The disappearance of Madeline McCann (Documentary, 2019)
Netflix
Netflix
The work of policing and prosecuting evolved in modern societies to protect its citizen. It was thought that solid police and robust legal systems would ensure peace and harmony. No wrongdoer would go unpunished, and the system is supposed to deter crime.
But looking at how the whole system has turned out to be, instead of protecting the very people it is supposed to shield, it is inconveniencing them.
Aggrieved parties who report a crime are instead having the table turned against them. The whole machinery of defending one's innocence has begun to be so cumbersome, costly and convoluted that upholding one's good name remains in the domain of the rich.
Having investigations and litigations go on and on like forever gives no peace of mind to any party but a reason of existence for civil servants to push pencils. These are further fueled by media that cries wolf and create a mountain out of a mole of every questionable information that pops up in the public domain every now and then. Many of these are just half-truths at best. Sometimes informants just want that one minute of the limelight before their evidence crumples, but not before causing many inconveniences to all parties, except the media. The media just increases their sales.
The media does not call this misinformation but merely informs the public about how things of public interest develop.
This 2003 case of a missing 4-year-old British girl, Madeline McCann, while on a family holiday in Portugal is probably the most reported case of a missing person in the world. It was reported as an abduction of a young child and made many dizzying turns in its prolonged investigation.
The McCanns were on vacation in Praia de Luz with their three kids and five other friends with five children. Madeline went missing from her bed in her room when the adults were having their dinner nearby. The police were called in. The investigations started but proceeded nowhere. With little evidence to go on, the police looked at the parents as possible criminals.
Then it started. The circus of trial by media, accusations of the parents being involved in their child's disappearance, accidental killing by parents, conspiracial cover-up by fellow holiday-maker friends, paedophilic tendencies of a Good Samaritan and the list went on. At one stage, the parents were even interrogated as the accused.
The parents, of their accord, created a national alert (and possibly international) for their missing child. Years after seeing that their daughter was nowhere to be found, they hired a reputable private investigator with the help of a philanthropist. It led to nowhere too. Then came the American investigators. At the end of the day, they realised that everyone promised more than they can deliver. More than 16 years after Madeline's disappearance, despite all the advancements in tracking and investigative tools, neither she nor her abductor had been found.
This case only exposed the cavalier attitude of the Portuguese police and the predatorial nature of the British tabloid. It further opened a big can of worms into the darkest nook of the Dark Web -child pornography
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