Do You Assume The Police Usually Get It Right?

The Madeleine McCann case has turned investigating a crime on its head. I actually try to reserve judgment on a lot of things. The war in Iraq was one of them. What made me suspicious was that Bush kept saying there was proof of a threat, but not providing it. He wanted us to commit to a war based on his word alone… That wasn’t good enough for me. And when the US went to war and Canada did not, I felt uneasy, because it was significant. There was an underlying message: We don’t quite trust you. But my unease had more to do with our relationship with our nearest neighbours than the decision my own government made. I will take those decisions one at a time: I support Afghanistan.

Today, Madeleine’s parents have returned home, after being named as suspects in the case. This case has bothered me from the beginning. I read a lot of international news. I may not be aware of everything, but I’m certainly not hiding from the world.

But today, the fact that Kate and Gerry McCann have gone home is the top story even on Canadian news websites. Yesterday, their suspicion was front page in the Calgary Herald, the Calgary Sun and The Globe and Mail. It was a leading story for The Toronto Star.

Why? Today, particularly, why is this story more important than the fact that two police officers were killed in Texas and two of our soldiers were wounded in Afghanistan and two women were sexually assaulted on the York University campus last night?

I mean, the Cedrika Provencher case, which is happening in this country, has been knocked way down to the bottom of the main page.

Cedrika’s a cute little girl. Maybe the reason the world doesn’t care about her is because it’s Canada, or she’s French-Canadian, or it isn’t such a complete mystery: We pretty much know this guy pretending to look for a lost dog took her.

I’ll admit to being a cynic: There has been something off about the Madeleine case from the very beginning. The first thing that I wondered about was the parents, leaving their three children, all under the age of four, at a rental alone while they had dinner. Without seeing the layout and actual distance between the house and the restaurant, there’s room for doubt, but if that had happened here there would be a social services investigation of the parents, no matter what happened to their daughter. There are laws about how old children have to be before they can be left home alone.

But assuming the abduction to be true, it was a few days before the absence of leads sent my mind in other directions. Perhaps it’s because of what I write that my mind often disengages from the real case and starts running scenarios. This happened in the Algarve – come on, this girl is in the water and if they haven’t found her by now they likely never will. Cynical Sandra thought #1. Cynical Sandra thought #2: Why haven’t they taken a hard look at the parents as suspects? Common police practice is to look hard at the people who last saw the victim…

Then my confusion over the case grew. It was understandable that it made headlines, even around the world, initially. But it stayed in the headlines. The likes of JK Rowling and others were putting up major cash to help find this little girl. Why this little girl? The McCann’s, both doctors. Is it because of their social status? I wonder what Michael Dunahee’s mother thinks of that, glad that they’ve had so much attention or wondering why the world cares about some missing children and not others?

It isn’t that I don’t care. It’s easy to look at Madeleine’s pictures and get a lump in your throat. She actually doesn’t look that different from my own friend’s daughter, who turned four in July, and is named Madeleine. Honey blonde hair and big brown eyes.

It isn’t even the amount of media attention to this case that bothers me – it’s the nature of the media attention. The traveling, the releasing balloons to get another media moment, meeting with the Pope… I don’t know. Call me skeptical, but when you’re waiting to find out what’s happened to your child most people don’t seem to have the presence of mind to launch a media campaign and actually spearhead it themselves.

Even now, I’m looking at the media reports from the last few days and left wondering. The McCann’s may be 100% honest, or they may just be very savvy, to suggest the police are trying to frame them.

I don’t know. And ultimately, it has little to do with me. But what it has made me think about is how much faith I have in the legal system. Although just recently here Steven Truscott, who was almost executed for a murder conviction was acquitted of the murder he was originally convicted of and sentenced to hang for in 1959. It’s hard not to know who David Milgaard is if you live in this country. Most certainly, there have been times that things have gone wrong.

But I do have an underlying faith in the justice system. I believe more often than not, the police and the courts get it right. There are occasions I follow a trial and hear the verdict and am still left with a niggling doubt, but I don’t feel the police pursue many cases without reasonable evidence. I’m not saying the minute someone’s charged I assume they’re guilty. What I am saying is that if the police name someone as a suspect and investigate them, my normal view is that they are doing their jobs and following every lead, regardless of who it implicates.

I will say that I feel the scenario the police presented (accidentally killed her and hid her body) is plausible. I’m not going to explain my psychological assessment of the options and why it would make sense to do this. The bottom line is that nobody knows what they’d do themselves in a moment like that until they’re there, and it doesn’t matter what I think. Logic isn’t often part of the equation in moments like that.

But I am left thinking I'm the only one who's cynical about this case.

All that matters is that this young girl is gone. And she’s probably never coming home. With the high profile media machine in motion I’m sure we’ll hear 10 years from now how Madeleine’s siblings are getting on. For others, the jury may be out on whether or not it was a good idea for the family to use the media so extensively. I’m leaning toward it being a bad idea. The celebrity of the family that has resulted from the case makes me as uncomfortable as anything else, and I can’t be that sympathetic now that opinions are mixed. The media doesn’t embrace you on your terms. They will be played out in the press now, as possible villains, and should one of their other children so much as sport a bruise from any of a million different legitimate accidents, there will be those who’ll raise eyebrows.

The certainty here is that whatever happened the night Madeleine disappeared, it changed Kate and Gerry McCann’s lives forever. This will become a case others will write about and talk about for years to come. There is only one thing I’m left hoping – that people will keep an open mind as the police do their jobs. I’m desperately hoping that the police are being thorough and following legitimate leads, and that if and when they do make an arrest real, legitimate evidence will outweigh public opinion in determining the outcome.

I might suggest the McCann’s do something very un-British, and hire a PI, though. If they really believe the police are running out of money for the case, if they really believe the police are trying to frame them, they should use the money raised to find their daughter to hire their own investigator.