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http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/madeleine-mccann-missing-whoevers-blame-2370176

Madeleine McCann is missing and whoever's to blame, we have to find her
14 Oct 2013 14:28
FleetStreetFox on the new push to find Maddie six years, five months and 11 days after she went missing on holiday

Six years ago a little girl disappeared.

And that's it - that's pretty much all we know for sure. Madeleine McCann was there one minute and gone the next. She was a few days off her fourth birthday.

It's actually been six years, five months and 11 days since it happened. She'd be 10 now, on the cusp of adolescence, getting excited about going up to 'big school', and badgering her parents for Christmas presents.

Instead her parents are on Crimewatch tonight - and several other crime-solving programmes across Europe - publicising a new police investigation which is throwing up new leads and suspects.

No-one has seen much of it apart from a brief trailer, and no-one at all has heard what the new information might be. That hasn't stopped an awful lot of people having their say, with everything from off-colour jokes to wild accusations.

Not one person who makes them knows what's actually true. They're not criminal psychologists, they haven't sifted the evidence, and most of them can't begin to imagine what it must be like for your child to just drop off the radar like that.

It says a lot about human beings that the ability to presume the worst of strangers, on the basis of no evidence at all, is as undiminished today as it was when we crawled out of the swamp.

Perhaps the worst is true; stranger, and worse things have happened. But the fact is we don't know anything much beyond the fact that little girl was last seen sleeping in her family's holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal, in May 2007.

That doesn't stop anyone weighing in, however. The internet is awash with conspiracy theorists, armchair investigators, the well-intentioned, and just plain bored. Having been one of the many who reported on Madeleine's disappearance, I get sporadic abuse from these sorts for covering up a child's murder.

Which is nice. Obviously if I knew a child had been killed my first reaction would be to protect those responsible then earn online notoriety in the hope of one day having my crime exposed by someone who would need a run-up to get their head around simple arithmetic.

In fact having been a news reporter since I was 18, my first reaction is to look hard at stuff and then tell other people about it. You can make your own minds up, if you feel like reading it.

1. Praia da Luz consists of dust and rocks. There's nowhere to dispose of a body. If Madeleine was there, and dead, she'd have been found by now. There were some roadworks going on at the time she disappeared, and there was an oft-quoted theory among journalists covering the story she could have wandered into the night on her own and tipped in a hole, only to be covered up next day by unsuspecting roadworkers. As far as I know they've yet to have a look.

2. Kate and Gerry McCann were not as careful as they could have been. Hindsight makes this obvious, but the restaurant they were eating in with friends while taking it in turns to look in on their children was not as close as it seemed. It was within the same holiday complex, but between it and their apartment door were two high hedges customers could not see over, and a swimming pool. To check on their children they had to walk out of the complex, up the road for 80 yards, and back in again - and Madeleine was old enough to be able to open the door and wander out looking for her parents. The resort also boasted a babysitting service and there was no reason not to use it, if you felt like a night out.

THIS DOES NOT MEAN THEY ARE MURDERERS. Nor does it constitute criminal neglect as some suggest - it's a mistake, and one they've no doubt thought about quite a lot.

3. The local police, once informed, made the Keystone Cops look like Poirot. They didn't close the borders that were a short drive away, they didn't watch the ports, they stamped all over the apartment and ground fag ash into the carpet. Thanks to the efforts of CSI Praia da Luz, any trace of intruders was lost, the first vital hours in which Madeleine was most likely to found were wasted, and while they collected mobile phone data they didn't bother to properly analyse it.

4. It’s an unpleasant fact of life that most people who kill or abuse children are family members. Predatory paedophiles are rare.

When they do strike, it’s all over and done pretty quickly. The victims are dead and disposed of within a few hours. In those hours Kate and Gerry McCann were running around Praia da Luz and talking to the police, and if they were abusive parents there’d be clear signs to their relatives and friends they were holidaying with. None have been discovered.

5. If it wasn’t Kate or Gerry, and if a body hasn’t been discovered, there’s only two options left. Either Madeleine was disposed of as thoroughly as April Jones – to the extent where there’s only a few bone fragments left lying around somewhere – or she’s still alive.

