Madeline's parents named as suspects

[ThisYouWillDo]

Just skimmed through this. A few points:

We don't know if Maddie's dead or alive yet. We may have our own gut feelings, but that's all they are.

Maddie's parents clearly have friends in high places. (I believe, but am not positive, that they have a friend or relative who works for a TV company.) They have used their contacts to keep the profile of the case on the front pages. I see nothing wrong in doing that - I'm sure I would do it too. They're being hard-headed about things.

They set up a trust to collect the money that people sent to help find her. Better than just pocketing it. Trust funds can only be used for specific purposes, and to use the money for anything else is a breach of trust. Only the Trustees have power to spend the money, and, as far as I'm aware, the parents are not Trustees.

They also employed someone to go about raising contributions and public awareness, resulting in a trust fund of enormous size. They then used the money to pay for private detectives, and to finance trips to other countries where they thought they might be able to get a lead on Maddie's whereabouts. As Roman Catholics they sought the support of the Church and obtained an audience with the Pope. What's wrong with that?

I just don't buy into the idea that they used the opportunity of their daughter's disappearance to raise money for trips around the world. I'd hate to be travelling anywhere under those circumstances.

I also don't buy into the idea that they killed her and have decided to launch a huge publicity campaign to distract attention from themselves ... something like hiding in plain sight, perhaps. That's such a high-risk strategy. Too risky, in my view. Anyway, as has been said above, the parents are innocent until proven guilty. But being innocent doesn't put them above suspicion. I admit I am equivocal about them. But suspicions have to be based on facts, and the ones we know of aren't sufficient to point the finger of blame. Except in one respect ... the fact that they left their children alone! I think that's highly negligent and I am amazed the parents haven't been charged with neglect in Portugal or UK.

What's even more alarming is that the McCanns were with a group of other doctors/professional people and they had ALL left their children alone in their respective apartments.

If Ms Singlemum had left 3-year old Traci and little baby Brad alone in their council flat in Lewisham while she nipped down to the local for a quick drink and a packet of fags, and the authorities got to hear of it, the kids'd be in a children's home as quick as you like and Ms Singlemum would be facing charges of child neglect. But she doesn't have friends in high places.

TYWD

[gagged_Louise]

Yes it's plain that the McCann's have some friends who were able to help gather attention to the case - they do know one or two people in tv and the media, this was pointed out in a BBC feature not long ago. There's nothing guilty about knowing such people or wanting to use those contacts, but the point where it gets troublesome is that they've used this overlong, intense and well orchestrated media campaign to sell their own ideas of what happened, and to influence and pressurize the work of the police, the crime investigation.

Generally it's a no-no that the person/s who are bringing a case or who suffered damage would be let in on the investigations to guide them, apart from being heard by the police. They're not given the gears to heavily sway how something is treated by the police or prosecutors. The reason is plain: we don't want the police and the law to be driven to become pawns of the personal wishes of people, however angry or hurt they may feel. The law should not be a vendetta game, and if one party is "sitting in" or pressuring the inquest that's where you may land. The inquest going on now in London about the death of princess Diana shows, I think, that there's been heavy lobbying and attempts to influence the judiciary in that case in the ten years gone by, though this time around the court seems determined not to let the people around the case run the proceedings.

By selling the idea that Madeline was abducted - not killed or accidentally dead at Prada de Luz - her parents have been able to strongly discourage the police from looking too closely into the case from the point that the girl could be dead, and police investigations of this kind often do need to focus and concentrate their punch to be effective.
Now if she was abducted, why haven't those guys come out and made a demand for a ransom? The idea that she'd have been taken away by paedophhiles or traffickers is not likely.

The couple created a kind of media wall that made it very uncomfortable to make house searches, to question up close the McCanns and the other families who had lived near them. I haven't followed this in high detail, but it seems plain that almost from the start the parents and the British media presented the Portuguese cops as incompetent, and hinted if these got too close that they were throwing muck at the McCanns. TV and papers from the rest of the world just followed the UK dailies.

Now that's nothing very strange: it's a knee-jerk reaction in most countries that if one "of our own", not a known criminal and not a dope smuggler (exception!) but a countryman is connected to a crime abroad, the domestic media will side with this person and defend him/her against "corrupt cops" and "local thugs" in Greece, Thailand or wherever..But it's unusual that people who are actively "in the case" on one side are influencing that kind of media colouring (or is it more common than we'd like to think?)

