Having An E-fit Over Madeleine McCann

MADELEINE McCann in missing in Portugal.

Madeline McCann’s mother is appealing for help.

“Her face is frozen with grief and fear. She smells her Madeleine’s favourite cuddly toy. And never out of her grasp is a mobile phone which she wills to ring. The wait never ends.”

So says the Mirror’s Sue Carroll on the Mirror’s front page.

“Maddy’s mother shows the strain,” says the Mail. The Sun offers hope in “MADDIE COPS HAVE E-FIT”. And more headlines inside:

“SCRUFFY WEIRDO HUNTED OVER BRIT TOT”

“PROWLER SPOTTED BEFORE MADDIE TAKEN”

“Brit police send two paedo hunters”

The investigation is ongoing. But the Sun says Portuguese police refuse to show the E-fit image of the wanted man because it breaks the law. It’s an “E-fit farce”.

Only it doesn’t seem to be. Reading on we learn that Portuguese police have shown the image in Praia da Luz, the area near to where Madeleine went missing.

The Sun’s farce is the police’s decision not to let it see the picture and broadcast it back to readers many miles removed from the crime scene.

And the Sun is not alone in its criticism of Portuguese law. In “TEN BLUNDERS”, the Mirror lists the errors. It includes the decision not to show it this E-fit picture of the wanted man. Portuguese police have only shown it to locals, to those people who might have seen the man and seen what he did.

But concerned of Leicester wants to see, so too Bianca of Waltham Forest and Gwen of Plymouth. They want to see the face of the devil. They want to know.

And here comes Dep Supt Alan Ladley, the man who caught Sarah Payne’s killer, Roy Whiting. Ladley says that “basic coppering” might have found Madeleine’s abductor by now.

Like Madeleine, Sarah went missing on a family holiday. Sarah was found dead.

Madeline McCann is missing and we are led to believe it would have been better for mum and dad and Madeleine McCann had she been taken in Britain, preferably on Ladley’s patch. But not in Soham. Not there.

But whatever the paedo panic, instances remain rare, all the more so when a stranger is involved, as appears to be the case with Madeleine McCann.

The story features what the tabloids call “every parent’s worst nightmare”.

But this is an awful reality for Madeline McCann and Madeline McCann’s parents…

Anorak

Posted: 9th, May 2007 | In: Tabloids Comments (123) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink