Thursday, September 13, 2007

The McCanns

The events surrounding the disappearance of Madelaine McCann have left me bewildered - as they have left Boris Johnson. At this stage, I simply refuse to believe that her parents can have had anything to do with it. If my confidence turns out to be misplaced, I think my faith in human nature will be severely damaged for ever. Usually, I try not to take an interest in this sort of story, where a personal tragedy involving an attractive person becomes a mechanism for selling newspapers - but for some reason the Madelaine McCann disappearance has got through to me. It may be irrational on my part because I don't personally know any of the players in this tragic tale - but I do so want to the Portuguese Police to say that that there is no evidence to implicate Madelaine's parents.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Without the discovery of Madeleine's whereabouts, and no eyewitnesses, it's pretty much inevitable that suspicion will fall on the parents, one of the less helpful side-effects of this amount of media coverage. I'm afraid that innocent or guilty, unless something turns up to throw light on the matter the shadow of suspicion will hang over them for some time, at least to a certain degree among strangers.

However, the longer this dissappearance remains unsolved, the less likely it becomes that the parents could have had a hand in it. The logistics involved in making a child dissappear in a foreign country and the subsequent nedia coverage makes it highly unlikely -bordering on inconceivable- that they could have done so without leaving any evidence behind.

Dr. Christopher Wood said...

"Where's the beef" or in this case the wee girl's body. As any lawyer knows, no body, no case - it is very hard to prove a homicide without the body based on circumstantial evidence. Very hard indeed. Hmmm, reminds me of my law classes in CRIM LAW (criminal law) and EVIDENCE. I trained as a lawyer at the same law school as Mayor Daley of Chicago - now there's a politician - he's an institution in Chicago.

Glyn Davies said...

Regrettably, evidence and proof seem to have little to do with public perception. This is just one awful story - because the two scenarios are so different

Anonymous said...

Yes I agree with Chris Wood. "No body, no case".

They only thing they could be prosecuted is negligence. which of course led to the disappearance.

cleckanndra said...

'At this stage, I simply refuse to believe that her parents can have had anything to do with it'.

But Glyn that's slipping into the same 'conjecture' which is fuelling the media approach.

We all want to believe it isn't true. And none of us have any evidence that it is true.

If such evidence emerges then why would this particular case make you lose confidence in human nature?

Of the 60 million people in these shores a tiny minority tip over in to inhumane acts. [I am NOT suggesting for one minute that that is what has happened in this case}.

That, also, means that the vast, vast, majority (99%) tens of millions of people live quietly and in a decent, caring way.

If I was to succumb to the temptation of despair it woudl be seeing what is happening in places like Lebanon where people can't access their homes, or basic services, or hope.

Or places like Iraq where bald, blind, expansionism with no thought to an exit strategy is the 21st century's worst example (so far) of a dull, utterly dull, attempt at resurrecting pseudo-colonialism.

But I refuse to slip in to despair about human beings while remaining wary about the dark side of human nature.

Glyn Davies said...

cleckanndra - Can't argue with your logic. I just posted how I felt. The reason for anticipated despair in the event of the Police of Portugal being justified in what they have said and done stems from the depth of sympathy felt for parents who I believed had lost their daughter. I still just don't believe it.

Anonymous said...

I didn't take much interest in this story when the news first broke, but an elderly aunt said to be back in May 'there's something not right'. As time went on, the publicity was OTT, and to me they didn't look like grieving parents, but rather celebrity seekers detracting from something to hide.

Irrespective of whether the parents are guilty or not, the whole thing raises some interesting class issues. E.g. parents leave children alone to go drinking @ a Tapas bar. If these parents had been the equiv. of Vicky Pollard, it would not have been tolerated, and social services would have intervened a long time ago. Because they are doctors, then its deemed more acceptable? At best this is child neglect, and these two have been leading some sort of celeb lifestyle.

There's some gaping holes in the evidence, e.g. why did Kate McCann say, "they have taken her", on discovering Madeleine was not in her room? She could have been sleep walking (esp. as she had a history of it).

Any potential abductor had ~30 minute window to take Madeleine if that (people were doing shifts to go and look on children), which leaves some serious questions as to how did they know a child was in the apartment, and more to the point unsupervised. For abduction to happen, that apartment would have needed to have been watched, to seize an opportunity. Wouldn't it be easier to go take a random child on the street?

Why are they so certain that abduction has taken place (a decoy)? I would think any parent in that situation would be going out of their mind with worry, and including the worse possible case scenario in this ... perhaps she is dead. Instead we get statements such as, 'show us the body then'. Perhaps defending themselves, but they seem rather too certain. Body destroyed / know it cannot be found? Or is this a genuine and ultimate case of thinking positive?

A serious question, the fund has raised £100k, why hasn't this money been spent on private detectives or something, to find Madeleine (which is what the fund was set up for)?

I could go on ....

Yes I want them to be innocent, faith in human nature and all that, but so many things just don't add up. It leaves more questions than answers.

Glyn Davies said...

Its because a lot of people say this to me that I was tempted to post on it. I still remember Angarad Mair writing something similar in the Wales on Sunday weeks ago. I was a bit shocked at the time. A lot of people are saying it now.