Letters: The Madeleine McCann case (The Independent)

The Independent

Letters: The Madeleine McCann case

Madeleine: leave it be

Saturday, 14 May 2011

Am I alone in being dismayed that Scotland Yard is being drawn into the Madeleine McCann case?

In my view, when British citizens go abroad they have to accept that bad things sometimes happen and should not expect the British authorities, presumably at UK taxpayers' expense, to intervene, except on strictly consular matters.

The overwhelming probability is that we shall never know what happened in this case, and, however distressed the parents may be, matters should be left as they are.

Rodney Taylor


Barton-Le-Clay, Bedfordshire

The article by Christina Patterson, "Kate McCann is in media purgatory" (11 May), has done nobody any good.

To put the matter in perspective, consider if two nurses had been in charge of the three McCann infants, and they had gone off together at the same time to have a meal and a drink.

Would Kate McCann have thought the child had had justice, and the proper steps had been taken to protect such infants from such risk in future, if the nurses' sole punishment had been the remorse over their actions? Of course not. And would Patterson have written a sympathetic article about them, bewailing the way they had been questioned by the police, or reported in the media? Of course not.

Tony Pointon

Portsmouth

No it is like that very old joke: a kid kills both his parents and asks the judge for clemency because he is an orphan.

Their "despair" over what happened to Madeleine, whatever that may be, is in no way in comparison to their culpability in that same event. Whatever happened, happened because they were not there. No punishment is enough for wasting this young life.

lj wrote:EDIT Whatever happened, happened because they were not there.

But that is precisely the point that people are trying to establish. They SAY that IT happened when they were not there, but we only have their uncorroborated word for that. Other scenarios fit the tiny amount of known facts slightly better.

PeterMac wrote:

lj wrote:EDIT Whatever happened, happened because they were not there.

But that is precisely the point that people are trying to establish. They SAY that IT happened when they were not there, but we only have their uncorroborated word for that. Other scenarios fit the tiny amount of known facts slightly better.

Yes! This is precisely it. So far the assumptions/stories have been that this all happened on the night of the 3rd. This leaves many wondering where there was time to do any necessary concealment or even for an abduction to take place. It is also possible that Madeleine was abducted, but at a different time - although I have no idea why this charade now if that were the case.

We have the possibilities (they are possibilities, no matter how distasteful) of abduction, accident, killing, pre-arranged sale/transfer of Madeleine to new guardians on either the 2nd or 3rd May as far as I can make out from the confusion that exists. I still don't think I've seen completely credible reports of where any of the McCanns were at all times of those days and there still remain questions (not proof, just questions) about whether the girl attending the creche on Weds 3rd was Madeleine or a convenient replacement.

Yes, many of those possibilites are far-fetched and this is why I, and I presume many others, are so insistent that the McCanns actually carry out reconstructions and cooperate with the PJ in order to establish once and for all just where the fantasy starts and the reality begins. At present NOTHING should be ruled out (and, as an example of bizarre things that you thought you'd never hear about happening, what about some poor random British woman being beheaded whilst out shopping?) until there is absolute proof that it couldn't have happened.

The truth is we simply don't know if Madeleine was being abused (and her body had to be concealed because of that), drugged, who knows what else. Yes, they are horrible and hopefully purely outrageous theories, but no-one actually knows and until it can be ruled out, it has to be under consideration.

Team McCann seem convinced that we should all simply swallow their official line of "it was an abduction and it happened on the night of the 3rd" as that's what they say... and why would they lie? What do they have to gain? They're poor, innocent folk who were unlucky some nasty paedophile snatched their daughter and we should all feel sorry for them and not question their version of events. Well, I'm sorry, but it's in the human nature to question. If you blindly accept all you're told when there is no evidence to support what you're being told, then you're not just gullible, you're a fool.