To abuse abuse

1. Introduction 

This week we didn’t intend to write a post. South Yorkshire police was supposed to have had by the end of last month to conclude their investigation as to what happened to Ben Needham.

It didn’t and doesn’t seem to us to be a case of any extraordinary complexity taking into account that over a month ago they informed the world that it was their professional belief that Ben died as the victim of an accident near the farmhouse.

With only loose ends left to tie one would expect a swift conclusion, especially if one bases one’s assessment on the certainty shown by the South Yorkshire police on that Monday in October.

But, as we have always said, we do not have the full knowledge of facts, and so accept there must be details that we are unaware of and  which may be complicating the reaching of a satisfactory conclusion by the authorities.

While we waited, the Maddie case has experienced a sort of upheaval in the form of an interview conducted by Richard Hall with an American statement analyst, called Peter Hyatt.

In it, Mr Hyatt analyses the statements given by the McCanns in an interview given to an Australian TV in 2011, thus lending his professional expertise to the case.

Please note that this is not new. Back in November 2012, Mr Hyatt did a similar analysis and it can be read in the post “Statement Analysis: McCann Interview” in the blog “Statement Analysis”.

Without surprise, then and now, Mr Hyatt finds that the McCanns are lying, that the abduction is a hoax.

With all due respect for Mr Hyatt, there was no need, neither then nor now, for an expert in statement analysis, a subjective science, to tell us that, facts do.

We are not rejecting Mr Hyatt’s contribution, we agree fully that it’s all a narrative and if he’s able, by the use of plain, common wording which many find easy to understand and helps spread the message of truth, we welcome his efforts wholeheartedly.

We are just pointing out that it’s FACTS and nothing else that tell us clearly that the people involved in covering up Maddie’s death and body – which are many more than the McCanns – are lying.

When one hears what one desires, wishes or wants, instead of nodding in agreement one should be critical as then our ears are in such a state of eagerness that we are easily convinced and so easily fooled.

If we don’t make that effort, anything said that will validate our beliefs or confirm our suspicions will easily be assimilated as fact, and worse, will be taken as truth, without any other duly confirmation.

We, as we have repeatedly said, don’t believe that paedophilia is in any way related with Maddie’s death and that we think that paedophilia is connected with this case in terms of favour pulling after her death in the massive and widely scoped cover-up that followed (meaning only that paedos-in-the-right-places could be and were easily “convinced” to help and not that paedos ran the show) and as an effective distracting misinformation .

We have also said that we don’t shy away from any information that contradicts our thesis. Truth is what guides us and if there’s something new that shows us to be wrong, we obviously correct our course.

We hear many others say the same but unfortunately what we have witnessed is that their actions very rarely, if ever, meet their words. The usual technique is to pretend what contradicts their storyline doesn’t exist.

They pretend they haven’t read it and so they can later say they are not familiar with it and so continue to defend whatever they did before knowing – because what is known cannot be unknown no matter how much pretence is put in the process – the facts that do not support or even do  contradict their theories.

We, as we care very much about what we think about ourselves, prefer to look the contradicting information in the eye.

Mr Hyatt seems, in this interview, to be supportive that there are language indicators of abuse and/or sexual abuse in what the McCanns have said.

This would support the paedophilia theory. So, we looked at what were Mr Hyatt’s arguments to have reached such concluisons.


2. Transcription

We will fully transcribe what is said in the video to support this:

In the second video, at 10:50:

Kate McCann: My memory of that evening, it’s vivid, really vivid, I mean she was really tired but she was just cuddled up on my knee and we read a story and we also had some treats, some crisps and biscuits erm and then after they’d done the usual kind of, toilet, teeth erm we went through to the bedroom and read another story: if you’re happy and you’re know it… ermm.. yep.

Peter Hyatt: When she moves into experiential memory of what happened, she can chose anything she likes to tell us, the words she chooses are going to be important.

So, “My memory of that evening”. First of all we have the word ‘that’ which distances herself from that night, which could be appropriate because it’s chronologically is distant, she says “it’s really vivid, it’s really vivid” and that’s interesting because that type of clarification comes when there’s a hormonal increase. The fight/flight hormone that cortisone and others rise up in the body to the brain brings great clarity of thought but if this was a normal, quiet, happy evening what would cause such vividness in her memory? So this, so what she’s doing, she’s narrative building, she’s telling us that night was anything but normal.

