The Psychology driving the McCann acolytes
and an explanation of their aggression
By PeterMac
Those of us who have followed this case for a long time have had our views challenged along the way, sometimes by new evidence and sometimes by new analysis of the existing evidence. We have all, I suspect, found it hard to re-think our individual positions on several subjects, and to re-define our understanding of what we previously thought we knew. And we all experienced the mental effort necessary to do this.
The First question which immediately arises is “Why is it so difficult ?”
The Second question which may occur to those willing to open their minds and to change their view is “Why did we take up our original position ?”
First then: Why does it actually Hurt to have our beliefs challenged ? Why do so many people feel threatened and become defensive ?
This surely is the importance of school and university debating societies and clubs, testing and challenging beliefs and thought processes. Those who never had the privilege of developing their skills through that route can easily feel threatened, and become defensive or anxious, and then resist, even retaliate and attack, usually and mercifully only with ad hominem abuse.
But the church, the state, and dictators, socialists, and communists/ fascists may, and do, act in far more dangerous ways, as they cannot allow any one to contradict their beliefs.
The phenomenon is known as “Cognitive dissonance”.
REF 1
The symptoms and words used in this context are many and include ‘confirmation bias’, selective perception, comfort zone, selective exposure, ambiguity intolerance . .
Someone asked “What would happen if you were able to prove conclusively to a true believer that Jesus and the Bible were not REAL ?. What would it cost them to accept that ?”
And the answer is clear. EVERYTHING. True Believers cannot dissociate themselves from their fundamental religious belief. They are DEFINED By it. They have no other existence. This is the extent of the problem with pure Belief and Faith.
To stick with the religious theme for a moment, the techniques have been called ‘brainwashing, imprinting, catching them young’
Iñigo López de Loyola, otherwise known as St Ignatious Loyola, Founder of the Jesuit Order, somewhat creepily said , “Give me a child until [before] he is 7 and I will give you the man”
REF 2
Some children of Christian families attend Sunday school. Muslims send their young children to the Madrassa, where even today in the UK they are severely beaten for making mistakes in the recitation of the Qur’an.
But what about different scenarios, non religious ones. For example a report of crime.
The great danger acknowledged by all police officers is that of jumping to conclusions, relying on first impressions.
In the McCann case we heard “Within 15 seconds of listening to Kate. . . I was 100 per cent convinced of their total innocence.“
I hope readers understand that this is ludicrous – but nevertheless it was said and published. And probably believed by the person who said it. His lavish funding of a dubious operation leads us to this conclusion.
REF 3
Very few armchair detectives and internet researchers who now pontificate ever visited the scene, then or later, but one who did seems to have closed his mind as soon as he got there. Jon Clarke went as a journalist, but boasts of immediately ‘offering to help trace and recover the child.’ He didn’t observe the shutters, or the front door, and it seems made or retained no notes because the version he published 14 years later bears little resemblance to what can still be observed on contemporaneous News reel video, and what is known about the layout of the resort.
It seems he was told what to say, and actually believed it without the inconvenience of expending any investigative effort or time, and has repeated it for 18 years.
Even a short but relevant section in his book is a list of untruths and nonsense. I dissect it in Appendix A
APP A
Some of the more outspoken commentators show classic signs of cognitive dissonance, signs [symptoms], and display psychological distress.
I have suffered micro-aggressions, ad hominem abuse and falsehoods published across the world, threats of legal action, and even threats to “reveal where I live”. [I’m not making this up ! © Jane Tanner]
When you consider that I hail from the pre-mobile-phone era of the telephone book which had every subscriber’s name, and address, and phone number for the whole time I was a serving Police officer . . . the attempt to use that as a threat is clearly laughable, the more so since I am an official contact for a local Charity fund-raising club, and my details are therefore very obviously easy to find.
The McCanns are probably aggressive for different reasons, that of personal survival.
McCanns v Bennett. Neatly turned into Administrative Breach – to avoid cross examination
McCanns v Amaral, lost at Appeal, lost at Supreme Court (twice !). Lost at ECHR
Their aggression may stem from the contemplation of losing their freedom.
