Madeleine McCann: Martin Samuel’s Fear As A Parent Suffering From Our Maddie Sickness
HAVING heard Esther Rantzen patronise the McCanns for the independent MPs, spreading the fear and addressing Kate and Gerry McCann from the bottom of a bucket of syrup marked “FEAR”, the Mail lets Martin Samuel lose on Our Maddie and emotional exhibit Kate McCann.
In “Maddie, the heartrending dilemma”, Samuel, one of Anorak’s favourite writers, says:
There are, it is roughly estimated, as many as 180,000 missing children in the United Kingdom. According to the home Office, the number of full-time police in England and Wales is 142,000.
They are not all missing, presumed stolen. Many have gone off with parents.
You see the problem, yes? Even if we took one officer and told him his only job was to find Madeleine McCann, he would still have to take alternate Thursdays off to help investigate some other disappearance.
Well, if every missing child was thought to have been the subject of a crime, then yes. But they are not. Samuel is using the big numbers to prove a point but missing the facts.
Back to Our Maddie:
This is why there exists a point at which investigations into missing people are scaled down. Always reluctantly, always with the hope that one day circumstances will change, but Gerry McCann is wrong to say the police have given up on his daughter, as the third anniversary of her disappearance approaches.
So…
They have not forgotten, but simply lost the trail.
What trail? There was never a trail. The child went missing and the police had no proof which way she went. This helped create the Our Maddie story, the single-thread fact spun by a voracious media. Because we have no idea which way Madeleine went, every sighting of her, however far-fetched or far flung, is billed a being credible. Our MAddie has been spotted in Canada, Italy, Sweden, Portugal, Spain, Morocco, Majorca, Belgium, Bosnia, France, Australia, Brazil, Wales, Malta, Italy, Germany, Austria, Dorset and more recently New Zealand (by boat).
Says Samuel:
This happens. Not every investigation can be resolved, or allowed to continue interminably when leads and clues are exhausted.
What clues? The so-called leads were based on speculation. The McCanns were libelled. Robert Murat was libelled. The Tapas Seven were libelled. “Maddie paedo” Raymond Hewlett is dead. All “leads” putting these people in the frame for an apparent crime were based on speculation.
Pictures Of All The Madeleine McCann Suspects
I do not believe any police officer fails to comprehend the significance of finding Madeleine; not just for her parents, but for the mental health of the nation.
Because we are sick of her, or of hearing about her? Are we all victims of or like Our Maddie?
Police may respond inadequately to vandalism or petty crime, but if any of the information Mr McCann says has recently been unearthed by private detectives was of use, an official investigation team would have been all over it.
For sure.
The charity PACT (Parents and Abducted Children Together) says one child goes missing every five minutes; the police, therefore, are not, like the McCanns, solely responsible for a single lost toddler.
Says PACT:
Every year hundreds of thousands of children around the world go missing or are abducted. Some are forcibly separated from one parent by the other; some are abused; and others simply disappear, never to be found again.
PACT says a child is anyone under 18 years of age. The vast majority of missing children are termed “runaways/ throwaways”.
They do not all go missing without a parent or guardian. Many go missing with a “benign” explanatio”. They were reported missing to the police but arrived home safe and sound. Many just get lost and are soon found. A few – a small but painful few – are kidnapped by a stranger and abused or killed.
Still everyone has an Our Maddie:
Brazil has an Our Maddie – Madeleine McCann: Isabella Nadoni Is Brazil’s Our Maddie
Israel has an Our Maddie – Madeleine McCann: Israel’s Rose Is The International Our Maddie
France has an Our Maddie –Typhaine Taton Is France’s Madeleine McCann
America has an Our Maddie – America’s Madeleine McCann Turns Up Alive
Spain has an Our Maddie – Madeleine McCann: Mari Luz Cortes, Maddy 2 And Gerry McCann Writes
New Zealand has an Our Maddie – Madeleine McCann: Patronising Aisling Symes
South America has an Our Maddie A Madeleine McCann Found In Panama
Holland has an Our Maddie – Madeleine McCann: Milly Boele Is Holland’s Our Maddie
Says Samuel:
Are those most urgently in need of help now to join the end of an ancient queue?
No. The queue is not so long as he makes out. Ayoung child missing with no family member, who has not just wandered not run away is rare. It is they who are in the queue.
Police work prioritises, it shuffles resources, evolving in the most harshly pragmatic way. It cannot become mired in history, as cold as that sounds. Russell Bohling is a vulnerable 18-year-old with a speech impediment, who was about to inherit £300,000 to start his own business.
His car has been found on a cliff top in east Yorkshire, and he is missing. The quicker police act, the more chance there is of resolution, happy or otherwise.
Eighteen. An adult. What clues?
At the same time there will be other cases in the area, as yet unanswered. Each officer assigned to Russell’s disappearance is therefore being taken off another duty. What is the alternative?
Private detectives?
Give his family a number like at a supermarket delicatessen counter and tell them to wait their turn?
More police?
‘Find Madeleine’ was the campaign. The police tried and failed. Now they must find Russell.
But Russell is not a child. Oh, he had a “speech impediment”. Is that relevant? He was not handicapped – he knew how to drive and had passed his test. As ever – as with the girl who became the media’s Our Maddie – the story is presented in a way designed to provoke the armchair detective.
Next week, it will be someone else. Tragic realities are confronted all the time, but what more can they do?
Well, Madeleine McCann went missing in, er, Portugal. How many four-year-olds go missing there, then?
Liverpool Echo: “Susan Lee prays the tenacity of Kate McCann will bear fruit”
Don’t listen to Esther Rantzen, Kate McCann!
Of course the hard facts of the case never change. The story of the little girl with the distinctive flash in her eye who vanished into a Portuguese night is unchanged and until she is found Madeleine is frozen in time, forever that gorgeous three-year-old.
Gorgeous? Her looks are relevant?
As a mum I can only salute her and pray to God that one day her tenacity will be rewarded.
As a mum? Because if you are not a mum you could not possibly understand the pain of losing a loved one?
Madeleine McCann: missing – but not from the press…
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Spotter: Bat E Bird
Posted: 30th, April 2010 | In: Key Posts, Madeleine McCann Comments (12) | TrackBack | Permalink
