Book Reviews

Madeleine- Kate McCann

There’s Only One Thing Worse Than Losing A Child.

There’s only one thing worse than losing a child and that’s to have been made to suffer the way the McCann’s have been made to suffer because of it. In this quite incredible book, Kate McCann reveals in almost diary format the events leading up to the abduction of their beautiful daughter Madeleine and more importantly the shocking and quite unbelievable police investigation (or rather the lack of it) afterwards.

It is quite difficult to comprehend the attitude of the Portuguese Police in dealing with a missing child in the immediate aftermath, it was as if they were dealing with a runaway teenager aged fifteen or sixteen years not a three year old girl in her pyjamas.

The facts make disturbing reading. Madeleine was reported missing shortly after 10pm. At 11.10 pm. two GNR policemen arrived, they normally deal with crowd control or traffic, law enforcement and the like. They were, to use Kate McCann’s analogy, “a little bewildered and clearly out of their depth.” 

It wasn’t until midnight that they bothered to inform the Policia Judiciaria, the police who should have been alerted in the first place. Those two hours were critical; they were lost and gone forever and there was worse to come.

At three o’clock in the morning the police left.

That was it for the night. No road blocks, no searches of local houses and hotels, nothing. They said they’d be back after nine the next day, leaving the McCann’s and their friend’s gobsmacked and helpless. Whoever took that decision to do nothing that night should be birched to within an inch of their lives. I’ve read (and written) enough books on crime to know that the first 24 to 48 hours in child abduction is absolutely crucial so why didn’t the Portuguese Police know that? It is simply unforgivable that they totally wasted the first 12 hours… quite breathtakingly beyond comprehension… staggering.

From that moment in time the McCann’s and the Portuguese Police let’s say, didn’t exactly see eye to eye. Surprise, surprise??

Kate McCann remains quite tactful in the book for obvious reasons. She believes her daughter is still alive and still needs the help of the Police in Portugal so she didn’t exactly say what a pack of useless incompetent unprofessionals they were. But they were, make no mistake about it. Whilst I’m on a rant I’d like to give it to certain journalists too, the hacks that ganged up on the McCann’s with false accusations and sensational unfounded headlines based on lies. The McCann’s had to build bridges with these so called professionals to keep Madeleine in the public eye and some of them knifed the poor couple in the back even accusing them of killing their daughter at one stage.

An Alien flying in from outer space could be forgiven for picking up this book in the local library and thinking it was a work of crime fiction. And yet no… the police incompetence and the sheer audacity and cruelty of the parasitic tabloid writers would be considered a little too far-fetched for the average Martian.

The book is an absolute jaw dropping read at times and Kate McCann does an admirable job on what is clearly a very difficult write. And her desperation shines through every page as well as her unconditional love for her children who she clearly loves more than life itself. Kate McCann speaks from the heart in an honest and open manner giving the McCann’s version of events pouring ridicule on some of the crap written about them since that terrible day.

Do I blame the McCann’s for leaving their children in an apartment they could see from where they sat? No I don’t. As a parent you take instinctive actions and judge situations every day and some of them you get wrong. As a parent I’ve made wrong decisions but the worst that has happened is a split lip or a grazed knee. Every time you leave a child with a babysitter or a child minder, or a nursery nurse you take a chance. Leave a young child in a hotel room with a baby listening service and you are placing your trust in a stranger you haven’t even met and how many of us have done that? How do you know that the stranger listening in to your child sleeping isn’t the local paedophile biding his time?

If the McCann’s could turn the clock back I’m sure they would, that is clear for anyone to see reading this book but then hindsight is a wonderful thing. I urge you to read it with an open mind not like some of the one star reviewers who haven’t actually reviewed the book but instead professed to be the most perfect, infallible parents in the world. There for the grace of god and all that. Talking of god, as an atheist it saddened me so much to read how much time the McCann’s wasted on divine intervention even taking time out to meet the Pope, but there again that’s their choice. Kate McCann’s comes over as honest sincere, compassionate woman and full of love for her family, a devout catholic and if there was such a thing as god he wouldn’t have put her through this torment.