List of Previous Titles

Sunday, September 16, 2007

MISSING MADDIE!








So much has been written about the missing child, Madeline McCann, I cannot resist adding my own two cents. Everyone has an opinion.

Firstly, I highlight the conduct of the Press. I bought the Daily Mail because of the blaring headline :” Maddie killed by Sleeping Tablets.” Well, that is how newspapers are sold. They added in much smaller print, “a new extraordinary claim.” The deliberate impression given to passing members of the public is that they are announcing fact, when it was really only theory. So yes, I was suckered into buying the paper.

The media has been so supportive of the family, but now they seem to be rounding upon them and ready to believe that they have harmed their own child. This is the classic rush by the herd to judgement.

The facts as we know them are as follows: (a) The McCanns´ as a family of five, left their home in England and went to Portugal on holiday to take up temporary residence in a holiday flat.

(b) The parents met with friends in a restaurant a little way down the road from their apartment on the fateful night in question.

© They left their children sleeping alone without the benefit of a babysitter.

Here, the question arises did they leave two or three of their children. No member of the public, or, apparently the police actually have proof of the answer to this question.

(d) During this evening the mother declared that Maddie was missing.


(e) The family that went out as five have returned to the home in England as four.


Those are the only facts in the public domain. All else is speculation and rumour, and nobody actually knows anything.

I have had a problem with this entire case from the very beginning, because I do not believe in coincidence. I would like the answer(s) to the following question: Using mathematical probability, I would like to know what are the chances that the family, who left their habitual home in England, where the children spent most of their time, to go on holiday in Portugal, (where presumably they were not so well known), and on the one night that the parents left their children on their own, that a stranger would come and take one of them.

We can be reasonably certain that the police have consulted the odds-makers. It was most probably the opinions from these people that caused the police to take up “discreet observation” of the couple, and that would likely have included specialists in reading body language.

My strongest opinion at this time is regarding something that the parents are quoted as having said: “We thought we were being reliable and responsible.” This is supposed to have been said by two practising physicians in whom members of the public place their faith, and rely on their judgements.

Many, if not most parents of very young children do not go out and leave the children home alone. Many, if not most parents of very young children install a listening monitor in their children’s bedroom while the parents are in the next room. That, in my opinion, is being reliable and responsible!

Well, they do admit to their mis-judgement, and so we move on.

I choose not to rush to judgement. I simply do not know what happened, like everybody else in the world except (as has been suggested) the McCanns’ themselves; or as they say, the person who took Maddie. In the fullness of time this will play itself out.

If the McCann’s harmed their own daughter they will have to live with that. If someone else has harmed her, the McCanns’ will have to live with that.

What could be worse than having your child suddenly go missing in the still of the night? Being brought under suspicion yourself of having caused the disappearance. How bad can this nightmare for the family get? It is far from over, I’m afraid.

The best outcome would be for little Madeline to be found alive and well. I would especially like to see that happen for many reasons, including the look on the faces of all those who have been so quick to say that they know what happened. One of the most important reasons would be that the McCanns’ have been so successful in enlisting the financial ,and other help of so many people in keeping the matter in the public eye. Should it all turn out to be a scam, the next time that someone’s child goes missing members of the public will quite naturally be sceptical, and that would be the most tragic outcome of all.


Meanwhile, I will continue to be vigilant and hopeful.

Copyright © 2007 Eugene Carmichael