REF 4, 5
But from Jon Clarke of Olive Press the specific threat was a law suit – Clarke v MacLeod, Bennett & Havern
REF 6
His threat of legal action was very strange, borderline unhinged, and I may quote it in full some day, either for people’s amusement, or as an insight into the darker psychological depths of where Cognitive Dissonance can lead.
He copied his long emails to his then wife, and to both the lawyer friends whom he mentions by name in his book, but whose names he demanded that I did NOT mention in print on this forum. He demanded that I remove photos of his children, and of their and his wife’s names and details, and bizarrely that I removed all details from which his address could be discovered.
All of which was difficult since I had not done any of those things, but he, of course over the years and in his book had done all of this, and more, allowing their dates of birth to be accurately calculated and publishing full face photos of them all on different occasions in his own newspaper, all without the customary blanking out of the eyes of the children in accordance with Child Protection and Privacy Protocols observed in civilised countries by accredited publishing companies – and available on the internet to this day for anyone to find.
Even more bizarre and deranged was that he was at that time running a wing of his home as a luxury holiday rental, which appeared on many on-line rental sites, and where the location was, very OBVIOUSLY, immediately discoverable by anyone accessing the world wide web.
I complied a detailed email in reply, including evidence, copied to all concerned, They all received them and opened them, [I know this] but I can report that to date not one has had the common decency to acknowledge receipt, still less replied, and for very obvious reasons no “Letter before contemplated Legal action” has been forthcoming.
This whole puerile episode was of course absolutely nothing to do with his ex-wife’s and his children’s privacy. It is purely the aggressive response to having his ‘FAITH’ in abduction by a named individual challenged with strong evidence. His Faith is on full display in his long and rambling book where he operated from the starting point of Abduction by p**dophile. I had the temerity to challenge this. He then selects a range of suspects to fit his preconception, but notably as he moves from one to the next, he does not admit that any are ‘exonerated’ or cleared.
REF 6.1
It is cognitive Dissonance. It is how it works.
The truth about faith
Having faith that something is true does not make it true.
Having faith does not make it probably true
Having faith has no bearing on its truth whatsoever
Having faith simply means you will believe it whether it's true or not
Some may remember the genesis and development of the original Story
We have decided – on no evidence – that it must have been Abduction
Therefore someone must have come in and taken her
So we’ll say the shutters were forced, smashed, broken or jemmied . . .
No. They weren’t
In that case he must have come in through the front door
You need a Key to open it
In that case he must have come in through the Patio door,
You have told us you had a clear view of it, and used it yourselves at the time
In that case he must have come in through the front door (again) using duplicate key,
Which means it is not random PDFile, and must be staff member or conspirator
In that case he must have picked the front door lock
It has a cruciform lock, very difficult to open.
In that case he must have used a cruciform lock-pick
Specialist, would require a degree of planning, recce and expertise. Also no evidence
In that case he must have been behind the bedroom door all the time
The bedroom door opens flat against the wall . . .
And we saw the creation of Flat-man ? ?
At which point it became ridiculous even to ‘true believers’, but crucially did not cause them to re-think their initial Faith. They simply stopped trying to justify it, whilst repeating the original story.
SmithMan and SmithGerryMan have similar genesis, and similar responses to in-depth analysis with point blank refusal to address inconsistencies, but with invention and insertion into the narrative of extra elements – for which there is no evidence and which blunt Occam’s Razor – to try to make their original Faith-story coherent.
** AS a footnote to this discussion of Cognitive Dissonance and its ability to rouse powerful emotions, cause genuine distress and lead to changes in behaviour including verbal or physical aggression, it is notable that Freemasons, Probus, Rotary, Round Table and 41 Club, – all clubs for Gentlemen to meet, talk, enjoy fellowship of their company and from time to time do Charitable things together, along with the women’s counterparts, The Order of Women Freemasons (OWF): and the Honourable Fraternity of Ancient Freemasons (HFAF), Inner Wheel, Ladies’ Circle, Tangent – have written into their constitutions that discussion of Religion or Politics is not permitted.
**** AS a further footnote, there is currently (April 2026) on Facebook yet another gratuitously sneering attack on work I have done, and on the thesis being developed by Bernt Stellander about some circumstances surrounding the reported disappearance of Madeleine McCann, in which the paranoia caused by the cognitive dissonance is such that the author is using a THIRD Pseudonym or alias, this time pretending to be of Portuguese extraction. His identity is known, and is clear to all who read only a few words, since his grammatical style and his restricted vocabulary is very distinctive. As is the wording of his ‘dismissal’ of any or all evidence which contradicts his own thesis, which includes SmithGerryMan [vide supra]. He also always posts on the same Facebook Page, not his own, which is a bit of a giveaway.
