I hang my head in shame at what my trade has made of the McCann story
The media piles pressure on police to give answers, but suspects must live with an irremovable stain of suspicion
Max Hastings - The Guardian
Yesterday, just in case everybody else knew something that I did not, I rang an editor friend and asked for the word on the street about Madeleine McCann. He answered that no one has the slightest idea where the truth lies - despite the Portuguese police naming Kate and Gerry McCann as formal suspects in the investigation of her death. The case possesses everything headline writers could dream of: a pretty child victim; photogenic middle-class parents who are also doctors; apparently bungling foreigners. Amid a miasma of allegation and sensation, coverage is remorseless, speculation infinite.
The story provokes in some of us the sort of guilt that our ancestors must have felt on finding themselves unable to avert their eyes from a public execution. We shudder at the circus, sure of its repugnance but uncertain whom to blame. Crime in which children are victims causes police, media and public alike to take leave of their senses.
It has become the only truly heinous crime. Few people feel much hatred towards fraudsters, bank robbers, or even most killers. But no prisoner convicted of a crime against children is safe in jail. The trials of such people provoke gatherings of vengeful housewives who make the tricoteuses, the women who knitted beneath the guillotine, seem sisters of mercy.
In the case of Madeleine McCann, the public would like the guilty party to turn out to be a Portuguese with a long history of offences against children, who could reasonably be branded as a sex fiend - like the Spanish waiter who in 1996 killed the British schoolgirl Caroline Dickinson in France. If instead the McCanns are charged and convicted, anger will be all the more bitter, because people will feel that for months they have been deluded into wasting sympathy on them.
These remarks may sound ugly, but so is what is happening in Portugal. The McCanns now live in the shadow of declared police suspicion. If they are innocent, this is appalling. If there is evidence against them, natural justice cries out for them to be charged rather than merely denounced.
Child victims often induce police officers to act rashly, because they are under such pressure to produce a result. This is as true in Britain as it is in Portugal, as the officers probing the shooting of Rhys Jones might acknowledge - likewise those who investigated the 2002 Soham killings of Jessica Chapman and Holly Wells.
In the latter case, in a small East Anglian community, it was only days before Ian Huntley and Maxine Carr were arrested. In a city, identifying a killer is often much harder. Last year's search in Ipswich for the killer of five women became protracted. A succession of suspects were questioned, with identities blazoned across the front pages. Even when a man was eventually charged, it is hard to imagine that the lives of the earlier detainees have been, or ever will be, quite the same. Nobody will easily forget that they were deemed capable of being multiple murderers.
Such people surely deserve stronger protection under the law, as do the McCanns and Robert Murat, the British man formally named as a suspect earlier in the Madeleine inquiry. In his case, relations at home found themselves being quizzed by reporters eager to discover whether he had any history of sex crimes. Most of those arrested during the Rhys Jones investigation - and subsequently released - have been spared publicity only because they are minors.
It is widely suggested that the Portuguese police conducting the Madeleine inquiry have been incompetent. But British officers are just as capable of promoting false allegations when the heat is on them to make an arrest. During the search for Jill Dando's killer, I remember having a private conversation with two senior policemen. They told me a pack of nonsense, which I am confident that they themselves believed. Both said that they thought it most likely that Dando's assailant was somebody with whom she was already acquainted: "Her personal life was much more complicated than anybody realises, you know."
Their purpose, of course, was to convince the media that they were not sitting down on the job, that they were making progress towards an arrest. This is the usual motivation for police leaks, though cash handouts from reporters to junior officers also play a part. Either way, a duty of discretion is breached.
Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers and such like got one big thing right in their fiction: detection as practised by professionals is often sadly inadequate. But in real life amateur sleuths can't fill the breach, so if police can't find murderers, nobody does.
A high proportion of homicides are domestic crimes, in which the guilty party is obvious. If these cases are stripped out of statistics, a dismaying number of murderers escape justice. When an arrest can be achieved only through what Hercule Poirot would call the use of the little grey cells, outcomes are elusive. I once heard a criminal barrister - today a senior judge - mock police procedures: "Their idea of detection is to decide which of the local firms to fit up for a given job!" He was not being entirely facetious.
