The McCann Agony
I have no interest in speculating what happened to Madeleine McCann, the little girl who went missing in Portugal recently. The whole situation is heartbreaking, and not simply in the heartlessness of some of the commentary and speculation, and in the way that easy judgments have been made about Madeleine's parents, Kate and Gerry. I did notice how the frustration and nastiness of the press broke in a little when it became clear that the McCanns were devout Catholics, but the whole press circus has now become appalling.
However, the press speculation itself is not, before you are tempted to say it, to my mind any indication of society being worse than any time before. Off the top of my head, I can think of the 'Fanny Adams' case of 1867, the 'Baby farmer' murder of 1896, the Lindbergh baby, and the Azaria Chamberlain dingo case as being just as hysterical.
The Lindbergh case is perhaps the one which provides the most perspective on the behaviour of people and the press in cases like this. Charles Lindbergh was America's great, high flying hero. Many think his blond, blue-eyed look would have taken him to the presidency in a different timeline, though it would have been one heavily influenced by fascism (perhaps even backed by Joe Kennedy, JFK's dad). In 1932, Lindbergh Jnr, the equally blond, blue eyed progeny of the pilot, went missing.
A bungled police investigation followed, and America was transfixed by the revelation of ransom demands (several separate ransoms were paid, to no avail, to different people) and a national search for Charles Junior began. Nothing happened. Eventually, the police fixed upon a seedy German immigrant, Richard Bruno Hauptmann, as a consequence of three pieces of evidence. One was a note traced to him via a petrol station from ransom money; one was a piece of wood which seemed to be from his attic and which had been used as a ladder in the abduction; and one was the telephone number of a ransom contact, with an address, which Hauptmann had written in his closet.
A body not corresponding to that of the child was found, and Lindbergh quickly had the decomposed remains cremated. Hauptmann was criminally represented by a drunken barrister hired by the New Jersey Daily Mirror, and after a disastrous trial during which the state's evidence and witnesses were not tested, found guilty and sent to his death. Through it all, the press were in frenzy. The public's natural sympathies can be stoked, as the press had learned in the Fanny Adams case and the Amelia Dyer case.
Dyer had been convicted on confession of running a 'baby farm' in Victorian England. This was an institution where women deposited children they did not want, generally because the women were unmarried, and then paid no attention to what happened. Dyer admitted to disposing of over 25 children. In the poverty of the east end, other baby farms had existed, with a few exposed underground in the 1870s. These were effectively child-starving centres. Think of that the next time someone extols Victorian values to you.
People have been capable of so many bad things for so long--it is part of human darkness perhaps, and a challenge to any liberal view of crime. But what has been typical has been the selective and obsessive approach of the press to all this. The Dingo baby case, in which police and media attempetd more or less to convict a young mother whose child disappeared in the australian outback in 1980 is also recorded in all this shame.
Sad things sell, horribly. I've been thinking about this since Friday, when I attended Southwark crown court on a court visit and ended up in Court number 4 to see the sentencing of Parveen & Ikram, the latest two torturers to pass through those walls. They were convicted under a new English law which allows people who blame each other and whose intent cannot be proved to be found guilty of causing or allowing the death of a child or vulnerable adult.
The police and the poor relatives were stoic and heartbreaking behind me; the killers sat 3 feet in front of me in a reinforced glass box. They showed absolutely no signs of remorse nor had they given any, and their faces betrayed no reaction at all. The Judge thought they had a good claim to be guilty of manslaughter, but absolutely correctly he did his duty, and took all the things he was supposed to take into account.
They got 9 years, and will be out on licence in four or five. When I came out of the court the press were swarming over the details of the torture they inflicted on a sixteen month child and not the sentence the legislation compelled the Judge to give.
This is Britain today. The press obsess in an intemperate way over the way portugese police and press have conspired with their tourist industry to demonise the parents of a stolen child; they dwell on the details of crimes against children (whilst getting a lot of the court reporting wrong). Silly points about evidence with no context are taken as important enough to fill papers--how many DNA experts and budding Sherlocks have you come across in the columns of the press lately? No one mentions that a dead child is worth five years and a deportation. Is it any wonder that my posts have become somewhat gloomy?
I have just been to sunday evening mass. Some of my prayers are with Madeleine McCann and her family and I hope some of yours are too.
