India Knight
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From The Sunday Times
September 16, 2007
Madeleine McCann: You are all guilty
The public is to blame for the heartless abuse being heaped on Kate McCann. The internet has blurred the lines of news and hearsay and the result is trial by global gossip
What do you think? Post your comments in the reader feedback section at the bottom of this article
Do you find yourself strangely drawn to articles about the McCanns? I do. It’s not edifying: most of us are uncomfortably aware that the slender line where personal tragedy becomes popular entertainment was crossed some time ago. But, like every other person in the country, the story is permanently at the back of my mind.
I want to stop reading, listening, watching, Googling, amateur sleuthing; I nauseate myself with my own prurience. My appetite for commentary – which is all that’s left, in the absence of hard facts – has been sated many times over. But I can’t stop.
Did they do it? They couldn’t have. And yet . . . And if they did do it, do they have superhuman powers, such as invisibility and Oscar-worthy acting skills? And if they didn’t, and are innocent and probably bereaved, what in God’s name have we done to them?
By that “we”, I don’t for once mean the (British) press, which seems to me, despite its inevitable mawkish descents into sentimentality, to have acted pretty responsibly. The press has urged caution, expressed compassion and been reluctant to judge the McCanns, if not the apparently sham-bolic Portuguese police.
No, by “we”, I mean the public. Forget that old chestnut “I blame the media”: now that everyone has an opinion and an embarrassment of outlets in which to express it, “I blame the public” is going to become the refrain of the coming decades. There is no shortage of online places where people may freely and anonymously air their opinions, even if their opinions are vile or demented or both; and there are millions of these newly voluble people. They have made it all right to say unspeakable things, to air the most shameful thoughts, always to think the worst, and never to give anyone a chance.
With the McCann story, this has, for the first time, resulted in a complete blurring of the boundaries between news and gossip. Sky News lists Madeleine McCann as a “category” on its interactive content screen: news, business, sport, Madeleine.
We have been here before with appalling crimes that grip the nation – we may have discussed, say, the James Bulger case among ourselves, watched the news and read the headlines, but then the news was on twice a day, the headlines came only in the morning, and the internet barely existed.
Now we have streaming information, an unstoppable torrent of truth, fiction, theory and gossip that is accessible 24 hours a day. The result is that, incredible as it may sound, there is, online (and the real world is catching up quickly), little difference in the tone of the remarks about Britney Spears’s failed comeback, and the comments made about Kate McCann, despite the fact that one is a pop star and the other the mother of a missing girl who may be dead. But there is no thought for Kate McCann’s suffering in the deluge of abuse heaped upon her; the McCanns’ local newspaper’s support website in Leicester-shire had to be closed.
We seem to have lost track of why Kate McCann’s picture-editor-pleasing face – blonde, thin, wounded, Diana-like – is in the papers in the first place. By orchestrating the kind of media campaign more usually associated with a multi-million-pound film or music launch, the McCanns have catapulted themselves into the gossip fodder league. That means suffocating 24/7 media interest; it means your choice of earrings is going to be scrutinised and discussed by millions of strangers – it means you have declared open season on yourself when it comes to public consumption.
But the public doesn’t just consume: it devours. And once you’ve invited it in, it doesn’t sit down politely and make small talk: it makes itself at home and rifles through your underwear drawer. You can’t ask it to leave, to “respect your privacy”. It’s there for the duration. If the McCanns are innocent, and even if they aren’t, it may well cause them to lose their sanity.
Despite popular thinking about journalists “making things up”, the traditional media are regulated. Things have to stand up from every angle. Facts matter. We have lawyers; we try not to libel or slander; to keep objective. The public, through the internet, can – and does – say anything, no matter how degrading or toxic, and keeps on saying it until, by a sort of insane osmosis, it stops being an outright lie and becomes a half-truth.
The theory that Kate McCann, a doctor, accidentally oversedated her daughter, causing death, has existed on the internet for months. People write about it LIKE THIS, in indignant capitals, as if it were so obvious as to be a given, and as though they were explaining something simple and obvious to somebody mulishly stupid who refused to see the truth staring them in the face. Behind the capitals, you can almost feel their quickening breath and their peculiar excitement as they comprehensively trash the reputation of a grieving woman who is a stranger to them. Power to the people!
Things are ugly out there – there aren’t many things uglier than gossip about infanticide, which is what this story has become, and why it feels so extraordinary. But they have been ugly from the start.
The news of Madeleine’s disappearance broke on a Friday evening. I wrote about it the following morning, assuming – naively, in retrospect – that people’s default mode would be compassion or pity. By Sunday evening my e-mail inbox was full. A handful of the e-mails agonised on the McCanns’ behalf. The greater part more or less said, “If you leave small children alone to go and eat tapas, you deserve everything that’s coming to you.”
I know from colleagues on other newspapers that they had the same angry reaction, which they also found themselves disconcerted by.
I’ll get back to the tapas point, because it’s central to the whole thing, with opinion dividing into people who see leaving a child as stupid, but not the world’s greatest crime – such people are broadly sympathetic to the McCanns – and people who find it inexcusable, criminal and indicative of all sorts of dark possibilities. This latter group is among the 17,000 who signed an online petition recommending that Leices-tershire social services take into care the McCanns’ remaining two children, Sean and Amelie.
The petition was not set up in the past week or so when things became murkier and question marks started mushrooming, but in May, when all we knew of Kate and Gerry McCann was that they seemed hollow-eyed with grief. The McCann story may end up being about the death of empathy.
So here we are, obsessed, in the throes of one of those weird national seizures; sitting in judgment, wallowing in what the novelist Philip Roth (apropos Bill Clinton’s infidelity) memorably called “the ecstasy of sanctimony”. The woman at the checkout at Tesco has a view, as does the dinner party guest. The hitherto unsayable – “Do you think they killed their own child?” – has become commonplace. You hear it everywhere. We’re gossiping about a four-year-old child who may be dead, or abducted and raped, or both, and there are no holds barred any more. What brutal thing does this say about us?
It’s always risky attempting to analyse the nation’s psyche based on one apparently seismic event: often, when everything settles down, you realise that underneath all the emoting, there wasn’t anything terribly unexpected happening. One thinks of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales: all that was going on was that everyone felt sad and shocked, and then got over it.
But the national fixation with the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, and the incendiary emotions it has provoked, is another thing altogether. It isn’t to do with empathy, because it seems to be thin on the ground. Prurience, yes; ghoulish curiosity, certainly – but there are, alas, dozens of hideous crime stories to pick from: why focus so obsessively on this one? Sentimentality, because of the involvement of a small, photogenic child? Perhaps at first – though much of the public commentary on this story is so condemnatory that sentiment doesn’t seem to come into it.
That says something peculiar about our monstrous appetite for this tragedy – because, no matter what happened or who did what, a much-loved child has vanished.
Much of our fixation has to do with fear, and with the public’s desire to “own” a story. Within 24 hours of her disappearance, Madeleine McCann had become “Maddie”, as though we all knew her. Aside from what she looked like, we knew nothing about her whatsoever – not what toys she liked, “Cuddle Cat” aside, or what her favourite book was, or what she liked eating, or wearing (I am sorry to use the past tense, and mean nothing by it; the present tense looks even odder).
But in those early days of the investigation, she became a version of all of our children, a blank to superimpose our own child’s face onto as we peered into the abyss. This was, of course, terrifying: the idea that an ordinary-seeming family could go on holiday and have a child vanish into thin air was more than most of us could cope with.
The natural human instinct, when faced with a terrible fear, is to list the things that make us different from the victims of the frightening situation, and in this particular case there were few. Much was made at the time of the McCanns’ social class (working class gone middle), and of the fact that if a single mother from a housing estate had gone out on the razz and left her child alone, sympathy would be in short supply. This is another way of saying that if a person is recognisably different from us, the bad thing that happened to them couldn’t possibly happen to us. The problem with the McCanns is that they were so terrifyingly normal-seeming, so middle-classly resonant, with their neat Boden-esque clothes and their responsible jobs and their three little children.
How to differentiate ourselves from them, and thereby reassure ourselves that their misfortune would never be ours? By focusing obsessively on the one questionable thing they did: leaving their children alone in a strange place. Phew – instant relief. “I’d never do that,” the thought process went. “I’m safe. My children will never be harmed.”
This is clutching at straws, frankly – as everyone surely knows by now, children who come to harm usually come to harm from a person known to them, more often than not in their own home. But we chose to clutch at this one particular straw, hence, I think, the disproportionate outpouring of vitriol against Kate McCann, who, regardless of her guilt or innocence, was, is and will continue to be punished because she had the temerity to seem so much like us.
