Miracles do happen - why not for Maddie: Hope for the McCann's after Scotland Yard detectives review her case

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2135920/Miracles-happen--Maddie-Hope-McCanns-Scotland-Yard-detectives-review-case.html

Miracles do happen - why not for Maddie: Hope for the McCann's after Scotland Yard detectives review her case

By Jan Moir

PUBLISHED: 01:03 GMT, 27 April 2012 | UPDATED: 01:03 GMT, 27 April 2012






Haunting images were released by police this week of Madeleine McCann as she might look today — a smiling, nine-year-old schoolgirl without a care in the world.

The ‘age progression’ image was made by the Human Identification and Forensic Art Consultancy, and they have done an amazing job.

You can see the advance of time, the ghostly palimpsest of her parents’ features merging with her own, the virtual romanticism of a lost girl growing up fast.

Just like millions of readers who have followed the tragic Madeleine case, I found the images riveting and heart-breaking in equal measure.

Then I also thought, well, boo hoo for us. For imagine what it must be like to be her parents; to daily endure the limbo and piercing torture of not knowing what has happened to their little girl — where she is, what she is doing, whether she is happy, alive or dead.

And then to be presented with her smiling face five years on, as though nothing had ever happened.

As time marches on, our memories fade, but Kate and Gerry McCann’s ordeal does not diminish.

Mrs McCann has talked in the past of often imagining how Madeleine would look now; for her and her husband to see a forensic representation of this fond daydream must have been bittersweet.

On the one hand, the couple must be delighted Scotland Yard detectives are reviewing the case — and have already stated that they have found 195 new leads and believe there is a chance Madeleine is still alive.

On the other, they are once again jolted back down into their own private abyss of grief.
Pleased: Kate McCann, with her husband Gerry, is said to be 'particularly pleased' with the new age-progressed image of Madeleine, saying it has a strong family resemblance

Pleased: Kate McCann, with her husband Gerry, is said to be 'particularly pleased' with the new age-progressed image of Madeleine, saying it has a strong family resemblance

For despite the fascinating new images, as far as her parents are concerned, Madeleine is frozen in time as a three-year-old; a tiny daughter snatched away on a warm night in Portugal, a child who slipped from view and has never been seen again.

The images have been published as part of Operation Grange, the latest investigation into Madeleine’s disappearance, which so far has cost the British taxpayer more than £2 million.

More...

Portuguese police refuse to reopen Madeleine McCann case saying there's no new evidence (despite Scotland Yard saying they've got 195 new leads)

The new search involves some 28 officers from Scotland Yard and seven civilian workers. Everyone is hoping that the new findings will put pressure on the Portuguese judicial authorities to reopen their investigation into Madeleine’s disappearance.

Of course, some people will say this is a terrible waste of public money. Why should we re-investigate a five-year-old case that, while being terribly sad, has a slim chance of ever being solved?

Well, why not? This country spends millions on all kind of well-meaning but misguided rubbish: on government-backed fact-finding missions; on wind farms; on dodgy jobseeker schemes; on court interpreters and massage therapists for granny-murdering asylum-seekers; on keeping Abu Qatada safe and warm in a lovely British jail; on long-winded, ultimately pointless public inquiries; on endless, endless rubbish.
Heartbreaking: It is nearly six years since the then three-year-old Madeleine McCann disappeared while she was on a family holiday in Portugal

Heartbreaking: It is nearly six years since the then three-year-old Madeleine McCann disappeared while she was on a family holiday in Portugal

To spend money on the — admittedly tiny — hope that Madeleine McCann might still be alive seems the right thing to do. Indeed, the only civilised, decent thing to do.

To invest public funds to try to bring closure to this most vexatious case is money well spent as far as I am concerned. For apart from anything else, sometimes miracles do happen.

Look at Jaycee Lee Dugard, who was 11 when she was snatched on the way home from school in South Lake Tahoe, California, in 1991.

