The Media & Their Narratives.

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Some of you may know of the Madeleine McCann case where a three English year-old girl vacationing at a holiday resort
in Portugal with her parents, twin siblings and a group of friends of her family, mysteriously vanished whilst sleeping in a
ground-floor apartment. This was in 2007 and vast amounts of media focus and British Government funding went into the
investigation of how a child could be snatched from -what millions of holidaymakers had taken for granted, a wholesome
experience in a different culture.


Madeleine McCann.

When this kind of terrifying -and yet oddly enough audience-captivating incident takes place, the British media and those
who follow their narratives are only-too-quick to begin their blame game. Scary headlines hinted towards many scenarios
of appalling possibilities and the Madeleine McCann case became a regular feature on every front page and TV screen
for the armchair-detectives to eat up with a spoon.

There were and are many suspects. After Madeleine's parents -Gerry and Kate McCann became what is known in Portugal
as 'arguidos', a term that means 'named suspects', a voracious public demanded more from their news-outlets and more
unsubstantiated accusations floated to the surface. Other British children had disappeared before and after Madeleine's
assumed abduction, but they were merely offered as vague peripheral fodder to enhance the fear we all know full well.

The McCanns published a book on their tragedy and to keep their daughter's name in the papers. More funding from kind
donors and Governmental agencies was obtained, yet with the media requiring other styles of allurement to retain their
dwindling customers, the maintenance of suspicion and dread became less and less. The current thinking is a German
pervert titled 'Christian B' and presently serving a prison sentence for sex crimes, took Madeleine from the hotel room
and killed her.

However, one name in all the media brouhaha caught my attention and maybe it's due to my age and my early belief
that those we become accustomed to seeing on television are the kind of folk who live a life of high moral standards,
principles that we aspire to and not only enhance ourselves as a society-member, but those around us too.

Clement Freud -grandson of psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud and brother of artist Lucian Freud, appeared on British
television in the sixties as a challenger to the famous-at-the-time television chef Fanny Cradock. Freud's 'hound-dog'
-like facial features and his slow passionless droll articulation of how to cook food made him a celebrity on the British
screens and with the promotion of this notoriety, Clement Freud entered politics in the early seventies.


Clement Freud in his TV commercials                                                            Freud being awarded a knighthood.

During his years as a Liberal Member of Parliament, the occasional rumour surfaced of Freud being accused of unwanted
intimate circumstances with his family's seventeen year-old nanny. A ten year-old girl who later revealed Sir Freud had
sexually abused her at the time and a teenager called Vicky Haynes, who later stated the broadcaster, chef and author
raped her, were all well-hidden blemishes on this celebrated Fleet-Street and BBC luminary until seven years after his
death in 2009.

Reuters:
'Author and comedian Stephen Fry remembered him as an amusing raconteur and said it was
important not to forget the vivid early life he had led as a chef and restaurateur in the bohemian
Soho district of London in the 1950s and 60s.

“Another element to him which perhaps should not go unmentioned is his raffishness, if you like,
his air of disreputability,” Fry told the BBC’s Today programme.

“He, during the 1950s and 1960s, was a real Soho figure -- he knew all the girls of easy virtue, he
knew the pimps, he knew the racetrack tipsters and, of course, the restaurateurs, which is where
he learnt his business as a chef.

“His fund of stories about that time was simply remarkable, and he lived a sort of life on the edge.
His brother Lucian is known as the more bohemian, I suppose, as an artist, but Clement had that
quality too.”...'

The Independent:
'When he died, the obituaries mourned the passing of a “national treasure.” History, though, will record
a far darker verdict on Sir Clement Freud, MP, broadcaster, wit and, it now transpires, suspected paedophile.

Now, possibly coincidental but deeply sinister connections are being noticed about the man who combined
popularity on Radio 4’s Just a Minute with the gravitas gained from 14 years’ service as a Liberal MP...'

'...That unwanted distinction will fall to the possibility – which police are now being urged to investigate - that
Freud might somehow have played a role in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. Freud had a villa in
Praia da Luz, the Portugese resort where the three-year-old went missing in 2007.

After the disappearance, he took it upon himself to befriend Madeleine’s parents, who are now reportedly, and
understandably “horrified” to learn that the man they considered “warm, funny and instantly likeable” was
allegedly a paedophile...'

'...When Freud died it was as a member of the British Establishment, his national treasure status seemingly
assured by the lugubrious wit he had displayed during four decades as a stalwart on Radio 4’s much-loved
panel game Just a Minute.

His funeral was attended by the rock star Bono, by celebrity comedian Stephen Fry, by the politicians George
Osborne and David Steel. The then Prime Minister Gordon Brown read the lesson and told the distinguished
guests: “I was proud to have known him.”
The most haunting ironies, though, came in the tributes that acknowledged his (known) flaws and politely
repackaged them as virtues...'

But what's this to do with the disappearance of a child? you ask. This is from 2016 too.

The Daily Star:
Emails between 'paedophile' Clement Freud and Madeleine McCann's parents to be probed for child
sex abuse inquiry
The ex-MP and TV and radio star had a villa in the resort Madeleine McCann vanished from and befriended her parents
in the weeks after she went missing

'Emails between 'predatory paedophile' Sir Clement Freud and Madeleine McCann's parents are set to be probed as
part of a child sex abuse inquiry. Messages exchanged between the late MP and the parents of missing Madeleine will
be submitted to an inquiry into historic abuse allegations, according to The Star.

The revelation comes after news the ex-MP and TV and radio star had a villa in the resort Madeleine McCann vanished
from and befriended her parents Kate and Gerry in the weeks after she went missing. A woman who says she was a
victim of Freud claims she told police about his links to the family, but nothing was done...'

Our reality and the one we're bombarded with through the media are entirely different and the laws often may not apply
to the latter.