The deliberate misinterpretation of what has been written, or the refusal to read and understand in full, is clear and for that reason attracts no response from me. I use the word “paranoia” with care, since this attack has been going on for a long time. The cognitive dissonance is clearly “eating him” from the inside.
***
We now turn to the Second Question
Why do we come so quickly to these conclusions ?
I draw heavily on a work by Daniel Kahneman, Nobel Prize Laureate for Economics 2002
Thinking fast and Slow. 2011. [I use italic to indicate direct quotes - most of the time]
REF 7
Kahnemann identifies two different systems of thinking.
System 1 thinking fast. Quick thinking,
System 1 is designed to jump to conclusions from little evidence – and it is not designed to know the size of its jumps. Because of WYSIATI, “what you see is all there is”, only the evidence at hand counts.
The amount of evidence and its quality do not count for very much, because poor evidence can make a very good story.
For some of our most important beliefs we have no evidence at all, except that people we love and trust hold these beliefs. Considering how little we know, the confidence we have in out beliefs is preposterous – and it is also essential.
REF 9.1
It is easier to construct a coherent story when you know little, when there are fewer pieces to put into the puzzle
There are of course good evolutionary and survival reasons why quick thinking is beneficial in certain circumstances. A rustle of leaves and a growl from the undergrowth in the forest benefits humans more by immediate flight because of the ‘obvious’ danger than from thoughtful consideration and investigation to discover whether it is a rabid wolf or a lost puppy.
System 1 sometimes answers easier questions than the one it was asked, and it has little knowledge of logic or statistics. It is designed to make immediate sense of things.
Do we still remember the question we were trying to answer r? Or have we substituted an easier one ?
REF 7.1
This is why subjective confidence (in your own decisions) is not a good diagnostic of accuracy : Judgments that answer the wrong question can also be made with high confidence.
System 2 is the slower, deliberate way of thinking.
It is a more effortful mode of thought responsible for complex computations, logical reasoning, and conscious choices. Unlike the automatic System 1, System 2 requires intense attention, energy, and concentration, acting as a "skeptical associate" that overrides System 1's impulses, though it is often "lazy" and tends to accept System 1’s intuitive suggestions.
[It also requires more intelligence, and/or education ! My observation]
Two examples. You may have seen them before
FIRST
A Bat and ball together cost £1.10, The bat costs £1 more than the ball, How much does the ball cost ?
System 1, Obvious. 10p. Not even a decent question !
MORE than 50% of students at Princeton, Harvard and MIT said 10p
Students in ‘lesser’ Universities said 10p in over 80% of cases
System 2, think about it, suspect a trap, work it out slowly, then think logically
Bat + ball = £1.10; so Bat = ball + £1; therefore ball + ball + £1 = £1.10;
2 balls = £1.10 - £1 = £0.10,
Therefore 1 ball = £0.05p. and the answer is 5p
[And you said Algebra would never be of any use ! It requires intelligence and education and an ability to slow down and think logically]
‘ . .many people are overconfident; prone to place too much faith in their intuitions. They apparently find cognitive effort at least mildly unpleasant, and avoid it as much as possible’
[vide my observation supra]
Or in more normal terms “Don’t confuse me with the facts. My mind is made up.”
REF 8
SECOND
You need to drive 60 miles to a meeting. For the first half of the journey there was heavy traffic and you achieved only an average of 30 mph. Then you have an open Motorway.
How fast will you have to drive the second half to average 60 mph over the whole distance ?
Even Einstein is said to have got that wrong. THINK ABOUT IT SLOWLY. I include the answer at the end. CLUE is in the first two sentences.
As we saw above, our System 1 doesn’t bother with maths or statistics,
A reliable way to make people believe in falsehoods is frequent repetition, because familiarity is not easily distinguishable from truth.