She has also (more straws) been accused of seeming “unfeeling”, of looking “too groomed” (“I’d look a mess, therefore we’re not the same, therefore it could never happen to me”), of seeming strangely “calm” (or tranquillised, surely?), of, basi-cally, not falling to her knees screaming like an animal in pain – it’s “Show us you care, Ma’am” all over again.
In some internet chatrooms and message boards, women bitch about Kate McCann for not reacting exactly like them – not that they’d know how they’d react in her situation, since they have never been in it. No matter: weird, isn’t it, how she seems so composed – and let’s not call it composure, let’s call it “arrogance” (this from the country that invented the stiff upper lip). Must make her a child killer, and not have anything to do with being told that visible distress might give pleasure to a hypothetical abductor.
And why are her clothes nice? Who thinks about clothes at a time like this? Why does she wash her hair? Couldn’t she wear rags, or sackcloth and ashes? Or – any day now – tar and feathers? And what was that nonsense with the Pope? (Who’d have thought the devout Catholic/Pope combination would be so perplexing and aggravating to so many people?)
Our fascination also exists because this story is centrally concerned with what many people perceive as a failure of parenting, a topic we are obsessed by as a nation. We are, collectively, eaten up with anxiety about raising our children. It’s a relatively new thing – people just used to have children and get on with it – and is reflected by the deluge of television programmes, books and publications devoted to how to be a parent.
Women, especially, have become almost pathologically insecure on the subject: am I a bad person if I bottle-feed; have I failed if I have a caesarean; do I harm my children by going out to work; have they got enough friends; do they sleep too much or too little; do they eat enough super-foods and fish oils; do they need to learn Mandarin; do they play outside enough; and so on and on.
With that insecurity comes the strongest desire to judge, as a means of self-reassurance: you see it every day in the ongoing working mothers versus stay-at-home ones debate. “Well, she barely sees her children because she’s in the office all day, so I’m better than her and my children will be happier” versus “She’s going out of her mind with boredom because she’s stopped working, so I’m better than her” – nobody can win, and the crazy thing is that nobody needs to: it’s hardly a competition.
Into this comes Kate McCann, who admits to a failure of parenting, to doing a stupid thing, and we fall on her like a pack of hyenas, weirdly pleased to leave behind our own failings and insecurities for a minute and concentrate on hers.
The fact is that while I would never leave small children alone, I know dozens of people who routinely do, and I do not find them irresponsible, just tired.
There are so many of them that a whole service industry has built up around them: “family” hotels with a baby-listening service where someone cocks an ear at the bedroom door every now and then while harassed parents try to grab the semblance of a date together in the dining room; holidays, like the McCanns’, with kids’ clubs attached, where children are parked with what amounts to a stranger while parents try to sunbathe in peace for a couple of hours; skiing trips where the chalet comes complete with a random nanny; gyms with crèches; restaurants with some weird bloke in a clown suit “entertaining” the children in another room; and so on.
A certain section of society routinely leaves their children in the care of somebody else whom they don’t know terribly well, no matter what the nanny agency has murmured soothingly about police checks. You can think what you like about this, but it is a fact of middle-class life, trying to reconcile loving your children with still having a life of your own, and an omnipresent source of anxiety for many people – if it weren’t, you couldn’t buy teddies with cameras hidden in them to check up on your child carer, and many women wouldn’t have the unpleasant niggling feeling that they don’t entirely trust their nanny to bring up their child.
The McCanns were foolish and wrong to leave three small children – babies, really – alone in a strange apartment. But doesn’t the subsequent calamity override the initial human error? Apparently not: only a fifth of Britons think they are completely innocent, according to a poll for this paper today. And 76% think they were wrong to leave them alone. And yet we all take risks: you take a risk every time you let a child out of your sight, every time they board a bus or a train, every time they’re a bit evasive about their whereabouts. If your house is burgled and you stupidly didn’t switch on the burglar alarm, does that mean you deserved it? Does it make your distress, your sense of violation and the loss of your goods any less significant?
Meanwhile, with hideous inevitability, the focus has shifted to Kate McCann’s being “volatile”. She “visi-bly lost control” while being questioned for 11 hours, we are told. It’s such a depressingly familiar scenario: a woman in an untenable situation is pushed to breaking point, and then when she does lose it – as lose it she will, because she’s not a robot or a monster – her sane response to an insane, unbearable set of circumstances becomes evidence with which to condemn her.
Impound her diary, call in all lap-tops: she must have done it if she shows any feelings. And she must have done it if she doesn’t. QED: she’s had it either way.
We are now told, by Portuguese newspapers who claim to have published extracts, that her diary, which the police want to see, shows she “struggled to control Madeleine”, that her children were “hyperac-tive”, and that looking after them exhausted her.
She also allegedly wrote that her husband left her to look after them too much on her own. Show me a woman with three children under four who doesn’t express the same frustrations, and I’ll show you an improbability. But even this utterly normal maternal response to child-care – it’s knackering, I wish he’d help out more – is being used as an indication of Mrs McCann’s “instability”.
And the people who’ve been there and ought to be able to sympa-thise – other women – are the ones sharpening their knives. As Madeleine Albright, the former US secretary of state, once said: “There is a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women.” If that is so, hell must have got pretty crowded over the past four months.
The McCanns did themselves no favours when they embarked, deliberately, on a gigantic, modern publicity campaign. And that has contributed in no small part to making this case seem so compelling now. It is hard to criticise their original motive for hyping up the publicity, but in the process the McCanns unwittingly turned themselves into a soap opera: available to view on a screen near you 24 hours a day.
As I write, there are reports that they’re looking for a new, bigger “campaign manager” to try to stem the tide of negative comment. (In what world did Gerry McCann think it was a good idea to put in an “appearance” at the Edinburgh television festival?) But it’s too late. The tide won’t be stemmed and the appointment of a Max Clifford figure will make things worse, not better. Every soap needs a baddie and since we seem to have forgotten that we’re not, in fact, watching a brilliantly scripted and plotted episode of Portuguese Holiday, it was only a matter of time before the goodie turned bad.
What a twist! How compelling! More, more. Give me the inside story. One of these mornings, we’re going to wake up and see just how ghastly a part our own voyeurism has played in all of this. At least, I hope we are.
Vitriolic rants of the online rabble
IF you haven’t read what is on the internet about the McCanns you wouldn’t believe it. Here are a few examples of the kind of vitriol out there. Trawling through the sites to find these quotes is like a trip through the darkest recesses of people’s most ungenerous minds.
- ‘I never believed in your pain – the Find Madeleine McCann website
- Kate McCann is an ineffectual, weak and total washout of a mother and probably mentally unbalanced. Pathetic woman should never have had kids if she couldn’t cope – Mulderx, Mirror forum
- Gerry McCann does come across as a thug to me. I have no idea if wifey is involved but either way she is still as guilty as sin for leaving her children alone – Halibutswift, Mirror forum
- The McGrubs are terrible examples of parenting and should be prosecuted. At the very least, they should have to attend parenting classes. The day you put tapas and alcohol before the health and wellbeing of your offspring is a very bad day!!!! – Dr Kildare, HaloScan
- The people who must shoulder the burden of responsibility for the Maddie disappearance are Gerry and Kate McCann. If they did it, they are sick and evil and deserve to rot for ever. If they didn’t, they let her down by being selfish and indulging in their own pleasures leaving her alone and vulnerable – Val, Skynews
- The parents are a disgrace. They were on the razz every night after leaving their children in the crèche all day every day. Much wanted children? More like little fashion statements that they couldn’t be bothered to look after properly. The children unfortunately got in the way of their “me time” – Proud Parent UK, Alpha Mummy
- These people are doctors and in their professional lives would not hesitate to point the “abuse” finger at any other parent who left their children alone like they did. They should hang by their own noose – Arthur, Alpha Mummy
- I do think the McCanns have acted somewhat oddly throughout this investigation – particularly the mother. I can’t quite see it as natural for a mother in her position to make one of her immediate priorities in the days immediately following the disappearance of her daughter a visit to the Pope – without her remaining children – Krazykoolkazza, Mumsnet
- Even female doctors are subject to domestic abuse whether it be mental, physical or psychological bullying. Kate looks to me to be very submissive to Gerry. Her eyes dart towards him when the couple are questioned by the media. It’s as though she can’t speak up for herself. The running is another strange one. I’m a keep fit nut but the last thing on my mind would be to run if one of my kids were abducted. I would be spewing venom and ranting. – Ragna, Mirror forum’
I am utterly appalled by the comments above regarding the McCanns and their "supposed" involvement in Madeleines' disapearance. It makes me sick to the stomach that this tradgedy has been been turned into some sort of perverse pastime for pathetic critics that have nothing better to do than....
G. Turley , Halmstad, Sweden
I think the only person, who is guilty in this case, is the person who has abducted Madeleine. Gerry and Kate are obviously very upset, but why on earth would they want to hurt their little girl? Whoever has taken Madeleine is a very sick person, and I hope they get their revenge. She will be found!
