Kerry Needham speaks for the nation in calling for more help for parents of missing children (other than just Madeleine McCann)
Kerry Needham’s son Ben has been missing since 1991; Gerry and Kate McCann’s daughter Madeleine has been missing since 2007. £10.1 million has been spent on the investigation into Madeleine McCann’s disappearance (and a further £2 million has been pledged); just £800,000 has been spent on the campaign to find Ben.
Nobody in their right mind would suggest that either child deserves anything but justice (and the right to hopefully be found alive), but what shines through is that the respective campaigns have been treated so very differently by the authorities and the media. Kerry Needham is an ordinary lady with few connections; Gerry and Kate McCann count the “Chanel-clad” Lady Meyer and the hapless Home Secretary Theresa May amongst their supporters.
On Monday, however, Ms Needham told The Mirror she was “shocked and hurt” after the McCanns closed a Twitter account campaigning for their daughter and cited the reason for doing so to be based upon actions by supporters of missing Ben’s family.
Needham commented: “It feels like a personal attack on me. It is deeply, deeply hurtful. I have myself had massive amounts of slanderous abuse from supporters of the McCann campaign in the past but I have never taken that personally. It’s freedom of speech. But it is getting the names of two missing children out there which is really important”.
She is right. It is time Theresa May got her priorities in order and it is time that she accepted that such vast resources should not be devoted to finding just one child. The many other missing matter also and someone other than the lone voice of Kerry Needham should be shouting that from the rooftops.
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