Authors: Kate McCann
An average of more than 600 child abductions a year has been recorded since 2004–5 in England and Wales. The real figure, however, is likely to be much higher. A significant number of family abductions (which, according to several official sources, are, worryingly, on the increase) are not actually reported, and other cases may be omitted from the statistics – for example, those that do not meet the legal definition of child abduction. It is important to note, too, that abductions leading to more serious crimes, such as sexual abuse or homicide, will not be recorded as abductions but as the more serious crime. Not all attempted abductions will necessarily be recorded, either, depending on the procedures of various police forces, which can also distort the true picture.
What is not in doubt is that the available statistics underestimate the scale of the problem. Child abductions and attempted abductions are not isolated incidents and occur in
every
country. Authorities and governments who suggest otherwise are likely to be hiding the truth.
Having your child stolen is the most terrible ordeal imaginable. As a parent, you need to know that all that can be done is being done – and as quickly and thoroughly as possible. The gold standard in child rescue alert systems is the USA’s AMBER Alert, an acronym for America’s Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response and named for Amber Hagerman, a nine-year-old girl abducted, raped and murdered in Texas in 1996.
Gerry had been hugely impressed by what he had learned about the AMBER Alert system on his visit to the States the previous year. It is a voluntary partnership between law-enforcement agencies, broadcasters, transport companies and the wireless industry to activate an urgent bulletin in the gravest child-abduction cases. It is important that it is reserved for the most serious situations (defined by a set of criteria), to avoid the airwaves being constantly inundated by false alarms that might dilute the attention and response of the public. The goal of an AMBER Alert is to instantly galvanize the assistance of the entire community. Its raison d’être is simple: time is the enemy in the search for an abducted child. It was clear to Gerry and me that if such a procedure had been in use in Portugal, Madeleine might have been swiftly tracked down. It breaks our hearts just thinking about it.
In 2001, the NCMEC launched a campaign to promote the programme, originally a local initiative in Texas, across the country. An AMBER Alert training kit, video and manual for law-enforcement agencies and broadcasters were produced and distributed nationwide. At the time there were only twenty-seven AMBER systems in operation; now there are over 120, and it continues to grow and evolve. As well as dramatically improving the speed and success rate of the recovery of abducted children – 532 to date as a direct result of an AMBER Alert activation – it has been found to deter some abductors, who may release a child on hearing of an AMBER Alert bulletin.
In 2003 the USA established a nationwide AMBER Alert system, which is coordinated by the assistant attorney general. Key to the success of this programme is that it is driven by the government. Countries in Europe need similar leadership.
I think it would be fair to say that Europe is at least twenty years behind the US in dealing with this issue. At the time of Madeleine’s abduction only two of the twenty-seven countries in the European Union had a national child rescue alert system in place: France and Belgium. A scheme in Greece was launched soon afterwards. In Britain, Sussex had been the first police force to introduce such a programme, in 2002, followed by Surrey and Hampshire, and by 2005 every force in England and Wales operated a CRA. However, they were rarely, if ever, used and were not ‘joined up’ across the country. National coordination of CRAs is essential, and for this reason it is vital that the implementation of these systems is spearheaded by government.
In February 2008 Gerry and I travelled to Brussels to meet the team at Missing Children Europe, the umbrella organization for twenty-one NGOs in fifteen EU states, each battling child abduction and sexual exploitation in their own country. I use the word ‘team’ loosely: we were taken aback to discover that MCE then consisted of just two and a half staff. I asked Delphine Moralis, the deputy secretary general, why there seemed to be such resistance in European countries to developing CRAs. She put it down to a lack of understanding about what these involve and how they work. Stressing the importance of cross-border alerts, she cited a recent case of a child abducted in northern France. The French child rescue alert, the Alerte Enlèvement, was launched, but the weakness here was that while people hundreds of miles away in the south of the country received the alert, absurdly, the Belgians, less than an hour away from where the abduction had occurred, knew nothing about it.
