Madeleine McCann...

[rippleman]

Some people really shouldn't be let out on the internet on their own.

A tragedy caused to a large extent by negligence.

The witch hunt on the parents is disgusting.

Sentence two you accept that Maddie's disappearance was as a result of negligence. I totally agree. Any parent that leaves a young (already scared) child on their own to go out on the lash is certainly negligent.

But then in sentence three you are disgusted that the parents are being hounded...for their negligence.

I do believe that Maddie's parents have avoided sanctions from social services because of their class and that they were professionals. Compare and contrast the publicity regarding Ben Needham's disappearance. A tiny fraction of the money spent on the investigation into Ben's disappearance than has been spent, and is continuing to be spent, looking for Maddie.

I really hope that the current enquiries do reveal what happened to the poor girl but society should be as equally concerned about establishing what happened to Ben.

 

[East Staffs Gull]

We’ve stayed at the Praia da Luz Ocean Club and know the layout very well. IMHO what the McCann parents did was pretty much akin to putting your kids to bed at home while you enjoy a BBQ down the bottom of your garden. Many people do that and wouldn’t necessarily check on the kids on an hourly basis, as did the McCanns. Fully appreciate that some people wouldn’t even take that risk.

 

[Poojah]

We’ve stayed at the Praia da Luz Ocean Club and know the layout very well. IMHO what the McCann parents did was pretty much akin to putting your kids to bed at home while you enjoy a BBQ down the bottom of your garden. Many people do that and wouldn’t necessarily check on the kids on an hourly basis, as did the McCanns. Fully appreciate that some people wouldn’t even take that risk.

I'd say it was far enough away, personally. Add to that a hotel resort is by it's very nature a public facility, not private property, and you're ramping up the risk of something happening and you not knowing about it.

It's still an incredibly unfortunate set of events, I'm just not sure I'd have been comfortable with there being that level of distance between my wife and I and our unsupervised kids in a similar scenario.

 

[Lower West Stander]

View attachment 126620

I'd say it was far enough away, personally. Add to that a hotel resort is by it's very nature a public facility, not private property, and you're ramping up the risk of something happening and you not knowing about it.

It's still an incredibly unfortunate set of events, I'm just not sure I'd have been comfortable with there being that level of distance between my wife and I and our unsupervised kids in a similar scenario.

I would agree with that.

Their apartment had public access from the street. That would've been enough for me.

 

[Psychobilly freakout]

I would agree with that.

Their apartment had public access from the street. That would've been enough for me.

looking at the picture, it would be a big no way from me, being on the corner with two roads one to the side, one at the back, and what looks like a private road at the back for parking. people seeing you walk back every hour, knowing exactly what you are doing, your not going for a piss every hour sat at the tapas bar are you....

Maybe I am over cautious because of my past, I am constantly clocking people and wondering what they are doing and why, There is no way I would even consider it, even if Johnny Cash was paying and invited me. I would say to the wife you go tonight and i will go tomorrow or something.

 

[One Love]

Sentence two you accept that Maddie's disappearance was as a result of negligence. I totally agree. Any parent that leaves a young (already scared) child on their own to go out on the lash is certainly negligent.

But then in sentence three you are disgusted that the parents are being hounded...for their negligence.

I do believe that Maddie's parents have avoided sanctions from social services because of their class and that they were professionals. Compare and contrast the publicity regarding Ben Needham's disappearance. A tiny fraction of the money spent on the investigation into Ben's disappearance than has been spent, and is continuing to be spent, looking for Maddie.

I really hope that the current enquiries do reveal what happened to the poor girl but society should be as equally concerned about establishing what happened to Ben.

I agree with your final point.

Regarding Maddie's parents, my disgust is with the online conspiracy that they had something more to do with her disappearance.

IMO they should have not been hounded anyway as losing a child to that scenario is punishment enough.

 

[Billy the Fish]

looking at the picture, it would be a big no way from me, being on the corner with two roads one to the side, one at the back, and what looks like a private road at the back for parking. people seeing you walk back every hour, knowing exactly what you are doing, your not going for a piss every hour sat at the tapas bar are you....

Maybe I am over cautious because of my past, I am constantly clocking people and wondering what they are doing and why, There is no way I would even consider it, even if Johnny Cash was paying and invited me. I would say to the wife you go tonight and i will go tomorrow or something.