I have no interest in speculating what happened to Madeleine McCann, the little girl who went missing in Portugal recently. The whole situation is heartbreaking, and not simply in the heartlessness of some of the commentary and speculation, and in the way that easy judgments have been made about Madeleine's parents, Kate and Gerry. I did notice how the frustration and nastiness of the press broke in a little when it became clear that the McCanns were devout Catholics, but the whole press circus has now become appalling.
However, the press speculation itself is not, before you are tempted to say it, to my mind any indication of society being worse than any time before. Off the top of my head, I can think of the 'Fanny Adams' case of 1867, the 'Baby farmer' murder of 1896, the Lindbergh baby, and the Azaria Chamberlain dingo case as being just as hysterical.
The Lindbergh case is perhaps the one which provides the most perspective on the behaviour of people and the press in cases like this. Charles Lindbergh was America's great, high flying hero. Many think his blond, blue-eyed look would have taken him to the presidency in a different timeline, though it would have been one heavily influenced by fascism (perhaps even backed by Joe Kennedy, JFK's dad). In 1932, Lindbergh Jnr, the equally blond, blue eyed progeny of the pilot, went missing.
A bungled police investigation followed, and America was transfixed by the revelation of ransom demands (several separate ransoms were paid, to no avail, to different people) and a national search for Charles Junior began. Nothing happened. Eventually, the police fixed upon a seedy German immigrant, Richard Bruno Hauptmann, as a consequence of three pieces of evidence. One was a note traced to him via a petrol station from ransom money; one was a piece of wood which seemed to be from his attic and which had been used as a ladder in the abduction; and one was the telephone number of a ransom contact, with an address, which Hauptmann had written in his closet.
A body not corresponding to that of the child was found, and Lindbergh quickly had the decomposed remains cremated. Hauptmann was criminally represented by a drunken barrister hired by the New Jersey Daily Mirror, and after a disastrous trial during which the state's evidence and witnesses were not tested, found guilty and sent to his death. Through it all, the press were in frenzy. The public's natural sympathies can be stoked, as the press had learned in the Fanny Adams case and the Amelia Dyer case.
Dyer had been convicted on confession of running a 'baby farm' in Victorian England. This was an institution where women deposited children they did not want, generally because the women were unmarried, and then paid no attention to what happened. Dyer admitted to disposing of over 25 children. In the poverty of the east end, other baby farms had existed, with a few exposed underground in the 1870s. These were effectively child-starving centres. Think of that the next time someone extols Victorian values to you.
People have been capable of so many bad things for so long--it is part of human darkness perhaps, and a challenge to any liberal view of crime. But what has been typical has been the selective and obsessive approach of the press to all this. The Dingo baby case, in which police and media attempetd more or less to convict a young mother whose child disappeared in the australian outback in 1980 is also recorded in all this shame.
Sad things sell, horribly. I've been thinking about this since Friday, when I attended Southwark crown court on a court visit and ended up in Court number 4 to see the sentencing of Parveen & Ikram, the latest two torturers to pass through those walls. They were convicted under a new English law which allows people who blame each other and whose intent cannot be proved to be found guilty of causing or allowing the death of a child or vulnerable adult.
The police and the poor relatives were stoic and heartbreaking behind me; the killers sat 3 feet in front of me in a reinforced glass box. They showed absolutely no signs of remorse nor had they given any, and their faces betrayed no reaction at all. The Judge thought they had a good claim to be guilty of manslaughter, but absolutely correctly he did his duty, and took all the things he was supposed to take into account.
They got 9 years, and will be out on licence in four or five. When I came out of the court the press were swarming over the details of the torture they inflicted on a sixteen month child and not the sentence the legislation compelled the Judge to give.
This is Britain today. The press obsess in an intemperate way over the way portugese police and press have conspired with their tourist industry to demonise the parents of a stolen child; they dwell on the details of crimes against children (whilst getting a lot of the court reporting wrong). Silly points about evidence with no context are taken as important enough to fill papers--how many DNA experts and budding Sherlocks have you come across in the columns of the press lately? No one mentions that a dead child is worth five years and a deportation. Is it any wonder that my posts have become somewhat gloomy?
I have just been to sunday evening mass. Some of my prayers are with Madeleine McCann and her family and I hope some of yours are too.
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