After 18 years of incarceration by a cruel and lunatic couple — and having borne two children by the man who kidnapped her — Jaycee was freed and reunited with her mother, Terry Probyn.

Ms Probyn knows how Kate McCann feels. This week, she spoke of her anguish, recalling how authorities told her the chances of finding Jaycee after 72 hours were ‘slim to none’.

Yet she never gave up on finding her daughter, whom she would think of when she looked at the moon, when she would ‘tell her I missed her and I loved her’.

The McCanns have not said anything public on this latest investigation, except to say that they feel encouraged. Perhaps this is because they remain as always the target of deranged and vicious trolling and bitter speculation.

Perhaps, too, it gives greater weight to the theory that Madeleine is still alive if Scotland Yard state it, not them.

And whatever the McCanns or the detectives working on their and our behalf do, surely their efforts help the cause of missing children everywhere?

It is not just the work the McCanns themselves have done on publicising other missing children and trying to establish a missing child-alert system throughout Europe.

No, it is more that it sends out a powerful message that no stone, no clue, no effort will be left unturned in the effort to get these children back.

Let us hope that the Portuguese authorities do the decent thing and follow up on every single lead that Scotland Yard now unearth.

The world would expect the British police to do the same if a Portuguese child went missing here — and you can bet your beat-pounding boots that our cops absolutely would.

I don’t think anyone could deny that from start to finish, the behaviour of the Portuguese police involved in investigating this case has been at the very least — infuriating.

The Madeleine McCann case should never be closed until they find out what happened to her, one way or another.

The continued and dogged pursuit of this star-crossed little girl also sends out a message to would-be abductors everywhere, which is this: if you take our children, we will hunt you down. Even if it takes years, we will not rest until we find them — and you.

The images of Madeleine may be sad, but the new impetus and investigation is much welcomed and long overdue. At last, in this sorry tale, it is something to make us proud.

whata biased idiot women

The world would expect the British police to do the same if a Portuguese child went missing here — and you can bet your beat-pounding boots that our cops absolutely would.

It wouldn't even make the papers I'm sure. Also if a Portuguese mum and dad went on the razz and left their children alone like the Mccanns did, they most certainly would be charged with neglect.

Jan Moir - yuck, the very mention of her name is enough to make most people puke!

Ye gods, to think that an experienced journalist wrote this - words almost (but not quite) fail me!

I did feel rather sorry for Jan Moir when she attracted many complaints over an article she wrote about the death of Stephen Gately. No more sympathy from me now!

This woman is well OTT, abit like Antonia Lazerri I stopped reading a quarter of the way through.

Not Born Yesterday wrote:Ye gods, to think that an experienced journalist wrote this - words almost (but not quite) fail me!

I did feel rather sorry for Jan Moir when she attracted many complaints over an article she wrote about the death of Stephen Gately. No more sympathy from me now!

i have to say its the most vomiti inducing article i haeve read in this case in the last 5 years

Perhaps we could have a topic on the 10 worst tabloid articles on the McCanns. This latest one would certainly be a contender for number 1 but how about this one?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-458217/Madeleine-The-McCanns-moment-hope.Pope.html

To be fair though, this was in the very early days when nearly everyone was taken in by the McCanns so maybe it can be excluded along with everything by Antonella Lazzeri as otherwise nobody else will get a look in!

Not Born Yesterday wrote:Perhaps we could have a topic on the 10 worst tabloid articles on the McCanns. This latest one would certainly be a contender for number 1 but how about this one?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-458217/Madeleine-The-McCanns-moment-hope.Pope.html

To be fair though, this was in the very early days when nearly everyone was taken in by the McCanns so maybe it can be excluded along with everything by Antonella Lazzeri as otherwise nobody else will get a look in!

Nah- Bel Mooney would lift the crown, no question.

Call herself a journalist? She write the most crap ever. She can't even get facts right. It is nearly 5 years not 6 since she disappeared!!!

When you study a subject in detail for five years, you discover just how monumentally thick these hacks are ...