MCCANNS - THE CASE AGAINST THE POLITICIANS

In my honest opinion, I think there was a major 'Oops'  moment in Downing Street, when the missing Madeleine story was called in.  It was early hours of the morning, and everyone who responded was acting on pure emotion - a little English girl had been abducted (why not kidnapped?), it was a case of act first, think later.

 

I am sure within days, the PM etc, were made aware of the suspicions surrounding the parents, but it would have been hugely unpopular if they suddenly withdrew their support.  Instead, they went with it.  Capitalising on the huge public response to this case, it brought home the dangers of the internet (yeh, I know), and the dangers of random strangers stealing toddlers from their beds as if it were a clear and present danger with all children at risk.  

 

Blair, it would seem decided to continue with the lie, by providing the McCanns with a Government press spokesman.  However, there is not a cut and dry case against Blair.  He could say, that with the limited information he had, he chose to give the parents the benefit of the doubt and that would not be unreasonable.

 

However, by July of 2007, Blair et al, appear to have stepped back and Clarence Mitchell appears to have gone rogue.  That is, he was no longer working for the government, he was working for the McCanns.  I believe his fees were being paid by one of their benefactors.

 

One of the most significant interviews later in the summer was with Vanity Fair.  Gerry, and probably Clarence too, thought they were talking 'off the record', hence we have the ghoulish 'marketing ploy' from Gerry and the admission by Clarence that government ministers wouldn't speak to them!They were offered 'low level' consular assistance, but they wanted a lot more and clearly weren't getting it.

 

The case against Blair.  On the one hand it is admirable that Downing Street responded so quickly, and so unreservedly, to the plight of Gerry and Kate McCann.  Kudos to them on being a compassionate government, but how come they never sent spokesmen etc to any other British citizens abroad?  Regardless, that goes into the whole 'class' issue, no government assistance was offered to Karen Matthews. 

 

There is a saying, that I really must look up, 'if someone shows you who they are, believe them'.  Clarence, feeling the same hurt and rejection as Gerry, wanted outrage at the fact that the politicians weren't listening to them.  An error on the part of Clarence, because their stance at the time, was that everyone believed them and everyone supported them.  Only haters questioned the abduction story.

 

I think the involvement of British expert Mark Harrison changed the dynamic of the investigation.  He advised the Portuguese police to investigate the parents and he advised bringing in the blood and cadaver dogs.  I think from then on, the McCanns or should I say, Team McCann were on their own.

 

Those claiming that this case remains unsolved because of the involvement of powerful politicians, don't seem to understand politics.  In this country, we have a democracy, and hard as it may seem to believe, politicians are not above the Law. 

 

Let's look at this logically.  Begin with who are these politicians who are perverting the course of justice?  PMs and Home Secretaries have limited tenure.  Any crimes they indulge in, end with them.  They are not passed on to their successors.  The timeline of this case has seen several changes of government.  And changes in leadership of police agencies, such as CEOP.  Each comes with their own set of values and ideals.  No-one comes to office thinking the first thing I must do is ensure no-one investigates Gerry and Kate. 

 

I don't think any MP or former MP has linked themselves to Team McCann, that is, no-one has raised questions on their behalf in the House of Commons.  Except of course, during the Leveson era when senior Labour MPs were supporting the McCanns' quest for press censorship.  That apart, it is a sensitive subject.  Any MP questioning the funding of Operation Grange for example, would immediately be shut down by cries of 'shame on you'.  It is probably fair to say most MPs support Gerry and Kate (quietly), without actually knowing why.  Except, maybe, they cannot grasp that clean living, church going, middle class professionals could possibly have anything to do with a heinous crime.  And that's scary.

 

But back to Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and New Labour's support for the crime of the century.  How do they wriggle out.  Well, pretty much as I explained above, innocent until proven guilty and all that.  But.  Who put pressure on the Portuguese police to 'go easy' on the McCanns (thereby losing most of the evidence)?  Who put pressure on the Portuguese police to remove Goncalo Amaral?  Arguably, the moment the case was derailed? It is understandable that PMs Blair and Brown, wanted to show support for Madeleine's parents, but another thing entirely if they interfered in the original investigation. 

HOW WILL OPERATION GRANGE END?

Those of us gripped by the intriguing mystery of Madeleine McCann’s disappearance have for 11 years watched in astonishment as the Portuguese police were portrayed as the bad guys and the parents of the missing child became breakfast TV royalty.  For 5 years plus, they had an open mike, and a platform on TV and in the newspapers to tell their side of the story and to blame the former detective who led the search for their daughter.  

 

Whilst Gerry and Kate had as much media coverage as they wished to spread their propaganda, they ensured their nemesis, Goncalo Amaral did not.  His book 'The Truth of the Lie' is still not available in the UK.  Here there is only one explanation for Madeleine’s disappearance, abduction. With powerful lawyers Carter Ruck and their reputation as vexatious litigants, the MSM dare not publish articles that question the abduction story.  And as someone on the last blog mentioned, they also had power to shut down discussion on the Mirror Forum and others.  Any criticism of them became taboo. Only ‘bad’ people would think something awful of the heroic couple.  Thus the word 'hater' became synonymous with the McCann case. 

 

Battle lines were drawn, and the internet saw the beginnings of social media warfare and the birth of trolling.  You were 'pro' the parents, or 'anti' the parents.   The 'pros' worked on the premise that non believers hated Gerry and Kate personally - why? because, they were photogenic, erudite, successful professionals.  If we had an English equivalent of the American Dream, it was the perfection of the McCann family.  Oh and not to forget, their large detached house and all embracing circle of family and friends. Much to be jealous of if you are that way inclined, but happily that kind of paranoid envy affects very few.  It is easier I guess, for the mother of Kate to believe people don't like her daughter because she is attractive, slim and a doctor, than it is to believe they see her as a compulsive liar. 