Stephanie Lane, Birmingham, England
Came across this randomly, and just wanted to say what brilliant writing I thought it was. Have always been a Times reader but have overlooked India's columns, and will be searching them out now.
Eleanor, Bognor,
To all the doubters,
The papers are 100% to blame for feeding their readers fiction and not facts. Ask anyone who has lost a child if they could go and sit with friends and eat a meal. firstly your stomach would not let you, secondly you would be in shock you would not be able to talk.
All the sorrys in the world cannot repay what you have put these people through. As if its not bad enough your child going missing without trace then the media heap the blame on these loving parents. If any of you doubters could be put in the shoes of the McCanns for 5 minutes you would understand what they have been put through just to sensationalise untrue stories. No millions could repair the hurt and sorrow you have caused these people.
p.gouldson, Liverpool, England
My heart goes out to Kate and Gerry, as a mother or three daughters I know how i would feel if this happened to me.
Time and interferance from other sources have turned 2 of my daughters into strangers to me, and it has now been 16 years since my eldest child had anything to do with me, i break my heart everyday about it \ BUT i know were my daughter is, and my pain is terrible, so what Kate and Gerry will be going through must be unbearable beyond comprehension.
People want to look to themselves first before being so critical of them. I know that i would not have left such young children on their own no matter what, yet i think if we are honest, years ago, when i was bringing mine up there were times when you did things that today would be unthinkable. I pray that there is a miracle and that Madeline will be found. Dont critisice Kate for trying to keep her dignity in front of the public, i know that she must be going through hell inside. Dont be hard on them, give them space.
S A Mulligan, Doncaster South Yorkshire, England
I cannot bear all the horrid things being written. It is clear as day that Kate and Jerry are simply trying their hardest to find their lovely daughter. I cannot stop thinking about them all and so very much hope that they will get some news soon.
Lucy, Devon
Lucy Goaman, Bideford, Devon
i am so sooooooo sorry kate and gerry. i am 11 years oild and i am alredy an aunty. i have not got a child obviously. but if i losdt my neice i dont know what i would do. i et we will find her somehow someday.
nicole, england, england
Always in thoughts every day, thank god the papers keep this alive
Michael & Pauline Baker, London, UK
Goood luck godbless u gerry and kate I'm 8 years old love Hannahxxxxxxxxfrom Wales
Hannah, Bala, United Kingdom
we now have the book,before we even know what has happened to her,next the film,this all means money.it all seems very odd,things do not ring true,that is why so many people believe that the parents are guilty of something.
chris, cornwall,
there,s a true saying in this world,( the eyes of truth are always watching you.)no matter were you are or who you are,my heart goes out to mr & mrs mccann.what thay must be going through,is hard to comprehend,to have ur child taken dosent bear thinking about,i say lets send gerry & kate lots of love,and ( hope) god will guide the people to find her.
godbless u gerry & kate.
love jaki x x x.
jaki, essex., england
Innocent until proven guilty in my opinion. However, the McCanns have - rightly or wrongly - helped create this situation with their publicity campaign. This publicity now has a momentum of it's own which cannot be controlled. Bearing this in mind, If I was the McCanns campaign 'manager' I would encourage them to take a polygraph test. It would not 'prove' anything, but would go a long way to stopping the vitriol from a large section of the public and allow the re-focus on the search for Madeline. If on the other hand.........
Harry, Limoges, France
Stop being spiteful and blaming Gerry and Kate because if they had employed a babysitter who wuld have been a stranger to the children how do we know they still would have been safe. How would we know if the staff wer genuine and perhaps Gerry and Kate felt looking in on them was the safest way. In hindsight - no, but we must stop blaming them as they must be near to breakdown point, they have taken so much. We can all argue regarding whether they were right or wrong but neglectful they wer not as they were on the complex. I have felt for weeks that there is a German connection and if that turns out to be correct then it seems dreadful that they were being watched constantly by someone close by and accomplices, whilst enjoying a family holiday. Lets watch this space and wait for the outcome over the next couple of weeks.
Love to you and your family and God is with Gerry and Kate.
Everyone who loves God feels you will find her.
All my love Pam x x x
Pam, Watford, England
Give the McCanns a break, you sanctimonious creeps.
They've suffered and continue to suffer.
Gabriel, Eden,
Hi well as a mom i would die to find out where my child is and get her back home, I'll go totally insane! but this story has a ugly twist and I fear that it is way not over. I just pray that Lil Made is safe if its in god's arms or just lost. I'm just so disgusted that they gave the kids sensitives to sleep. My kids are unbelievably hi-per active and Never will I do such a cruel thing! What are thy hiding?
Suzanna, Germiston, Shouth-Africa
Name and shame the lot. Let their families see every single post they have posted.
I wonder what they would say if Madeleine was found safe and well. My heart goes out to all of the McCanns. This is such a tragic tragic case. What ever happened to "There for the grace of God go I."
kate , glasgow,
People want the drama. Personally I don't know how to differentiate this case to any other missing child case. I think it is the media for they are the ones that raved on about it in the first place. If the media had kept it a little more low key then you wouldn't get all the chatter about it in the first place. The public is merely giving their opinion - if media makes a big deal of something then you are likely to get sympathy, abuse and criticism.
I can also blame the parents (only a little) for bringing it upon themselves. But I can excuse them (in a way) because they lost something very precious to them and any human would go through hell to get that thing back. If they wanted any chance of finding her again they would need some recognition.
The media sometimes annoys me because it manipulates information presenting few references to look up on. The truth is bent to suit the story. The British media has realised that a drama can be made out of this, so it has
James, Guildford, England
No, I don't find myself drawn to the story. While I might appear to be contradicting myself by even responding to this article, I the whole story should be left to simple factual reporting. The child is missing, There is little more to say than that. I usually see the mention of the name "McCann" and ignore the article, as my presumption now is that unless the headline says "child found" or "XYZ charged," it will be more uesless nonsense. All the published speculation and "analysis" perpetrated by newspapers is contemptible.
Nick, Rotherham, UK
Why are people in the world so cruel,just because a heartbroken mother can keep her dignity,she is accused of killing her little girl,as a GP she is used to hiding her emotions,she is convinced she is going to find her little girl so she holds on to that hope ,we dont see her sadness behind closed doors,she also has an inner strength which is spiritual,we cant imagine the way she must be feeling to be going through all this heartache and then to be accused ,why are people so quick to judge without having sufficient evidence,I personally would like to give them the benefit of the doubt ,lets keep looking for maddie
Yvonne, manchester, uk
I think you must have been reading the yahoo Q&A forum website as you have almost quoted forbatum word for word that written.
No wonder you felt the need to write this most excellent article which actuall y says it all about the kind of society we have created for ourselves.
Heaven help those who have helped themselves in life as they will be ostracised as has Kate McCann. It makes me wonder if all the protesting about leaving those children home along so to speak has not struck a sour chord in their own childrens upbringing.
However and perhaps if nothing else comes out of all this vitriol we will all stop and think about popping out to the next door neighbour whilst the kids are asleep upstairs. I t happens to other people not us....not!
Nettie, Aberdeenshire, United Kingdom
I was bowled over by your article which is definitely the finest piece of journalism to come out of this sad affair. It needed saying.
I think history shows that you don't actually have to LEAVE your children for them to be at risk, plenty have been abducted from under their parents noses, eg through the bedroom window while the house was occupied and the parents awake or asleep.
And I wouldn't want the determination of my child's fate to depend on the investigative capabilities of any foreign police force. If I had other resources I'd use them just as the McCann's have.
Dave, Scotland,
Lindy Chamberlain, Joanne Lees, the McCanns...
The trial by media in these cases clearly shows that the general mainstream media is worthless. It is simply unable to restrain itself. There is no such thing as 'too far'. If it were a person, it would be a spiteful obsessive compulsive.
As for blogs, it's clear from this whole affair that around 50% of people who post on this topic are self-obsessed, judgmental, brainless, pathetic examples of humanity. I can only hope that they don't reflect the general population, because if they do, western society in general is in trouble.
This case has acted as a mirror for society, and it's very ugly.
As for casting aspersions on the McCanns, it's dangerous and insulting. If there is sufficient evidence implicating them, then the police should charge them and a court can decide, otherwise the police should keep quiet about it. I would have thought this standard operating procedure.
What really matters is finding Madeleine.