After the McCanns returned to England they have started talking of setting up a parallel investigation because, again, the Portuguese cops (assisted by Scotland Yard) are not doing their job properly and are indulging in slandering the McCanns. This is ludicrous, they should understand that now they are actually suspects they shouldn't have anything to do with running the investigation and least of all set up their own search force. I know this is sometimes not how it happens in tv crime fiction, where it's kind of regular that the suspected have to find the evidence themselves to clear their names, but we're not talking McGyver here. I think it's beyond question they knew they were mounting a media offensive almost from the start.

If the parents did kill their girl in a premeditated way and then at once mounted this "Find Madeline!" campaign, they'd come out as very coldblooded, almost psychopathic. It seems more likely to me that her death was an accident and they felt a need to cover it up. Whatever, it's possible that there will never be a conclusive outcome in court. It may be impossible to prove now that the parents or anyone else were cause of her death; the dna traces in that rental car won't get anyone sentenced if it rests just on that piece (the abductors could have used the same car!) When you want to solve a murder, the best chance is to get the vital leads quickly; after just two weeks it may be cold.

I'm really less concerned whether Mrs McCann is a monster or a saint than with how the media have helped exploit the story. As ladygstar and yourself pointed out, if a single black mom in Lewisham had left her kids unguarded when she went to the pub for a few hours, the social services would have taken them from her. Yes, perhaps, but if a robber had got in before and killed or maimed the kids? Then the mom surely would have been lambasted in every newspaper from Aberdeen to Jersey.

[ThisYouWillDo]

I do share your doubts, to some extent at least. But to my mind there's no reason to expect the McCanns to prove their innocence (of a crime we don't even know has been committed: Maddie may yet be alive).

It's also highly perjorative to my way of thinking to designate someone an aguido, or suspect, when there's no defininte crime to suspect them of. And if you say you suspect someone of something, you can expect them to do whatever they can to allay that suspicion.

It's up to the prosecutors to find evidence with which to accuse them, and if they can't, there's no case to answer.

TYWD

[gagged_Louise]

In most countries it's extremely hard to formally get anyone convicted of murder (or manslaughter) if you don't have a corpse to point to; even if you have the corpse but the parts where the killing act "kicked in" are missing (as when a body has been dismembered and spread about) it can be impossible. So the case doesn't go to court: to get someone convicted you want hard forensic evidence. Most courts also like to see a weapon that's supposed to have been used.

Still, I think the police are justified in working on the assumption that the parents may have been involved in their daughter's death/disappearance. So many murders are committed by friends, family or next-of-kin, and the longer she's gone withoiut anything really to support the idea that she's been abducted, the more it becomes viable to look for other paths. Naming someone as a suspect is a formal thing of course, something you don't do unless you have some kind of idea of what happened and some "soft evidence" but the case doesn't have to be complete and watertight at the moment when they are named. Anyone will see that the parents are not being named as guilty at this point, before anything has even gone to court, and if it does go to court, it's a totally safe bet there will be several rounds.

No one has to look upon the couple as "the definite killers" but the trouble is that the media, when writing about crimes, scandals and suspect crimes will often rely so heavily on the police and the prosecutors or - in this case - on somebody who has been a part of the story all along. No one can deny the media to write about what they get, but you'd hope they could at least evaluate what they wrote after a while and take a hard look: is this an interesting story? are we doing a good job here? is anything even happening here?

In the two months or so before the police singled out the parents as suspects, almost nothing happened except for stuff that the McCanns and the media generated by themselves: Beckham, the visit to the Pope, a number of claimed "sightings of Madeline" and a lot of interviews. The story snowballed, but nothing was happening. I really think it's unsound reporting, and honestly I dislike it for the same reason that I'm not very fond of excessive conspiracy writing about big disasters: it lives off a boil of sensationalized feelings.

[ThisYouWillDo]

In the UK, and, I suspect, in many other places, a "suspect" is a simple description of a person who could be implicated in a crime and who has not been "cleared". Anyone can be a suspect. It is relatively unimportant that you are considered a suspect until you are charged with an offence and your legal rights are unaffected by whether the police regard you as a suspect or not.