The police, in their turn, have plenty to say about the cynicism of media and public. There is a readily recognised scale of popular sentiment about murder, at the bottom of which come gangland killings, especially black on black. If one drug dealer kills another, to most people it is a matter of indifference. Prostitutes receive only slightly more sympathy, because they are widely supposed to have brought their fates upon themselves. If enough of them die, however, as in Ipswich, serial murder generates a frisson of its own.
Popular sentiment focuses overwhelmingly upon the deaths of so-called innocent parties, above all children. Figures suggest that Britain, and indeed Portugal, are remarkably safe places for the young to grow up in. The chances of a child meeting a violent death are no greater than they were in the era of Victorian values.
But in this, as in all matters relating to crime, perception is unrelated to reality. Media coverage gives credence to a belief that European society is plagued by monsters stalking the young. When a child dies, every police officer knows that his or her force's reputation is at stake in identifying a plausible murderer.
These crimes sell a great many papers, which neither Iraq nor Darfur will do. Some colleagues would accuse me of an absurd squeamishness, because I hang my head in shame at what our trade, as well as the Portuguese police, has made of the McCann story. They would say the world has been ever thus, since the days of Jack the Ripper.
But it seems reasonable to recoil from the situation that now exists. Unless an outsider is caught and convicted of Madeleine's death, the reputations of the McCann family are irreparably damaged. Before charges or any trial, an irremovable stain of suspicion has been cast by police, and broadcast by the media. Even if the McCanns are indicted tomorrow, the principles of natural justice have been flouted in the most shameful fashion.
Comments
washingpowder
September 10, 2007 4:08 AM
The case is about Maddie, not her parents and if justice is truly searched for then all should be investigated including them.
One aspect that baffels me is that very few traces have been found which suggests that the perpertrator was extreamly organised or that all traces were wiped clean.
Who knows, time I hope will tell.
My thoughts are with you Maddie wherever you are.
ThaiJohnny
September 10, 2007 4:40 AM
Yes, Max Hastings has a point but he fails to mention that the McCanns themselves have courted publicity so aggressively that one wondered if the kidnapped girl's days kwere numbered because she had become a Europe-wide liability whose face was known everywhere.
Their self-publicity reached the point where someone asked who the old man in white was the McCanns were talking with over there in the Vatican. They went too far.
Bitethehand
September 10, 2007 4:41 AM
Why so harsh on yourself and your trade Mr Hastings?
Ifthe parents had asked for and demanded privacy and the press had hounded them day and night, then journalists and their employers would have a case to answer. But the McCanns and their friends orchestrated a media campaign in the full knowledge that there are always pros and cons in these matters. They are not after all naive, uneducated lottery winners but sophisticated professionals, and I can't believe they weren't warned this might be the outcome.
Manchestermike
September 10, 2007 5:01 AM
I agree with Thaijohnny, the McCanns started their media-celebrity campaign within days of their daughter´s disappearance. They can¨t now turn it off like a tap, despite the achingly hilarious appeal by a relative for them to be left alone by the press! They will find that because they lived by the media they will assuredly "die" of it. The press will start to report more of the hostile criticism as their editors realise that like the Pope, other "celebrities" who initially backed them are quietly distancing themselves. (Is Gordon Brown still happy to see them now?) Incidentally who is now paying for the McCann´s spin doctors like the dalek-voiced woman who droned into the microphones at the airport? Surely not the 1m-plus appeal fund.
smiffdub
September 10, 2007 5:26 AM
I really wish people would red card the idea of natural justice. There is no such thing--and historically it's mostly some very nasty people who've appealed to the notion in the first place. There's only systems of human law...at least, those are the only ones we can appeal to without by definition supporting out-law justice.
The Portugese have done what their system says they should do...that's the version of justice that prevails in Portgual and which we're bound to respect (bound by both treaty and commn sense).