Kim, Adelaide, Australia
India Knight, what a brilliant article! I have also noticed the pure venom on websites and from the mouths of supposedly well educated people. How can they possibly feel such hatred for two people they have never met? How can they proffess to know what they would feel if a child was taken from them? How can they judge Kate McCanns emotion, or her need to jog, as she is no doubt hyperactive with grief, like my mother in law was after the death of my late father in law? Where has the emotion gone? Is there no sane person in the world who can wonder how they would feel? I hope so and I shall keep my sympathy for the McCanns, as i find that the gutter press has managed to ignite the opinions of those who just love to get excited about their own poisonous speculations. Thank you for making me realise I am not alone in my thoughts!
Angela Hunter, Whitburn, Sunderland, Tyne and Wear
A magnificent and compassionate article. Those spewing venom over the McCanns in blogs and on websites are really to be pitied: such irrational attitudes suggest a need for treatment. They bring the whole blogosphere into disrepute, which -- as a compulsive blogger myself -- I profoundly regret.
Brian B.
<a href="http://www.barder.com/ephems/">http://www.barder.com/ephems/</a>
Brian Barder, London, UK
Good article.
Anyone who advertises with Yahoo especially should have a good long hard look if they want to continue the association as Yahoo has allowed disgusting and slanderous claims to be made on their website.
Caroline, London, UK
I couldn't agree more with this article. I have blogged about exactly the same thing as I was so horrified by the vitriol I have read in the last week on the internet. The McCanns deserve our pity and compassion. A very great wrong has been done to them in the last week.
Julia Williams, Epsom,
I been following the news on Madeleine these last couple of weeks, and everytime i see the face of this lovely girl, my heart melts. I just and pray that, she will be found soon. Hope the police will continue for the hunt. I still believe to the McCanns.
jennifer, abergavenny, monmouthshire
India your article was spot on. It made me question my own interest in this story - I have deliberately avoided much of the media speculation because all I really want to see is that Madeleine is found and they are reunited. I still watch the news every day hoping for that outcome for them all.
Much of the comment from ordinary people has rerminded me of the bible story about people in glass houses throwing stones. The treatment of Gerry and Kate by these people is unforgiveable. What right have they to sit in judgement - using only rumour speculation and their own bigotry as evidence to consider?
It is a very sad comment on todays society that we are unable to tolerate any differences and use those differences to attack and judge others. I admire their tenacity and dignity. I have no idea how I would behave in the same scenario and I hope I never have to find out.
I wish I could help and let Kate and Gerry know that some of us out here have the compassion and empathy.
Rachel Fawcett, Harrogate, UK
Thank goodness for India Kight's mixture of compassion and common sense. She expressed my own thoughts and feelings perfectly. Some revelations about public reaction shocked me, making me feel depressed that there are so many vindictive, judgemental people out there. This is all the more reason for journalists like India Knight to make their views public.
Jennifer ROHSLER, BIRMINGHAM, UK
Excellent article, just excellent. Perfectly sums up my feelings on this whole sorry case. This has brought out the best in some and the worst in others.
I do believe that these people are in minority though - vocal as they are, they represent a tiny proportion of soceity.
As Ghandi said :"You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty."
Joanne, Manchester,
What an excellent article. I absolutely agree it is so true people very often pile on other peoples failings to deflect from their own .As a hard working mum in sales i most evenings arrive home usually at 7pm or later exhausted. And im expected to sit down and help with my little ones homework. I do not think i am a failure for not doing this or the fact i like a glass of wine. The Online petition to have madeleins parents investigated set up by a Ms Marilyn Baker is very upsetting. I was so angry iv emailed Ms baker. I assume as Ms Baker if i am correct as she is a Ms not Miss or Mrs. Ms Baker is divorced she is most likely envious of the Mcanns for being middle class and intelligent . I suggest she should start looking at her own failings.
Debra Dudley, essex, uk
A new twist in this unique story is that the media are now turning on the public - shifting blame and shame - is it embarrassment?
This story was newsworthy because it had no end, it had good picture opportunities - the news channels saturated the public with 'non-news' as Team McCann graced us with statements about nothing. Reporters reported on other reporters when there was no news to report.
Now that the story has taken a macabre twist, the sentimental focus of 'parents on a mission' tastes sour - it leaves a nasty taste in the mouth - so here is the latest news - the media reports on itself again and still tries to retain a certain 'gloss' - we are not as bad as them
Great headline India but should it not read 'WE are all guilty?'
The media have neglected the real story, the real talent of investigative journalism was missing and Madeleine is forgetten yet again - without the 'panto-villain-Paedo' the public are to shoulder the 'bad' tag - long live UK journalism!
vix, derby, UK
I agree with this article completely. The reactions to this case have revealed worst kind of unthinking, herd behaviour. It is exactly like schoolyard bullying. Also appalling is the drip, drip effect of leaks from the straw-grasping Portuguese police, in a country where is is supposedly forbidden to talk about an ongoing enquiry! Sadly this has shown how many people out there have malicious imaginations, and lack the basic intelligence to separate fact, fiction, and that which is simply unknown.
Caroline Elliott, London,
This article was one of the best I've read in weeks and weeks of obsessively reading up on Madeleine -- and feeling more depressed by the nasty people in the "forums" than the actual case itself, from time to time.
I'd like to add one reason we somehow WANT Kate McCann to be guilty. (Or, in my world, this goes through my mind from time to time)...
And that is: The alternative may be worse. I hate to suggest it, but it's possible there are fates worse than death... If Madeleine is in the hands of a paedophile who has kept her alive and, say, repeatedly raped her over the past four months,, her terror has only just begun. IF she is dead, her pain is over. This is not to hope Madeleine dead, only that the idea of this girl's terror and horror and pain if she is in the hands of someone not treating her well, it's worse in a way than thinking her parents accidentally overdosed her with some sleeping pills ....
Either way, thank you for your clear-thinking article. Bless you.
Kristen, Santa Fe, USA/New Mexico
Dear India
What an excellent article and what a sad reflection on many people today who are willing to accept speculation, inuendos and trial by some members of the media! What happened to innocent till proven guilty? I would ask everyone to consider walking a mile in the shoes of Kate and Gerry. Imagine yourself in their position with many people turning against you because they let their imaginations run riot. I think they have watched too many crime thrillers. What has happened to their compassion, their understanding. They obviously do not know what the word empathy means because they seem unable to be empathic with two respectable people who went on holiday with their family and made a mistake that has cost them dearly. Can any one of those who criticise and judge Kate and Gerry put their hands on their hearts and say they never made a mistake? I think not.
I would ask each of these people to search their conscience. I hope they never find themselves in the spotlight.
Christine Redfern, Sutton-in-Ashfield, Notts, UK
The most intelligent article I've read for 3 months.
pat.R, Manchester, UK
How dare you say this? it's bad enoguh that we're hounded with this same old story as if the world's survival depended on this little girl or something and then to blame US for not caring enough!! i did care about the parents. But i think this article really killed off any sympathy i had for kate and gerry mcann. Your sarcastic saying of "power to the people" sounds like something hitler would have said. You're no better then the nazis actually, trying to force people to belive that the mcanns have done nothing wrong. Hounding them with propaganda day and night. But your little facist trick won't work these days because we DO have these internet forums. And i really don't see how slagging off everyone who uses a forum is going to make people feel any more sympathetic. Also those comments you picked out aren't even that bad compared to the things some people say. Infact i don't think they're "vitriolic" or "rabble" at all. Infact YOUR article is the DEFINITION of vitriolic!
Edward, Kingston upon Hull,
Congratulations to you for offering such a well written and thoughtful side to this case.
It restores my faith in humanity - that despite the onslaught of media availability and speculaton - there are people out there who rationalise things and choose to see situations from dlifferent points of view.
Simone Eisler, Brisbane, Australia
Terrific article India
AlisonF, London,
Amen to your article. Where or where has our compassion for other human beings gone?
Andrea, Nottingham,
I agree with all you say in your article.
I've seen some of the anonymous comments about the McCanns posted on websites .
At least Madame Desfarges had the courage to be identified sitting beside the guillotine.
Mike, Cardiff, Wales
Thanks,once again, to India Knight for her wise, well-measured article. Possibly the most distasteful and frightening aspect of the 'Madeleine' case is the merciless reaction of a seemingly large section of the public.
If such 'critics' are speaking on the basis of lengthy experience of raising children in a faultless manner then perhaps we should listen to them, but I sense this is not the case.
Jane McGoran, Renfrewshire, Scotland
Let us all wait a couple of years for the Hollywood film to find out what happened.
Adrian, Richmond, Surrey
What a load of self-righteous bullies out there.
These lynching mobs must be feeling great right now,
after kicking the McCann when they are down.
I just hope they would never have to experience the hell
they are in right now.
gs, London, UK
thank you, you have clarifeid the great who dunnit.
Any one who reads your writings will now look again at the facts and non-facts and ask themselves if they really should be making a judgement on others.
b.phillips, bremen, germany
"Sky News lists Madeleine McCann as a “category†on its interactive content screen: news, business, sport, Madeleine."
