I'm sure that if you have ever publically stated that you have doubts about the McCann affair and in particular the likelihood of an abduction having occurred, or indeed if you have ever questioned anything that the McCann's have said, you will have been accused of being a hater, a stalker or a persecutor!

If you dare to suggest that the correct way to find out what happened to Madeleine is to go back to the beginning, perhaps even before the beginning, and examine how she came to no longer be in the care of her parents, you will be told this is irrelevant.

If you ask a simple question, the question why the parents friends thought Madeleine and her twin siblings needed to be checked by them, but the McCann's never checked their friends children, you will be accused of hatred.

In fact, the only way you will be accepted as a reasonbable person is if first you agree that an abduction took place and a search must be made. The nature of the search is somewhat vague. It seems to involve following up any claims made that a child that is female and roughly the age Madeleine would have been has been seen somewhere on the globe.

If you suggest that Madeleine might not have been abducted by a stranger, you are immediately branded as filled with bitterness and hatred.

It is strangely reminiscent of the response recieved by cartoonists or film makers who make the error of including references to religion.

To question the existance of a God is the same as questioning the existance of an abductor.

I cannot help feeling that this might be the primary reason that the McCann's became devoutly religious and drew in and wrapped themselves in religious fervour. A ready made gang of supporters, devout, willing to take the word of the McCann's on face value, in the same way as they use the very convenient and much abused principle that lies behind the word 'Faith'.

You must not question the existance of an abductor and you must search for Madeleine. Oh, and of course drop a few pennies into a collection whilst you are about it!

Sadly, for the puveyors of the principle of blind faith, there will always be those who question the questionable and ask the awkward questions that cut through the fog of faith.

But one thing I will go along with, there is more evidence of a God existing than there is of an abductor!