So the cult of the amateur is killing our culture, right? What if I was to tell you that bloggers had accused someone of abducting Madeleine McCann purely on the basis that he spoke foreign and had associated with Bogus Asylum Seekers? You’d be shocked. Well, the national press did it. Robert Murat, the only suspect in the case, is such because “a newspaper” noted that he had been talking to people involved (he speaks Portuguese and English) and had done the same in Lincolnshire for Portuguese farmworkers.
Portuguese police are pinning their hopes on the results of more than 200 DNA samples collected. They have discovered the DNA profile of a “stranger” in the bedroom where Madeleine was abducted on May 3. Sources said it was not that of Robert Murat, the formal suspect in the case.
Police are now cross checking it against all the friends who were holidaying with the McCanns in the Algarve and all staff at the Ocean Club complex in Praia da Luz where they stayed. The sample is also being sent to the UK to be run through the DNA criminal database.
Let’s not forget the NOTW‘s headline last week, which claimed he “had child porn” quoting Jim Gamble’s leaktastic outfit. In the text of the story itself, the paper was not at all so clear – they didn’t allege anything illegal at all, referring instead to “friends” who described his “appetite for women”. It seems, however, to be standard operating procedure that anyone involved in a high profile criminal case will be accused of paedophilia by nameless, untouchable police sources. Prosecution never follows, though the sources always sing for the NOTW and no other paper.
Further, it would be nice to know whether – with the mass media flood about this – it’s only brown people whose phone calls are being monitored in this enquiry. Does GCHQ have routine access to Moroccan GSM networks? If it does – and it could have good reason to, in terms of LNG ships and the Straits – should it really be boasting about it for the sake of cheaparse Sunday-for-Monday spin opportunities? Certainly, the McCann case appears to have offered the entire surveillance industry a priceless opportunity to justify its existence.
“entire surveillance industry a priceless opportunity to justify its existence.”
Not a view that sprung to mind but when you consider the role of COI and and now “seconded to the FCO” Clarence Mitchell ex Beeb PR expert and the slick way the Press have been diverted (including Crimewatch” and their spooky dramatic re-hashes, from considering exactly what happened on that night – not an impossibility – they will of course as a result require far more resources and funds, staff, etc., liason with foreign coutnerparts, conferences in sunny climes etc.,