The Timesonline website does virtually the same thing.
"The ecstasy of sanctimony"?
Daniel Wild, Derby, UK
India, you wrote this on June 3rd;
"I wrote about Madeleine McCann just after she’d been abducted, and was quite startled by my postbag. Roughly half the letters sympathised impotently with Gerry and Kate McCann; the other half were entirely, and brutally, condemnatory."
Yet now you say the majority of your post bag was anti-McCann.
Mark, Glasgow,
India - you disappoint me, whilst this article appears to be mainly a criticism of (some of) the publics reaction and behaviour, you have put in far too much of the negative without counterbalancing with the positive. This gives an incorrect picture. For example the petition asking they be investigated by Social Services - there was another petition supporting the McCanns asking the other petition be disregarded (which it was). As for all the hate filled comments you have quoted -what about all the positive ones? There are many, although probably less as the people who are supportive seem more balanced and less prone to 'vent their spleen' in the way the vitriolic ones do. My experience is that the majority of people are horrified by the case - the poor child who is still missing together with the horrendous way the family are being speculated about and generally treated.
Sarah, Shrewsbury,
Along with Dominic Lawson's piece that appeared last week in the Independent, this is the very best article that I have read about this case and the ensuing media coverage. I have read much of the Sky news threads and have been consistently appalled by both the lack of humane thought and also the basis upon which so many posters seem prepared to condemn Kate and Gerry McCann; they don't address the camera directly and Kate McCann looks too good seem to be the prevalent factors. Posters also seem to be unwilling or unable to undertand that 'evidence' printed in the press that is suggestive of their supposed guilt is unverified, selective and generally not placed within a wider context that would inform its relevance or otherwise. Most importantly, the idea of presumption of innocence has been discarded: the McCanns have not been charged with any crime, much less found to be guilty but this means nothing to posters who ask, in their rhetorical caps, Y CAN'T U C THEY R GUILTY?
Jane B, Burton-on-Trent, UK
I completely agree with you. Wish every person writing in a group/chatroom/etc. would have to read this first. One question to those who are being so hard on this couple: How did you behave when your child was abducted? Ooooohhh, you mean you've never had it happen to you? Very interesting. And, by the way, when the article asks for your thoughts, it doesn't mean you have to spew venom, even if you don't agree. You could be reasonable, and imagine that the couple might be innocent of the crime on top of the grief of being without their child, then give your comments more thoughtfully.
Dawn Briscoe, Loganville, GA/USA
Thank goodness for India Knight's humane, realistic and gut-wrenchingly honest overview of Madeleinism that is slowly consuming the nation. We all feel involved - and it's reached contaminatory status. I'm a mother, I live in Leicestershire, I have two children, I'm literate, intelligent and yet I've been following this story with an almost religious fervour since it broke half-fascinated by the what ifs, and half-appalled by the implications of Worst Case Scenario. It shakes the foundations of everything I profess to believe in. I should stop centralising this issue. Before I do, I'm going to re-read this article and let the realities embed themselves. Thank you, India (and I love My Life On A Plate!).
Katie Kirk, Leicestershire, UK
What a fantastic article. I have been waiting to read something like this for some time. I was starting to wonder if I was going a bit crazy..."Am I the only one out here who sees the absolute absurdity in the way these poor people are being treated?" It blows me away how cruel people have been. How in the world could these people have been able to cover up something like this without anybody seeing them!!!!! People would rather believe the Mccanns were some kind of super humans who could magically make their daughter disappear under everyone's noses than to believe that some sick creature out there snatched their precious daughter, and subjected her to unmentionable horrors. I am so heartbroken for them. What a nightmare to be living...and to be treated like this by so many cruel heartless people. While the Mccanns are being tortured, the real monster is out there - quite possibly planning on doing this again.
j.difrancesco, Hamiton, Ont, Canada
India Knight,
You wrote all my thoughts about this case, you are righton almost everything.
Ines, Reutlingen, Germany
Tabloid journalism blurred the line between news and hearsay long ago, and I suspect the author of this piece knows that. This article is, if anything, a rather embarassing piece of premier buck-passing by a disempowered journalist who feels remorse and regret as the media's monopoly on spreading misinformation comes to an end.
Just think, you might have actually had something to complain about if you stood for anything in the first place.
James B, Brighton,
About time somebody made the point about the way the public, mainly the British public has acted. This case has been an education in human nature and almost nobody has come out with any sense of dignity, that I'm afraid to say, includes the Mcanns but they are the ones suffering and are backed into a corner. How you can say the British press have "acted pretty responsibly" is beyond me though, Reporting that a junior detective told his hair dresser Maddie might be dead and putting it in bold headlines on the front page as if it was fact is hardly responsible (not this paper).
David, Warwickshire,
I feel really sorry for them, and am sure they did not hurt Madeline. I leave my children alone sometimes, although they are abit older, and my Mother left us alone sometimes too - and it was fine. It is not their fault that Madeline was taken. I think many people are very cruel and heartless in their comments
jo tamrakar, Oxford, UK
India Knight writes a soulfull article about how "we" are all criminals for airing our unwanted and useless views about a family's very personal tragedy and the paper asks us to post our viws on it. How's that for irony!!!
Shalini, Derby, UK
I totally agree with India Knight. I think part of the reason so many people are willing to believe the McCann's are responsible is because everyone wants "closure" on this case. If it turns out to be the parents, then nobody need worry about the bogeyman. I, for one, believe the McCanns are innocent and should be left alone. Meanwhile the actual hunt for Madeleine is being overshadowed. People question their media campaign, but I know I would do anything to save my children, even if it meant 24 hour scrutiny - if it brought my child back, it would be worth it.
Tracy Forsythe, Hove, East Sussex
Thank you, India, for your thoughtful article with which I completely agree. I have every sympathy for the McCanns and I hope they will gain some respite or closure from this ongoing nightmare soon. The amount of spite and abuse heaped upon them by wide sections of the British public is deeply distressing. It reminds me of the weeks after Sept 11 when thousands of apparently normal, well-educated liberal people appeared unable to restrain their glee at the savage attacks on America. I wonder what has happened to people's reserves of natural empathy, tolerance and compassion. Somehow we have become consumed by bitterness and prejudice and have allowed our resentments to be redirected en masse against vulnerable indivduals. In group psychology parlance, I suppose you would call it negative displacement or scapegoating.
Philip M, London,
I do not think the McCanns are guilty and i would like to see wh
oever has taken her let the papers know and end this families nightmare they have been through enough knowing they may never see Madeleine again.They must be absolutely heartbroken.
Gail baguley, North Devon, United Kingdom
A good article and a good point, essentially, inasmuch as you are making the point that everyone's innocent until proven otherwise.
A couple of issues - I don't think the mainstream media has acted responsibly at all. Rumours have been published in the press as quickly as they've been made. What about this guy Murat - his name and details of his personal life were splashed all over the papers for maximum gratuitous effect and now it looks like he had nothing to do with any of it. Everything I read about him, I read first in the mainstream press.
The other thing is you could take another sample of forum comments that were as supportive of this family as the ones that you have selected are damning. There's a great range of opinion, as there always is in life, and not all of it is vicious. A lot of people are decent, and just hope that things work out for this family, and all others that have the rotten experiences that the rest of us all hope to avoid.
thinkingaloud, London, UK
Not a hint of irony here then - "have your say" on India's article on the unpleasantness of people having their say.
Agatha, edinburgh,
India has once again found the psychological pulse of this relentless drama.
The McCanns have set the stage for a public execution , with too much exposure.
Human beings at our core, are bloodthirsty, crying out for a crucifixion rather than sympathetically turning away.
Will we ever evolve to be a race of peace?
Voyerism has become an international obsession ala Big Brother . We might as well build a stadium showcasing Gladiators versus The McCanns; it is that barbaric.
We must turn the magnifier on ourselves; what if it had been me? How would anyone of us stand up to the scrutiny, the loss?
Kellan Steck-Refoy, London, Great Britain
i agree totally with everything that India Knight wrote
jacqueline nutt, wendover bucks,
Before suggesting that behaviour is "odd" please remember the Dingo Baby case. And don't forget too that there were those who frequently accused the late Jane Tomlinson of not having cancer. Presumption of innocence until proven otherwise is always the best maxim in cases where the ignorance and prejudice of the public remind us just how close to the jungle "civilised" society really is.
P Thomas, North West, UK
I, like you have found myself fascinated by this story, I was not in the earlier days, but since it has become a PR battle between the McCanns and the Portugese Press, and then the British Press and the Portugese press/police/legal system, I can not stop myself googling regularly.
I love the sense of humour / outrage etc that I often see on opinion pages, some very intelligent comments - some horrible - ALL opinionated.