Agree with this.

At the time it was difficult for me to understand but now I have a child I wonder WTF they were doing. It wasn't just Madeline they left, their twins were only two years old FFS.

My boy is 18 months old, there's a pub closer to my house than that tapas bar is to their apartment. No f**king way am I leaving him in a house alone while I sod off up the pub, probably not in the next decade.

Doing it in a foreign country is absolutely terrible on their part.

 

[Bold Seagull]

Sentence two you accept that Maddie's disappearance was as a result of negligence. I totally agree. Any parent that leaves a young (already scared) child on their own to go out on the lash is certainly negligent.

But then in sentence three you are disgusted that the parents are being hounded...for their negligence.

I do believe that Maddie's parents have avoided sanctions from social services because of their class and that they were professionals. Compare and contrast the publicity regarding Ben Needham's disappearance. A tiny fraction of the money spent on the investigation into Ben's disappearance than has been spent, and is continuing to be spent, looking for Maddie.

I really hope that the current enquiries do reveal what happened to the poor girl but society should be as equally concerned about establishing what happened to Ben.

Ben Needham was pre-internet, pre 24hr news channels, pre social media. Easy to compare it as a class thing, but less so when you consider the radical change in our media consumption. There is little doubt the money spent is about media coverage and pressure rather than one set of parents background over another’s. Didn’t they dig up the Needham site recently, or in the last decade through media pressure?

 

[blue-shifted]

The only comment I'd add to this, is that parenting has become way more risk averse in this generation due to two very high profile cases. This one and Jamie Bulger.

I was mum used to leave me in a pram while she went in a shop and just asked some stranger to keep an eye on me. It was early 80s and that apparently was quite normal at the time. McCann case was later, I suppose the point I'm making is that times change.

Now I'm a parent and I think I parent taking into account the appropriate levels of risk, but my tolerable levels of risk might well be different to yours. I've had several heart in mouth moments where I've lost one or both for a little while, probably because I'm on tapatalk or scoping out some yummy mummy in a playground or something.

Yes what those parent did backfired catastrophically, but every parent has at some point taken a needless risk . 99.999999% of the time you get away with it.

What they did would have been entirely normal 40 years ago, maybe less so 20 years ago, but the chances of this happening were still miniscule.

The number of times I’ve heard people on this thread or otherwise say, they never should have left her alone like that, like the thought has never crossed their minds is incredible

 

[blue-shifted]

Ben Needham was pre-internet, pre 24hr news channels, pre social media. Easy to compare it as a class thing, but less so when you consider the radical change in our media consumption. There is little doubt the money spent is about media coverage and pressure rather than one set of parents background over another’s. Didn’t they dig up the Needham site recently, or in the last decade through media pressure?

Yeh, the police have been working on it. It has been in the media less than Maddie. I think had I been in the McCann's situation I'd have used to the media to the extend I did if it improved the chances of finding her by 0.0001%

 

[Pretty Plnk Fairy]

How about that? Pretty clearly sexist.
Also, when someone posts the phrase "all lives matter" in a thread about black lives matter, we all know EXACTLY what they are getting at, there is no need to evaluate what the poster means, it is clear!

All poster's matter

Regards

DF

 

[Thunder Bolt]

Ben Needham was pre-internet, pre 24hr news channels, pre social media. Easy to compare it as a class thing, but less so when you consider the radical change in our media consumption. There is little doubt the money spent is about media coverage and pressure rather than one set of parents background over another’s. Didn’t they dig up the Needham site recently, or in the last decade through media pressure?

Yes a farmer's field nearby. A dying farm labourer is said to have confessed to a collision with a farm vehicle. but when the field was dug up, no remains were found.

 

[Big Beach Seagull]

All poster's matter

Regards

DF

Especially the one of the tennis bird scratching her bum. I bet the looney left elite on NSC want that banned as well! Phwoar!

 

[neilbard]

Especially the one of the tennis bird scratching her bum. I bet the looney left elite on NSC want that banned as well! Phwoar!

 

[Lower West Stander]

The only comment I'd add to this, is that parenting has become way more risk averse in this generation due to two very high profile cases. This one and Jamie Bulger.

I was mum used to leave me in a pram while she went in a shop and just asked some stranger to keep an eye on me. It was early 80s and that apparently was quite normal at the time. McCann case was later, I suppose the point I'm making is that times change.