Now, this is my assertion to the viewers: by saying it’s really vivid, she’s choosing these words, she’s telling us, she wants us to believe that her memory is very strong with details. It’s not only vivid, it’s really vivid and I believe her.

“I mean she was really tired”. Now she is using her own words, we must believe her, we must listen to her. I believe her memory of that evening is very vivid because her hormones were on super-high alert.

I believe that Madeleine was really tired and that Madeleine’s tiredness is important to this case and not that she’s mentioned it here. We should be listening and believing her.

“But she just cuddled up on my knee and we read a story and we also had some treats”. This is a portrayal of a really good mom.

I’m asking the viewers to enter not into reality but the verbalised perception of reality. She’s telling you ‘My memory is really strong’ for a reason, I believe her, ‘Madeleine was really tired’ and there’s a reason why that’s there’s here too, ‘I’m a really good mom’, she has a need to tell us this while her child is missing, this is often the indication of neglect or abuse.

There’s a correlation between mothers who, when they go for substance-abuse treatment, if a mother says in the in-screening of substance-abuse treatment ‘I’m a really great mom’ or portrays it in any way, shape or form, it’s a signal for a therapist to go into the history and find this mother has been involved with child protection services.

In other words, great moms are often too tired to talk about how great they are just from being tired, it’s the need to brag is concerning.

Now, her child is missing, at this point the self-condemnation should be through the roof instead of the boasting, it’s not a good sign.

I’m believing her as she’s guiding me, until she talks me out of it. I think, yeah, they may have read, I think they may have had some treats, in fact she’s given me exact details of the treats because she has vivid memory because the hormones are really high which is concerning.

And again what I mentioned earlier about the normal factor, here we go ‘the usual kind’, in other words, the normal usual night. The need for her to express that tells us that it was anything but, was anything but.

Now the mentioning of toilet, teeth, is unnecessary. There’s any number of things you do with a child but she chooses to include these things. These associations in language are often associated with sexual abuse.

Richard Hall: Right…

PH: In this…

RH: I’ve heard you say that before Peter, or read that, and that seems quite… I don’t understand why that might be the case…

PH: Sure and it does warrant an explanation. I was once investigating a robbery and the employees were asked to write up a statement of what they had done and one woman wrote ‘I woke up, brushed my teeth, got dressed and went to work’ and she included the brushing of her teeth and in statement analysis we believe what someone tells us. I believed she brushed her teeth. I also know that when people include brushing teeth in a statement is extremely rare, it’s important to her.

It’s something we all do and 90% plus people don’t feel necessary to tell us they brushed their teeth, so why would brushing the teeth be so important to her?

So I speak to the owner of the business and said ‘I would like to speak to this young woman about the theft’, I said, ‘no, she didn’t steal but I think she’s of victim of domestic violence and she knows who did’.

And they, the owners were shocked ‘How could you possibly known that? We have met with her, she’s in a domestically violent relationship and we talked about it and have been trying to get her out of it but she won’t listen to us, how did you know?’

I said, ‘Because she brushed her teeth’, and they thought that was just crazy and I said no, what we do is that we flag personal hygiene and we ask you to consider what her life is like.

Women that are involved in domestically violent relationships are generally not subject to violence. It is the threat of violence that controls them, so in her world, when she gets up in the morning, she goes into the bathroom, she locks the door and for a few minutes she feels safe while she’s brushing her teeth and tending to herself because the rest of her life is controlled by him. He might text her at work, he might call her at work, he might control things and what I think happened there was that she allowed him and his gang to enter access into the building to commit the theft.

Brushing her teeth was something so important to her that she mentioned it. So whenever we see personal hygiene where it’s unnecessary we explore for these matters.

Now the sexual abuse comes in with water. A school teacher notices that little Johnny comes to school every day and he’s always clean but before every snack, after every snack we have to get him to wash his hands, like all little children, that’s just kind of the norm. One day Johnny comes to school and washes his hands without being asked and washes them again, washes them again and washes them again and the teacher says ‘Uh-oh, something is wrong’. It’s a dramatic change in his behaviour and has to do with water, ok, what they have to explore is the possibility of sexual abuse.