To bundle the Portugese police and the media together in this nasty article is the crudest sleight of hand, and even a dubious personality such as Max Hastings should be ashamed of the subterfuge.
Weeper
September 10, 2007 6:13 AM
"I hang my head in shame at what my trade has made of the McCann story".
Not to mention what crimes your trade was complicit in leading up to the invasions of Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, and Iraq, and its continuing cover up of major war crimes committed in each of these countries.
And now your trade is moving on to the next propaganda excercise, softenning us up for the attack on Iran.
You lot stink! Its a toss-up which is a more sordid profession, politicians or hacks.
waynethenerd
September 10, 2007 6:45 AM
"Incompetent" may not be the word to describe the Portuguese police.
The Independenton Sunday reported:
"Leonor Cipriano, 36, is serving a 16-year jail sentence following the disappearance of her daughter, Joana, nine, in September 2004, just seven miles from where Madeleine McCann vanished. The investigating officer was Detective Goncalo Amaral, now leading the McCann inquiry."
"Yesterday, however, Leonor's husband, Leandro Silva, reiterated claims that his wife had been beaten by Mr Amaral during interrogation. Mr Amaral and four other officers were charged over the allegations. Despite this, he has not been removed from the McCann case."
"Bent copper" or even "Bent copper covering up for child-snatchers" is a suspicion we'll leave to the authorities to investigate.
writeon
September 10, 2007 7:05 AM
This is a curious and complicated case. Is there any evidence that Madeleine was actually abducted? She vanished from the room and hasn't been seen since; but how, and why, and where, remain a mystery still. Is there, in fact, any evidence that some mysterious man entered the bedroom and took her? Does the paedophile theory really hold water on closer examination?
If there was no abduction, where is the child, how did the child get out and where did she go? If there was no abduction, did she just wander off on her own, waking up and finding herself alone and went looking for her parents? How likely is that?
If she wasn't abducted, didn't wander off, what alternatives do we have left? Only almost unthinkable ones, and in the circumstances it would be foolish to rule anything out and beyond the pale.
RockoLeJocko
September 10, 2007 7:25 AM
A most interesting comment in addition to a well deserved mea culpa for the fourth estate. Usually, when someone like Mr. Hastings makes an observation like this regarding fellow "professionals," the commenter is not guilty of such behavior to any great extent. It is refreshing for someone like me to observe this level of honesty in the press. Perchance I was forever maimed by the insensitivity of the press to the parents of a little girl that inadvertently fell into an abandoned well in Duarte, California in 1947. The incessant hammering on the parents upon the discovery that she was dead by the neophyte television reporters was sufficient to cause one to vomit for weeks.
However, I am going to hearken back to one of my old professor's admonishments, which many in the class considered just another cliche, "economics is the basis for everything that happens in history." I am sure that any of the readers, capable of reading between the lines, will concur with that statement. The examples are unbounded.
Now let's consider what transpired in that country on the Iberian peninsula, West of Spain. In a land devoid of any pedophilia laws for the protection of minor children, a child kidnapping occurs. The local gendarme arrive and because they, in their omnipotent wisdom, know that it is meaningless, no forensic evidence is obtained, en factum, no evidence is collected. But you must realize, the local gendarme are too busy to come to the crime scene of any of the multitude of robberies that have taken place in this holiday rental complex. There are just too many to be bothered with writing up the same reports all of the time.
Unfortunately for the McCanns, they refused to observe and inspect what was transpiring outside of their bubble. As time wore on, world wide recognition of this country's total lack of a professional and intelligent gendarme, became an established fact. No one with a mediocre level of intelligence wanted to vacation there, especially if they had minor children. Where once one had to book months in advance, now one can go there and barter for the price. Alas! Economics! So as the economics worsened, the rumor mill in the local press was fed at the insistence of those that are most affected by a dramatic downturn in the economic well being.
After the local press, quid est absent in the external press, had created sufficient frenzy in the population, the gendarme now accuse the parents of having murdered their child.
Add to this, the local lady serving a jail term for the death of her child, body not found, who claims the gendarme physically beat her to get a confession. The responsible gendarme supposedly is well known for solving cases.