System 1 is not prone to doubt. It suppresses ambiguity and spontaneously constructs stories that are as coherent as possible. UNLESS the message is immediately negated, the associations that it evokes will spread as if the message were true
A fact known to every Propaganda Minister, Cabinet Office Spokesman, Press Agent and PR consultant. A fact known to the McCanns and their Publicity Agent. Even today every news bulletin and most newspaper articles ‘set the scene’ by using words to the effect
“Madeleine McCann was abducted from a holiday apartment in PdL on the evening of Thursday 3rd May 2007, while her parents dined a few yards away.”
It has become a Mantra, an Article of Faith, a new form of the “Credo” – the Apostles’ Creed, and any deviation from it is tantamount to heresy or apostasy
The fact that it contains at least five identifiable falsehoods or unproven items is irrelevant
System 1 runs ahead of the facts in constructing a rich image on the basis of scraps of evidence. A machine for jumping to conclusions will act as if it believes in the law of Small numbers. More generally it will produce a representation of reality that makes too much sense. [my bold]
REF 8.1
That powerful WYSIATI rule. What You See Is All There Is. You cannot help but deal with the limited information you had as if it were all there is to know. You build the best possible story for the information available to you, and, if it is a good story, you believe it. Paradoxically it is easier to construct a coherent story when you know little, when there are few pieces to fit into the puzzle. Our comforting conviction that the world makes sense rests on a secure foundation: our almost unlimited ability to ignore our ignorance.
Ref 9
Having laid out his thesis on Systems of thinking Kahnemann then includes this link to Cognitive Dissonance, though he does not label it as such, merely makes the observation. The two concepts, it seems, are inextricably linked, for reasons I may touch on later.
Once you have accepted a theory and used it as a tool in your thinking it is extraordinarily difficult to notice its flaws. If you come across an observation that does not seem to fit the model, you assume that there must be a perfectly good explanation that you are somehow missing. You give the theory the benefit of the doubt, trusting the community of [those] who have accepted it.
REF 10
Generational religious belief is based on this. But at one level it is a classic fallacy.
The Argumentum ad Numeram.
“Fifty million Frenchmen can’t be wrong.” Yes they can, and they often have been.
“1.4 bn. Catholics can’t be wrong -v- 1 bn. Protestants can’t be wrong”. Clearly one at least, by definition, must be.
Mitchell is on record as having said. [There are] “entirely innocent explanations for anything the police may have found during their enquiries”
This is a perfect example of System 1 thinking, involving little or no conscious thought, analysis, questioning, or deep consideration. Merely an open and declared refusal to accept any evidence or facts which might offend the conclusions already decided on, combined with Cognitive Dissonance and and a pre-emptive strike to avoid it.
It is the adult [?] equivalent of sticking fingers in one’s ears and shouting “Laa, Laa, Laa. I can’t hear you” ! ! !
REF 11
Clarke’s increasingly bizarre book’s first pages are FULL of assumptions presented as first hand evidence but fleshed out with pure invention, or perhaps deliberately mis-remembered or /and not cross checked, as everyone else has done.
It goes a long way beyond Pooh-Bah. “Merely corroborative detail, intended to give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative”. WS Gilbert, Mikado,
It is presented as first hand narrative; as evidence. I dissect it in the Appendices
APP 1
There are many modern examples of people refusing to accept science when it conflicts with their ‘beliefs’. Vatican -v- Galileo Galilei (1633) being perhaps the most well known.
Orthodox religions offer the most extreme examples or refusal to accept contrary points of view, but it goes much wider than that.
Catholic v Protestant
Queen Mary 1, A staunch Roman Catholic executed 280 – 300 Protestant Priests, mostly by burning, including Bishops Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer between 1552 and 1558
Queen Elizabeth 1, a staunch Protestant, executed 250 – 300 Priests, most Jesuits, (See Ignatious Loyala supra) between 1585 and 1600
Islam
The execution of Muslims who belong to the “wrong sect” or are deemed to be Apostate, Heretic, or Infidel by other devout Muslims continues to this day. It is impossible to calculate numbers who have fallen victim to this cult.
More recently Stalin and Mao condemned tens of millions to death by starvation in the modern era because of their Faith in Marxist-approved but utterly bogus and unscientific Lysenko-ism, – the (alleged) inheritance of acquired characteristics – and a refusal to accept or listen to contrary scientific evidence, and ultimately a refusal to look at the facts of poor food production under their Marxist-approved schemes.