When a child is sexually abused, very early on, in the bedroom by a trusted family member, the child sensory is different and someone may be 40 yrs old and say ‘When I went to the store I opened the door and went in’. You can’t go into a store without opening the door, why would he mention door? Because in his brain there’s an association with the sound of an opening door that’s with him forever, because the opening of the door sound may be associated with when he was sexually abused, or she was sexually abused .

So we believe what everyone tells us, I believe they had this personal hygiene with every 3 yr old goes through it but her inclusion is telling me something is wrong.

Remember the context also, her child is missing, she hasn’t mentioned a thing what Madeleine is going through, but she’s talking about Madeleine’s hygiene, with detail.

So I believe what she’s telling me in that sense but I know there’s a reason why she’s choosing these words.

Then when she says the usual kind, what she’s telling you is that something unusual happened between her and Madeleine that night. 

The bit of the interview about abuse and/or sexual abuse stops at 20:03 and Mr Hyatt then goes into the possibility of a sedation scenario but returns to the topic exactly 1 minute and 30 seconds later at 21:33:

PH: Many examples of how this works out. When someone is accused of sexually molesting a child and the man says ‘I’m a normal happily married man’, what he’s saying is ‘I don’t deny the sexual molestation but I want you to think that I couldn’t have done it because I’m married’. Well, married people still sexually abuse children. So when the word ‘normal’ is used it’s an indication… and any word near that, ‘normal’, ‘usual’, ‘regular’… when it is used it means the person is thinking of something unusual, abnormal, not the norm while they’re speaking and they’re trying to deceive.

So here’s she’s revealing a knowledge, if we listen to her, that this day was, what they went through, that routine, was not normal.

Later on in the interview he comes back to the sexual abuse but we will leave this until later in the post.


3. Analogies

This description made by the McCanns of what allegedly happened on Thursday night (cannot see it to be any other night as there is no reason to describe any other night with such a degree of detail) makes Mr Hyatt deduce the following:

1. Because Kate makes an effort to appear to be a great mum, it’s indicative that there’s possible neglect and/or abuse;

2. Because Kate includes a personal hygiene detail in the description, it’s indicative that there’s possible abuse in a scenario of domestic violence;

3. Because that personal hygiene detail was a reference to brushing teeth, and because this involves water, it’s indicative that there’s possible sexual abuse;

4. Because of the above together with the facts the McCanns are trying to pass that evening as a normal night, it’s indicative, again, that there’s possible sexual molestation.

Very strong conclusions to support the paedophilia theory indeed.

Before analysing each point, we must point out that to support each one of his conclusions, Mr Hyatt uses the following analogies:

To support #1, the in-screening of mothers for substance-abuse treatment who try to pass on how great mums they are.

To support #2, the employee who is allegedly a victim domestic violence.

To support #3, Johnny the little school boy who obsessively washes his hands.

To support #4, the paedo father who claims normality.


4. Kate, the substance abuser

Unlike Mr Hyatt seems to state, it’s not only victims of abuse who boast about their parenting skills.

We are not experts in psychology but can agree with Mr Hyatt that Kate tries to pass on too much the idea of what a great mother she was that night.

We will return to this later in the post but for now we would like to say that to us this could be just to compensate a possible lack of empathy that may have existed between her and her children.

This lack of empathy between mothers and their children is unfortunately not that uncommon in many households but there are many reasons explained by psychology that explain it outside involving automatically victims of abuse.

As one of many examples, narcissistic people who desperately need outside approval may project an emotionally blissful family relationship that simply doesn’t exist.

But the fact that it doesn’t exist, doesn’t mean that a violent and abusive one does in its place, because what usually happens are just detached and unsympathetic relationships between family members.

Mr Hyatt bases his conclusion on the behaviour of mothers with substance-abuse history.

What is factual is that we have no knowledge of Kate having any sort of substance-abuse problem, so where’s the comparison? There isn’t one.

So, upfront, it seems to us that using such an analogy is not only not apt as it’s baseless and wrong because it misleads.

As it’s wrong to withdraw from it to any sort of conclusion based on such an analogy.

Until Mr Hyatt comes up with a better explanation as to why he concludes Kate is a possible victim of abuse just because she boasts what a great mum she is, we for ones are not buying it.