 

The McCann media monitoring team put the same amount of planning and tactics into their online army as a Roman General preparing for battle.  And in the early days, they were legion, many angered by heartlessness of those who questioned the parents.  There are very few left, a hardcore of half a dozen I would guess.  But I also wonder if that half dozen were especially prolific in the early days, with dozens of different identities and personas.  That would have been a crazy idea years ago, but now it is accepted as a given.  Trolling worked for Team McCann, they became Masters of it. 

 

They patrolled social media with the sole intention of demolishing all those who refused to believe the abduction story.  It was pure thuggery online.  They silenced non believers with threats to expose them to their neighbours, friends and employers.  They bullied, hunting in packs, descending en masse if anyone put forward  logical ideas and opinions.  Their aim was to create chaos, to prevent any organised resistance, and to demolish the names and reputations of anyone who wrote truthfully about the Madeleine case.  This case did indeed bring out the worst in human behaviour, both in 'pro' and in 'anti' trolls.

 

However, time has not been kind to their cause, and with no sign of Madeleine, few believe she is alive and few believe the parents are innocent. The abduction story that was impossible to believe over a decade ago, becomes more absurd with each passing year.  Any calls for more donations to their Fund,  would I think, result in open derision.

 

The Fund, and the Search for Madeleine campaign has by all appearances, been dormant since Operation Grange began. While Gerry and Kate had no scruples in undermining the original Portuguese investigation with their own private detectives, they have not dared do the same to the officers of Scotland Yard.

 

But, how will Operation Grange end?  I’m tempted to put up a poll. It can’t just be filed away without informing the public of the result.  It is a publically funded investigation.  Most I think would tick a) Madeleine taken by person, or persons unknown with no explanation given. From a British police PR perspective, that result would be humiliating. They, with their greater wisdom, resources, etc, failed to achieve as much as the interim report submitted by the original investigation.  

 

Will it just fizzle out?  Buried in the inner pages on a bad news day? That, I wouldn’t rule out. The public’s interest in this case has all but died out, there are much bigger stories dominating the headlines. Do enough people care about how this case ends?  I suspect not.   

 

An actual result, ie. Arrests etc.  Logically, this is the most likely outcome. The PJ of course have the lead, but there must be a British side for OG to exist. The two forces must be working together and they must reach the same result. It could be dragging on, of course, because they haven’t. That option is scary, because it means one or both sides are being stubborn and they don’t want their disagreement to spill out into the public domain.  Regardless, although public interest in this case may have waned, it is still high profile.  Especially as it has the potential to drag in former members of the establishment who promoted the McCanns as victims of a third world justice system. 

 

Sticking with that option.  There are some who would say OG have been commanded to find the parents and their friends innocent.  Or, told to ‘investigate the abduction as if it occurred in the UK.  Ie. They were only to investigate leads pertaining to an abduction.  To me that idea is absurd, but some people, especially failed lawyers, insist the small print is carved in stone.  I am not a police officer, but I have seen enough crime documentaries to see investigations can and do, veer off into the most unlikely of directions.  Investigating small crimes can lead to much bigger crimes, and often do.  No-one is above the above the Law, no individual or group can be given assurances that they will not be investigated, the idea is ridiculous.

    

If this case has been investigated thoroughly, and I am sure it has, then the truth will come out.  We have all been struggling with this jigsaw puzzle for 11 years and know that the wrong pieces cannot be rammed into the blank spaces.  Many have tried (Bennett, Hall, Hyatt, Textusa, HideHo etc) and failed miserably.  Their theories came from their own very dark imaginations, and have little to do with reality.  A tad further up the scale, though we are still scraping the barrel, we have Metodo 3 and Mark Williams-Thomas.  And of course Dave Edgar, who introduced a Victoria Beckham lookalike seen on Barcelona quayside waiting for 'her daughter'. Oh, and the idea that the abductor seen by Jane Tanner may have been a woman.

 

The McCanns and their friends are trapped by the statements they gave on the morning of 4th May 2007.  They cannot and dare not embellish, because their web of lies is so fragile - that, I suspect, is why they would not return to Portugal to do a reconstruction for Operation Grange. 

 

In the many cases where the witnesses will not co-operate, the police have no option but to shelve or close the file.   And when they do, the suspects can breathe a big sigh of relief, just as Gerry and Kate did in their 'Expresso' interview.  They were off the hook, no longer suspects, and almost playful.  They had outwitted the PJ and were poised to press ahead with new exciting media careers.  Some might say they were gloating, others, that they let their guard down, revealed their true selves.  In any event, their reaction to the Portuguese giving up the search for their daughter was quite bizarre.

 

The weight that was lifted from them in the summer of 2008, seems to be back with a vengeance and twice as heavy.  They literally cannot relax until the two investigations close.  And it is very unlikely to close with 'there's no  evidence [that Madeleine has come to any harm]'.  Rather than dismiss the alerts of the dogs, OG dug up areas in the vicinity of 5A, and then head of OG said 'there is possibility was not alive when she was taken from the apartment'.  Not alive, means dead, but the deranged pros insisted it didn't.  I think that kept a thread going for several days.

 

At the end of the day, only the truth will bring the jigsaw puzzle together. There are no other options.  Though the numbers  following this case are dwindling, there will always be enough people out there to point out all and any flaws in a conclusion that doesn't accommodate all the original statements and facts.