Now I'm a parent and I think I parent taking into account the appropriate levels of risk, but my tolerable levels of risk might well be different to yours. I've had several heart in mouth moments where I've lost one or both for a little while, probably because I'm on tapatalk or scoping out some yummy mummy in a playground or something.

Yes what those parent did backfired catastrophically, but every parent has at some point taken a needless risk . 99.999999% of the time you get away with it.

What they did would have been entirely normal 40 years ago, maybe less so 20 years ago, but the chances of this happening were still miniscule.

The number of times I’ve heard people on this thread or otherwise say, they never should have left her alone like that, like the thought has never crossed their minds is incredible

I would never ever have left my kids in an unlocked room with access from a public thoroughfare while I went out for cosy dinner with other parents. That’s not a needless risk, it’s just responsible parenting.

Just because you take your eyes off your kids in the playground by ogling women or gawking at your phone doesn’t mean we all do.....


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[NooBHA]

I would never ever have left my kids in an unlocked room with access from a public thoroughfare while I went out for cosy dinner with other parents. That’s not a needless risk, it’s just responsible parenting.

Just because you take your eyes off your kids in the playground by ogling women or gawking at your phone doesn’t mean we all do.....


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

I think everyone can concur with that



But that's something that the Mc Cann's have had to live with since the incident happened and one they will never forgive themselves for. They took a calculated risk and calculated wrong but 999/1000 their risk would have been OK to take.

Times have changed over the years - As kids my two brothers, myself and two sisters often used to be allowed to go around on our own all the time. We would go out to play at 10am on a weekend and not return home till dinner time around 5pm unless we were hungry and went home for something to eat during the day. We are all still safe and well today.

By contrast my sister when her daughter was growing up, hardly let her daughter out of her sight. Her daughter is 19 now and she still hates her daughter going out alone. I recall my sister herself when she was about 11 - Her and one of her friends was flashed at in a park by some nutter. My mum called the Police. The Police came round and took a statement from the two girls. The Policeman asked my sister '' what did he say when he exposed himself '' - She said that he said '' Do you want a bit of that ? ''

I still laugh to this day my sisters response when the Policeman asked her, ''What did you say in response to him ? '' - She sad to him '' You've goat a wee bit a threed hingin oot yer troozers ''

She was a right wee gobby lass as a youngster but when it came to her daughter she was just very over protective - So times have changed - What happened to the Mc Cann's has probably made people like her be more vigilant in looking after their kids in terms of awareness of the dangers out there that could befall people's children.

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

I have done massive amounts or research to come to my conclusion.

Weirdo Alert

 

[Billy the Fish]

She was a right wee gobby lass as a youngster but when it came to her daughter she was just very over protective - So times have changed - What happened to the Mc Cann's has probably made people like her be more vigilant in looking after their kids in terms of awareness of the dangers out there that could befall people's children.

I broadly agree with what you're saying and would agree in this specific case of it happened in 1990, but this is 2007 we're talking about.

 

[Poojah]

I would never ever have left my kids in an unlocked room with access from a public thoroughfare while I went out for cosy dinner with other parents. That’s not a needless risk, it’s just responsible parenting.

Just because you take your eyes off your kids in the playground by ogling women or gawking at your phone doesn’t mean we all do.....


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

I think it's easy to come across as holier than thou when critiquing the McCann's actions. I have made plenty of mistakes as a parent, and as much as I do my best to learn from them I will make more again in the future. That is true of virtually every parent, to varying degrees. Fortunately, for most us of those mistakes end up being trivial rather than life changing.

We've 'lost' our son on a few occasions. The first time, he was little older than two. My missus was at home with him, waiting for her dad to pay them a visit. She was taking some washing upstairs, and simply said to him "you stand there and look out for granddad". When she came down stairs there was absolutely no sign of him. I received a phone call from her at work, and she was unintelligible (more so than usual even) - just crying and screaming down the phone. I'd never known her so upset in all the time I've known her, and believe me, I've upset her once or twice along the way.

After about 15 minutes of searching, a neighbour found him wandering in the road round the corner from our house. He'd taken "look out for granddad" as an instruction to go looking for him, and quietly slipped out of the door. She was only upstairs for a minute and boom, he'd vanished. That could have ended badly, fortunately it didn't.

