UK paedophile probed over Madeleine

[loopylou6]

here
thoughts?

Wannabe - I agree that the paid employees who are 'searching' would not be swayed by Amaral's book, and that the public are not searching, but.. the public are the ones who will cough up for the Fund, which they will not do if they are convinced that M is dead .
I have just looked at the English voce-over of Amaral's documentary on YouTube here

• very interesting and thought provoking as it is calm, logical and systematic and makes no assumptions, but it does appear from timing s and lack of evidence that an abduction simply could not have taken place.

Of course they are not obliged to take a lie detective test , to satisfy me or anybody else.But it would be a very obvious thing to do if they wanted to prove they are telling the whole truth. The more people believe them ,surely the better it would be for the 'find Madeleine' effort .
The problem I think with this case is that it has become political. If they were hpotetically found to be involved in her disappearance there would be a lot of very influential people with egg on their face ,Gordon Brown ,Th Pope ,Richard Branson ,newspaper editors to name a few.

that word should have been hypothetically .DOH !!

Why not ask for the UK and Portugal police forces to re open the investigation and then the fund won't be needed.Not sure how many funds there are for missing children.Don't see the point in it but they must have their reasons.They did pay that first team of investigators a lot of money though considering they were experts in fraud and had no record in missing persons.it is all a bit of a muddle

Yes how horribly 'tasteless' trying to raise money to find your abducted 6 year old daughter. I imagine the McCanns will be mortified when they realise they have been 'tasteless'.

But then again maybe they have more important things on their minds.

I very much doubt the McCs will be mortified or remotely bothered by being branded tasteless, just as long as people are prepared to keep coughing for the Fund.

And why should they be?

In their shoes I wouldn't give a damn about what anybody thought - I would just want my child back.

I think that to ask for money from the public when you earn well above the national average, and then use some of that money to pay your mortgage is pretty tasteless.

Convicted paedophiles can't sue for libel if people discuss them in relation to paedophilia.

Libel depends on someone lowering you in the estimation of society, from your original standing. If you are a convicted paedophile, you have no good reputation to lose.

You also have no Fund to fight the action.

Wouldn't matter if you habitually rolled around in your own cash laughing, you still couldn't do it

'They could take lie detector tests but since lie detector tests aren't 100% reliable, it wouldn't be an accurate assessment of their guilt or innocence.'

But it would be much,much less likely to get false readings for both of them

Katiestar and Mrsguy just watched that documentary...very interesting.

KatieS - it is on record that Mrs McC admitted to the police that in refusing to answer 39 or their 40 questions she was hindering the search for her daughter. So why would she trouble herself to take a lie-detector test if that is her attitude?

The most convincing thing for me was the dogs.People have their own agendas ,same may lie ,others may not ,you really can't tell.But animals don't have an axe to grind.The dogs reacted to cadaver and blood smells behind the sofa (I think I am right in saying that blood was later proved to be M 's) and to cadaver scent in the parents wardrobe and also on cuddlecat.They didn't react at all to any of teh other Tapas 9's appartments.It isn't apparently admissive in copurt , but I can't see why dogs would lie ?

There are many things in the documentary, including the dog bit, which made me feel very suspicious towards the family, however it may have been presented from a skewed point of view also.

Nobody really knows what happened...that's the worst thing, apart from the fact that a small child is gone.

I think that hiring private investigators is one thing, Ben Needham's parents did the same iirc except they ran out of money and had to give up and there was no fund to help them, even though it was highly believed that Ben needham was abducted for the illegal adoption trade).

But publishing leads as credible etc is just beyond all comprehension.

The thing that always made me think was the insistance that Madeleine was alive, and the insistance that she had definitely been abducted, even though no evidence to that effect was ever found.

I know what you mean Katiestar, I have always had an uncomfortable feeling about the whole thing. I don't want to rehash it all here, it's been done to death. But just little details, such as the amount the group admitted to drinking that night (total piffle) we could easily get through double the amount they said (not sure but I think they said about 1/2 a bottle each) during a meal out on holiday.

I am not sure that the friends have covered for the McCanns as such, perhaps they do believe them, but it's all so holey. I think a tragic accident occured and looking at that doco I wonder if it happened much earlier in the evening. Amaral said that the bed appeared not to have been slept in, but cuddle cat was in there. Maybe she drowned in the bath...who knows I am making it up as I go along.

The other perspective is that Amaral has to cover his back, and perhaps that's his motivation to write the book and make the film.

And it's very hard to know what to think or believe.

I agree about the dogs though, hard not to trust their instincts.

I thought I hadn't dreamed about them being suspects, but those saying they were not had me confused for a moment.

The Times September 8 2007

Looking back though at the Ben Needham case, perhaps as I was a child myself so my own perspective is skewed, the illegal adoption trade was given as a reason. Perhaps at that time peadophiles weren't so much in the media, and those types of accusations weren't flung about or considered. Also the media wasn't the same then as it is now. I could be totally wrong on all of those points though.

Stewie - "I don't know if they are legal in the Portugal, but what would the test show if they do test 'guilty': that they killed Madeleine? Or they feel guilty for leaving her alone in the house? or feel guilty for Madeleine possibly being dead because they left her alone in the house?" I agree with you there.

I personally think that the McCann's were stupid and naive to leave their children alone in that apartment, but my god they've certainly paid for it. I can honestly say that I would never have done that, but they did and will live with that forever.

However, when I see them in the village at the shops or Gerry cycling home from work, I like to think I have more compassion than alot of people seem to. It's different when you live close to all of this. I think most people, if face to face with the McCann's wouldn't say these things, but it's ok to have a pop at them from the comfort of our own homes.

A little girl is still missing.

Please can I just urge everyone whatever they may think not to make any accusations that might lead to this thread being pulled...
I imagine that all of us on MN are parents, most will have had children that have been 3, and half of will have those adorable little girls (ie as opposed to being adorable little boys ), and so all can imagine how they would feel if that child disappeared. BUT this does not mean that we lose all ability for logical or rational thinking, and that it reasonabale to expect to have real evidence before believing in an abduction, as abduction is so incredibly rare.
There is nothing I would like more than to hear that MM was taken by a lonely but kind person who wanted a child and has had a lovely life and will return to her family, and all livel happily ever after, but that is pure fantasy, and sadly the grim reality is that she is dead