Whatever the outcome of this case, I think serious questions need to be asked with regards to the way the media report these stories.
From the very outset, the media have controlled how people feel about this, how the public have been allowed to react to this.
When people dared to suggest that leaving three children unattended to go out to dinner was wrong, the papers were quick to point out that these were educated people. They were ?doctors? after all, something which the papers seem to feel the need to keep telling us, and that they were only 50 yards from the apartment and could see the door, and were checking every 30 minutes, or was it every hour, or was it 100 yards.
And only the abduction theory would suffice. In all the papers Madeleine had been ?snatched from her bed?, despite the fact that the Portuguese police have never actually confirmed that Madeleine was abducted. And once the word paedophile was mentioned the tabloids really went to town. There?s nothing the sun loves to report on more than the presence of paedos, they?re everywhere, paedo rings, snatching children to order, maybe Madeleine had even been targeted before she left the UK, and the paedo pounced when the opportunity arose, during that half hour slot when nobody was watching.
And then came Robert Murat. As soon as the police started searching his villa the media were there. And before long we knew who he was, where he lived, where his wife and child lived and what they looked like, and a detailed history of his life. Oh and the fact that he had a glass eye, this must be relevant after all. But there was one thing missing. Robert Murat hasn?t actually been charged with a crime. But that didn?t seem to stop the papers from ruining his life, and the lives of his ex wife and 4 year old daughter, a daughter who, the media needed to tell us, looked like Madeleine.
And now it seems that Robert Murat Is going to be cleared of any suspicion. So will the media apologise? Unlikely, in fact they?ll probably offer him a massive sum of money for his story, maybe it?ll be a bit of damage limitation for them. Pay him off, as it were, before he takes them to court for ruining his life.
But now the tide has turned. Blood has apparently been found in the apartment where Madeleine was sleeping . ?Madeleine?s blood?, say some of the papers. But how can they know that? When the blood hasn?t actually been annalised yet? So yet again the media have jumped ahead and reported that Madeleine was probably murdered, and now the friends and family are in the frame, have been under survailence for a month in fact.
So what if it isn?t Madeleine?s blood? What will the media report then?
Who knows, but you can bet that whatever it is, the public will lap it up and the previous theory will be forgotten and make way for a new one.
And still Madeleine hasn?t been found, may never be found.