Although it was an informative day, we left feeling very demoralized. It was obvious that there was little movement within Europe in terms of protecting children from abduction and exploitation, and what was happening was happening painfully slowly because of the bureaucracy involved. There also seemed to be a sense of resignation about all this: ‘Yes, it’s frustrating, but what can we do?’ I felt utterly exasperated.
Why aren’t all EU countries rushing to develop CRAs? I kept asking myself. Why aren’t governments financing such projects? Tackling child abduction and sexual crimes against children seemed very far down their action lists. Was their thinking that it would be wisest to keep the problem quiet so as not to panic the population? That people need to believe we are a modern society and our countries are safe? That children don’t vote? That counter-terrorism measures and fighting gang crime bring greater plaudits? Lack of financial incentive? Or simply that missing children are just that: missing. Out of sight and out of mind.
On our return, we enlisted the help of one of the UK’s top human-rights lawyers, Geoffrey Robertson, QC. He kindly produced a written declaration we could take to the European Parliament to try to push to the top of the political agenda the need for a unified child rescue alert across the continent.
In March, Gerry and I watched a documentary about Caroline Dickinson, a thirteen-year-old British girl who was sexually assaulted and murdered in her bed in a youth hostel dormitory on a school trip to France in 1996. The perpetrator of this appalling crime, Francisco Javier Arce Montes, was finally caught, years later, thanks to an observant US immigration official. This itinerant sexual deviant had been assaulting young girls all over Europe for twenty years before killing Caroline. Despite having been convicted and jailed several times, on his release Montes was able to carry on committing similar crimes and evading capture simply by moving from region to region and from one country to another. If ever there was an argument for a European sex offenders register (or even a national one in those states that don’t have it), surely this is it.
1 March
Unbelievable! I feel so angry with Europe and this so called European ‘Union’! We need to start demanding. We need information: everyone who was in Praia da Luz for a start. All DNA, especially unidentified DNA, and subsequent testing of people in the area. We need information regarding similar offences. How we go about it, I don’t know but it’s time to start brain-storming again.
I was struck by how common it is for such crimes to be repeated over and over again by the same people. If Madeleine’s abductor was a sex offender or a child trafficker, for example, the chances are that he would have offended before. I cast my mind back to what the British consul had told me in the police station in Portimão that first day about the reports there had been of intruders getting into bed with children. I needed to know more about this.
I got in touch with the retired British consul for the Algarve. He told me that he used to have regular monthly meetings with British tour operators along the coast in Albufeira, at which crime was invariably one of the topics covered. At one of these meetings in August 2006 he had been informed by the tour operators of the spate of incidents I’d heard about the day after Madeleine was taken, in which an intruder had got into holiday apartments at night, climbed into children’s beds and subjected them to various forms and degrees of molestation. It seemed the attacker would often lock the door to the parents’ bedroom before assaulting the child. In one case, the paedophile had put on some of the father’s aftershave in an attempt to soothe or deceive the child.
It was believed that this offender (or offenders) watched for patterns and routines in a family’s behaviour, established ‘weaknesses’ in the security of their apartment and determined in advance where parents and children slept. Cold shivers ran down my spine as it hit home that this might have applied to us. The British tour operators had been keen for this information to remain confidential (and you don’t have to be a genius to work out why that might be). I pressed the former British consul on what happened afterwards. Had there been an investigation? Had anybody been convicted? He wasn’t sure but thought that an immigrant construction worker had been arrested and released pending trial, which was likely to take place some years down the line. Unbelievable.
In spite of some of the terrible discoveries I was making as I learned more of the stories and statistics relating to missing and exploited children, it wasn’t all bad news. Gradually, my outlook was growing more positive and I was beginning to get past my early certainty that Madeleine must have been taken by a paedophile and murdered. I was coming to realize that didn’t have to be the answer. Meeting Ernie Allen and the people at NCMEC played a big part in helping me along this road.