I am not going to discuss the machismo indigenous to the males of this population, but don't forget the way women are treated in Brazil.
Yes, I am long winded and I definitely leave it up to you to connect the dots. And you may even have to come out of your bubble. A hiatus from one's bubble is not only good for you, but is requisite for your survival.
Kocmotex
bbano
September 10, 2007 7:33 AM
I agree with many of the above posters who point out that Mc Cann's themselves raised and encouraged the media hype.
It is easy to make disparage legal systems different form our own, as much of the British media has done and continuous to do so with no intention of understanding of the same.
Police in Portugal and many other continental countries are bound by the dictates of the judge heading the investigation.
The McCanns, as witnesses, were bound by law to declare everything they knew, even if it was not in their own interests, otherwise it would be perjury and obstruction of justice.
As suspects, they can now refuse to answer on grounds of self-defence, and have their lawyer present all the time.
The question many of us asked from day 1, is what kind of parents leave babies and toddlers alone while they go out for dinner (thinking of all of us who have baby monitors even within the house),
if the British media would have been so sympathetic to a Britisher from another background/class,
and what I personally find totally incomprehensible: a friend goes and checks on your children when both parents are available???
gandytron
September 10, 2007 7:43 AM
The media circus around this story is shocking - I was speechless when I turned on CNN yesterday to see extended coverage of the McCann's car driving from the airport to their home being tracked by a news helicopter and the words "BREAKING NEWS" in the corner of the screen - this is pure voyeurism, it does nothing to advance the case, or discover what has happened to the Madeleine.
For all those that say that the McCann's brought this on themselves I'd like to know what they would have done in a similar situation (if we assume for a moment that the McCanns are innocent of any criminal involvement, and let's face it, the evidence against them is flimsy, or at the very least, incomplete from what is being reported today) - the media picked up the story and ran with it. I think that any parent who was desperate to be reunited with their child would seek the oxygen of publicity; they probably never considered that they would be thought of as suspects, at least not until it was too late and the media circus was in full swing. Are these people, who are blaming the McCann's for the current media circus the same as people who blamed them for the disappearance of their daughter by leaving her asleep unsupervised? Hindsight is a wonderful thing.
I feel very sorry for the family, walking back into their house for the first time minus one child and to have to do that under the glare of the world's media vultures circling outside, hoping for case of maternal infanticide that will sell more papers, must be truly horrific.
IsabelPS
September 10, 2007 7:44 AM
"Some colleagues would accuse me of an absurd squeamishness, because I hang my head in shame at what our trade, as well as the Portuguese police, has made of the McCann story."
I would not accuse you, Sir, of absurd squeamishness, but of sheer dishonesty. The Portuguese police is doing an investigation on a case, hopefully resulting in duly grounded charges to be brought by a Public Prosecutor according to the law of the land where a crime, that hasn't been determined yet (negligence, manslaughter, murder, or even abduction), has presumably been committed.
You and your colleagues, virtually all the English speaking media locked in its global bubble, your trade, as you say, has behaved (and hasn't finished yet) in a way that amounts to dereliction of duty.
The articles of the Associated Press with dozens of "friends of the family", anonymous in the English papers and duly identified as Clarence Mitchell everywhere else, the bogus and unverified, "plea bargain" claim, totally absurd in the Portuguese system (this is not an American movie), that goes round the world discrediting the investigation...it does not make pretty reading.
I fear that the consequences will be dire for all of us in the Western democracies, most particularly in your country.
wulfy
September 10, 2007 7:50 AM
Thankyou Max Hastings for expresings every sentiment I have about this but fail to express or understand in a coherent form (ie sentences). From Hillsborough to the Bulger case to (and I detested the women frankly) Diana to the Ipswich prostitutes to underage girls on page 3 (they were used in mock outrage to show girls under 16 walking on catwalks - their breasts on view) to this. Unfortunately this sentiment I now know (always knew) is that the press are downright 'scum'. Maybe she did kill her child. I don't know (someone at work said ' Iknew there was something funny about that pair...' What does my friend at work know? What she's read and seen on the telly. Again...) and if she is charged I want the courts to decide, not you or ame or anybody else. I'm absolutely mortified to even know the names of the 'suspects' in this case. It doesn't matter how many times I wash my hands they are tainted by the horrible irisponisbilty of people who work in your trade. Meanwhile I will continue to buy newspapers (and look on the interweb!) for ' news'everyday . Wish me luck! Sleep tight Mr Hastings. See you on the other side!
edwardbenson
September 10, 2007 7:52 AM
A lot of people are making the point that "They will find that because they lived by the media they will assuredly 'die' of it."
