Bread and Media Circuses

Once upon a time, there was an Australian Seventh Day Adventist minister called Stephen Chamberlain, who decided that he would take his wife Lindy and their children on a camping trip to Ayers Rock in the Outback. While they were there, it appeared that a dingo took their baby, who was never seen again.

At first, it was accepted that the Chamberlain family were the victims of a tragic accident. As time went on, people started to doubt their story. Some genuinely believed that it was impossible for a dingo to steal a human baby. Others thought there was something strange about the Chamberlain family. Rumours began to multiply. It was even suggested that their youngest child had been done away with in some occult ritual, and that her name, Azaria, had a secret meaning indicating that she was to be offered up to God in some way or another. In the end, the weight of media pressure proved irresistible, and Lindy Chamberlain appeared in court charged with her daughter's murder, in what came to be known as the Dingo Trial.

As you can imagine, the world's press was full of speculation about the case, and all manner of pundits on subjects from anthropology to zoology had something to say to the journalists covering the story. In the end, Mrs. Chamberlain, who by now was pregnant again, was found guilty, and taken away from the rest of her family to have her baby in prison. Most people thought justice had been done.

Some time later, a hiker who was going for a walk in the area happened upon a bloodstained scrap of fabric, which upon closer inspection turned out to be Azaria Chamberlain's matinee jacket. Apparently, it was a crucial part of the prosecution case that the garment concerned did not exist. Now that it had been found, the case had to be heard all over again, but this time we had all calmed down a bit, and could think more rationally about the evidence. As a result, the courts decided that Lindy Chamberlain was not guilty after all.

This is characteristic of legal cases that are tried in circumstances where there is a lot of media excitement. The wrong verdict is reached, and it is only by sheer chance (or, if you will, an act of Divine providence) that we find out what really happened. Ask the "Birmingham Six", the "Guildford Four", Judith Ward, and many others like them.

It will be the same with the McCann family, if the matter of their lost daughter ever gets to a trial. The police enquiry, no matter which national police force does it, will be sidetracked by pressure from the media for a conclusion. The chances of the police finding out what really happened to Madeleine, or who was behind her disappearance, by means of the enquiry currently in progress are precisely zero. The only hope for the truth to be known will be if someone stumbles upon it "by chance".

I have no children, so I cannot imagine what I would do if I lost a child. I have thought about what I might do if, perish the thought, my wife vanished without trace. I would report her missing to the police. I would not breathe a word to the papers or to anybody in the media. Indeed, I would do my very best to ensure that only those who needed to know, would be told. Wild horses wouldn't be able to persuade me to appear on the news and make an appeal for her to come back, or anything of that kind. I would not give anyone in the press the chance to think that I could possibly have been responsible for her disappearance.

The opposite of life is not death. It is television. In life, you have the opportunity to look at something from all angles, and to question. In television, all you see is what the camera is pointing at, or more accurately what some bigwig in charge of the programme will allow the camera to point at. Television trivialises everything it touches, including the loss of a loved one. I would choose not to have my life trivialised. Matters of life and death are too important to be made into a media circus.

My opinions on anything are subject to change. My love for you will not change.