Of course "Chinagirl" is not my real life name. However, it is the nom de plume I have used consistently in every forum I have posted in about this case for the past six years. No one needs to speculate about whether I'm the same person who said a certain thing on such-and-such a forum and is now saying something else on another. I don't think there are many people posting about this case, pro or anti, who have maintained the same identity throughout.
And as a matter of interest, I started out being considerably sceptical about the McCanns and the abduction, but became increasingly disillusioned by what I saw as inept handling of the investigation by Amaral and his team, so that by the time the arguido status was lifted and the files released, commonsense, innate sympathy for the parents, and a firm belief in the well-established legal principle of the presumption of innocence caused me to become what is known as a "pro." This is the stance I have maintained ever since, and for which I feel fully justified, given the latest pronouncements by Scotland Yard and the final report of the Portuguese AG.
Given the sheer hatred and vitriol displayed on forums over this case, from both sides of the argument, i have no problem in anyone using a false name or a forum handle to conceal their identity. After all some of the "tactics" used to discredit posters and commentators borders on criminal at times.
I have no problem ignoring the writer's name (or several names) and concentrating on the writer's words to see if what they say is credible and makes sense to me.
Thank you for the background to your own position. I had heard of you before but did not know the back story.
Clearly we have differing views but i respect that fact, and i am certainly not interested in hunting you down and finding out your real name, address, family and occupation like some of the more extreme elements do.
It strikes me as one of the bizarre facets of discussion of the case online, the way normal (and presumably) decent people can becoming raving and raging monsters, uncovering names, addresses, occupations when discussing this case.
It's not merely about disagreeing with what someone says. It is about trying to destroy them online.
Utterley despicable and completely nonesensical to me.
Just a couple of points to pick up on though.
First of all the presumption of innocence. That is to be applied when a suspect arrives in a Court and not in an investigative phase (which is where we are now), which is why we had the archiving report's famous "failure to prove their innocence" paragraph.
After all police forces around the world require suspects to provide alibis and evidence to remove them from suspicion. So in an investigative phase there is no presumption of innocence until that suspect can be definitively shown to be innocent through alibis, forenscis or verifiable facts for example.
In relation to the presumption of innocent until proven guilty even in a Court, there are degrees of innocence as confirmed by the recent Barry George compensation case and the Judge's ruling.
Finally on the AG report, i know i keep repeating this but it needs to keep being said until it is acknowledged. The AG had no legal powers to proclaim the Mccann's not guilty. Only a Judge in a court can do that. The AG was a public prosecutor, who was effectively saying in his opinion, he did not have evidence to proceed with a criminal case against the McCann's.
The UK equivalent would be of the CPS to say they aren't taking a case to court as they have insufficient evidence.
That is not the same, as seems to have been swallowed by supporters of the Mccann's that a Judge has found them not guilty in a court.
It is not the same and clearly needs understanding as such.
Let us be clear that the only time that the PJ's evdience was put before a court was in the Amaral/Mccann Book Supreme Court trial where those jusdges (real Judges, in a real Court) decided that the AG's findings were simply an interepretation of the evidence, and that Amaral's thesis was an equally vaid "police-led" interpretation of those same facts:
"What is certain is that since the start of the investigation, there were incongruent and even contradictory situations concerning the witness statements, the telephone records of calls that were made and received on mobile phones that belonged to the couple and to the group of friends that were on holidays with them, the movements of people immediately after the disappearance of the little girl was noticed, concerning the state in which the bedroom from where the child disappeared from was found (closed window? open window? partially open window?), etc., and the mystery would only become even thicker due to the clues that were left by the aforementioned sniffer dogs."
"Where Amaral differs from the Prosecutors who wrote the dispatch, is in the logical, police-work-related and investigative interpretation that he makes of those facts."We need, to stress the following: the facts that led to the applicants' constitution as arguidos within the inquiry were later on not sufficiently valued by the Public Ministry's Prosecutors to lead to a criminal accusation, but those very same facts, seen from a different angle, may lead to a different conclusion from that of the prosecutors.Suggestive data ("indications") that were deemed to be insufficient in terms of evidence in a criminal investigation, can be appreciated in a different way, in an interpretation that can legitimately be published as a book, as long as the interpretation does not offend any fundamental rights of anyone involved. In our view that said interpretation does not offend the applicants' rights."
Finally in relation to the Yard's work, i too am happy for them to go about their business. I do not think we are getting the full picture from Cider Andy, but we shouldn't be either given the investigation is still live.
As i stated yesterday, his "38 persons of interest line" seems hugely irrresponsible if he truly believes Madeleine is still alive.
That comment could spook any abductor into "getting rid of the evidence", as they would have no idea if they are one of the "persons of interest". Best to dump the evidence just in case.......
I would rather wait until the END of the investigation to see what Redwood has to say, as we know investigations should ebb and flow where the evidence takes it.
If at the end he has an abductor then i will be more than happy to see that, as we all, irrespective of which side of the fence we are on want closure for Madeleine's sake.
However he needs to make sure that the evidence he uncovers is cast iron because short of a confession, on the evidence so far seen, the case will be a defence lawyer's wet dream and convicting an abductor on the evidence of what is there at the moment will be nigh on impossible.