It happened again on his sixth birthday last year. All the family had gone bowling, and he wanted to show my mum something near the arcade area. Instead of walking sensibly with her, he shot off and my dear old mum, in her 70s, completely lost sight of him. We spent nearly an hour searching for him. You very quickly go from a fairly casual "well, he can't have gone very far" to genuinely fearing something terrible might have happened. With every minute that goes by, that feeling gets worse.

As I say, after almost an hour, by this point everyone visibly stressed and panicked (not least my mum), he miraculously reappeared. The little bugger had been hiding in the disabled toilet, for nothing other than shits and giggles. He knew he was safe all along, so what's the problem? He couldn't quite comprehend the fact that we didn't.

It's the thought of not knowing whether that feeling is going to last for another five minutes, or the rest of your life. I can only imagine the horror the McCann's must have felt when they returned to find Madeleine's room empty, followed the the increasing feeling that with every minute, hour, day, week that passed, the situation was less-and-less likely to have a happy ending. As a parent, I can totally sympathise with them on that.

Maybe I, and in fact all of us, owe a degree of our own risk aversion as parents to the events of that night; a cruel case study as to what can go wrong if you take too big a gamble with your kids' safety, no matter how good the odds look on paper. But that's ultimately what they did; they rolled the dice and paid an incomprehensible price for their patatas bravas.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

I think it's easier to come across as holier than thou when critiquing the McCann's actions. I have made plenty of mistakes as a parent, and as much as I do my best to learn from them I will make more again in the future. That is true of virtually every parent, to varying degrees. Fortunately, for most us of those mistakes end up being trivial rather than life changing.

We've 'lost' our son on a few occasions. The first time, he was little older than two. My missus was at home with him, waiting for her dad to pay them a visit. She was taking some washing upstairs, and simply said to him "you stand there and look out for granddad". When she came down stairs there was absolutely no sign of him. I received a phone call from her at work, and she was unintelligible (more so than usual even) - just crying and screaming down the phone. I'd never known her so upset in all the time I've known her, and believe me, I've upset her once or twice along the way.

After about 15 minutes of searching, a neighbour found him wandering in the road round the corner from our house. He'd taken "look out for granddad" as an instruction to go looking for him, and quietly slipped out of the door. She was only upstairs for a minute and boom, he'd vanished. That could have ended badly, fortunately it didn't.

It happened again on his sixth birthday last year. All the family had gone bowling, and he wanted to show my mum something near the arcade area. Instead of walking sensibly with her, he shot off and my dear old mum, in her 70s, completely lost sight of him. We spent nearly an hour searching for him. You very quickly go from a fairly casual "well, he can't have gone very far" to genuinely fearing something terrible might have happened. With every minute that goes by, that feeling gets worse.

As I say, after almost an hour, by this point everyone visibly stressed and panicked (not least my mum), he miraculously reappeared. The little bugger had been hiding in the disabled toilet, for nothing other than shits and giggles. He knew he was safe all along, so what's the problem? He couldn't quite comprehend the fact that we didn't.

It's the thought of not knowing whether that feeling is going to last for another five minutes, or the rest of your life. I can only imagine the horror the McCann's must have felt when they returned to find Madeleine's room empty, followed the the increasing feeling that with every minute, hour, day, week that passed, the situation was less-and-less likely to have a happy ending. As a parent, I can totally sympathise with them on that.

Maybe I, and in fact all of us, owe a degree of our own risk aversion as parents to the events of that night; a cruel case study as to what can go wrong if you take too big a gamble with your kids' safety, no matter how good the odds look on paper. But that's ultimately what they did; they rolled the dice and paid an incomprehensible price for their patatas bravas.

I know that feeling well. I was Christmas shopping with a friend, my toddler son somehow climbed out of his pushchair (not a buggy) whilst I was looking at something in a shop. I took my eyes off of him for no more than a minute or so. The shop was packed so I couldn’t see him anywhere. The shop assistants, manager & several people were looking for him.
I was taken to the manager’s office as I was almost collapsing with terror. Two teenage girls found him on a traffic island in the middle of the road outside, so he’d not only toddled out of the shop, but crossed to the middle in front of vehicles, aged less than two. The two girls had the sense to take him to the nearest shop from that point. I sympathise with anyone who has gone through that sort of ordeal.