Darwinism and Mendel’s research were condemned as ”Capitalist ideology”, and “Bourgois Fraud”, in the same way that the concept of IQ is dismissed today by the Left, and scientists who spoke out in support of ‘real’ science were executed.
Examples are everywhere to be found
The Turin Shroud - dating from 1354, claimed to be the burial shroud of Jesus of Nazareth,
modern science has shown that it is not, but there are still churches devoted to its worship, and many still revere it as they do the miriad of True nails, or the several tonnes of pieces of the True Cross in shrines across the Catholic Church
Thor Hayerdahl - organised and led the Kon Tiki expedition, to demonstrate that ancient people on balsa wood rafts could have travelled from South America to Polynesia. He established that they could have done.
Modern DNA proved that they didn’t
Thor Heyerdahl - organised and led the two Ra expeditions, to demonstrate that Ancient Egyptians on rafts of papyrus bundles could have reached South America (from Morocco!). He established [on his second attempt] that they could have reached the West Indies.
There is no evidence that they ever did.
Heyerdahl went on to show the CLASSIC symptoms and signs of Cognitive Dissonance.
QUOTE: Based on available accounts of his life, Thor Heyerdahl was generally not depressed when his theories were proven wrong, but rather remained steadfastly convinced of his vision, often becoming frustrated or hostile toward the academic community that criticised him.
While modern genetic evidence has largely debunked his core theory that Polynesia was settled from South America, Heyerdahl often took a defiant approach to scientific consensus.
- Hostility and Defiance: Instead of being despondent, Heyerdahl showed frustration and grew "hostile towards the scientific community at large" when his theories—such as those published in American Indians in the Pacific (1952)—were rejected.
- Unwavering Tenacity: He possessed "tenacious perseverance," holding steadfastly to his visions for decades. Even when experts dismissed his work as “crack-potry," he continued his ventures.
- A Different View of "Right": For Heyerdahl, the goal was often simply to prove that ancient transoceanic contact was possible (experimental archaeology), rather than being entirely correct about his ethnographic origins theories. He viewed his friction with scholars as a case of "David vs. Goliath," seeing himself as defying established, stuck-in-their-ways academics.
- "Basically Right": In his later life, studies (such as those detecting some Polynesian-South American contact) allowed him to argue he was "basically right" about the capability of ancient travel, even if his specific migration theories were incorrect.
- Rejection of Authority: He often stated that he had "no respect for authority" in science, believing that "time and time again we dig and we find the authorities are wrong".
While he was not known to be depressed by academic rejection, he did display "rage" and deep frustration when he felt his studies were unfairly reviewed or ignored
END
REF 12
Rage, deep frustration, hostile, defiant, and then adopting the fallacious arguments of changing the definition and moving the goalposts, first of the word “right” itself, and then by arguing that he was “Basically right” in that all he had been trying to prove was it was theoretically possible. . . and “no respect for authority,”
And we may note one other feature about Heyerdahl, relating to Intelligence, education and experience that we have noted above under Systems of thinking
Quote “But he also displayed another typical trait among pseudoarchaeologists: hostility against mainstream academia. With Heyerdahl, we are looking at a man with a great many honorary doctorates, but no university degree.
The diagnosis is very clearly one of Cognitive Dissonance.
————————
What we have done here is look into the literature to try to find an explanation for the behaviour of so many people involved in this strange case.
We can now begin to understand why so early, even at the scene, they jumped to conclusions on the basis of little, or indeed NO evidence, but also why once they had committed themselves mentally to their own particular interpretation, they are so reluctant to give it up. We can begin to understand why they become aggressive, use ad hominem abuse, why they even threaten physical violence (the obvious but pathetic playground level implication of “telling people where you live” !) or threaten “legal proceedings” though amusingly always of an unspecified nature both as to the venue of the Jurisdiction, or the crime or Tort to be alleged.
We can begin to understand it, though perhaps not excuse or forgive it.
