The Superiority of the British Police (Compared to those incompetent Portuguese.....)

Amongst all the xenophobic bullshit being written about the supposed incompetence of the Portuguese police, it is nice to have a reminder of the competence of our own beloved police force.

Sir Ian Blair's position as head of the Metropolitan police was again in jeopardy last night after he received a sustained verbal mauling from his own watchdog authority over the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes. Those close to Sir Ian fear the issue will dog his remaining time of up to three years as Britain's top police officer.

Yesterday members of the Metropolitan Police Authority criticised Sir Ian for not knowing "where the truth lay" over the shooting dead on July 22 2005 of the 27-year-old innocent Brazilian, and said it was "incomprehensible" that he was not aware on the day of the shooting of serious fears among his own officers that an innocent man had been gunned down.

One senior Met source, classed as a loyalist to Sir Ian, said it was significant that no MPA member offered the commissioner unqualified support over two-and-half hours of questioning which led to Sir Ian admitting that "appalling" errors were made. The force was heavily criticised last month in a report by the Independent Police Complaints Commission for "serious weaknesses" in the way information about the shooting was handled.


So the Portuguese follow up a lead (due to the work of the British police) and are considered incompetent. The British police gun down an entirely innocent man and are considered far superior to their Portuguese contemporaries. Aaaahh, the merits of a xenophobic press campaign.

The Case of Madeline McCann And The Xenophobic British Press

It is too early to say what the latest developments in this case may mean, however, some of the statements that have been made are utterly ridiculous. A great deal of the coverage comprises of members of the McCann family claiming that it is 'ludicrous' that they are being treated as suspects. I see it hard to sympathise with their position. Like it or not, we are all capable of committing such a crime. The insistence of the family that this is 'impossible' is naive in the extreme. While nothing is proven, everyone should be considered as suspects, no matter how uncomfortable that may make them feel. Sadly, as many cases in the past have proven, nothing is impossible.

The problem is, all of the British media have invested so much in this story. Right from the start, large sections of the media have demonstrated a xenophobic approach to the activities of the Portuguese police. So convinced are they of the police's incompetence, they won't even entertain the idea that their investigations might be making progress. No, the media have decided that they are entirely innocent. I hope they are right because if they are wrong, a lot of people are going to feel very foolish.

A glance at some reporting underlines the incompetence of our own media. Gazeta Digital (a website that has been analysing reporting of the disappearance of Madeleine) has picked out some very interesting quotes that are worth reproducing:


Daily Mail
A haunting question for all of Kate's supporters
Amanda Platell
00:42am 8th September 2007

As so often in this terrible case, it's the pictures that stick most keenly in the memory. Madeleine, bright-eyed and smiling, clutching two tennis balls to her chest in one of the last photos taken of her... Her parents, weighed-down by exhaustion and grief as they walked by the sea shore... Madeleine's pink "cuddle cat" held tight in her mother's hands as she attended mass each Sunday.

Now we have an even more haunting image: Kate McCann walking into the Portuguese police station for a second day of questioning, to be branded a formal suspect in her daughter's disappearance.

One can only speculate what mental torment she must be going through. But there are now surely two horrible possibilities. Kate could be being set up by a Portuguese police force, humiliated by its inability to find a single solid lead in Madeleine's disappearance. If that is indeed the case - as her friends fervently believe - or if she is simply the victim of yet more police incompetence, then it is surely appalling.

Despite their mishandling of the case so far, are the Portuguese police really so stupid and callous as to put Kate through this latest ordeal unless there remained questions only she could answer?

For Kate McCann's sake - and for those of us who have identified with her - we can only hope so.

The Telegraph
Kate McCann: The claims and case for defence
By Gordon Rayner, Chief Reporter
Last Updated: 10:51pm BST 07/09/2007

Salacious reports of blood spots, intercepted phone calls and child sedation so far have been dismissed as nothing more than libellous slurs by the McCann family.

Now there is the very real prospect that Kate McCann be charged and tried over Madeleine's disappearance.

races of dried blood, said to be Madeleine's, have allegedly been found in a car hired by the McCanns 25 days after Madeleine's disappearance.

The blood is said to have been found in the boot of the Renault Scenic hire car after sniffer dogs were brought in by British police as part of a review of the investigation.

Tests by the Forensic Science Service in Birmingham are thought to have indicated the blood may be Madeleine's.

Then last month there were speculative claims that the McCanns, both doctors, may have 'doped' Madeleine to get her off to sleep before they set off for dinner at a tapas bar near the apartment.

There were reports today that the police were questioning Mrs McCann about giving Madeleine a dose of a sedative.

Mrs McCann's lawyers will already have identified several huge holes in the theory that she could have killed Madeleine.

How, for example, could she have killed her daughter, removed her body from the apartment and hidden it while her friends sat just yards away in a tapas bar?

And how, four weeks later, was one of the most watched women in the world able to bundle a body into a hire car and dispose of it under the noses of her family, police liaison officers and the world's press?

The McCanns were among a party of nine people on the day Madeleine disappeared, in a resort full of tourists, and were never away from their friends for more than a few minutes at a time.

It would surely have been impossible for Mrs McCann to kill her daughter and hide the body in such a short space of time without being seen, not to mention returning to the restaurant as if nothing had happened.

