McCanns: What gives any stranger the right?

Question

& the gumption to accuse people of murder WITHOUT any
"significant evidence"?????

What do we have here? Just one cold certainity : The McCanns left their babies unattended.
A terrible terrible decision that they feel guilt for.
Add to that guilt, the grief of losing their beloved Madeleine.
Now, add to that nightmare, the horror of being accused of murdering her.
And just who is responsible for this horror???
None other than total strangers who relish being part of a lynch-mob...
No one, i repeat, NO ONE should have the right to speculate / accuse anyone without proof,
in such a disgustingly self-righteous & uncivilised manner.

Baseless accusations defy logic, are unreasonable, irrational & worst of all, are cruel beyond compare.

Now that the McCanns have had to return to their home without their baby, their grief is unimaginable.
A large part of that grief is UNNCESSARY...being caused by accusations of her murder.

All these weeks, i've been pretty calm, almost bland, in my feeble attempts to defend 2 grieving parents
from the unnecessary horror they have been systematically been tortured with.

NOW, I'd like to know, anti-McCanns, how does it feel to be directly responsible as a major contributor to such grief???
Can you sleep at night? OR are your consciences so dead that you are not one bit perturbed at the grief you have caused???
OR are your minds so sick that defence mechanisms of rationalisation are busy at work to justify the witch-hunt created and
fueled by you???

Answer 1

As you know faith I agree with you all the way.
Can you imagine actually being consumed with hate like some of the more vile perpetrators of unfounded accusation and moronic speculation, there lives consumed by this continued obsessive witch-hunt.
Still I guess it is easy to adopt a lynch mob mentality from the safety of the Internet.
I like you prefer not to jump on the hate fest band waggon but would rather wait for the TRUE facts to emerge and never lose sight of the mainstay of our justice system.
Innocent until proven Guilty.
Edit
Respect to Freethinker, great post.

Answer 2

Hiding behind a computer is an easy way to attack people, Faith. I've been disturbed by some of the extreme views on here and how anyone who offers an opinion gets attacked (and reported !!) by someone who doesn't agree.

I am also disturbed by how public opinion has been swayed by the parents being named as suspects - not charged with murder, and not arrested. Really, we know very little - a lot of what is out there is rumour and innuendo, mostly because the Portugese Police have kept a lot quiet. I certainly do not condone the parents leaving their little children alone unsupervised, and I hope this is a lesson to parents everywhere who may also do the same thing.

Whenever I think what could have happened to this little girl Madeleine, whether murdered by her parents, abducted by a pedophile or sold onto the baby market, I get so distressed at the suffering and pain and bewilderment she must have suffered. I hope that there is an end to this some day - the high emotions involved could cause terrible hurt to Amalie and Sean - what are their lives going to be like living in the glare of publicity and perhaps one day going to school and being teased about their murdering parents, etc? This case has affected so many people.

It's really amazing how this particular case has gotten so many people riled up. There are those who are staunch in their defence of the parents and those who would string them up on the nearest branch. I don't like all the name calling and bullying on here.

Me? I wish that little girl had never been left alone in the first place and was happily back at home with her mum and dad and we had never heard of this family.

Answer 3

People get nuts about the thought of the parents neglecting two small children by leaving them alone. Then, they start to think that if they can do that, what else would they do? I don't think the people's opinions have ANYTHING to do with the fact the parents have been named suspects. People aren't suspects unless there is evidence. I believe there was blood found in a rental car that matched the child's. That has been reported in the news. What other evidence that was found is yet to be said. I'm sure they are feeling a huge loss. People's opinion's probably is NOTHING for mom and dad McCann- compared to the pain caused by their child's absence. They could probably care less what people think. When faced with something so huge, the average person would just want their baby back- ( and no, I'm not an anti-Mcann)

Answer 4

In most countries there are rights to freedom of speech that give fairly wide-ranging licence to people to say a lot of things that wiser heads would consider irresponsible. We DON'T, however, have unrestricted freedom of speech - even in the most liberal nations there are still limits to what one can say without risking action. It mostly depends, of course, on the individual who thinks they have been defamed taking action against the offender.

