They've taken her! They've taken her!
Said to be the first words spoken by Kate McCann at approximately 22:00H on the night of 3rd May 2007, when she discovered her beloved daughter Madeleine was missing from her bed, where she was left only two or three hours earlier. Panic! Who can say with any certainty how they would behave under similar circumstances so those few spoken words will be put aside for the moment, particularly as it's not known exactly what she did say.
A parents worst nightmare, the unthinkable instantly comes to mind, thoughts of strangers lurking in the shadows, thoughts of abduction .... thoughts of paedophilia? You wouldn't think so would you - not without good reason and on the surface there was no good reason to immediately presume abduction by lurking paedophile. The most logical thought would be, even in a panic situation, that the child had wandered off into the night, perhaps looking for her missing parents. The parents in this case did after all claim to have left the rear patio doors unlocked, to facilitate checks by themselves and their friends - and then what of the open window, the forced shutter, the billowing curtain?
Not making much sense so far is it?
Before even getting off the ground red flags are beginning to show.
Well, as time passes, the tales of the unexpected don't improve, they become more involved and confusing and the cracks start to appear. The conflicting testimonies, the dubious sequence of events as spoken by the McCanns and their group of friends just get more and more bizarre, rather than simplifying what would appear to be a simple scenario - the alleged disappearance of a three year old child, last seen tucked-up in bed. At that early stage, why would thoughts immediately turn to abduction by lurking paedophile?
Setting the scene maybe?
Whatever the reason, the likelihood of a little child being snatched from her bed by a stranger, in an unfamiliar environment, is remote in the extreme. Yet that is what the McCanns and their group of friends wanted the Portuguese police and the world at large to believe - even without a single element of evidence to support it.
So the story begins..
Within hours, tales of abduction were circulated across the globe and it all started on the night of 3rd/4th May, by the missing child's parents - Gerry and Kate McCann. They frantically spent the night, not physically searching for their daughter but telephoning family and friends back in the UK with tales of open windows and forced shutters, a tale swiftly negated by the Portuguese police following preliminary forensic examination within hours of the reported disappearance. Still to this day Kate McCann can be seen and heard telling tales about open windows, shutters and swooshing curtains when sat before the chat show host of the day - enough to raise the eyebrows of any police investigator in the civilized world.
Then and there began the complete Mystery of Madeleine McCann's disappearance. The darkest thoughts possible in the mind of a decent parent, that their precious three year old daughter had been snatched from her bed in the night and was most likely in the hands of a paedophile predator, suffering mental and physical torture and in a probability murdered. Really doesn't bear thinking about does it? Yet here we have two reportedly respectable parents, quite content to think the worst possible scenario and to encourage the official investigation and public at large to think likewise.
Before the days of political correctness, the do-gooders, those horribly official persons who think they know better than you how to raise your own children - what parent hasn't laughingly told their little'ns that if they're naughty the bogeyman will come and get them.
The bogeyman, enough to instill fear in the minds of any innocent child, at least until the parents tuck them up in bed for the night and all thoughts of evil are banished leaving them to sleep blissfully knowing they are loved and protected by mummy and daddy. Just as it should be.
Raising children is no easy task, we bungle along day by day doing our best hoping that we're doing it right. Always forgetting the only important things for childhood are love, care, nourishment and protection - the things that we do instinctively. You don't need lessons to know the basics of parenthood. What we all do need however, is the right to raise our children as our own - not vicariously or by proxy but by ourselves, as instinct guides us.
Do good honest upright parents need, or want, some irresponsible poor examples of parenting disrupting their equilibrium and influencing their instinctive parenting skills? Do responsible parents want their own precious children frightened witless by tales of night prowlers, child abductors, visiting strangers haunting their innocent childlike slumbers? Children traumatized by tales that could haunt them for the rest of their innocent years, until they have a better understanding of the realities of life?
By then, the damage done, it could be too late.
Children need to feel safe, need to know they are safe, when left alone at night to sleep. Whether the parents are next door, downstairs or in the garden the basic need is to know they are safe and only the parent can provide that security.
So here we have an alternative situation created by the manipulative duo Gerry and Kate McCann, since their own child mysteriously disappeared late April/early May 2007. Their campaign to promote the abduction by paedophile scenario, for which there is not a scrap of evidence, they have spread abroad tales of night prowlers, intruders, child snatchers, potbellied smelly masked ghouls.
Enough to scare the parents and their families - how would it affect an innocent child's mind. The night terrors created by the McCanns, in order to promote their tales of abduction, do not disappear like the memory of their daughter. They are being passed down the generations creating fear of what might happen when you leave your child tucked up in bed at night. Stories that in the real world, chances probably equate to one in a million.
It could of course be reasonably argued that it isn't the McCanns themselves who have been spreading tales of night prowlers and child molesters but the UK's national press, it could also be reasonably argued that the McCanns planted the seed themselves on the night of 3rd/4th May 2007, the seed that only needed a little time to germinate and flourish into full bloom - in this case a matter of hours. So here we are today, still seeing and hearing the same worn our tales of abduction by paedophile, strangers lurking in the night and a swamp of child molesters on the loose, watching and waiting for an opportunity to abduct.
So it continues .... even twelve years down the line, this case is in it's infancy by comparison with many other unsolved crimes. Crimes that have been archived due to insufficient evidence to lead to a prosecution and more seriously, crimes that have been covered-up by the UK establishment for some reason. The disappearance of Madeleine McCann would appear to fall into both categories.
There you have it, Gerry and Kate McCann's legacy to their missing three year old child.
Time to end this charade.