We now hear that Operation Grange is to continue and that even more thousands if not millions of pounds will be poured into trying to find Madeleine McCann, a young girl who was "abducted" from a Portuguese holiday resort in May 2007. Abducted is in parenthesis because many people suspected involvement of the parents in the "disappearance". There have been countless theories about what happened and the story is well known and gets brought out around this time each year as her parents seek further donations to keep their "search" fund ( a private limited company) going.
This year is slightly different though because the tide seems to be turning against the McCanns. They have kept a much lower profile on this, the 8th anniversary and also coincidentally, almost what would have been Madeleine's 12th birthday. They "won" a "libel" case against the Portuguese detective who was instrumental in trying to find their daughter. Won, not really, winners don't pay 60% of the costs and it wasn't a libel trial, that is a criminal offence in Portugal and the McCann's couldn't risk exposure of everything in a criminal trial so they got a hollow victory in a civil action, which is going to appeal and then the fireworks might really begin.We shall see.
My main concern about all of this and I have no idea if the parents are involved or not.Everything is circumstantial and the Portuguese police didn't bring the case to court due to lack of evidence. But, why was the British media alerted so quickly, and by whom? Why did top level government officials go to Portugal within 48 hours? Why was the Ambassador openly courting the McCann's so quickly and why, apparently because he questioned the involvement, was he and some of his staff recalled to London so quickly? Why have three Prime Ministers and top newspaper editors been so involved? This was a missing child. Kids go missing every day. Thankfully few don't return. The circus was put in place even before a simple wandering off could have been ruled out. It is this area that leaves me deeply disturbed. Attempts to find out more via Freedom of information requests are met with legal gymnastics to prevent disclosure. Attempts to cast doubt on the veracity of the McCann's version frequently leads to law suits, inadvertently financed from public donations to the private company mentioned above.
There is something decidedly sinister about this whole affair and it looks like even in this time of austerity, money is still to be used to have police traipsing around Portugal yet again....more bobbies on the beat might be a better use of resources.
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