Mick Hartley

To what new indignity can the press submit the poor McCanns? How can further depths of pointless page-filling be plumbed? The Times have the answer – bring in resident “clinical psychologist” Oliver James! The headline to his article suggests the power of the great man’s analysis:

Being suddenly under suspicion will reinforce the feeling of being persecuted and victimised

It takes a special kind of brass neck to come out in all seriousness with guff like this.

Kate and Gerry McCann will probably be coping reasonably well so far with the pressure of suspicion, for the same reason that they have been able to behave with such stoicism and strength in the months since Madeleine’s disappearance. When a parent loses a child, it is not uncommon for them to dissociate their previous selves and former lives from such a terrible trauma.

In some cases, they create a sub-personality, becoming actors who play out a role or a part. Mr and Mrs McCann may have followed this pattern, and established new characters for themselves who are completely divorced in their minds from the people they were before May 3.

If that were the case, then it follows that since Madeleine went missing they have been acting out roles — as a way of dealing with an otherwise intolerable event.

The roles are those of beleaguered, stoic and heroic parents, a united couple battling to find their abducted daughter.

The constant, public repetition, by Mrs McCann in particular, that Madeleine is still alive would then be a means of protecting herself from addressing the very real possibility that she may not be.

Her incapacity to tolerate the pain of having to accept the reality that her daughter could be dead would mean that instead, she would sustain the mantra that this is not a bereavement.

They will probably be coping reasonably well so far. On the other hand they may not. In some cases, they create a sub-personality, becoming actors who play out a role or a part. In other cases they don’t. Without any first-hand knowledge, by what right does Oliver James indulge in this smug psychobabble at the expense of people immersed in such suffering? What does coping reasonably well even mean in a situation where your daughter’s been abducted, most probably murdered, having possibly been subjected to things you don’t ever want to think about, and you’re now being accused of her murder? What choice have they got but to cope reasonably well?

And on it goes:

It is difficult to predict what charges, if they are ever brought, could do — whether doubts would creep in as the situation develops, at last exposing the old Mr and Mrs McCann to the reality of the situation. The constant distractions could cease, and the sub-personalities come crashing down, damaging their relationship, or leading to a complete breakdown by one or both partners. Do not, however, underestimate the human capacity for self-deception.

Nor the human capacity for making capital out of the misery of others.