As for why people do it, I have also given this some considerable thought in the past few months. I am of the opinion that some people are so self-centred that they are quite unable to feel empathy with anyone else. Other people's actions and motivations and emotions are a closed book to them. It allows them to act on nothing more than their own, unchecked, impulses and in their own, narrow, self-interest. I'm certain that this is behind at least some of the nastiness that has been meted out.

The fact is that we don't know for sure what evidence there is against the McCanns. For that matter, we have never known for sure what evidence there was against Robert Murat - but isn't if funny how the implications of "arguido" status for a person's guilt are being regarded differently by the amateur accusers now that the McCanns have been accorded it compared with when it was only Robert Murat?

Answer 5

The vast amount of speculation in the media and on boards like these has been to a great extent a direct result of the massive attention drawn by the McCanns to this case. They have tirelessly paraded themselves on TV, meeting the Pope, giving Press conferences, interviews, launching the Fighting Fund, putting ads in cinemas, posters all over, stickers, wristbands, etc.

Is it any wonder that this massive campaign has led to a lot of analysis and speculation about the case? It has fascinated and intrigued from the start, and in no small part down to their incredible calm when interviewed and speaking in public. The fact is they left their kids alone in a foreign country and something bad happened as a result. It is not surprising people are less than sympathetic.

They could have sat back and let the police do their job, keeping themselves out of the media glare. The general public would have had less fuel for the fire, and perhaps the police could have better got on with their jobs and found Madeleine, rather than chasing hundreds upon hundreds of false leads, battling with press and tourists, and dealing with a lot of negative publicity to boot. The McCanns may well have made things a lot worse in the search for Madeleine by attracting all this crazy attention with massive million pound rewards, donations and daft merchandise.

Look at it objectively. Is it really any wonder public opinion has turned against them?

Answer 6

I agree with you. I cannot understand the negative views expressed which all seem to be based on speculation. It worries me how a lot of people seem to get carried away by such speculation and don't seem capable of separating fact from fiction. Some people tend to go along with whatever the police accuse them of, so this may be part of it: "Well if the police think they were involved, there must be some truth to it!" I think it is awful. They do not seem to think about poor Madeleine. The focus needs to be on her.

Answer 7

While I feel that the McCanns were dead wrong to leave their children alone in a hotel room, I am neither investigator, nor judge, nor jury.

If they are guilty, that just makes this all the more tragic.

If not, I hope that they can pick up the pieces and move on.

I'm reserving judgement until a lot more evidence is revealed. I still won't make a judgement on Jon Benet Ramsey's parents, either.

Answer 8

Totally agree. From what I know Kate and Gerry did not kill Maddy. They made a mistake when they left their children in the apartments and no one is denying that. But I think the Portuguese police have acted terribly in this case and are clutching at straws. It's got to the point where they were looking so ridiculous that they had to do something, even if it is wasting precious time naming her parents as formal suspects. If they have evidence wouldn't they have just charged or arrested them.

Answer 9

The trouble with our society and people is that we act irrationally particularly when part of crowd. Appearances are often deceprtive and one who appears having committed a crime could be very innocent and victim of circumstances. But the crowd behaves rationally and in the process innocents suffer. It is high time people are educated to avoid taking law in their hands in any circumstances and report the matter to police who after preliminary investigations would file case before judiciary for taking decision base on law.

Answer 10

They show: Audacity, impertinence, disregard, lack of compassion, extreme cruelty, bitterness, rudeness. How does it make me feel? Sometimes disgusted because although I know that cruel people exist I have been fortunate enough never to encounter so many in one place, amusement sometimes at the lack of logic and the presumptions and leaps. I am also horrified at their lack of compassion and patience. Overall a combination of a little sadness at the lack of decency, a little angry (which I never am normally), a little disgusted, A bit frustrated that I cannot say what I really think about them, like yourself. often outraged at some of the disgusting things said. Thanks for the question honey, hope it manages to stay despite their itchy fingers hovering over the abuse button (because, as we know, the truth hurts)., sometimes I envy their ability to say anything they want without letting facts or logic get in the way (no I don't really).