Is that really what you think? Are you saying that any parents whose child goes missing should just keep a low profile, in case the press turn against them? Does organising a media campaign to find your missing child really give the press the right to invade every aspect of your life for evermore?
1 in 6 missing children who are reunited with their parents come as the result of a member of the public recognising them from a news picture. In those circumstances, it makes complete sense to organise as high-profile a media campaign as possible. The McCanns' have indeed "used" the press to try to find their missing daughter. To say that they in turn "deserve" all the accompanying vitriol is pathetic and depressing.
RHPrague
September 10, 2007 7:56 AM
I hang my head in shame that in creating CIF my beloved Guardian gave global prominence to the thoughts of such people as some of those who charge into this blog with nothing more than their twisted view of humanity, as they do into many others. Bitethehand, Cristobal, your comments and your revolting cynicism appall me.
Good, thought provoking article , Mr Hastings, as so often.
Bladerunner
September 10, 2007 8:19 AM
Writeon said:
"Is there any evidence that Madeleine was actually abducted? She vanished from the room and hasn't been seen since; but how, and why, and where, remain a mystery still. Is there, in fact, any evidence that some mysterious man entered the bedroom and took her?"
One of the guests staying at the resort actually saw a man carrying a girl answering the description of Madeline in his arms, while the McCanns were at the tapas bar. She described the girl as wearing pink pyjamas of the type Maddie was wearing. The man has never been accounted for.
There are numerous forums examining every angle of Maddie's disappearance but I have yet to see a credible scenario in which the McCanns could have killed her. This, however, is probably not the place to discuss the case itself.
Good article by Max. He's spot on as usual.
Amadeus37
September 10, 2007 8:20 AM
The dreadful thing is, that even if this little girl is found alive, she will never be able to live a normal life.
livingwill
September 10, 2007 8:33 AM
Poor Kate and Gerry McCann , they thought the media were helping them. Now they are suspects, its just another exciting twist to the story as far as the media is concerned.
misteruseless
September 10, 2007 8:36 AM
i found this article in the Times very helpful
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/w ... 409958.ece
rebarbative
September 10, 2007 8:41 AM
The only people who are able to make judgements in this case are the Portugese police/prosecutors and (in relation to their guilt or innocence) the McCanns.
I hope that now they have returned home the Leicester Children and Young People's Services will be making a visit to discuss their child care practice with them and consider child protection procedures. There is a prima facie case of neglect which, if it had happened at home, would have resulted in preliminary investigation and possible addition to the Child Protection List at the least, or even a prosecution for 'wilful abandonment' or 'wilful exposure'. This means that their two remaining children are potentially at risk.
What is interesting about this case is that the parents have so far deflected most criticism about their neglectful behaviour. Kate McCann is (I believe) a GP - she is ostensibly in the front line of Child Protection, seeing families where abuse may be a factor and also being required to offer a lead in practice and by example. Her professional fitness should be examined in relation to these factors - how can a professional who admits to having left 3 children alone while dining 100 + yards away (funny how that distance shifts according to how much sympathy the author has for the parents!) be in a position to comment on/make referrals about other families with any credibility - the whole system is undermined.
There is one final (and very important point) - the Child Protection system in this country overwhelmingly tends to target poor people - there are different rules for the middle-class articulate professionals because of their ability use the law and their own resources. Any family already known to C+YPS in any area would be already involved in the Child Protection system because of the clear dangers presented, and would be unli8kely to be cut the sort of media slack given to the McCanns. Fairness and consistency, but most important the safety of the remaining 2 children, demands that the parents are subject to the same scrutiny, or our whole Child Protection system is a sham.
