DR MARTIN ROBERTS BLOG ON MCCANNFILES DATED 16TH JULY, 2012.

Clay Regazzoni wrote:

j.rob wrote:

But in the context of a THREE year old? Totally weird. 

I also think it is weird that these parents, hanging around on the grassy play area, watching a three year old playing tennis, then started talking about paedophiles. I spent a fair amount of time supervising or watching my children at playgrounds or taking part in other activities and not once, ever, did I get into a conversation about paedophiles. 

How inappropriate. 

Yes, as already said, good post. The weird thing is, this paranoia, this seeing a pervert behind every bush, is how I thought parents felt about this kind of thing before I had children of my own. Now that I have a child, experience tells me that this isn't the case at all, and that the impression I held was gained purely from media scare stories and Daily Mail style hyperbole. It's refreshing and liberating to discover how wrong I was.

Sometimes when I read things that Kate and Gerry say or have said I get the impression that they have no concept of parenthood at all; that all their thoughts, feelings and emotions are somehow gained second-hand.

I also think it's telling that it was Russell who was privy to this little tête-à-tête.

tigger wrote:

nomendelta wrote:I concur - a wonderful post.

What's SO strange about this is that parents tend to go through a denial when a child goes missing - the possibility of being snatched, let alone being snatched by a paedophile, is something it takes a long time to come to terms with. Yet the McCanns screamed "abduction" from the rooftop from the offset.

--  and 'paedophile  gang'  around 11.00 pm (McKenzie's statement) Overheard Gerry on the phone.

One hour after she'd been discovered missing.

nglfi wrote:Although I don't have children myself, my partner is a police officer (he believes the same as me about the McCanns entirely, as do all of his colleagues!), and he says when a child goes missing, the most difficult task initially is to find the mother. In almost all circumstances, the mother calls the police in a panic, says her baby has gone missing, but leaves no further details as to where she is or who she is. They then have a hard time tracking her down as she goes into survival mode for her little one, going just about everywhere she can think to look for them. Sounds about a million miles away from sitting on the bed resignedly, letting others search!

PdL - What a place. Why does anyone holiday there?
PdL - where families take it in turn to vomit each night, dog packs pursue and bite joggers, guests fall off catamarans, damage tendons playing tennis, have shaving accidents and stagger around apartments bleeding, domestic appliances need repair, shutters jam, baby monitors won't function at restaurants, travel cots can't be assembled.. sounds like THE VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED.

It's populated by black heroin addicts, people who rob apartments, gypsies who steal scrap and wood, scruffy moustachioed lurers of children, bogus charity collectors, suspicious street musicians, men lurking near phone booths, glasses man lurking in stairwells, blond men suspiciously lurking outside apartments, soothing couples entering apartments without permission, mysterious gangs of cleaners, men taking photographs of children on beaches... And to top it all, you have to queue for a table booking.

j.rob wrote:The fact that the McCann parents brought up this possibility of paedophilia as a motive for abduction at such an early stage is more than strange, in my opinion. In her book Madeleine, Kate also records a bizarre conversation with another holiday-maker on the day of Madeleine's alleged abduction. 

Kate had had a tennis lesson and afterwards: 'I hung around on the grassy play are, watching Gerry on the court and chatting to Russell, who I'd found there. Another guest appeared with a video camera to record his three-year-old daughter playing tennis. He looked a little embarrassed and laughingly remarked to us that filming in this way made him feel like a dirty old man.'

I'm sorry but, IF true (and if it is I presume the man was questioned as a possible suspect) that is a very odd thing to say.

But that's not all: 'It led to a conversation between the three of us about paedophiles.'

Like so much in Kate's book, once you start to dissect what she has chosen to put in, you start to wonder WHY she has included it and then the wider ramifications. 

Firstly, why on earth would you think that recording a mini-tennis session that your three year old daughter was taking part in would make you feel like a dirty old man? It is an inappropriate reaction to what one hopes would be an entirely innocent activity. But Kate and Russell apparently find nothing odd in that comment. On the contrary, it lead to a conversation on the subject of paedophiles. 

 While I could sort of understand the dirty old man comment if it was used in the context of a middle-aged father recording his teenage daughter and her buxom friends (in other words in a Benny Hill type of way). The sub-text being: 'Goodness - whatever happened to that shy little girl and her gangly friends or something.' You could begin to wrap your head around that kind of comment in a different context. 

But in the context of a THREE year old? Totally weird. 

I also think it is weird that these parents, hanging around on the grassy play area, watching a three year old playing tennis, then started talking about paedophiles. I spent a fair amount of time supervising or watching my children at playgrounds or taking part in other activities and not once, ever, did I get into a conversation about paedophiles. 

How inappropriate. 

So - having introduced the topic of paedophilia, on page 64, where does this conversation go?

Kate writes:  'I remember Russell talking about how everything had got a bit out of hand, that these days people were so untrusting you hardly dared speak to children you didn't know. What he was effectively saying was that the world had become paranoid......we agreed that it was a shame things had come to this, especially for the children. It would be some days before Russell and I were able to acknowledge to each other the horrible irony of this conversation.'

