives in Lagos she arrived shortly after at the resort. Close to the apartment A-5 of the OC there were already about 60 people to look for the girl. 
She remembers, although she is not absolutely certain, given the time already elapsed, that an individual of about 1,70m, short light brown hair, with thin framed and light brown glasses, wanted from the start to help finding the child Madeleine McCann.
She doesn’t remember at what time she saw him. 
She doesn’t remember how he was dressed up. 
She doesn’t remember who was with him, whether he came walking or in some vehicle. That same individual, she was told later, is the son of Morat, his first name is ROBERT.
Robert speaks fluently English and Portuguese. He helped the GNR of Lagos and later the PJ, translating the testimony of some British persons. 
She admits as possible that Paul and June of the bar “Duke of Holland” and Mr. Byron of the firm JNB (management of properties in PDL) should be able to confirm if Robert Murat was there when Madeleine disappeared, and eventually other details. 
She states that she spoke for the first time with Robert on Saturday (05-05-2007) or Sunday (06-05-2007) or may be on Monday (07-05-2007), during the breaks between the interviews in which he participated as a translator.
She describes him as a very sympathetic and direct guy. RM was very communicative and extrovert during the conversations they had together. He didn’t mention any personal subject.
She ratified and will sign………………………….

THIRD PAGE BATISTA
She made already statements concerning this process several times and remembers what she stated earlier, repeating here what the content of previous statements. 

She is here because, with the passage of time since Madeleine disappeared she has remembered a few details on the testified facts that she believes may be somehow of interest to the investigation. 

As she said earlier she was alerted about the disappearance of Madeleine between 22.30 and 23:00. She was at home and was informed of the event via a telephone call.

She drove immediately to the Ocean Club where she arrived a few minutes before elements of the GNR popped in. 

After she arrived she went immediately to the apartment A5 where she found several people inside the apartment and outside of it. She entered in the flat but soon left without having spoken with anyone, because she was informed that elements of the GNR were in the principal reception. She went there to meet them. 

When she came close to the elements of the GNR she found that behind her was 
Gerry, Madeleine’s father, accompanied by another man whose identity she doesn’t remember.

Then Gerry kneeled down, hit the floor with both hands, positioning himself as if he were a praying Arab, and screamed twice of anger, what he said being impossible to understand. Then Gerry stand up and accompanied her (the witness) and the other man in the car of the GNR to the apartment A5. 

She entered the apartment and asked for the passports of all elements of the family, and also photographs of the missing girl. She went with Gerry to the GNR car to hand over the requested documents. She mentions she did this, as well as other tasks, at the request of the GNR Commandant, because she could translate their questions and the missing girl’s family’s answers.
She remembers Gerry gave the Commandant of several photographs of the missing girl. They were postcard-like pictures, taking into account their size and shape and seemed all the same to her.

She understood also that since the very beginning either Gerry or the others insisted on stating that Madeleine had been snatched, all using the word “abducted” instead of missing, and all showing much interest in informing the press of the situation. 

She also recalls entering in the room where Madeleine should be sleeping and remembers now that the door was closed. The room was dark. The blinds were down, some light entering through their holes. The windows were closed and the curtains slightly open. Gerry, who followed her and the elements of the GNR, said he did close the window because of the babies sleeping in the room, a fact she confirms.

Gerry said that when he discovered the disappearance of Madeleine he noticed that the window and the blinds were open and the curtains fluttering. 
She recalls that the beds which were in the middle of the room and used by the babies
were aligned and therefore found it strange that someone had taken Madeleine from the bed where she would be sleeping and had gone to the window because there was no space to pass.
She opened the wardrobes of that room in order to confirm that Madeleine wasn’t eventually hiding there. 

Then everyone left the room and someone shut the door. She remained for some time in the living room, near the GNR elements, Gerry and other elements of the group who got in and out and spoke on their cellular phones. 

She observed that none of the elements of the group including the father and mother
of the child was concerned with looking for her.
The mother was sitting on the bed of her room, the father was with her (the witness) and the elements of the GNR, and other elements of the group got in and out and spoke on the phone, anxious, in her opinion, to tell the press what happened. 

She thought that the child’s mother was devastated, the father was worried and also asked to notify the press and to get dogs to search. 
About the others she only remembers that Fiona and her husband, Payne, were hysterical with the situation. 

At a certain time, after the arrival of the PJ elements, the parents removed the twins
from the beds in which they were still sleeping and took them to the first floor flat. 

At the request of Kate she (the witness) removed the toys and a blanket that she took to the first floor flat. Only the mattresses remained

She wanted to mention that around 3h00 Madeleine’s parents asked for a priest to be present. They didn’t explain why they wanted a priest but she (the witness) was amazed, because there were no indications that the little girl was dead and only in these circumstances is usually asked the presence of a priest.

At some point she translated the statement of one of the ladies who belonged to the group and that she describes as a brunette one. This lady said to the GNR elements, and she (the witness) translated, that she had seen a man on the road who might have carried a child.

This situation surprised her because she (the witness) was convinced that when the lady saw the man, the lady was in a place from where she had no angle of vision for the place where she saw the man. She doesn’t know exactly what was the position of the lady when she saw the man, but she knows that the lady said she saw the man in the street in front of the Madeleine’s bedroom window, walking in the direction of the street that then leads to the Baptista supermarket.

Asked about the way the members of the group were dressed up in that night, she only remembers that Fiona was wearing a green blouse, that Gerry was wearing a dark shirt
and the husband of Fiona wearing clear pants, beige she thinks.
And more she did not say. Read the self as the thought, ratified and will sign