by Jane Allyson

Created on: September 21, 2007   Last Updated: July 29, 2011

The controversy surrounding the McCanns is immense and their high profile search for their missing daughter has exited a lot of interest and compassion for this negligent pair.

The notion that they may have killed their daughter and then disposed of her body at a secret location has also been wondered about, and with the intense media presence and the inadequacies in Portuguese police procedure, this question developed into a real threat for the McCann's.

Although there is no evidence to show that their child has been killed, it can be argued that the McCanns can still be held morally responsible for Madeleine's abduction and presumed demise. The one fact that no one is arguing about is that they left their three vulnerable children alone at their apartment late at night, with no supervision whilst the both of them had dinner nearby.

Whether Madeleine wandered outside on her own or whether she was taken from her own bed, the fact of the matter is that if her parents had been watching her and keeping an eye on her then their daughter would still be with them. They should count themselves lucky that the twins were not taken as well.

Have they killed Madeleine and hidden her body? Any inconsistencies in witness statements or events have been merely muddied with the intention of playing down the McCann's gross negligence. However there is no hard evidence that points to them being killers.

The DNA evidence taken from the car, could quite easily have been put there very innocently from other sources that had been either used or touched by Madeleine previous to her disappearance.

There is other evidence such as the sniffer dog picking up the smell of death from her mother's clothing. This could also be open to question. These dogs are not infallible.

Their refusal to answer certain questions put to them by the Police has been their right to do so and they have probably been advised to say as little as possible by their legal representative.

Madeleine is not the first child to go missing in Portugal, never to be found. Would it have not been more feasible for the McCanns to have merely reported their daughter as missing and quietly left the country if they had really killed her? The huge media hype and worldwide search that has been generated by this couple and their family, instead, indicates parents whose resourcefulness will stop at nothing to get back the daughter who they love.

They have willingly stepped into the spotlight of the media circus. They have undergone a grueling barrage of questions from the Portuguese Police. They endure an appalling lack of privacy that has made them paranoid to the extreme that they are questioning whether their telephone calls and emails are being intercepted and they must live with the fact that their lives will never be the same again.

They took comfort and words of solace during a personal meeting with the Pope. We could argue that it would take a hard hearted couple to stand there in front of his eminence and lie through their teeth. The pope himself could almost be seen to be endorsing their innocence by his very presence with them. 

He probably helped them to gain the strength that will carry them through this nightmare until they find out what has really happened to their daughter.

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