WHAT IS WORSE THAN NEGLECT?

Note:  No witnesses took part in this reconstruction.

 

I got told off on twitter the other day because my last blog promotes the neglect theory and by a process of deduction, it means I support the parents.  Apparently 'we all know' the neglect was an alibi to enable the abduction.  I pointed out that I'm not actually in the 'we all know' gang and never have been. It seems I am not a truthseeker because I do not accept the party line - there was no neglect.  A bit rich considering I have spent over 8 years battling this injustice in my own name and taken all the abuse that went with it, including over 100 pages of mentions in the notorious 'Death Dossier'.  Ce la vie. 

Twitter spat over, let's look at the 'neglect' issue and some of the barmy theories that surround it.  Loathe as I am to mention the outside interests of the prominent Maddie theorists, for those new to this case, it could save them hours of being led up the garden path, and possibly 20+ quid for the videos.    

Many are being introduced to this case via Richard D. Hall documentaries.  This is unfortunate because not only have they had to sit through 4+ hours of tedium, they may well have gone on to read copious volumes of Thus Spake Tony Bennett.  For all of that, they have my sympathy, at least the lawyers at Carter Ruck got paid by the hour. 

Before taking the works of Richard D. Hall too seriously, I suggest viewers look at his other main area of interest: Aliens.  As for the verbose preacher and creationist, a quick glance at Tony Bennett's Wiki page should tell you all you need to know.  His rightful place is on an orange box at Speakers Corner, but as he probably has no listeners there either and may well be barred, he has brought his deranged rantings to the Madeleine case. This has suited the machinations of Kate, Gerry and Team McCann, because it gave them an enemy who was bound to drive legions to their side.  If you believe God made the earth in 7 days, and in living a clean life of chastity and temperance, then Tony's yer man, and to be fair, you're probably beyond help anyway.   

The authoritative way in which the documentaries are presented give the impression that its' creators have some sort of insider or specialist knowledge about the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.  They don't.  They have the same information as the rest of the general public, ie. the 9 year old Portuguese files.  From these they have concocted stories that come purely from what they personally are projecting. 

Are there really paedophile gangs and swingers everywhere? Approaching the grand old age of 59, it's not something I have ever come across, in any environment (outside of the convent), and I have lived a far from sheltered life.  Could this group of doctors be deviant enough to take their kids and mother in law on a sex holiday?  Who thinks like that?  The problem is, they have had 9 years to chat among themselves and a simple accident just isn't enough. 

Unfortunately, in order to make the facts fit their theories, they have accused a large number of independent witnesses of lying.  And in order to support these accusations, they have pried into their personal lives  of these witnesses in order to smear and discredit them.  Richard Hall and Tony Bennett for example, continue to accuse Robert Murat (the first suspect), despite the fact that the PJ really did clear him, that is, they were pursuing the McCanns, not Murat, when Goncalo Amaral was removed from the investigation.  What Hall and Bennett are doing is despicable, they are literally hounding him. 

In order to give their on sale documentaries a beginning, middle and end, these armchair detectives claim to have solved the mystery.  At the moment, given the interests of the producer, the hot tip is aliens, which is well worth a fiver each way.  I've never been able to sit through them, so I have no idea where he is going. 

Those claiming 'no neglect', really haven't paid very much attention to the characters of the tapas group.  They all had high flying careers and they were all very competitive, they spent their days running and playing tennis.  For many professional, middle class women, childcare is seen as menial.  You can see from their statements, that there were no mother hens within the group, even Fiona Payne's mother preferred to play tennis than look after her grandchildren.  They were all 'right on' women, determined to have as much freedom on that holiday as their husbands.  The men meanwhile, were jockeying for the position of alpha male, as illustrated by Gerry in that short bus clip.  Seriously, does anyone see Gerry staying in to look after all the kids while the others went out to dinner?  

Apart from the arrogance of the group, no adult in their right mind would take responsibility for 9 babies and toddlers spread out in different apartments or all in one room.  What if one kicked off?  What if they all did?  Kate couldn't cope with 3!  The idea is far more chaotic than using the night crèche.

The statements show that some of the adults suffered sickness and diarrhea and stayed in their apartments and this is the thrust of the 'no neglect' argument.  Most of us know that dicky tums are part and parcel of going away.  The tapas groups speak freely about the babies having diarrhea and vomiting and Russell had to stay in to change his daughters sheets etc.  I have no doubt the children were unwell, which makes the decision to leave them alone all the more horrifying.  So if the kids had dicky tums, the adults probably did too. Rachel says she was in her apartment on the Tuesday night.  This is the night Mrs Fenn hear a young child crying in Apartment 5A for 1.4 hours.  If Rachel was looking after all the children, she wasn't doing a very good job of it.

In May 2007, what the tapas friends feared the most was criminal charges of child endangerment, child abandonment and child neglect.  Charges that would not only bring them public shame, but that would end their medical careers.  The Portuguese Authorities could well have seized ALL the tapas children and placed them in care.  Understandably, they were all frantic and on their mobile phones all night.  And to those who say Maddie died earlier in the week, why did they leave all their phones calls to the night of the abduction?  Especially as they could have made untold phone calls in the days leading up to that night and ensured those calls couldn't be traced.  
  
There is no greater criminal charge for up and coming medical professionals than child endangerment.  Unless you go into the 'perv' areas as discussed elsewhere, what could be worse?  So why on earth would 4 doctors confess to crimes they did not commit?  And they do not acknowledge they committed any crime in leaving those children on their own.  They have been justifying the checking since night one.  Their defence to any child neglect charges has been in place since the very beginning, because those were the charges they feared.

The reason Kate and Gerry fail to acknowledge that they did anything wrong, is because it would make them culpable for child neglect (at the very least) and it would be used against them in a Court.  They have lessened the neglect charges, by changing their actions from the reckless (or even wicked and premeditated) act of abandoning their babies, into an honest mistake anyone could have made, and naivety at worst. Kudos to them, it has been their greatest success.

Imagine that group of parents going out to dinner each night and leaving their babies alone and vulnerable would send a shiver down any caring adult's spine, which is why it is so difficult to accept.  However, instead of spending hours, studying phone records, timelines and graphs, I suggest those searching for the truth, skip the tedium and read the statements of the Tapas group.  The characters that come through in those statements will tell you all you need to know.  Sometimes a cup is just a cup.