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Anorak News | Madeleine McCann and ME: The media experts muse on the missing child

Madeleine McCann and ME: The media experts muse on the missing child

by | 28th, April 2012

MADELEINE McCann: A daily round-up of media mentions of the missing child, featuring Tony Parsons and Lorraine Kelly…

Tony Parsons (Daily Mirror): “Madeleine McCann and her parent’s love that will never die”

Seeing the picture of how Madeleine might look today brought home again the suffering of the McCanns, a mountain of ­unimaginable pain

Tony Parsons has written about Madeleine McCann before.

The human megaphone has wondered about where his child has gotten to; he has invited the Portuguese ambassador to “shut your stupid sardine-munching mouth”; he has seen Jesus; and he has seen a link between the missing child and the murders of Catherine and Ben Mullany on honeymoon in Antigua.

He told us how “it” happens:

My wife and my daughter were in the school changing room packing up the tutu after ballet. I was waiting right outside, kicking around a ball with the kid brother of one of my daughter’s friends. Eventually my wife came out alone. ‘Where is she?’ my wife asked. ‘Isn’t she with you?’ I said. And that’s how it happens.”

He has also printed an untuth about Goncalo Amaral (still uncorrected), the Portuguese detective who failed to find the child. In a piece calling the Portuguese police “cruel, stupid, spiteful clowns”, Parsons reported the that Goncalo Amaral had told a BBC reporter: “No, f*** the McCanns.”  What Amaral actually said was “Fala com McCanns” which means “Ask the McCanns”.

Maybe it as Parsons who was the funny foreigner not au fait with other languages?

So. What can we expect from Parsons?

FOR what seemed like the longest time, my daughter studied the computer-generated image of how Madeleine McCann might look today.

Yep. It’s more Maddie & Me

Madeleine would be nine years old – exactly the same age as our girl.

There but for the grace of God…

“Some people still think that Madeleine is alive, right?” said my daughter.

Right.

Is Parsons going to analyse all the things “some people think” and which cannot be proven? No. There will be neither libel nor defamation.

Seeing the picture of how Madeleine might look today – that simple, poignant image of a smiling, pretty little girl with not a care in the world – brought home again the suffering of the McCanns, a mountain of ­unimaginable pain that we were in danger of forgetting.

Forgetting? No. It’s been front-page news for almost five years. What we crave is closure. But Parsons wants to talk about his daughter and what a missing child means for him and for her. Our Maddie is not just the benchmark of missing children, she is every child:

A child grows up in those precious five years. When Madeleine went missing, my daughter was, like her, a little girl…To have lost my daughter when she was Madeleine’s age, to be robbed of watching her grow up, to live with the fact that I would never see her again – I would rather be dead.

Parsons has a daughter called Jasmine and an older son. If the girl went missing, Parsons would rather leave his son fatherless. The McCanns have their twins. They have not orphaned them.

Parsons adds:

What must keep Kate and Gerry McCann sane is the hope that Madeleine survives and may yet be restored to her family. The McCanns deserve our support, sympathy and respect They are the embodiment of parental love – the unconditional, undying love that refuses to let go.

That reads like troll bait. Many people say things other than his daughter’s view. Is Parsons trying to flush them out, the trolls and naysayers who point fingers and whisper about the McCanns, their opinions based on hunches and prejudices? The true victim is the innocent missing child. But, as ever, we are invited to look at the parents.

Daily Mirror:

The bungling cop who led the botched Madeleine McCann investigation last night backed calls for the case to be reopened. Goncarlo Amaral is being sued by Kate and Gerry McCann after he claimed they were involved in their daughter’s disappearance.

But yesterday the detective sided with the couple – 24 hours after Portuguese authorities refused to reopen the case.

“We were always against the closing of the case,” he said. “It should be reopened.”

He also called for a Crimewatch-style reconstruction of the night the youngster vanished from a Portugal holiday resort in May 2007.

“We need a reconstruction,” said Amaral, who was taken off the case six months after Madeleine vanished.

“This is a fundamental police act which will serve to remove contradictions, inconsistencies and lies.”

Only in 2008, the McCanns friends – the so-called Tapas 7 – had been reluctant to appear in such a reconstruction. It was called off. Amaral knows that. He’s being cute.

Lorraine Kelly (The Sun):  “I pray Maddie police will be proved right”

The “Maddie police” who says the child may be alive or dead? Which part of right is Kelly praying for?

Kate and Gerry will be on my Lorraine show at 8.30am on Wednesday, ITV1.

Says the TV presenter:

WHEN I first interviewed Madeleine McCann’s mum and dad shortly after her disappearance, I hoped with all my heart that I wouldn’t be talking to them about their missing daughter five years down the line.

No. You surely hoped the child would be found alive and well, as any sane person might.

Sadly it has come to pass, and the incredibly brave and stoic Kate and Gerry will be on my TV sofa next week as they face up to the fifth year without their beloved little girl. Madeleine is frozen in time as that beautiful blonde-haired, blue-eyed four-year-old, but she would be approaching her ninth birthday now and this week’s new computer-generated image shows us how she might look.

The blonde. Always the blonde. Because looks matter when your’re milking a single-thread story. Had the innocent child been black or from working class stock, would she still be on the top of the news cycle? Don’t bother answering. We know the answer.

Obviously the outcome we are all praying for is that she was kidnapped to order by someone who is taking good care of her.

That’s the outcome we’re praying for – that some sadist kidnaps children to order? The most being outcome must be that the child wondered off and was found by kindly people with no TV, radio, newspapers or internet who took her in and raised her with love. But we’re guessing, aren’t we.

How I wish that, one day soon, I might be talking to Kate and Gerry about their reunion with the child they love so much.

A prayer becomes a wish.

Madeleine McCanns is missing.



Posted: 28th, April 2012 | In: Key Posts, Madeleine McCann Comment (1) | TrackBack | Permalink