And we can therefore begin to understand, but not excuse or forgive, whose who vent their cognitive dissonance spleen on the professionals, who from their training and long experience had learned to identify and actively and consciously to RESIST System 1 Fast thinking – jumping to early conclusions. Doctors, police, detectives, forensic scientists, accident investigators, . . . all keep open minds and see where the evidence takes them. Following the ‘spoor’– the trail, and collecting more evidence and facts along the way to refine and challenge their position. Even some properly trained, accredited and experienced Investigative journalists can retain critical minds sufficiently open to fall into this category.
The venom, invective and vituperation shown by the System 1 thinkers suffering from Cognitive Dissonance is on display everywhere. The Portuguese police were routinely described as useless, lazy, ‘sardine munchers’, and incompetent. The decision of the Appeal, and Supreme courts, and that of the ECHR have been openly vilified and disputed.
Clarke goes so far as to allege there were only two police officers present, and no dogs until late afternoon, when many video news reel videos with him in the shots shows all this to be utterly false. A outright and deliberate Lie which a moment of research in the internet archives would have shown him to be exposed as such.
But Cognitive Dissonance overrides all normal rules of logic and decent behaviour, and the exposure attracts not an apology and correction, but the – by now expected – belligerent response.
What will happen if, or when Madeleine’s mortal remains are found. And if they are discovered in a location predicted by one or other investigators ?
Will they apologise ? Will they change their minds ?
Probably not.
And the evidence for this ?
We must remember that there are still apologists for Mao and Stalin, and only this week a man who clearly thinks highly of Nazism is attempting to enter the UK to perform.
And the same people who vilified the Portuguese and British Police, (and of course latterly included the German BKA for failing to find evidence to convict their latest scapegoat Brückner) also refused to accept the findings of the Portuguese court of Appeal, the Portuguese Supreme Court, and the European Court of Human Rights, alleging in more than one case, high level interference and corruption.
Cognitive dissonance is very powerful. Flat earthers, holocaust deniers, and moon landing conspiracy theorists thrive on it.
There is no reason to suppose that Abduction Acolytes will be any different.
* * *
Promised Solution:
60 miles to the venue. First half at 30 mph. Those 30 miles have taken an Hour.
The hour of the 60 miles per hour has been Used up. So there is NO possible way of completing the journey at 60 mph. At any speed.
System 1 thinkers do not notice the time or distance elements in the first two sentences, concentrating on the speed. The most usual answer given is 120 mph.
Is that what you first thought ? Be honest.
* * *
And I leave you with this thought from Nobel Laureate Daniel Hahnemann
APPENDIX A
EXTRACT FROM CLARKE’S BOOK, MY SEARCH FOR MADELEINE: One Reporter’s 14-Year Hunt To Solve Europe’s Most Harrowing Crime. OP Books. Kindle Edition.
p.23
It was now between 9.45am and 10.15am local time (an hour earlier than Spain and sensibly in the same time zone as the UK) and I was the first British journalist on the scene.
Clarke has given many different times of arrival in his writings, ranging from 1.30 am to ‘just before noon’. Clarke was not the ‘first British journalist on the scene’. Len Port was. Whether this makes any difference to anything is unclear.
A small group of expats and tourists were already getting mobilised after a night of drama and anxiety. The McCanns’ apartment was on the corner of the block at the junction of Rua da Escola Primaria and Dr Agostinho da Silva. Easily spotted, it had a flimsy bit of police tape run up the side of it by a rickety gate, and another bit of tape around the front where the car park was. After establishing the name of the missing toddler as Maddie or ‘Maddy’ from one of the expats hovering outside, I walked up the short flight of stairs to the apartment, number 5A, – completely unimpeded by police – to speak to the parents, as any decent journalist is programmed to do on arrival at a job like this.
The small gate is in perfect condition, There is no ‘short flight of stairs to the apartment’
I walked inside the open front door
He has told us that the front was taped off
and bumped straight into the McCanns, who were heading off to the police station in nearby Lagos to make an official missing persons statement.
The McCanns were not in Apartment 5A, They had moved out when the Police took over the scene, They were in the Paynes’ first floor apartment 5H.
Clarke therefore did NOT enter Apartment 5A. In other accounts he himself describes how he did NOT enter, because it was taped off.
They looked fraught and stressed, but were somehow still functioning, despite presumably not sleeping a wink.
Gerry had been asleep on a camp bed. Kate tells us this herself in her autobiography.
I smiled and said ‘hello’, introducing myself as a local hack, working for the Mail, just arrived from Malaga. I promised I’d help as best I could to find their daughter.