This short passage is quite illuminating. Kate introduces the subject of paedophila by writing about a remark made, apparently, by another holiday maker in relation to his three year old daughter. This is the entree for her friend Russell to talk about 'how everything had got a bit out of hand.' The consensus being that the world had become paranoid and 'it was a shame things had come to this, especially for the children.'

I must admit my brain is somersaulting over this short passage, as indeed it does over a great many other things that Kate has written, done or said (not to mention Gerry). The only logical conclusion for this passage appearing in the book must be that Kate wanted to introduce the subject of paedophilia. Why? Well, despite it 'being a shame' that the world was paranoid, it must be that she wanted to introduce the idea of abduction at the hands of a paedophile. This is where my brain is doing somersaults. On the one hand, the McCanns believe 'we were in an apparently safe, child-friendly holiday complex full of families just like ours'.  A place that was so safe that 'I can say, hand on heart, that it never once crossed my mind that this might not be a safe option.'

Only some days later, Kate writes, is she able to acknowledge the 'horrible irony' of the paedophile conversation. On the following page she records how 'some images are etched for all time on my brain.' She goes on to record how she was watching Madeleine at lunchtime on the day of her abduction in her new outfit: 'I was following her with my eyes., admiring her. I wonder now, the nausea rising in my throat, if someone else was doing the same.'

So - on the one hand we have the McCanns believing they are in this wonderful paradise full of happy families 'just like ours'. A place so cozy and safe that it is fine to leave your children alone sleeping in the apartment and checking on them every now and then.

Okay, fair enough. Even if a social worker might not agree.

But how on earth does this reconcile with: 'I started screaming. Madeleine's gone! Someone has taken her!'........By now I was hysterical. She's gone!' (page 72).  This reaction from Kate was within minutes of finding that Madeleine was not in the apartment.

How can your brain switch from the belief that you are in a happy, smiley, wonderful safe place to the belief that a stranger has entered your apartment and stolen your child. That's bad enough. But not just any old stranger - a paedophile, no less. At an early stage, the parents introduced the idea that the abduction might be into a paedophile ring. 

'I asked Gerry apprehensively if he'd had any really horrible thoughts or visions of Madeleine. He nodded. Haltingly, I told him about the awful pictures that scrolled through my head of her body, her perfect little genitals torn apart.' (Page 129)

It is such a dramatic shift to go from tucking up your children in bed, believing they would be safe and sound and all the paranoia about paedophile abductions is over the top to - discovering your child is not in the apartment and immediately becoming hysterical because you are convinced that she has been abducted by a paedophile.

The poor Portugese police. No wonder they were so unimpressed with the McCanns and the ensuing McCircus. The whole thing has been a complete farce. And, unfortunately, there is little Madeleine 'at the bottom of it all'. So many people have lined their pockets off the fate of this innocent child it really is an outrage.

And unfortunately, there does appear to be more than a whiff of paedophilia attached to this case. But the question is, where is the smell coming from? When you throw into the pot the Gaspar statements, Ray Wyre who was obsessed with Satanic Ritual Abuse (heavily involved in the Nottingham and Wales SRA fiascos) and declared: 'the McCanns are totally innocent', Jim Gamble of CEOP, (Robert Murat perhaps). Have I missed anyone out?

nglfi wrote:Although I don't have children myself, my partner is a police officer (he believes the same as me about the McCanns entirely, as do all of his colleagues!), and he says when a child goes missing, the most difficult task initially is to find the mother. In almost all circumstances, the mother calls the police in a panic, says her baby has gone missing, but leaves no further details as to where she is or who she is. They then have a hard time tracking her down as she goes into survival mode for her little one, going just about everywhere she can think to look for them. Sounds about a million miles away from sitting on the bed resignedly, letting others search!

PeterMac wrote:This was the original, which can now be updated.

PdL - What a place. Why does anyone holiday there?
PdL - where families take it in turn to vomit each night, dog packs pursue and bite joggers, guests fall off catamarans, damage tendons playing tennis, have shaving accidents and stagger around apartments bleeding, domestic appliances need repair, shutters jam, baby monitors won't function at restaurants, travel cots can't be assembled.. sounds like THE VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED.

It's populated by black heroin addicts, people who rob apartments, gypsies who steal scrap and wood, scruffy moustachioed lurers of children, bogus charity collectors, suspicious street musicians, men lurking near phone booths, glasses man lurking in stairwells, blond men suspiciously lurking outside apartments, soothing couples entering apartments without permission, mysterious gangs of cleaners, men taking photographs of children on beaches... And to top it all, you have to queue for a table booking.

To which we may now add - ( according to Clarence Mitchell )
Even the company which organises your holiday employs ex- or putative burglars and paedo****s who enter your apartment and loot it of valuables or spare children.
The bus driver who takes you from the airport to the Ocean Club is making notes.
And Gypsy encampments at 15 minutes, 40 minutes and 80 minutes drive are alerted automatically every time a new family arrives.