Madeleine McCann: 'Anonymous' comments once again!

Last Saturday (5th March) I posted an entry on my Blog about the inefficiency of the Portuguese Police Department in their dealings with the Madeleine McCann case, and once again one of their supporters, who hides behind the title 'Anonymous', tried to leave a comment on my Blog site. Whilst I enjoy getting comments I have a strict policy that dictates that I never, and I do mean never publish any comments where the writer remains anonymous. In literary terms it's rather like the method that terrorists deploy to hide their identity, and is the mark of cowardice in my estimation.

This particular 'Anonymous' questioned my right to comment on the fact that the Portuguese Police Department dismissed reports of dozens of potential sightings of Madeleine as irrelevant and not worth looking into. This person who is afraid to be identified, questioned how I could write as I did without sighting the Police Records.

Well, the answer to that is easy! The existence of these files which the Portuguese Police Department would have preferred to have remained secret, became a matter of Public Knowledge when they came to light in a legal action brought by the McCanns against Goncalo Amaral, the disgraced detective who was in charge of the case at the time, and who is subsequently trying to enrich himself by making unproven accusatory claims against the McCanns.

I suspect that 'Anonymous' is actually one of Amaral's supporters, although it's irrelevant to me because as long as they hide behind a cloak of anonymity I have neither concern nor interest in them.

In this case the facts that I stated in my Blog post on Saturday are the reporting of a matter which is finally denuded of its cloak of secrecy and has been exposed to the cold, harsh light of day. I have no need to offer judgment in the matter. The facts are judgment enough of the inefficient manner in which they were dealt with.

There can be no doubt that many of the reported sightings are untrue for a variety of reasons. Perhaps, in some instances, claims are made in good faith by people who are genuinely mistaken, only for them to have been wrong, and in other cases it may well be that claims have been made by people seeking publicity for themselves, seeking for their fifteen-minutes of fame. However, even if just one claim is dismissed without being properly checked out, it is sad to think that it may have been the one claim that was genuine. This is why, in a case such as this, it is important to leave no stone unturned.