MELANIEBELLAMY
September 10, 2007 8:44 AM
I am sick of this story and Sky News devoting so many staff and airtime to the whole thing is absurd, most of it is hype and speculation as proved over the weekend.
No one knows anything
Mel Bel x
marzipanguy
September 10, 2007 8:48 AM
But Max, the worst is yet to come, with the McCann trial looming on the horizon. Missing a body as proof and maybe based on incomplete DNA forensics it will take us back to the glorious coutroom drama days of the Simpson trial, when patients where watching judge Itos proceedings in their dentists chair. I will watch Billy Wilders "Witness of the Prosecution" to be prepared for the media frenzy that is supposed to kick in next year. Maybe even the US troops will be able to leave the Irak safely when everybody is looking the other way, with Gerry and Kate on the big LCD screens of our time, with their faces sculpted for TV so much more then some shabby GPs clinic.
keith1655
September 10, 2007 8:51 AM
@ Meduck:
"although as a GP it might be expected that she understands the benefits of looking after oneself."
I'd say that as a GP it might be expected that she understands the necessity of looking after one's children.
Bairdie
September 10, 2007 8:52 AM
Even Agatha Christie and her ilk could not dream up how this case of child abduction could suddenly turn into a murder or manslaughter investigation. It took the Portuguese police and the media to do that. The McCanns have not been accused of killing their child, but the media pack simply assume the police 'suspicion' to be true without any evidence to support it.
The Portuguese police have handled the case very, very badly, especially at the start. It even took pressure from the British Govt to force them to release an eyewitness description of a man seen with a child at the scene on the night of the disappearance, and that belatedly 3 weeks after the disappearance.
Now the Portuguese police, who have been in collusion with the Portuguese media and manipulating the international media all along, want to add insult to injury in an attempt to wash their hands of their incompetence by making an accusation for which they claim they will (one day??) produce evidence. This is the emperor's new clothes strategy.
JoeQuincy
September 10, 2007 8:53 AM
Can I ask why the McCanns have been getting such an easy ride from the UK press considering they left 3 children home alone, if they were a couple of jaikies from Paisley then the press would have been hounding them.
The only thing this story is showing is the horrible xenophobia of the UK press and it's ability to accept given information as fact without actually bothering to investigate.
writeon
September 10, 2007 9:02 AM
Dear Bladrunner,
Strictly speaking I don't regard a possible sighting of a man carrying a child who might have been Madeleine as 'evidence' that Madeleine was abducted. Eyewitnesses are, unfortunately, notoriously unreliable. As far as I'm aware of there is no actual hard evidence that Madeliene was abducted by any 'third party' only that she's somehow vanished. If one looks at these kind of cases one finds that the numbers tell us unpleasant truths. The number of children snatched by complete strangers is statistically very, very small. Unfortunately, when children disappear or are murdered, overwhelmingly, in perhaps over 90% or more, the person involved knows the child or is a family member. This isn't hard to understand, because one requires contact with the child, opportunity and 'motivation'.
Therefore the police in Portugal are right to pursue a line of enquiry that focuses on the family, rather than on a possibly/probably non-existant paedophile.
There's also the whole question of psychology relating to this case. This is a difficult and complex area to get into here, but, there are aspects of the behaviour of Madeleine's parents that are worrying and appear to conform to 'patterns' that are often associated with these kinds of cases. I'll just mention the term 'narcism' and leave it at that. Finally, this kind of case is not as unusual as it seems. It isn't unique, far from it. What is unusual though, is it's intensity.
usini
September 10, 2007 9:03 AM
I hang my head in shame about the fact that most of the posters here don't seem to understand that Mr. Hastings is talking about how this and similar cases have been handled by the media and not the case itself...
Mind you he has got form too. As editor of the Evening Standard and the Daily Telegraph he must have made decisions about what was to be on the front page. Seems like a case of poacher turning into gamekeeper.
