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Just when we might have hoped that the gossip surrounding the Madeleine McCann
case could sink no lower, the world media managed it, by effectively conspiring
to accuse a Moroccan olive farmer’s family of kidnapping her.
Why? Well, a tourist had taken a grainy snap of a fair-haired girl in the
Moroccan countryside, with some North African Muslims. What more evidence do you
need? Never mind the useless police, splash that picture across the globe at
once with inquisitory headlines such as “Is this Maddie?”!
When we quickly learnt the answer – “No, of course not, it’s the farmer’s
daughter” – many people echoed the McCanns’ spokesman who said it was “very
disappointing, a terrible blow” that the people in the picture turned out to be
an innocent family. Some, however, might already have suspected that the
impoverished father shown pushing a wheelbarrow piled with suitcases along a
dusty road, while his gaudily clad wife ambles behind with child on back in the
local style, was an unlikely head of an international child-smuggling ring.
This farcical episode has highlighted the widening gap between the plodding
police case in Portugal, bogged down in rows about scientific evidence and
witness statements, and the ever-expanding global publicity circus. The line
between investigation and emotive entertainment has disappeared. There must be
plenty more little blonde girls in far-flung corners of the world to feed this
voyeuristic obsession – but to whose benefit?
The only unusual thing about the Moroccan family (from a Berber region where
fair-headed children are normal) turned out to be that, since they have no
access to television or newspapers, they had never heard of Madeleine McCann.
Now that is shocking news.
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