Police incompetence or lazy racism?
Among the less edifying aspects of the investigation into the disappearance of Madeline McCann have been the accusations and suggestions that have been thrown in the direction of the Portuguese police that if a British police force had been in charge of the case then whoever was responsible for the girl's vanishing act would be locked up by now. That's the British police. You know the ones who locked up the Guildford Four, Birmingham Six, Maguire Seven, chased the wrong man in the Rachel Nickel case for a decade and are now looking like a right bunch of Inspector Clouseau's in the Jill Dando murder case.
My choice of Clouseau is deliberate. Okay so he may be a fictional character but our collective impression of foreign policeman, in particular detectives, is based upon the likes of Maigret, Poirot and Clouseau. The reason nobody has been charged with either the disappearance or murder of the girl from Leicestershire is because the case has been handled wrongly from the start, or so the theory goes, no leads, no DNA, no evidence of abduction or murder, if only Inspector Knacker of the yard had been in charge it would be over by now - either way.
Part of the reason behind the demand for a 'result' in Britain is our increasing obsession with having everything now. The internet and 24/7 news channels are vessels to be filled with the latest gossip, as a public we are like a pack of dogs chewing away at any scrap the media throws in our direction. We can't handle the idea that Portuguese secrecy laws are just that, it's very difficult to grasp that concept when you live in a society whose media is obsessed by non-news and celebrity to such a degree that the investigation of a British subject whilst overseas on holiday becomes a media circus where all that happens is that the media film each other filming each other.
The Find Madeline Fund is currently paying a Spanish detective agency £2,000 a day and they haven't found her. The Leicestershire police have been helping the local police in Praia da Luz to find the missing four year-old and they haven't found her. Perhaps they should ask the disbanded West Mercia police force to help, after all they, like the Mounties, always got their man and you get the feeling that that, rather than getting the right man (or woman), is the stage that the British media are hurtling towards on this day, seven months after Madeline McCann was last seen alive.
3 comments:
lazy 'racism' in answer to your question...they're 'foreigners' after all!
What a palaver - I have eschewed all the threads and hoo-hah on the Madeleine case...I also slagged off Augustus and most of the others on Gavin's MB for their morbid fascination and guessing games re what happened although what they were doing was no different to the BBC MB and all the UK media btw!...
...I did post a message or two on the first thread just after it happened...saying she was either dead already or they'd never see her again (gave an example of an incident in Venezuela department store about 15 years ago) where a child went missing and a VERY on-the-ball store manager sounded the alarm and closed down the security blinds...they never caught those responsible - whether they scarpered before or when the alarm went who knows...or bluffed their way at the exits with everyone else... but the child was found in a ladies loo: drugged (docile), hair cut short and a different colour, changed clothes etc...spooky and nauseous
Paul, I haven't stored your email address in my book, would you email me please? taxwizzard AT gmail DOT com.
Thanks
I always thought Colin Stagg was innocent : a documentary shown a couple of years ago really showed the Mets in a bad light. I wonder what happened to the psychologist who did the erroneous profiling.
As for Barry George, well. I once heard a solicitor say on the radio that the only evidence against him was the fact that he was the local nutter. The retrial will be interesting.
Is it me or is it that the Mets seem to be a particularly bad Police force?
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