I remember some of the early stuff written about the McCanns and I found it offensive as at that stage I genuinesly believed that Madeleine had mysteriously gone missing. I thought the abduction theory relatively unlikely on the basis that stranger abduction is unusual. But I considered it a possibility.
What I found odd was their early conclusion that it was a paedophile that abducted her - I did find that odd as I would have thought that they would want to believe in a less horrible outcome.
In fact, I defended there babysitting arrangements as to me they did not sound that different to the Mark Warner baby listening service that I used myself when the children were young. Nannies would patrol the corridors listening for crying but they didn't actually go into the room unless they heard crying. And obviously they could not be outside every room so there would be periods of time when your babies/children were effectively not that near a supervising adult. So it was a pretty ad hoc arrangement. And to my knowledge the security at the hotel was not particularly stringent - as it often isn't at hotels with people wandering in and out without being checked.
So, theoretically, an abduction could easily have happened. The fact that it never did is testament to the McCann's belief that stranger abduction is very unlikely indeed and therefore they would carry out their own baby listening.
Okay, as it happens their system appears to have been incredibly lax - they were quite far away etc; their children were left crying and so on.
But I always felt that accusing them solely on the basis of their baby listening arrangements was unfair. I mean, someone could break into your home and steal a child while you sleep. It is perfectly possible. Or into a school or any other setting. It can happen.
So - I had some sympathy for them on that score and thought: 'there but for the grace of God'.
However, once I started reading more about the case, I started to have doubts. I came to the conclusion that criticism over the baby listening was all a bit of a red herring (although undoubtedly the baby listening arrangements are highly significant in this case, for all sorts of reasons). I started to believe that there was an altogether different scenario.
One that is very, very strange. I still cannot quite wrap my head around it, given that it encompasses so many people in powerful positions. Can they all be so gullible?
My darkest thoughts about the whole thing revolve around selling newspapers and air time; lining lawyers pockets; lining detectives pockets (the Spanish detective company that achieved absolutely nothing and were being more than economical with the truth when they said they would have Madeleine back by Christmas.)
Even if you just focus on the McCanns choosing to hire there own firm of Spanish detectives - Metodo is it - who have been found to be....well........do your own research on them.......just that fact alone is fishy. How badly must that have hampered any proper police investigation? All those supposed sightings here, there and everywhere and all those media reports that were claiming that Madeleine was alive and well and spotted goodness knows where. That would hardly be consistent with a paedophile abduction, apart from anything else.
This has to be one of the weirdest cases ever.