Is that a bad thing? or is it just new and different?
I have my opinions, and I like to discuss them with other interested people, that doesn't make me a bad person. I also like to look at my own three children and remember how hard it was when they were toddlers. Parenting is a thankless business, is it wrong to use a story like this to acknowledge that you did OK?
I don't beleive the comments that people post are aimed at hurting the McCanns, surely nothing we could say would make their situation any worse?
jenny, leicester, uk
I agree with most of this sensible article. The judgement heaped upon the McCanns has arisen for two reasons: first, we live in a culture which is judgemental of parents; second, there is a widespread misunderstanding about the risk of child abduction. In relation to the first, I've found (as mother to 3 children) that strangers often think they know how to parent my children better than I do. It's not surprising, therefore, that the McCanns have been found 'guilty' of being bad parents by total strangers. And the second reason- the risk of stranger abduction is very rare (I think there were 5 last year). Many children go missing, but most are runaways or are taken by a parent involved in a custody dispute. Yet there is this idea circulating that abductions by strangers are common, so if you leave your children alone and they are taken, you are 'asking for it'. It's ridiculous and unfair, and only confirms in me a belief that there are many not very bright people out there.
LJ, London,
I agree with the contents of India's article. I, t oo ,find myself trying to interpret all the newspaper articles. I can find numerous loolholes in the facts , which are being used to incriminate Gerry and Kate, and I am sure that they are innocent. I shall go on believing that I am right until there is sufficient evidence to prove otherwise. Is there anything specific that we can do to make them aware of our support?
One factor I can't comprehend is the fact that I would have expected D.N.A from Madeieine to be on the twins belongings and on items belonging to the parents infact on every thing she had touched .Wouldn't this be quite normal or is there something I don't know about D.N.A.
JudithBurt, Hawarden,Flintshire, UK
All said & done I hope and pray that 'Maddie' is just fine, with a fairy tale ending to this whole affair.
Jayaprakash, Solomon, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia
Out of curiosity - which at times makes me feel somewhat guilty - I stumbled across a chat room and was saddened and shocked at some of the posts about the McCanns. Thank you for such an insightful article, and also the reassurance that there are others out there who are prepared to take a step back from the hype surrounding Madeleine's disappearance and show not only a little objectivity, but also empathy.
HAR, Solihull,
That is the problem with the masses they all want to have their say and they do not even know the facts.
Listen to everybody, Read everything, Believe nothing unless you can proove it for yourself"
joe bloggs , uk,
This article is spot-on - well done to India Knight for writing such a perceptive, thought-provoking piece on such a tragic situation. I feel ashamed of my own ghoulish interest in the case - desperate for the Hollywood happy ending that seems to be getting less & less likely as time goes on... Whatever the answer to this 'whodunit' there remains a family who have suffered an immense tragedy.
Sally Doyle, Surrey, UK
How bizarre! In a fairly balanced article you exonerate the media from blame"in this instance" and castigate the public for all the ludicrous comments.
But in the end you do that very thing and invite the public to "have your say"
So, sorry,Who's Guilty??
J.Alexander, Dunoon,
Beautifully analysed and expressed...a sane voice in the depressing swamp of vile banality which now threatens to engulf the McCann case
Pamela Sweetapple, Brisbane, Australia
Thank you for this article. I am terrified when I read the commentaries...
nicole laugel, Obernai, France
A superb article. It should be compulsory reading for the millions who, without a shred of evidence, sit in judgement over this tragic couple.
Dame Edna once said "I was born with the God given gift: the gift of getting pleasure out of other people's misfortunes".
Shame on those who are guilty of doing just that.
James Austin, Kingston upon Thames, England
I find the fact that people are willing to believe that a woman would not only murder her daughter (how does a mother 'accidentally' kill her daughter by the way?), but then keep her body for 3 weeks and then take it to her car and dispose of it under the intense scrutiny of the world press, absolutely ridiculous. I do not for one moment believe the McCanns killed their daughter and it's good to know that others also feel this way.
Michelle Matthews, Sothampton, United Kingdom
Thank you, India. This is the only decent piece of journalism to be written in the last 100+ days. I tthink there is a sad trend towards lack of sympathy for other people and complete disregard for anyone else's pain, let alone empathy, which is much harder to achieve anyway. We are in danger of becoming the society that is selfish to the point of bored disinterest about others. I agree about the public being the new press. Perhaps real journalists like India could start a public backlash against the decline.
SLC, Hants, U.K
Very insightful and so very true! I too have been appalled by the harsh judgement and lack of compassion expressed by "the public". Shameful. India, a well written and brilliant article. Thank you!
Sharon, Canberr, Australia
Thank you for your insight, honesty, and calling all of us on contributing to this media nightmare and human tragedy. What ever happened to "innocent until proven gulity"? I admire The McCann's for their tireless campaign to find their daughter and although, yes, this invites scrutiny from all (especially the media), I am so disgusted at the hate and anger towards them. Who are we to judge them ?? I am mostly disturbed by the people who have already condemned the parents with very little known fact and pure specualtion. It's shameful.
Carrie , Madrid , Spain
Great article India, you have excellent way of articulating what others are thinking. Well done!
sue, drayton valley, canada
Thank you for writing this article, India - I was beginning to feel quite isolated in my belief that the McCann's had nothing to do with the disappearance of Madeline. A madness seems to have taken over, the idea that somehow, a child could accidently die at the hand of her parents and the parents dispose of the body (rather than call for help) before joining their friends for dinner as if nothing had happened. Then there's the small matter of where you would hide the body for 26 days before smuggling it into your hire car in full view of the world's media. Crazy!
I have no doubt that tragically Madeline was taken from her bed by a stranger, every parent's nightmare. This poor family have had to suffer so much pain and this vitriol makes me so ashamed to be British. I think your analysis of the situation is spot on and it must be fear that produces such cruel and punitive behaviour.
jenny, London, UK
What an excellent article. My heart goes out to the McCanns and I dont, for one minute, believe they have anything to do with Madeleine's abduction.
Adele, Liverpool,
Great article with some excellent points raised. I have read that paedophile sites are encouraging their members to plant hate mail about the McCanns on forum boards and message boards. I would like to make the point that not everybody has joined this witch hunt to get the McCanns. I am part of a large group, Find Madeleine McCann and we have all given up our spare time to assist the McCanns in any way we can. For every McCann hater and basher they do have their supporters. I have seen Lindy Chamberlain be persecuted in Australia by the same type of mob mentality as well as Joanne Lees more recently. As Anne Frank said; In spite of everything, I still believe that people are basically good.
There ARE many, many people out there who care very much about Kate, Gerry and most of all - Madeleine.
The witch hunters might thrill to the sounds of the tumbril carts passing them but they have forgotten a fundamental truth - 'he amongst you who is without sin; cast the first stone'
JL, Sydney, Australia
At last an article on the whole McCann saga which shows some intelligence. Who is anyone to judge these people or sit on their pedestal lording it over them. Who wrote this rule book for how you should behave in such circumstances? I find it hard to believe that the people who have written such quotes have never made mistakes themselves but perhaps they have been able to forget them simply because nothing terrible befell them at the time. I wonder, should what seems to be the impossible happens, and Madeleine is found alive, what these people will think about themselves then. Will they still feel so justified in their comments and self rightiousness.
Helen, Bristol,
Some irony here - a discussion about the internet having too much of a say and then asking for comments!
This article is right. Free speech is one thing, but these personal and very aggressive remarks criticising this family are disgusting. We should all be ashamed. Nobody knows the truth - yet.
And messages of pure hate are acceptable yet those ones with a 'racist' or 'sexist' slant will be deleted.
This poor family have 'played' the media to help find their daughter and it has turned on them.
D Allum, London, Uk
Excellent article.Excellent!!!!
E.Azevedo, Lisbon, Portugal
Unfortunately McCanns had it coming. They never realised that by promoting the search thru media, personal appearances, visiting other countries such as the audience with the Pope made them famous. They also did not realise that the in vestigation by the Portugese Police was still open and ongoing and it had the potential to move in any direction.
Now that investigation has cast aspersions on McCanns. The media continues to be relentless. I am sorry for them.
It seems they have to pay the price due to error of judgement. My prayers and good wishes are with them.
m.a. razaq, Karachi, Pakistan
My doubts about the case only swayed when Branzo opened up his wallet; can't have upper middle classes doing things like this and not getting away with it can we now?? One doc's bad enough but two may alter the status quo. Funny how all attention's gone to saving the McCann's now that it's becoming more acceptable for people to consider Maddy as gone. If a working class family had been in the same situation as the McCanns, their kids would have been taken away from them and they woulld have been under lock and key long before any evidence had been found in a hire car. But doctors are so respected aren't they???
