September 11, 2007
On the day when Portuguese police investigating the disappearance of four-year-old Madeleine McCann were due to hand over their copious files to the country's prosecutors, there has been understandable media speculation into the alleged involvement of her parents Gerry and Kate McCann.
Fortunately for Londoners, their local paper, the Evening Standard has today provided a beacon of clarity through the miasma of allegation, claim and counter-claim about the missing toddler.
It reports on its front page the definitive conclusion from a "veteran of murder investigations".
"They didn't do it," says former BBC Crimewatch presenter Nick Ross.
Well that settles it, then.
However, on reading further, we discover that Ross admits:
I have never been to Praia da Luz. I have not met the detectives or the lawyers, or talked through the details with the forensic scientists. I know only the details you have read about, and maybe less - because I am tired of all the speculation...
That doesn't seem to have stopped Ross adding to the column inches with his own full-page of unfounded opinion.