Clarke was there as a “Reporter’, but has suddenly assumed the role of Private detective.
He had not ‘just arrived from Málaga’. He had arrived from Ronda, more specifically a small village outside Ronda, some 100 km from Málaga.
There is no evidence that he met the McCanns at this point, and clear video evidence suggesting that he did not. In which case this is pure invention.
They seemed grateful and smiled ... well grimaced to be fair – saying ‘thank you’ and mumbling a few other pleasantries, before telling me their daughter’s name and the rough time she had disappeared, which was between 9pm and 9.45pm. I don’t remember much but I do remember them describing it as ‘a nightmare’ and saying they were ‘sure’ she had been snatched. I scribbled it down in my notepad.
This is pure invention. His protestation that “I don’t remember much” gives it away. An Investigative Journalist – claiming to be the First British Journalist at the scene, with a scoop at the ‘crime of the century and a “Meaty case”, carrying a note book, and speaking to the British victims themselves . . . and he says “I don’t remember much.”
Readers must draw their own conclusions.
It was clear they couldn’t hang around and needed to go and get the local police force to actually give a damn, for it was apparent right from the start that they really didn’t care very much.
This is pure invention. The PJ had laid on a fleet of cars to take them all to Portumão. The GNR were there in force with dogs and Scenes of Crime Forensic experts. All of this is on News video, where Clarke is clearly shown.
This was obvious from the shortage of officers on hand. There were two local bobbies on duty, but the side of the house was unguarded and life in the resort was going on as normal.
This is pure invention and news video shows it to be so.
The police, meanwhile, refused to give me any help. Not a thing. No comments, no clues, nothing.
Probably a very wise decision but it does not align with News video showing Clarke on very friendly terms shaking hands and making other bodily contact with a senior uniformed officer.
I was shocked to see some sniffer dogs making an appearance later on that afternoon, some 18 hours after the child had gone missing.
This is pure invention. Dogs had been present from the early hours of the morning, and their searches are shown, again on News video
From the very first moment I arrived in Praia da Luz that May morning in 2007, my overbearing [sic] drive was to solve the mystery and find young Maddie.
Clarke clearly means “Over-riding” not overbearing. His poor command of grammar and vocabulary is unusual for someone of his education.
Clarke was there as a “Reporter’, but has immediately assumed the role of Private detective
The rules of journalism revolve around the five ws: When, Where, Why, Who and hoW. Stick to these and you can’t go wrong.
There are SIX, and he missed the most important one – WHAT ?
I now knew when she had gone missing, more or less, so now I needed to try and work out where she had gone and why.
Clarke “knew” only what he had been told. [By the two principle suspects]. Asking ‘How’ would also have been instructive.
I knew that the parents, friends and half the neighbourhood had been up all night searching the resort, but it didn’t stop my inbuilt sense of optimism from thinking I could somehow make a difference.
Clarke clearly did not know that the parents had done almost NO searching at all. Gerry had been asleep on a camp bed and Kate had been staring at a candle because it was too dark outside. She tells us this herself in her autobiography.
END
And so it goes on for another 413 pages.
REF:
Clarke, Jon. MY SEARCH FOR MADELEINE: One Reporter’s 14-Year Hunt To Solve Europe’s Most Harrowing Crime (pp. 23-25). OP Books. Kindle Edition.
Chapter 69
References:
1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/326738
https://www.helpguide.org/mental-health/anxiety/cognitive-dissonance
2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignatius_of_Loyola
https://www.jesuits.org/stories/the-life-of-st-ignatius-of-loyola/
Extract: “His lawyer made contact with the McCanns and they met Kennedy in London. “Within 15 seconds of listening to Kate,” he said, “I made a decision, using all the emotional intelligence one builds up over many years. I was 100 per cent convinced of their total innocence. I told them that, one, we would find a top Portuguese lawyer to defend them, and get them off as arguidos [the McCanns had been designated “named suspects” by the Portuguese authorities days before they returned to England]. Two, we’d do everything in our power to influence the public’s perspective and views. And, three, we’d support them in setting up some private investigators … The Portuguese police had stopped investigating. It was urgent to get some other guys on to it.”