5. Kate, the domestic violence victim

According to Mr Hyatt, the fact that Kate says “they’d done the usual kind of, toilet, teeth” is a strong indicator that Kate would be a victim of domestic violence.

Please note that this follows an already baseless conclusion of abuse, as we showed above.

In this instance, Mr Hyatt uses the analogy of an adult woman, who refers needlessly, to brushing her teeth in the morning.

This would be important because, according to Mr Hyatt, the brushing of her teeth would represent a temporary escape from an abusive husband, as she would be alone in those minutes in the bathroom.

We agree with Mr Hyatt. But only in what concerns the employee in the analogy and no one else.

We doubt very much that an abusive husband would allow the wife to lock the bathroom door but agree that in the bathroom tending to our personal hygiene we can be alone, totally alone and so find it natural for this particular woman to find then and there a needed refuge from her abusive husband.

Problem is that this analogy has absolutely nothing to do with what Kate said.

Not even the teeth brushing, as the employee is referring to her own teeth while Kate is speaking of her children’s teeth (yes, please note the plural as it’s important).

Let’s start with the fact that in the analogy the employee refers to morning and Kate is referring clearly to bedtime.

This is important because it’s not uncommon, in fact it’s usual to refer to hygiene habits when we are talking about sending children to bed so the brushing of teeth is not unnecessarily referred to as Mr Hyatt seems to imply.

Talking about hygiene habits in the morning, as the employee does, is unusual. When we talk about our morning habits we tend to focus on the kitchen.

Talking about our morning coffee when speaking of how our day starts is as natural as mentioning the kids having brushed their teeth when speaking about them when they are going to bed.

At that particular time of a day’s routine in a family with toddlers teeth brushing is as common to be mentioned as are reading a story or singing a lullaby. Kate refers to both and Mr Hyatt sees nothing relevant in these, and we agree with him.

Also, nowhere in her narrative does Kate refer being alone in the bathroom (to supposedly seek refuge from Gerry).

She even says “they’d done” which means she would be in the bathroom with the 3 toddlers, which makes it 4 people, so hardly alone.

Mr Hyatt seems to be making an inappropriate comparison between a scenario of a woman alone where there’s a woman with 3 children.

And where is it said that it was Kate who brushed the children’s teeth? She speaks of toilet, which we assume is referring to nappy changing. So, taking into account there were 3 children to put to bed, we think all the chores involved would be shared by husband and wife.

In that case of having been Gerry who brushed their teeth would Mr Hyatt imply that he was seeking refuge from Kate in the bathroom?

Nothing from employee story, however truthful it may be and which we are not doubting it is, can be applied to Kate’s narrative.

Again, until Mr Hyatt explains better why he concludes from Kate’s words why we may be before a situation of domestic violence, we’re not buying it.


6. Maddie, the sexually molested

Note, we changed here from Kate to Maddie because as Mr Hyatt is clear – “Now the sexual abuse comes in with water” – and as we can only see at this point of the narrative the only water related activity is the brushing of teeth and only the children are referred to as brushing their teeth, so the sexual abuse mentioned can only refer to one or all the toddlers.

Mr Hyatt uses the analogy of Johnny, the school boy who has a “dramatic change in his behaviour and has to do with water” to illustrate how he reaches the conclusion that in Kate’s words one can deduce sexual molestation having occurred.

Here, again, we agree with Mr Hyatt. And again only with what is said in the analogy and only there.

It’s true that some child victims of sexual abuse wash themselves obsessively. This has nothing to do with water but with the cleansing that the water is supposed to bring. The child feels soiled and so seeks to wash that dirt away, and because she or he can’t, the poor child insists, insists and insists, unsuccessfully persisting to achieve a cleansing result from the act. It’s not the water that is sought but what it can do, and can’t, to clean the perceived soiling of the body.

Problem here, again, is that the analogy has absolutely nothing to do with what Kate has said.

Where is this obsessive cleansing, this “dramatic change in his behaviour and has to do with water” in Kate’s narrative? Nowhere.

So why use this analogy? We can’t see why.

Repeating ourselves, unless Mr Hyatt explains better why he sees sexual molestation – by the way a very serious allegation to make and that should NEVER be made lightly – we are not buying it.


