Joined: 06 Aug 2007 Posts: 1114 Location: Vancouver Canada
Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2008 2:49 am Post subject: How did they think it would end?
When Gerry and Kate decided on this course of action, they must have actually thought they'd be able to get away with it. Convince the police and the public that their daughter was abducted... raise awareness, garner sympathy, accumulate a massive amount of money that could (with a little persuasion) be used to finance any legal bills that might arise... they were looking happier and happier as the weeks went by, more relaxed, more at home with the press. They really believed they had the public and the bumbling police, at their feet.
And then came the question from the German reporter, which tripped them up. What, us? We might be involved in Madeleine's disappearance or death? How preposterous!
But it did trip them up. And things started to get sticky after that.
And then they were made arguidos. And nothing has been the same since.
What did they think would happen? The public would continue to finance their global jaunts, month after month, year after year, in search of their missing child? At what point were they prepared to draw the line, and say, ok, we've spent so many millions of pounds, we've investigated, we've looked, and we haven't found her...
When would they have been prepared to say, ok let's stop now?
Wind it down quietly, and then get back to their normal happy vanilla-flavoured lives....
Because that was what it was all in aid of, wasn't it? To try and preserve their happy lives in Rothley, and avoid whatever charges would have arisen had they reported Madeleine's death and told the truth.
Only, nothing will ever be the same again, will it? Not after this. If they are charged with crimes, they will have to face a trial, and all of the details which wil come out of it. And even if (god forbid) they are found innocent, the details which will emerge will be remembered, and will have a profound effect on the McCanns' families and friends, their colleagues and the general public. Nothing like this is ever clean-cut and pleasant.
And if they are found guilty, well.... Life will not be normal for them. Ever again.
So it seems all of this has been for what? I don't think Gerry and Kate could ever have imagined the place we're at now, eight months after the fact. And if they think they can go back to the same kind of lives they had prior to going to Portugal, they're deluded.
When does it stop? When would it have stopped? It will never stop.
However, it always bothered me that no-one put that question to them sooner - I think things would have gor rolling a lot quicker if a UK journalist had just asked something about the huge percentage of abductions or disappearences that turn out to be perpetrated by family.
That said -- big ups to that German journalist - she had the savvy to hit them with it with the caneras rolling - the whole world got an insight -- even if a bunch of fools fell for there response - to me that was a turning point - I suspected them but after that I knew.
Joined: 06 Aug 2007 Posts: 1114 Location: Vancouver Canada
Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2008 3:33 am Post subject:
[quote="truthkillspin"]Indeed, well put OP.
However, it always bothered me that no-one put that question to them sooner - I think things would have gor rolling a lot quicker if a UK journalist had just asked something about the huge percentage of abductions or disappearences that turn out to be perpetrated by family.
That said -- big ups to that German journalist - she had the savvy to hit them with it with the caneras rolling - the whole world got an insight -- even if a bunch of fools fell for there response - to me that was a turning point - I suspected them but after that I knew.[/quote]
I remember when that German journo finally asked the question everyone here on the forum had been asking - demanding - for months. Everyone here was incredulous that no British journos had put the question to them, when it seemed such an obvious thing to ask, based on what we all suspected and all of the discrepancies that had surfaced.
There was a huge virtual cheer when we learned what she'd done. At the time we believed it was something very courageous, since no one else seemed to have the balls to do it.
In their minds, I suspect Kate and Gerry had made a hurried decision that the best thing to do would be to stick to the abductor story, put out a couple of appeals (loads of perpetrators do that) and hope that the whole thing would quietly die down in the way the Ben Needham case has stayed unresolved.
I honestly believe they had no idea that the story would catch the imagination of the public in the way it did.
I think by the time they realised how big it was, Pandora's box was wide open and there was nothing they could do to close it, so they've had to run with it.
In my opinion, it was the efforts of the friends and family that made the campaign as huge as it became and for Kate and Gerry to do anything other than play their part in it enthusiastically and energetically would have been a sure sign of guilt.
ps Please don't glean from that statement that I either think Mrs Needham was either implicated in his disappearance or that she has not made enough effort to find him, but the truth is that poor Ben occupies a very small corner of most people's memory.
Joined: 06 Aug 2007 Posts: 1114 Location: Vancouver Canada
Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2008 3:49 am Post subject:
[quote="mutter"]. I think by the time they realised how big it was, Pandora's box was wide open and there was nothing they could do to close it, so they've had to run with it.
In my opinion, it was the efforts of the friends and family that made the campaign as huge as it became and for Kate and Gerry to do anything other than play their part in it enthusiastically and energetically would have been a sure sign of guilt.
.[/quote]
I've always felt that, too. How can you say "no" without raising the suspicions of those who were offering the help? It's like Kate allegedly turning away the cleaners, and allegedly turning down the offer of child care for May 3.
If they'd said no to any of the early help attempts on behalf of their friends and family, the question would have been asked, "Why? Don't you want everything possible to be done to find your child?"
Their family were so into the campaign thing - doing the interviews, lobbying parliament, setting up petitions, dragging in every high profile person they could lay their hands on................. doing everything they possibly could to help dear Kate and Gerry find their beloved daughter.
The only possible way G and K could have stopped the bandwagon was to tell them the truth, but it was too late then - the family had been lied to, would have felt cruelly betrayed and turned on them - as would the rest of us.
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