In Portugal, it appears that, if the police designate you as an aguido, your legal rights do change. You are subject to certain restrictions, and you are entitled to build a defence to possible charges, which (I understand) you are not allowed to do if you are not an aguido. Presumably, to do so would be seen as obstructive in some way. If "aguido" has a particular status in the criminal law, then surely a person may only be designated such under specific circumstances. What are those circumstances and how are they met in this case?

The McCanns have been the subject of blunt criticism and suggestions of the most serious kind of crime you can commit, all over the world. They need to be able to answer those accusations, if they can; and outside Portugal, they are free to do so.

TYWD

[gagged_Louise]

The McCanns have been the subject of blunt criticism and suggestions of the most serious kind of crime you can commit, all over the world. They need to be able to answer those accusations, if they can; and outside Portugal, they are free to do so.

TYWD

Of course they should have that freedom to plead for themselves, and it seems to me they still have it. The trouble begins when a part in the case tries decisively, more or less openly, to guide the work of the police, make them go in one direction and keep out of other areas. There has to be a clear boundary between publicity/interviews and journalism on one hand and the police work on the other, and because the news is getting very upfront with persons - everything is personalized - some interviews and scoops really spell a kind of campaign writing, attempts to wrestle for control over what the police are doing.

Most of what's been written about this in the UK, at least before the couple were named as aguidos and returned home, has been following the view that Madeline's been abducted and has been very favourable to the parents, isn't that true? Outside of the UK and Portugal, I think almost all coverage up to that moment was from their point of view, and much of what's been around in newspapers in Sweden is simple rewrite of The Sun and News Of the World, two papers that are not known for doing careful and unbiased research into a story.

[Moonraker]

ThisYouWillDo

I read in Portugal officially naming a person as suspect gives the police additional questioning powers. This may not mean the police suspect the person of commiting the crime, it may simply mean they think the person is withholding information. The article I read suggested the police had reason to think the parents were not being helpful and needed those additional powers in order to try to get the information they wanted.

I would imagine ruling out family and those close to the victim is a step 1 in police procedure given the high percentage of case where the perp knows the victim. People may be reading too much into the naming of the parents as suspects.

This case reminds me very much of the JonBenet case. Unusual circumstances, professional parents, police unsatisfied with the parents cooperation, use of media etc.

[ThisYouWillDo]

An aguido also has rights that another person does not have. This means that the stakes have been raised. An aguido is closer to being charged than any other person involved in the crime. And the consequences of being named an aguido are significant too, because the designation is made publicly. Police should not take this step lightly.

I accept that close family members are the first to be suspected, but they are still entitled to defend themselves.

Turning to the JonBenet case, her parents also came under strong suspicion. But no-one could prove they were guilty of her death, despite the many and varied theories that were dreamt up. I could dream one up right now implicating Kate McCann as JonBenet's killer, if I liked, and I could offer a suggestion that maybe John Ramsay was responsible for Maddie's disappearance too: why should the McCann's have a beautiful daughter if he couldn't .... or something like that. Totally preposterous, of course, and once in the public domain, highly perjorative.

All the material evidence in the JonBenet case indicated that someone else was the killer, not the parents at all. Only malicious newspapers and gossip-mongers chose to point the finger of blame at the mother and father. Let's not see the same thing happen again. If the McCanns have questions to answer, let them do so. But don't make up the answers for them.

If the police can't say they did it, nor can anyone else.

TYWD

[Thorne]

All the material evidence in the JonBenet case indicated that someone else was the killer, not the parents at all. Only malicious newspapers and gossip-mongers chose to point the finger of blame at the mother and father. Let's not see the same thing happen again. If the McCanns have questions to answer, let them do so. But don't make up the answers for them.

Unfortunately, the police and/or prosecutors were so focused on the Ramsey's that they apparently disregarded (and possibly suppressed) any evidence which didn't seem to point to them. And the news media stepped right into line with the police, at least at first, all but convicting the Ramsey's of the crime without any corroborating evidence.

I haven't paid all that close attention to the McCann case, but it's my understanding that the Portuguese police are doing much the same, focusing on the parents to the exclusion of any other evidence. If this is so then you certainly can't blame the parents for getting their message out into the open, forcing the police to look elsewhere.