4 McCann & Anor v Bennett ([2013] EWHC 283 (QB))
5.1 https://www.portugalresident.com/mccanns-vs-amaral/.
WIN at First Instance
5.2 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-62967119.
LOSE on APPEAL
5.3 http://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/Supreme_Court_31_01_2017.htm.
LOSE in Supreme Court of Portugal
Extract; Status of Investigation: The Supreme Court noted that the lifting of the McCanns' arguido (suspect) status in 2008 did not mean they were definitively cleared, but rather that the prosecution lacked sufficient evidence at the time to continue that line of inquiry.
P.70 “And let not be said, too, that the appellants were cleared by the order of filing the criminal proceedings.
In fact, that dispatch was not proclaimed by virtue of the Public Ministry having gained the conviction that the appellants had not committed any crime (cf. art. 277° of the CPP).
The filing, in this case, was decided because it was not possible for Public Ministry to obtain sufficient evidence of the practice of crimes by the appellants (cf. the cited art. 277°-2)
There is, therefore, a remarkable difference, and not merely a semantic one, between the legally admissible grounds of the filing order.
Thus, it does not appear acceptable to consider that the alluded dispatch, based on the insufficiency of evidence, should be treated as evidence of innocence.”
5.4 https://inforrm.org/2022/11/29/case-law-strasbourg-mccann-and-healy-v-portugal- article-8-claim-by-mccanns-dismissed-catherine-arnold/
LOSE in the European Court of Human rights
Extract: Article 6(2)
In relation to the applicants’ second allegation, the Court held that Article 6(2) was not engaged because the applicants’ civil claims, with which the Supreme Court’s judgments of 31 January and 21t March 2017 were concerned, did not fall within its scope. In the event that Article 6(2) had been engaged, the Court considered that the Supreme Court did not appear to have made comments which implied that the applicants were guilty, or which even suggested suspicions against them.
6 Private communication; email sent by Clarke and received by me 26/01/2022
Extract : “It would make a rather embarrassing and costly lawsuit for you / Jill / Tony if and when I do approach the UK courts over it “
https://whatreallyhappenedtomadeleinemccann.blogspot.com/2016/08/chapter-43-my-search-for-madeleine.html
https://whatreallyhappenedtomadeleinemccann.blogspot.com/2016/08/chapter-44-my-search-for-madeleine-jon.html
7 Thinking, Fast and Slow Paperback – 1 Jan. 2011, by Daniel Kahneman (Author) Penguin
Amazon, £12.62
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking,_Fast_and_Slow
Provides a good summary
https://dn790002.ca.archive.org/0/items/DanielKahnemanThinkingFastAndSlow/Daniel%20Kahneman-Thinking.pdf
whole book in pdf. Free of charge, can be downloaded to Kindle
7.1 Op cit. p.120
8 Op cit. p. 50
8.1 Op cit. p. 131
9. Op cit. p. 231
9.1 Op cit. p. 240
10. Op cit. p. 316
11.1 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/1/hi/uk/7000409.stm#:
Extract: “Mr Mitchell, a former BBC journalist, said there were "entirely innocent explanations for anything the police may have found during their inquiries".
He said he had resigned from his Cabinet Office job to act as the McCanns' spokesman, because he "feels so strongly" the couple were innocent.
11.2 https://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/09/18/mccann.mitchell/index
Extract: ”Suffice to say, there are highly innocent explanations for anything the police may have found during their inquiries".
12.1 Re. Thor Heyerdahl
Extract is Google response to direct question. Treat with caution !
12.2 https://aardvarchaeology.wordpress.com/2010/11/04/thor-heyerdahl-and-hyperdiffus/
Extract: “Thor Heyerdahl’s forays into archaeology were pseudoscience because he had a single favourite model that he refused to let go of. But he also displayed another typical trait among pseudoarchaeologists: hostility against mainstream academia. With Heyerdahl, we are looking at a man with a great many honorary doctorates, but no university degree. He was unwilling to work within the confines of science with its peer review, its debates and its career structure, and he got a lot done beyond that world. But while many Norwegians celebrate him as a national hero and a conqueror of the seas, one whose memorial museum is (tellingly) located a stone’s throw from the Viking Ship Hall in Oslo, scientific archaeology and ethnography and biology have all but forgotten him.”