Gerry and I flew to Washington, DC to visit NCMEC at the end of March. Ever since his first trip there, Gerry had been keen for me to go, too, and see for myself the work they were doing. It didn’t take me long to understand why. Ernie’s support was not only encouraging, it was based on solid facts and figures. In the States, research shows that around 56 per cent of children abducted by strangers are recovered alive. ‘Don’t let people tell you that there is no hope,’ he said. ‘There are a host of scenarios under which your child could be alive. You have to keep battling for her.’ We felt even more convinced that Madeleine was out there somewhere and, if such a thing were possible, our determination to find her was even greater.
Everybody at the centre was fantastic: warm, helpful and upbeat. The American can-do approach to life (‘Let’s focus on solutions, not problems’) makes anything seem possible, or at least, absolutely worth trying. Such optimism and energy go a long way towards motivating people. They certainly motivated Gerry and me. The obstacles to the implementation of an AMBER Alert-type scheme across Europe suddenly seemed more surmountable than they had in recent weeks, the future brighter.
The following day we were able to see Jeff Sedgwick, then assistant attorney general and national AMBER Alert coordinator. While in Washington we were also fortunate to have the opportunity to meet Ed Smart, the father of Elizabeth Smart, who was abducted from her bedroom in Salt Lake City in the early hours of 5 June 2002, aged fourteen. She was found alive nine months later, less than twenty miles from her home, with her abductors. Ed was lovely. We talked about the role and success of AMBER Alert and the need for a similar system in Europe. He emphasized how important it was to keep Madeleine’s face in the public consciousness. Later we talked about Elizabeth and the difficulties the family had faced amid the joy of their reunion. It was a very emotional morning.
Just over a year after chatting to her dad, we got to meet Elizabeth herself. She had been in London and came up to Rothley to spend a Saturday afternoon with the four of us. When I went to meet her at the railway station I was excited but a little nervous, too. What would she be like? What would we talk about? I wasn’t even sure I’d recognize her: the only pictures I’d seen were of a younger Elizabeth. I needn’t have worried. I spotted her straight away and found her warm, kind, intelligent and humorous. Over lunch we talked about many things, including her life now and the forthcoming trial of her abductors. Sean and Amelie even persuaded her to join them for a painting session. What perhaps stood out most to us was how amazingly well-adjusted Elizabeth is. A real survivor, body and soul. I hope with all my heart that the same is true of our Madeleine.
On 10 April 2008 we went back to Brussels, this time to the European Parliament, to present our declaration to the MEPs and petition them to help with the establishment of a coordinated CRA. For the declaration to be formally adopted, over 50 per cent of the 785 MEPs would need to sign it. The media presence at the press conference that followed was impressive. We were told there hadn’t been such a turn-out since Prince Charles and the Dalai Lama had appeared at the parliament. It was a good sign, we thought, for the future of children all over Europe.
Our day, though, was to finish with a nasty twist. You’ll recall that, back in October, we had supplied the Portuguese public prosecutor with a list of people from whom we felt statements should have been taken. In response the Portuguese police had decided to come to Leicester to be present while the British police interviewed Fiona, Dave, Russ, Jane, Matt, Rachael and Dianne, as well as many other individuals whose testimony had never been sought. The questions to be asked were those Gerry and I had suggested to the prosecutor (obvious and pertinent ones, I hasten to add), with a few additions from the PJ.
It just so happened that the PJ’s trip to the UK coincided with our visit to Brussels. While we were finishing lunch, Clarence had a phone call from a Spanish journalist who told him that he’d been given what appeared to be witness statements made by Gerry and me to the Portuguese police. The part of my statement in which he was interested was Madeleine’s comment to us on the morning of the day she disappeared: ‘Why didn’t you come when Sean and I cried last night?’ I don’t think I need to remind anyone how I have been tortured by this question since the moment Madeleine was taken from us. My reason for having shared it with the police was plain: it was potentially highly significant.