If she’s still alive, she needs to be found and returned to her family, and we all need to hope that Portugal doesn’t have its own version of Ariel Castro.

If she’s dead, she needs to be found, laid to rest, and her killer brought to justice.

Either way the Portuguese police need to get their backsides kicked all the way to Lisbon for their shocking contempt for basic police techniques, and for wasting months treating the McCanns as suspects when it got them not one step closer to finding Madeleine.

Personally I’d like to see the insane, vicious and unjustified half of Twitter suffer a sudden attack of logic and get in touch with their nicer sides to the extent they wonder what kind of scum they could be if they’ve spent six years accusing innocent parents of infanticide.

But regardless of what we know, think we know, or imagine someone told us once, there’s really only one thing that matters.

There is a little girl who disappeared on May 3, 2007. No-one knows where she is, and we need to find out – for all our sakes.

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A. Brewer says:
I've just watched Channel 5 news and right at the end there was an interesting comment from the reporter, who claimed that the latest e-fits were originally made in 2008 by "PIs" (presumably the McCanns' defectives).

Which rather begs the questions: why weren't these e-fits released earlier? has this neglectful inaction hurt "The Search"? is/are the person/s responsible for not releasing these e-fits possibly guilty of attempting to pervert the course of justice?

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/14/madeleine-mccann-abductors-police

Madeleine McCann's abductors should beware, the police will not give up
This is not the time to criticise parenting or policing, it is time to pause and consider the developments in the case

A social worker once told me that when faced with a highly emotive child protection situation, the most important thing is having the presence of mind to pause. As Kipling put it, to "keep your head when all about you/ Are losing theirs." Pausing to plan a response in a crisis is critical.

When Madeleine McCann went missing in 2007, police in Portugal were faced with a difficult and highly charged scenario, no doubt made more complex by parental anxiety, along with language and cultural differences. As those first few hours disappeared in confusion and miscommunication, valuable minutes will have been lost. As hours turned to days there was little sense of pause, planning or direction, but no shortage of offers to help. There wasn't a policing agency in the UK that did not want to do all that it could to assist in the search for the little girl, whose picture was embedded in the public's conscience.

As the months rolled by with no sign of Madeleine, for a period of time her parents became aguidos, suspects, in the investigation. The only unusual thing about that was that it did not happen earlier; investigators always clear the ground beneath their feet and in doing this you look at the parents.

Many people have opinions about Kate and Gerry McCann. The rights and wrongs of their meal at the tapas bar and their approach to checking on the children. I am of the view that there but for the grace of God go I. For those perfect parents who have never left their children for a moment, think on this: if that was a lapse, they have paid a terrible price for it and they are still living the nightmare. No one but the person who took Madeleine is to blame for what has happened to her.

Others ask why all the attention for one child when so many go missing? They confuse children pushed or pulled from their homes in the UK by unhappy circumstances, sexual predators and so-called friends, with cases like Madeleine and Ben Needham. In the first instance the majority of those who go missing in the UK return home within 72 hours. They need greater attention, more resources and focus but their circumstances are different. Cases like Ben Needham and Madeleine, missing and suspected abducted abroad, are thankfully rare.

As the Metropolitan police investigation begins to gather pace, we have heard of new persons of interest, thousands of lines of inquiry, including highly valuable telecoms data and, critically, a much-improved working relationship with their Portuguese colleagues. All of that must be welcomed and while there will come a point to reflect on why some of this has taken so long, this is not that time.

Whether you were in Praia De Luz in May 2007 or not, you might hold the key, that piece of information which identifies a person or event, possibly even a phone number. Pause for a moment and consider the significant developments the police are sharing. Listen to the new timeline and look at the efit images. Someone out there knows, or has harboured suspicions, in either case now is the time to come forward.

The person or people responsible have an uncomfortable week ahead. They probably thought they had weathered the storm but it's time for them to start looking over their shoulder again. Thanks to her parents' persistent campaigning, the search for Madeleine goes on.