Jammo100
September 10, 2007 9:04 AM
It may not always be true that people get the politicians they deserve, but judging from the number of twisted, cynical comments here it may be true that they get the media they deserve.
Cases like this fascinate the public, and even if the McCanns had had no comment from day 1, they'd still have been at the centre of a press storm (viz. the Soham case). They just realised that maybe the press interest could help to find their child, and said so. The press first congratulated them for being streetwise, then proceeded to turn them into cunning manipulators, all in the desperate hunt for something more to print.
Bairdie
September 10, 2007 9:06 AM
Even Agatha Christie and her ilk could not dream up how this case of child abduction could suddenly turn into a murder or manslaughter investigation. It took the Portuguese police and the media to do that. The McCanns have not been FORMALLY accused of killing their child, but the media pack simply assume the police 'suspicion' to be true without any evidence to support it.
The Portuguese police have handled the case very, very badly, especially at the start. It even took pressure from the British Govt to force them to release an eyewitness description of a man seen with a child at the scene on the night of the disappearance, and that belatedly 3 weeks after the disappearance.
Now the Portuguese police, who have been in collusion with the Portuguese media and manipulating the international media all along, want to add insult to injury in an attempt to wash their hands of their incompetence by making an INFORMAL accusation for which they claim they will (one day??) produce evidence. This is the emperor's new clothes strategy.
RHPrague
September 10, 2007 9:07 AM
@rebarbative
Clearly you are well informed about the modern regulations surrounding child care and protection, and i am not, furthermore I have not -yet - become a parent, so please accept that my question comes with due respect.
Based on what seems to be the best available understanding of what happened while the McCann's were in the restaurant, what exactly was their behaviour that is so bad that it would trigger an investigation from such authorities? And are we saying that the authorities are following up similar acts of 'neglect' all over the UK? Based on my reading of the information I do find your suggestion a little over the top, when compared with the sadly obvious examples of neglect that we witness every day.
duramater
September 10, 2007 9:08 AM
Bladerunner: "One of the guests staying at the resort actually saw a man carrying a girl answering the description of Madeline in his arms, while the McCanns were at the tapas bar. She described the girl as wearing pink pyjamas of the type Maddie was wearing. The man has never been accounted for."
This is just one the curious inconsistencies of this case. The female guest claims to have seen the man and child at the same time that Gerry McCann and another British holidaymaker were talking on a narrow road outside the MCann's apartment. The guest and the man would have had to have passed both Mcann and the holidaymaker on the road and yet neither of them saw her or the man. Plus the guest did not mention this "fact" at the time. No one else saw the man or child either.
Anyway, my main gripes with the press over this case have been:
1. The xenophobic reporting of the Portugese investigation.
2. The lack of basic sound reporting - it was WEEKS before the UK press even released photos of the crime scene and gave the distance of the Tapas bar from the apartment. Why?
3. The hounding of Robert Murat.
4. The way the McCann's style of "relaxed parenting" was reported as simply being "a momentarily lapse" or "something that most have parents have done at some stage."
I'm also intruiged by the number of articles now appearing which cast doubt over the reliability of DNA evidence. I always thought the UK press thought DNA was the best thing since sliced bread when it came to fighting crime?
The bad news for the UK press is that the internet has filled the gap and people are going to blogs and websites to find out more.
MrPikeBishop
September 10, 2007 9:16 AM
I'm not sure what you are suggesting the alternative might be Max - anonymity for all accused parties? Surely not?
BTW, I've seen people talking of this McCann case as sub judicie - surely that can't be correct? We can say as we like, the case won't be heard in the UK. Regardless of t'internet, there's nothing in UK law to stop us, possibly, prejudicing a portugeuse just is there?
Lots of ironies in this cas,e and they keep coming. I've seen comment over the weekend likening the suspcion surround Kate McCann to that around Joanne Lees - both seeming too unconcerned at initial press conferencs. And yet, the very technology that is putting McCann in the frame, low copy number DNA testing, is the same that cleared Lees, by putting Bradly Murdoch away on very shakey evidence. If the press thinks LCN is unreliable in this case, then how come it was reliable in the Falconio case? Hmm? Shurely shome mistake.