7. The door and sexual molestation

Mr Hyatt, out of the blue and out of any context – at this point in time no one has mentioned a door – decides to tell a story of a man, supposedly sexually molested as a child, reacting to the sound of an the door he opens when entering a store.

Again, we agree with the analogy but in what pertains to the analogy only.

We sincerely don’t know why this analogy is even being brought up, or rather, we do, he wants to speak later about the door as we will see.

However, the analogy is not about the door.

Like the Johnny analogy was not about water but what the water represented, this one is about what sound the door makes when opening.

That’s what triggers the traumatic response. The man in the analogy has nothing against doors but only against a particular sound made when one is opened.

That particular door may have made that particular sound or one very similar to it, to the one made by the door of his childhood ordeal, and so he reacted to it, even if unconsciously. But it was to a similar sound of that door opening and not to all doors, otherwise this man’s life would be even more a living hell than it already was.

The analogy refers an opening of a door but could have been a squeak in the floor or the ticking of a clock or any other stimulus that would have been present when suffering the aggressions.

In this particular case it was the sound of a door opening, and not the door itself that triggered the traumatic memories in the man and we accept that did indeed happen.

But what has, in Kate’s words, represented anything similar to the triggering of a traumatic response as per represented by the sound of the analogy’s opening door?

Nothing.

So why mention it?

Note that this completely irrelevant and inappropriate within this context analogy follows immediately the other one, also completely irrelevant and inappropriate, about Johnny and sexual molestation.

But once heard, the door analogy does underline the Johnny one and a possible sexual molestation within the McCann household is affirmed.

Without any base whatsoever.

Both analogies are supposedly true stories and nowhere have we denied that. Not only they could be true as they are enticing in their details. The reasoning is flawless so our brains fail to process they have absolutely nothing to do with what is being analysed.

They are told in such a way that our brains fail to capture, because of our ears are avid, that neither apply to wording being looked at. That failure means that we retain that there’s a strong indication of a sexual molestation which is simply not there.

We hear 2 truthful stories out of the mouth of a supposed expert and when he ends up saying that about in Kate’s words we believe him, failing to see that just an attentive look would suffice to see clearly that nothing of the sort could be concluded.

At least not from these words from Kate and those are the ones being analysed.

At this point in time, no abuse or sexual abuse allegation has been substantiated but the paedophile subscriber viewer is convinced wholeheartedly that they were. Others who up to this point were not, are starting to wonder.


8. Gerry, the sexual molester

After a completely out of context analogy, Mr Hyatt follows with another: the molesting father who tries to portrays normalcy.

Yes, we agree that the McCanns are indeed trying to portray a normal family evening but from that to conclude that we are before a molesting father goes a distance too far. Way too far.

It only makes sense because it follows all the previous allegations of abuse/sexual abuse, which as we saw, are absolutely baseless. But, as we said, our brains did capture and validate them.

Without them, this one doesn’t make any sense. It’s absurd to allege in any way of a presence of sexual molestation against children based solely on the fact that a narrative seeks to portray a normal evening, which we agree wasn’t normal at all.

Yet, at the end of this exercise, many will be convinced that Maddie was a victim of sexual molestation and many will be convinced that Gerry McCann is a child molester.

After all, Mr Hyatt, a statement analyst expert, has strongly implied it with all the conclusions he’s made.

Note the plural, conclusions, many of them, all pointing in the same direction: sexual abuse.

But the truth is that all of these conclusions are totally erroneous and should be completely ignored.


9. Kate, the molested child

Not only are the above conclusions not ignored as they come back later in the interview with a very, very serious allegation to boot: implying strongly that Kate was molested as a child.

The transcript at 36:34:

Peter Hyatt: “The bedroom door, where the three children”, the three children, not ‘my kids’, that’s distancing language there, “were sleeping was open much further than I’d left it”. That’s not what she says, “we’d left it”. Does that mean that she and her husband, each took a hand and moved the door to a certain level together? Because that’s what she wants me to believe? She’s lying, this is deception.

The fact she’s using door for deception is because she’s building a narrative about a kidnapping. The need to build a narrative about a kidnapping says the child wasn’t kidnapped, that plainly.

