Luz, I have worked on miscarriages of justice for over 20 years and helped to not only overturn a notorious one, but put it right by finding the real killer. At times I was on my own doing it. This means that I have seen several investigations that have a self-serving agenda. A case hypothesis is developed and it over-rides evidence, common-sense and even the law.
In the major case I worked on there was a closed mind and in the end an appalling miscarriage of justice occurred. As soon as the Cardiff 3 (2 were acquitted) had their convictions, the police investigated themselves. They decided they had done nothing wrong. The Lord Chief Justice - the top judge in our country - had said a month earlier that he never wanted to hear interviewing like that in his court ever again.
The police demanded new evidence. I gave it to them with the support of the dead woman's mother and they made a complete pig's ear of it. We had to stop them using all the DNA up to prevent them making it unsolvable. I wrote and published a book about it which included how it could be solved. A year later it was reopened again and this time it was investigated properly and resulted in the case being solved correctly. It is the one example of an outrageously bad investigation being followed by a superb one.
Later another investigation followed which ended in justice being betrayed again. I don't trust the system to put right what it did wrong in that case. Does that make me guilty too? Is Michael O'Brien guilty of anything for not trusting the system as well. He believes (with cause) that the police are trying to stitch him up again. If the McCanns believed that the Portuguese investigators were out to achieve that why would they co-operate?
I understand what you are saying. I've worked for the justice system for many years, both for the prosecution and defense. I know it doesn't always work well and many times there are situations where innocents are wrongly mistreated. But let me tell you. In Portugal, most times it is the victims, the real victims (children, adolescents, women and now even some men) of abuse and neglect that are less protected.
The McCann had no reason to be fearful, they had a huge battery of support behind them. They were treated like innocents from the beginning until it became impossible not to examine them.
They screwed big time. They had disrespected every directive the police had given them, they were ostentatiously disrespectful whenever they were called to check the leads that kept coming, they went on with their media propaganda after the british and portuguese police asked them to calm down.
After Kate McCann confessed to Ricardo Paiva that she had dreams about Madeleine being dead, and they requested for the phony South African to come to Praia da Luz; after some Uk experts told the portuguese authorities that the parents had to be examined, what did you expect that should be done. Tell them: nice to meet you, now go home?
In fact they did, because the imbecile judge instead of putting them in pre-emptive imprisonment, gave them the minimum restriction order: to remain in their residence (which was Rothley), and they took it.
Now I ask, if you had a child missing, would you just escape like a rabbit from a fox? Or would you stay and try to help, not only to clear your position, but most of all, find your child?
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I hope you can make out what I wrote. Speaking in portuguese with people here and writing in english is too hard. Sorry for such a bad text.