[gagged_Louise]

Well, I have not been following all the twists of the Madeline McCann case in minute detail, certainly not from the start, but I think Moonraker is right in saying the police seem to have felt the parents were uncooperative - not offering tbe kind of assistance that people would most often give when they are living the shock that their child (or a parent) has disappeared. The business about that toy animal, for instance, which the police would have liked to see and examine at once: refused (I don't recall if it was before or after, that the police search dogs had spotted "smell of death" on this cuddle pet, but the McCanns were clearly not keen on handing it over to them for a brief spell)
These parents preferred, after the first two or three days, to grind their axes through the media, were followed by reporters everywhere they went, and held press conferences as if the police didn't exist (everyone knows it can be vital not to toss about facts of who did what or about the scene of the crime before you have someone charged in court - for one thing you want to be able to separate out the crackpots who turn up at the police's door in sensational cases like this, or write letters, saying I did it! by probing them about some things only the police, the real perpetrators and the injured family would know...) The local police force at Prada de Luz is obviously a small one, but they soon got assistance from police squads higher up.

TYWD, I plainly don't think the idea that the family were spied out by a bunch of paedophiles or other abductors is a credible one - why strike in this tourist town when you can no doubt get kids much safer in the countryside or just by importing them from Eastern Europe? Paedophiles don't much care about that it should be a fair English kid, but the media do. - Even car traffic seems to be rare which would make the crucial step of getting away from the place with a child who doesn't know you at all a very exposed and risky one. And if it was a standard kidnapping, why hasn't anyone turned up and demanded ransom money?

You may surmise that Mr. Ramsey or any John Blow abducted the girl, but the police have to be allowed to make a useful investigation, gather up technical traces and information and to single out, over time, who they think could be likely suspects - and try gaian if it proves aded end.

None of us seem to know just what is the legal import of "aguidos" but I think Moonraker could be right that it doesn't by default mean "prime suspects for being involved in the crime", but could also be a way of giving both police and the aguidos new powers of formal investigation/knowledge.

[ThisYouWillDo]

Louise

I have no answer to offer about the toy animal. Let the McCanns tell us why they refused to allow it to be examined. I carry no brief for the McCann family: if they are guilty then I want them convicted as much as anyone. But not convicted on the basis of a witch-hunt. Nor on the basis that, if the police cannot find anyone else, then it must have been them. I want them convicted after rigorous examination of the evidence by a properly constituted court.

Nor do I know if Maddie was kidnapped by a gang of paedophiles after the family had been spied on for a while. However, ALL the parents in that group do appear to have been amazingly lax in the way they left the children alone in the evenings, so anyone who was spying would have soon spotted an easy opportunity. And Maddie was probably the prettiest child there. But the get-away shouldn't have been a problem: a quiet holiday village in the evening. There's not likely to have been too much traffic around at all.

I have no idea why they didn't demand a ransom. Maybe they've already sold her on. Maybe she's dead. No-one but them knows.

The local police force might be the Portugese equivalent of country yokels, but they are professionals. They also have all the resources of the Portugese authorities and they called upon the assistance of the Leicestershire Constabulary - the UK police force where the McCanns live. They would have known if the McCanns were doing something they shouldn't do under Portugese law by creating the publicity, and they would have told them to stop. But they didn't. If the police don't object, why should anyone else?

You have said the police have to be allowed to complete their investigation, and I agree absolutely. But until they prefer charges against Kate and/or Gerry McCann, or against someone else, we should not assume it was the McCanns by default.

As for "aguido status", Moonraker said he believed it gave the police extra powers, and it certainly does. He did not say it gave the suspect rights too, I said that. An aguido is entitled under the law to know precisely what it is he is suspected of, and to seek legal counsel in order to mount a defence. He is also entitled not to answer questions (whereas failure to do so before becoming an aguido would be seen as non-cooperation and suspicious in itself).

TYWD

[Moonraker]

Given the police were less than satisfied with the cooperation from the parents it seems only natural to me its standard procedure to look closer at people suspected of lieing or witholding information.

Assuming it's not the parents, the detective agency may be close in thinking an employee tipped somebody off. I can't quite see that though because of the narrow time window, but then again maybe not so narrow if the parents had established a routine. My money goes on an employee either as accomplice or killer.