Now, further, the LCN might well have been fooled into thinking that Maddy was in the hire car by presence of her DNA, tracked there by persons or objects doused in Maddy DNA, such as her little rabbit toy. Carried everywhere, since her disapearance, by Kate McCann. A suspicious person might think that a doctor might be aware of the latest practice in forensic DNA examination and would take care not to wreck possible crime scenes by visibly importing DNA. Luckily I'm not suspicious.
Anyway Max, you've seen nothing yet. Just imagine Kate is convicted - imagine the stories then, in this parish in particular "Our society drives women to kill their childen rather than risk their jobs" "The wives who fake child abduction to protect their husband's careers" "Why Kate is more like Diana than Myra..."
That's enough wild speculation for a Monday morning.
bostjan
September 10, 2007 9:24 AM
Bairdie wrote?
*The Portuguese police have handled the case very, very badly, especially at the start. It even took pressure from the British Govt to force them to release an eyewitness description of a man seen with a child at the scene on the night of the disappearance, and that belatedly 3 weeks after the disappearance.*
Really? And how do you know that? Where did you get informations about how Portuguese police have handled the case at all? And what make you competent for making this kind of evaluation at this stage of police investigation?
geoffo
September 10, 2007 9:24 AM
It is honest and encouraging that a journalist such as Max Hastings feels the need to hang his head with shame. He is right to attempt to redress the appalling media frenzy that has grown around this story. There was a time when 'responsible journalism' was a trade mark for some of the broadsheet newspapers.
Now, however, in the increasingly competitive market of newspaper sales and relentless 24/7 internet access, responsible journalism has flown out of the window as the media relentlessly cash in on the McCann story which has now become the new 'Diana' - sales, sales, sales and ratings.
No decent human being would wish for anything other than the safe return of Madeleine. Of course we take an interest in the story. It is human nature to do so and our hearts go out in sympathy all the more so because it is a beautiful child at the centre of the story.
But I cannot help think more responsible reporting might have aided everyone in the search for Madeleine and the truth.
picardy
September 10, 2007 9:26 AM
yes your trade is a shambles.the McCann story has shown the british press and the british public can be fooled by educated sophisticated class.The media needed the tattoo the beer belly the comprehensive accent the football shirt to start a which hunt.The McCann hit the press right between the eyes we are middle class, we dont do murder,we leave our children alone whilst we dine.The working class parents who left their children alone would have have been lynched by the media, the couple friends paid peanuts for dishing dirt on the past of the couple, the McCann thrashed the press into a corner using the present media blind spot to class and truth.The class society of britain is alive and kicking, and as in the past, one can buy the media and freedom it all depends on education,education, education.
Garbutt
September 10, 2007 9:28 AM
Can any parent coming on here to post their two pennort worth of common sense honestly say that, in their desperation, they would not have done exactly the same as the McCanns and gambled on the assistance of the media in helping to return their child to them?
Better to keep quiet and hope the abductor would return the child after a decent period?
Cristobal, I hope you rot in hell for your earlier comments.
timetocare
September 10, 2007 9:30 AM
What baffles me is the DNA found in the hired car. It's apparently partial DNA, so it is as likely to be one of the twins or the parents.
But - darkest of thoughts, the other possibility seems not to have been the twins. Then they dispose of the body - where? - oh, down a drain or something, or chucked high up a tree, where she was ignored by Portuguese birds, or they disappeared her with some special magic. Or,
The media attention on this case, the noxious hounding of Gerry and Kate throughout this nightmare in order to create sensationalist newspaper copy, is sickening. Pandering to a semi-emotionally literate population who tune their emotions to soap operas in order to make money from newspaper sales is nasty. These two poor people - I don't know how they manage to get through their days, but they deserve the utmost respect, love, support and concern. Throughout all this, the anxiety that must be intensifying in them that now they will not even be properly free to try to find their little girl - is quite unimaginable.
guardian