Magdelane Heart, Oslo,
I too cannot believe the vitriol. Oh that we were all such perfect parents! Kate and Gerry are trying to do is find their daughter. What would we do in the same position? I know I would use every resource available. The general public have lost sight of the fact that a 4 year old girl is missing. Stop the blame game and let's all get on with the job of trying to find Maddy who has parents who love her and desperately need some answers.
Shells, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
One thing is clear: the McCann's are extremelly effective in collecting funds. They have no difficulty in finding volunteeers to pay huge campaigns or expensive lawyers . But they didn't spend a single penny in private detectives up to now. Why rely on portuguese police investigation and on portuguese public funds?
Helena Vieira Alberto, Coimbra, Portugal
You are absolutely right. I have been sickened by some of the comments I've read online by members of the public. Not only their stupid arrogance - assuming that they have all the facts straight (and apparently, not realising that you have to be cautious about believing everything you read online or in the tabloid press...) but mostly the unbelievable, self-righteous cruelty and heard-heartedness. I'm so glad that you have written about this. These people should hang their heads in shame and hope that nothing ever happens to them that would allow them to be publicly torn to shreds in this way.
They're no better than a bunch of animals.
Inbxl, Brussels, Belgium
When I first heard about the McCann's tragedy, I felt a tiny echo of the pain that they are enduring. We have a pretty little blonde girl called Madeleine, who was four when this story broke, and I couldn't get the idea of my own little girl's unexplained disappearance out of my head.
As the weeks have turned into months, I now feel as much anger as sorrow. I find it hard to articulate the reasons, but I think that Ms Knight expresses the situation beautifully in this article. The sorrow was for a human tragedy. The anger is that the Portuguese police and now we, the public, can pour more anguish and pain on the heads of these unfortunate parents.
Richard Perry, London, UK
In this murder case only police is working propperly. The rest of that people who are involved in the crime scene are without any doubt "acting".
I would like to be wrong.
paco, madrid, spain
The investigation should go on without interruption or celebs involvement. The police has no other interest in the case rather than uncovering the truth. They have evidence, it is obvious. They must speak before The Team Mccann engages the whole political clan to hide what? The more defense and noise they create the less I like them. No matter how evil and unprobable the suspicions are, there is no smoke without fire. And again, if it were so unprobable, why would police come up with this version? Mccans cannot step back now, they need to fight and the color of this fight does not indicate the innocence. Also, if somebody wants to hide a body, who would do it better than a doctor who allegedly works with cadavres?
Helen, New York, NY
Shocking that 17,000 people signed to have the McCanns' two other children taken away from them in MAY. What a bunch of self-righteous busybodies. It makes me sick.
Lourdes, Madrid, Spain
I admire your audacity! How do the public know anything about this case?! From the media. If it were not for the redtops ridiculous and scare mongering headlines us 'sanctimonious' public wouldnt know half the 'facts'. Are we not entitled to our own opinions. Given such horrendous circumstances people are bound to think about it and form opinions. Im assuming that you have not for one minute even thought about more than one possibility surrounding the case. There are bound to be some crazy opinions out there, as there are crazy people, as we know from the people who took this girl. But well done for finding these extremist views, which 90% of the public will not share. Anyway, you should probably get on and write some more about this case.
S Wright, Harrogate,
Well said, India - I agree with you.
I distance myself from online Message Boards (try looking at the Radio 5 Live UK News board for evidence of normally sane people behaving in the manner you describe) because I am disgusted at the depths of depravity and vileness to which people will stoop.
It's as if they actually want the McCanns to be guilty - to satisfy a abnormal blood lust.
I am ashamed of these people and their obscene comments.
M C-W, Guernsey, Channel Islands
An excellent article. It certainly makes one stop and think "who are we to judge." I appreciate you making me turn the "glass" on myself.
AJ, Brockville, Canada
I found your article very interesting and thought provoking.With the rise of the internet the public can have much more involvement with the news process.
There are no effective checks and balances for the internet going public
The problem is it is very easy or anybody with internet access to make a point,however misconceived and for that view to look part of the process.
Generally, we the public do not think things through sufficiently and yet we are now free to let lose those misconceived prejudice onto the world.badly thought out or extreme.
I feel that we need more effective moderation to set extreme views in context and to call them into question. I do not know how this can be done but it does need to be part of the debate. As with any of the real tragedies we see on our screens they involve real people who have real feelings.
Abnormal things generally happen to normal people who cope as best as they can. Thank you for your article which ads to the debate
Simon Holborn, Hull, E Yorks
Thank you for such a fantastic article, you have just put down my views perfectly. I have been arguing the case this week on Yahoo Answers and many on there would see them thrown in jail without a trial.
H.D, Upminster, Essex
I am sick and tired of this story. I mean all this collective commotion in one of the most individualistic countries in Europe... Britons are drawn to celebs and the McCanns have indeed invested a lot of time (and donated money) into becoming just that. It’s easier to think about the McCanns than to reflect upon what is happening (or not) in your own community or to ponder about other issues. Just drop it. Get a life!
JJME, Manchester,
I have spoke to friends and family about this, and most people are sympathetic to the McCanns situation. Of the couple of people that have indicated they think the McCanns are dubious, they are probably the sort of people that winge about many things in there lives. Most parents I know are too busy bringing up their own children and balancing a hectic family life and work to spend their energies slating a family in a terrible situation. What's happened is every parents worst fear. When bad things happen to children, usually parents have been caught unawares, and spend a lifetime repenting. I think of the McCanns as stuck in the centre of a tornado, getting help and abuse chucked at them from every angle. I am not devoutly religious but what else is there for us to do expect pray for them and pray for Madeleine. There but for the grace of God go I...
Kelly Fleming, Corby, Northants
This is a superb piece of journalism. Real journalism. It is a brilliant analysis of the mob mentality. The same one that brought out the crowds to cheer a witch burned at the stake or a mother hung for stealing bread.
maggie vaughan, edinburgh, uk
When Marie Antoinette was a young queen she was criticised for spending too much on clothes; ten years later she set a fashion for simple cottons and muslins and was accused of endangering the French silk industry. She was continually bombarded behind her back with disgusting pamphlets alluding to her supposed debauchery. At her trial she was accused of committing the vilest acts with her son, the dauphin.
When she constantly failed to respond to these insults in the way the mob considered appropriate the queen was accused of being unemotional, proud and unfeeling. Finally, towards the end of her trial the queen finally spoke, and defended herself with such calm, erudition and and dignity that the mob was close to sympathysing with the poor benighted woman.
Marie Antoinette had simply been brought up to hide her true feelings behind a mask of decorum, as befitted her position as Grand Duchess of Austria and queen of France.
Little good it did her.
Colin Smith, Norwich,
This article should be read by anyone who has ever made a comment or read about the McCann's. Well said. It's all very, very true. We all need to take a long, hard look in the mirror. It's actually quite sad....what is this world becoming?
Natasha, London,
great article Indian !!
b m couls, shefield,
It is very refreshing, in these ugly times, to read a well-constructured and mature article on what has become a free for all for the general public to lay into a family who must be suffering unimagineably. Are we, as a society, turning into unfeeling monsters? What has happened to empathy and compassion and why do people judge others based purely upon rumour and gossip ? Bravo to India !
Alan Waine, Cheltenham, UK
Thank you, India. A voice of sanity in the maelstrom of vindictive hounding against a disraught family. Whatever the outcome, the McCann family deserve compassion and understanding. Their daughter is missing, surely we can all empathise with that?
Hazel, york, uk
Do I agree with India? Yes I do and would have used stronger words to express my feelings. As with the case of the Dingo Baby in Australia some years ago and with a few cases in the UK in the past few years, it is always the one who takes the most responsibility for the children ie the mother, that gets most of the blame. I would love someone to show me the evidence in any of these cases that point to the mother rather than the father. The way the public are treating kate Mc Cann in particular rather than her husband makes me feel physically ill. I happen to know what it is like to be vilified over a child, when I was the one who searched desperately for answers. Women in particular can be very harsh on other women. What they are really saying is "look at me, Im so much better than her" In other words - pick me, Im a better breeder than she is - disgusting! I very much like the quote from Madeleine Albright "There is a special place in hell for women who don't help other women"
terry, dublin, ireland
Excellent article, India. Isn't there something written somewhere about he who is without sin shall cast the first stone? But maybe these pitiless people are perfect. How can anyone presume to know how anyone else should react to grief, pain, loss or any other human condition? My heart goes out to Madeleine and her family, and I hope their nightmare will come to some resolution soon.
anne, cardiff, uk
This is exactly what this media hype is all about. It is building a focus on a situation to which most ordinary people are sensitive and then twisting the events and the facts, as reported, this way and that in an endeavour to create a means of displacing guilt or responsibility through the general device of confusion. The public have absolutely no reason to be guilty or responsible in this matter. They have every reason to suspect the whole event for the way it has been treated and the surrounding facts. It has the scripted quality of a Jeffrey Archer novel. Two doctors, hence a priori moral standing; bright pretty young girl; Portugal; ambivalent basis for traumatic event leaving maximum speculation and flexibility; elevation to international status with visit to Pope and publicised tours of Europe and America. Public guilt. Do me a favour. We have no difficulty seeing where any collateral responsibility lies. Come to think of it, it has a precedent going right back to August 1483, does it not.