The only other window of opportunity would have been in the two and half hours between the time when Madeleine was last seen alive and when the couple met their friends for dinner.

Most implausible of all, perhaps, is the suggestion that Mrs McCann returned to the place where she had hidden the body a month later, put it in the boot of her hire car and driven somewhere to dispose of the body.

Ever since Madeleine's disappearance the McCanns have been surrounded by friends and family, police officers and the media - are we to believe that she somehow gave them all the slip and buried her daughter or threw her out to sea?

Furthermore, could she really have gone through 127 days of constant interviews and media exposure without once showing any signs of guilt?

On a procedural level, a catalogue of blunders by the police, who failed to seal off the crime scene, would be likely to render any forensic evidence unreliable.


Again, I would not wish to prejudge the outcome of this case, but you have to question the reporting of the British media. What happened to impartiality? The truth of what happened is yet to come out. One hopes that they are entirely innocent. However, we must entertain the idea that the Portuguese police know what they are doing. To dismiss their investigation out of hand smacks of gross xenophobia and incompetent journalism.

The Abuse of Madeleine McCann

The coverage of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann has been of very dubious quality since her disappearance eleven days ago. Predictably, the Murdoch controlled media have been the worst culprits. They have wasted no time in laying into the Portuguese police. The Sun declared that the police were 'slow to react' and have been 'heavily criticised' for their response and claimed that the police 'haven't a clue'. This contrasts with the response of the parents to the efforts of the Portuguese police who have, according to Reuters:

.....praised the Portuguese police for their work and thanked people for the widespread support they had received.

The Sun have also started to refer to the possibility that Madeleine has been abducted by a paedophile, despite the fact that there is no evidence that this is the case (which is hardly going to ease the distress of Madeleine's parents). Yet the motives for The Sun's vitriolic campaign against the police is obvious, it is part of a wider campaign to push through The Sun's twisted agenda.

For sometime now, The Sun has been campaigning for the introduction of 'Sarah's Law', despite the opposition of most child protection groups. They even claimed that 99% of the population support the introduction of this law, despite the flawed nature of the survey they used to produce such a result (dare I say that the poll was rigged??). The case of Madeleine McCann is the perfect opportunity for The Sun to further it's campaign. By using Madeleine's disappearance, and taking advantage of the grief of the McCanns, The Sun hope to further their agenda in the UK. This disappearance is an opportunity. An opportunity for The Sun to milk for all it's worth. And that is what is behind the attacks on the Portuguese police. Unlike the compliant British police, the Portuguese have strict laws about revealing details about the investigation to the press. Although this seems like a sensible policy to most sane people, to the Murdoch controlled press this is a red rag to a bull. This has left them no option but to fabricate utter nonsense about the police and the investigation. The attitude is best summed up by the comments of Sky's crime correspondent, Martin Brunt:

....I really don't know if the police have any real idea what happened to Madeleine McCann. I suspect they don't.

I'm having to rely for information on the local Portuguese press whose accuracy is sometimes highly questionable.

No explanation of why he suspects that, just a broad sweeping generalisation of the type we are used to from the Murdoch media empire. And this is typical of their response to the laws that govern such investigations in Portugal. If only such laws applied here.

Despite the media's attacks on the police, the reality is very different. Many of Portugal's top police officers have arrived from Lisbon to aid the investigation. One Portuguese blogger, Paulo Reis, has commented on the British media's criticisms of the Portuguese police. He writes:

Talking about amassing a huge force of officers let me tell you THAT AROUND 10% OF ALL PORTUGUESE CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION OFFICERS (Polícia Judiciária, in Portuguese) WERE SENT TO ALGARVE, in less than 48 hours after the abduction. British journalists don’t see police everywhere and they report that fact as an evidence of incompetence. CI officers don’t use uniforms. They work in plainclothes. Both the national police (Polícia de Segurança Pública, in charge of patrolling the cities) and the militarized police (Guarda Nacional Republicana, that has responsibility on rural areas) have special CI units in every major precinct. Those men are working together with the 200 CID officers sent to the crime scene.

Not a version you are likely to read about in the British press. With regards to accusations of the slow reaction of the police, Reis adds:

Police was slow to act, that’s a main idea. They were not called immediately, as Madeleine parents, friends and neighbours searched for her, during some time, in the surrounding area. When police arrived, they need to have some assurance that the child had been abducted. It’s a normal procedure, even for a “real” police, like the British.

Again, not a response I expect to hear in the British media anytime soon. As Reis also points out, it took 13 days for the British police to capture Ian Huntley, so it is a little premature to start making wild claims about the incompetence of the Portuguese police.

There is no doubt that The Sun (and other Murdoch outlets) are engaging in the worst possible kind of child abuse. They are using a child to further their own political aims and paying little regard to the sensitivities of the family of Madeleine. Their abuse of the Portuguese police is systematic of their disgraceful agenda. It is to be envied that Portugal refuses to create the kind of feeding frenzy that is all too common in our poor excuse for responsible journalism. Facts have been completely disregarded in the quest to score cheap political points that seeks to create public support for The Sun's distasteful campaign. Meanwhile, a desperate family await the return of their precious little girl. I for one hope the Portuguese police continue their good work and find Madeleine safe and sound.

You can read Paulo Reis' account here and his rebuttal of Brunt's bullshit here.