Dr Martin Roberts. Believe it or Not. 13th March 2013

By Dr Martin Roberts
13 March 2013

BELIEVE IT OR NOT

Ripley's
collection of facts from around the world has for decades been
presented together with the invitation extended by the title – a
cornucopia of extraordinary things that have happened/existed, whether
the reader is prepared to 'believe it or not.' One is of course at
liberty to not believe, but such disbelief, as others would be quick to
acknowledge, is wholly independent of the actualities Ripley's
publication describes. It's rather hard to argue with photographs of Flo
Jo's fingernails, eye witness accounts of 'out of the blue' events, and
museums containing bizarre relics of all sorts. So belief and truth may
happily exist as one, or co-exist as quite different from each other.
We either believe in the truth, or in the face of the truth, as it were.

When
actuality and belief coincide, the one encapsulates the other in our
understanding. To give a very simple example, if we happen to be caught
out in an unexpected shower in the morning we would feel perfectly
comfortable telling a friend later that afternoon, 'it rained this
morning,' whereas the friend (who had remained dry, having been
elsewhere all day) might ask, 'I believe it rained this morning?' One
knows, the other believes. And since knowledge is paramount we are not
usually so guarded about it as to articulate only the belief, unless of
course we are trying to be extremely diplomatic for some reason.

The
mildly inquisitive are constantly reminded by those busily searching
for Madeleine McCann that 'there is nothing to suggest that Madeleine
has been seriously harmed,' and while they might just as easily
subscribe to a pragmatic view, there can be no doubting the official
line's promotion of the more optimistic outcome, given the apparent
absence of evidence to the contrary. Belief in Madeleine McCann's
survival of her own ordeal is therefore perfectly admissible. Her
parents no doubt share that very belief, just as they shared the (very
strong) belief that Madeleine was alive when she was taken. Belief 1 is
nearly as good as belief 2 therefore, even if perhaps not quite so
strongly held. And yet, as an equation, the two are peculiarly
imbalanced.

There is no 'evidence' that, subsequent to having
been taken, Madeleine McCann has come to serious harm. Equally there is
no 'evidence' of her enjoying perfect health. So belief in option 1 has
to be seen as independent of the facts, which, at the present time,
remain unknown. In the case of option 2 however...

Madeleine
McCann's abduction is assumed by some, her father included, to have
occurred shortly after he visited the family's holiday apartment –
within fifteen minutes if other 'witness' statements are taken into
account. For the duration of his stay inside, all three children were
said to have been asleep (as well as being recognisably beautiful). This
is not something the proud father supposed, but something he claimed to
have witnessed. An incontrovertible fact therefore. And yet we have
ever since been treated to the 'strong belief' that Madeleine was alive
prior to being taken. Whereas such belief may have become weakened with
Madeleine's removal from the apartment, it is no less a belief for that.
And whilst belief in the child's later situation is understandable, the
other, rather more significant act of faith, is less so.

Why
should the McCanns hold to a belief, not in the truth but in the face of
truth? It's akin to being a member of the flat earth society. Nor can
it be argued that this particular belief of theirs is justified on the
grounds that Madeleine might have been killed just prior to being
removed. The days of the 'resurrectionists' being long gone, there is
currently no international traffic in infant corpses as far I'm aware.

The
McCanns' strongly held 'belief' that Madeleine was alive before being
taken from the apartment is not therefore a reflection of the facts, but
wholly independent of them. Furthermore, coming as it does from the
lips of the father, it calls into question the very circumstance he
himself had earlier defined as fact by virtue of his own description of
it. Madeleine was asleep. Therefore she was alive. If Gerry McCann only
believed her to have been alive at that time, then he clearly harboured
some sort of doubt and, as a trained doctor, might have been expected to
do something to allay his own doubt, fear or suspicion, as Kate herself
did with her laying on of hands (or was it fingers beneath nostrils?
The story differs with the teller). But he did no such thing. Instead,
and confident that Madeleine was asleep (therefore alive), he left the
apartment without further ado. And yet he could afterwards only muster
the belief that Madeleine McCann was alive all the while.

Once
again, instead of telling it like it was, Gerry McCann has told it like
it wasn't. Whilst a lie is, as we know, a flagrant contradiction,
alternative interpretations of the truth must at least be consistent in
one or other crucial respect or mutual understanding would be seriously
jeopardised. If we genuinely believe in something, then we typically
articulate the fact itself, which subsumes our belief in it. Stating
one's belief on the other hand is an expression of doubt; one of
self-doubt In Gerry McCann's case. And if he cannot trust what he says
to be true then why on earth should anyone else?

And whilst on
the subject of trusting in the statements of others, there are, as we
know, two slightly divergent attempts at a 'timeline' in existence; a
moment-by-moment account of the actions and whereabouts of the McCanns
and their friends on the night of Thursday May 3, 2007. How very
helpful. It's the sort of thing that Miss Marple or Poirot would be
interested in reading were they to be pondering the apparent suicide of a
corpse with a knife in its back. But Madeleine McCann had been
abducted, had she not? And criminal abduction, as commonly understood,
implies that something or someone is taken away. Yet the McCanns and
their friends were still there. Self-evidently they can have had nothing
to do with the urgent and distant relocation of a child when they were
all still eating less than an hour later. So why were they so concerned
to collaborate in providing themselves with alibis for fractions of the
intervening period, when they would have been much better served
searching for the missing child?