“And literally as I went back in the curtains of the bedroom, which were drawn, were closed, it was like a gust of wind blew upon them”. She’s asking you to enter into an emotional fictitious account, this is writing fiction, this is something that even statement analysis 101 would be able to grab on. So I conclude here, deception indicated from this alone.

Richard Hall: And you mention here again, doors and windows are often found within languages of sexual abuse…

PH: Yeah, I’m concerned, I’m concerned, this is not a normal family. There are verbal indicators, and it doesn’t necessarily mean that Madeleine was a victim of sexual abuse, what it could be is in the language of Kate that she was sexually abused while she was growing up. This would leave her vulnerable for things such as neglect.

That’s, and if you take that the next step, someone that has been sexually abused in the childhood was now vulnerable to neglecting her own children, possibly even failing to protect them, if someone else, like her husband, was involved in sexual abuse.

Note how it is Richard Hall who brings back the sexual abuse theme into the interview.

As we saw by the analogy of the man going into the store, and unlike Mr Hall says, doors and windows are found within languages of sexual abuse but not as inanimate objects but because of the traumatic responses they provoke.

Because most of this kind of abuse happens in the bedroom it is expected to find that doors and windows are often mentioned. But, we repeat, it is what represents the action involving those objects and not the objects themselves.

It’s only when such an object is mentioned out of context in a conversation (and that is one very subjective judgement to make) should it be considered of interest.

Is Kate’s mentioning of the door out of context? To us, it seems clearly it is well within context.

In her narrative, she wishes to explain why she thought something was wrong and that something was the door was positioned. How on earth can she convey that without mentioning the door?

Did the reporters from the tabloids who invented the preposterous story of the abductor being behind the bedroom door when Gerry was supposedly in the apartment have sexual molestation issues in their childhood as well because they mentioned a door?

The fact that one mentions a door in a conversation, or a window, doesn’t mean one is necessarily confessing to have been sexually molested as a young child.

By the way, where is the reference from Mr Hyatt that windows represent in any way sexual abuse during or in the context of this interview? We fail to see any. So why does Richard Hall say Mr Hyatt says they do?

What we seem to be witnessing is Richard Hall bringing back the sexual abuse theme solely based on the erroneous conclusion made by Mr Hyatt from the door opening man analogy that anyone mentioning a door in a conversation means that there is some sort of sexual abuse in the background.

So, it seems that for Mr Hyatt, the simple fact that Kate mentions a door, perfectly within context, he strongly implies that she was sexually molested as a child.

Was it her father, her uncles, her grandfathers? It could have been a neighbour or a teacher, who knows.

To be fair, Hyatt doesn’t say a male relative abused Kate, as he doesn’t mention anyone but that’s the first thing that people are likely to assume. And within the male relatives, the father will be the first person people will assume abused her. That’s the first image his words evoked for us.

That is one very serious allegation to make. Much more serious when it is based on absolutely nothing, as this one is unless Mr Hyatt has other reasons to make it that we don’t know.

10. Normalcy

Where we agree with Mr Hyatt is that the McCanns seem in this interview to be pushing hard, too hard, to portray a normal family evening and that noticeable effort should make us all question seriously if it was anything but normal.

We absolutely share Mr Hyatt’s belief that Thursday evening wasn’t a normal evening. That it was anything but.

But we disagree with Mr Hyatt when he says “when she moves into experiential memory of what happened” as he’s implying that Kate is speaking from experience about what happened on that night.

We disagree, we think she’s being completely fictitious.

Yes, we agree that she desires to portray a normal family evening but not because she lived anything similar to what she’s saying but because the reason she knows that night had not been normal was because by when she starts the tale, by bedtime, Maddie was already dead.

Mr Hyatt seems to be assuming that during the time portrayed the children were indeed being put to bed, or in other words that Kate is simply distorting reality in her favour while we, on the other hand, say she’s inventing a total new reality, one in which Maddie is to be believed that she’s still alive and all was absolutely and completely normal.


11. Conclusion

We ask readers to be very critical when listening to what “appeases” their suspicions.

As we saw people being wrongly influenced by Mr Hyatt’s words that Maddie could have been indeed a victim of sexual molestation, we felt it was our duty to intervene.

We continue to consider that much more important at this moment is the South Yorkshire police conclusions to the Ben Needham investigation.

That, we believe, has serious implications to the Maddie case. We continue to be anxiously waiting for them.