Henry Percy, London, UK
I totally agree with everything that has been wriiten in this article..being a member of a parenting forum myself..i have been dismayed buy the level of pure venom directed at the McCanns by some of my fellow members. It is now a sad state of affairs that the age old thing of "Innocent until proven guilty" seems to no longer exist in modern society..instead there is this frenzy that seems to have occured where the McCanns have been metophorically hung dfrawn and quatered by the public who infact should have been supporting them through this horrendous time.
michelle Peters, poole, england
Excellent article. Should win an award. I'm not surprised by what's going on. But it's not just an internet phenomenon. There was a similar phenomenon in Australia in 1986, with 'the Dingo stole my baby' story (sorry to sound callous; just that the names of the individuals escapes me just now).
My husband and I were living there at the time, and I couldn't believe the disgraceflu way the 'public' immediately condemned the poor mother concerned. Similar vitriole. One thing everyone pounced on was the fact that the family were also devoutly religious- part of an evangelical sect. I'm not religious, but that didn't make me automatically decide 'she must have done it"!. People are just ugly. I actually lost a few friends in arguments against their disgraceful pre-judgements of the case. Everyone was talking about it, constantly, just as you write in your excellent piece about the McCanns.
sooty, Boulder, CO, USA
Ms Knight,
Thank you for the article. I agree 100%.
kasia, Warszawa,
Great piece India, I learnt 3 new words, prurience, sated and voluble.
I would agree with everything apart from attempting to play down the risk they took in leaving the children alone. I honestly don't know anyone who would really ever let 3 children out of their site much less leave them alone. I have brought up my 2 and never left them alone in the evening untill they were 15 (as advised by the Police).
Tony Price, Ilford, UK
If my better half had done something to my children I have three, I would´t in anyway hide it. And I don´t think the Mc Cann´s have done anything to Madeleine either, So we all should still look for her. Another thing who is bottering me is that people think Kate Mc Cann look hardfaced. Sorry that´s not the truth , look at her eyes they are constant read of crying. And i remember when my mother died, 5 Years ago. I sat in a corner screaming, when I was alone with my family, but when outside with other people I looked like stoneface. I have picture of that.
Please keep looking for Madeleine, she is out there waiting for somebody to find her.
Marianne Aanes, Froerup, Denmark
I think this article is so well written and accurately depicts how the Madeleine McCann 'mystery' has mesmerized the British public, who seem to have an insatiable appetite for digesting the lurid and unpalatable facts that run through this case like varicose veins through a malignant swelling tumour. We now have a disconcerting array of confusing and contradicting facts. I was in the Algarve staying with resident relatives shortly after Maddy was 'snatched'. We heard from the outset that the Portuguese police suspected the parents were somehow involved. Unlike in Britain, from the start there were reports that Maddy was a difficult child, had possibly been drugged, that the children were regularly left, and how Kate McCann was highly stressed caring for three lively infants. So the big question now - is Kate the calm, saintly, immaculate and maternal beauty she looks .... or a sinisterly sly, cold and secretly volatile, celebrity seeking sinner of the very darkest type??
Judie Kingdom, Sheffield, UK
My heart goes out to this poor family and poor little Madeleine. I am disgusted that people are so quick to judge . Some of the comments I have read are so revolting I just cant believe that anyone would say such terrible things. It's almost like they are enjoying the drama of the whole tragic situation. Makes me feel ill, it really does. I pray for the Mccanns and their little baby every day, almost feel like I know them.
Kim, Devizes, Wiltshire
The whole thing has turned to a war between two cultures and two systems or ways of life, independently on if McCanns have been guilty or not. Madeleine is not in the picture. She is secondary.
Elisa C., Sollefteå, Sweden
I think that people are sub-consciously, hoping that it was the MCanns; after all it makes for much more interesting (and improbable) story than a simple abduction. People get excited at the thought it was the much as they do with a huge accident on a highway. People know there is a very small probability it was them, but just like playing the lottery , it does not stop them betting on that highly unlikely , yet exciting , outcome.
Joao Oliveira, murches, portugal
I had no idea how many people were so judgemental and condeming of the McCanns. I too have been absorbed by the events, having 2 young children and recently holidayed in Portugal, I have felt tremendous concern towards the McCann family and hope with all my heart that their daughter will still be found alive.
It saddens me enormously how people find it so easy to criticise and judge, I completely agree with your sentiments and hope that having read your article more people will be less condeming.
Nicola Enoch, Leamington Spa,
Please please please let us support Gerry and Kate; let's embrace them with compassion for they need it and deserve it.
geertje anderson, cambridge, cambridgeshire
Before suggesting that behaviour is "odd" please remember the Dingo Baby case. And don't forget too that there were those who frequently accused the late Jane Tomlinson of not having cance. Presumption of innocence until proven otherwise is always the best maxim in cases where the ignorance and prejudice of the public remind us just how close to the jungle "civilised" society really is.
P Thomas, North West, UK
Someone wrote that this is a Greek Tragedy, people being the Chorus that decries the actions of the characters.
Middle class is and has always been cruel and speedy in their judgement of others. The ecstasy of sanctimony is a real middle class must.
I cannot even start to conceive how the McCann Parents would kill their daughter; it seems a totally outlandish idea, and everything they did to find Madeleine is the dream action of any parent in the same proposition.
When Madeleine truth will come up we will all realise what a tragedy this has been. In the mean while I dare any parent to be the first to say that he has never left his children alone, not for one minute.
João Mota Campos, Lisboa, Portugal
People are entitled to their opinions. The vitriol, vileness and ignorance of those opinions may not sit well with you or me, but this is the epitome of free speech.
And whilst I wish to keep my opinion on this truly sad event to myself, I can only quote the following from Ms Knight's article for, in my mind, it is the only reason why the public is guilty for having opinions...
'The McCanns did themselves no favours when they embarked, deliberately, on a gigantic, modern publicity campaign. And that has contributed in no small part to making this case seem so compelling now. It is hard to criticise their original motive for hyping up the publicity, but in the process the McCanns unwittingly turned themselves into a soap opera: available to view on a screen near you 24 hours a day.'
Tessa, Bristol, UK
Well done India for a brilliant article. I have never doubted the McCann's innocence and just wish their daughter could be found and the real criminal be dealt with appropriately. I wish the public who are against Kate and Gerry would mind their own business get on with their lives and stop making up a pack of lies and that includes the ex coppers who think they know it all. I hope and pray Madeleine is safe and being well looked after and will be reunited with his family very very soon.
Margaret, Cheadle, England
I have never doubted the McCann's for one minute. But the public's hunger for terrible news prevails, it seems; and the tabloids feed off the latest scraps of information and gossip. The Portugese police investigation has been a deal less thorough that one could have hoped for - in fact shambolic. It's time the whole country got behind the family to do everything possibly to support them wholeheartedly and apply every means imaginable to finding that poor child. What if you were in this dire situation? It's bad enough without anyone making it worse. Surely...?
David Little, Haslemere , Surrey
A fabulous article India, I believe that the McCanns have been pounced on by a pack of hungry wolves, why people want to blame them so much I do not know. They have admitted they shouldn't have left their children alone - this does not make them capable of manslaughter or murder!
It is clear they love their children very much and are devastated, I wish people would move on and see that the person to blame is ultimately the evil perpetrator that has stolen Madeleine from her bed. No one on these forums seem to be talking about them!
Heidi Shearman, London, UK
I think this arcticle has hit the nail on the head. Some poeple are pathetic, they have turned this horrific story into theire own personal amusement and like nothing better than pointing the finger of blame towards those poor parents. Do they not think theyve had enough? Madeline was so obviously their pride and joy, I cant take anyone serisouly who even suggests that they kiled her. For a start why, if they had killed her, would they keep the story in the news? Why not just drop out of the limelight, why make such a fuss? The emotion you see in those parents faces isnt fake, and yes many people think that they have something to hide, some thing not being brought to into the open. Think about it, this is most likely just guilt for leaving madeline on her own, or even guilt (if the story turns out to be true) for drugging her to get her to sleep. It is ludicrous to suggest that they overdosed her by accident, theyre doctors for gods sake. I dont think they should be punished anymore.
Lauren, York, England
well done India Knight for articulating what I am sure most right thinking people believe but do not have