"Who would leave children that young alone?"

[Donjeta]

I don't think the McCann's should be blamed for the disappearance of their poor child. I wouldn't leave toddlers alone, let alone in a foreign country, but the McCann's wouldn't have left them if they knew Maddie was going to disappear forever. They obviously thought she would be fine. The parents were stupid and naive but didn't deserve for their daughter to go missing, or the abhorrent treatment by the media and the police.

The constant criticism has parallels with rape victims being told it was their own fault for being drunk or out alone at night. The rapist is at fault, not the victim. Similarly, the abductor is at fault, not Maddie's family, who are secondary victims to his (assuming it's a "he") actions. Besides, the constant torture of not knowing Maddie's fate is punishment enough for the parents' stupidity.

These are not stupid, naive people. They are educated, they are intelligent, they can read, they're doctors and have heard of accidents that happen to children as part of their education. They may not have known that Madeleine would be abducted but certainly they knew enough to tell that bad things do frequently happen to small children who are abandoned.

Everybody knows this. If someone doesn't they need to have their children taken away immediately because they're not fit to be parents.

The rape victim analogy is not appropriate because the rape victim does not do anything wrong. Parents who neglect their children do.

You don't get a free pass for a criminal action of yours just because someone else commits another crime at the same time frame.

 

[squish]

A child just disappears and there's not a shred of evidence of an abduction? What possible motive could the McCann's have had for harming her? They wouldn't have had the time to kill her and dispose of her. If Madeleine had died accidentally due to an accident while left alone (for example) and therefore fully the parents fault, they still wouldn't have had the time to dispose of her than fake an abduction. Its impossibly unlikely that a child of that age would disappear of her own accord. An abduction is the only feasible explanation, especially since 8 year old Joana Cipriano disappeared in 2004 only 7 miles away. The same police where involved in that crime, and interrogated and beat her poor mother for 48 hours until they got her to "confess" that she killed her child for catching her having incest with her brother, for which the police where later punished.

I agree that they will never be in the running for Parents Of The Year, but that could be said of a lot of parents. I would also agree with people who say that drunk women ought to take better care of themselves, but they still don't deserve to be raped. The difference is this family were unlucky enough that an abductor found their child.

 

[squish]

These are not stupid, naive people. They are educated, they are intelligent, they can read, they're doctors and have heard of accidents that happen to children as part of their education. They may not have known that Madeleine would be abducted but certainly they knew enough to tell that bad things do frequently happen to small children who are abandoned.

Everybody knows this. If someone doesn't they need to have their children taken away immediately because they're not fit to be parents.

The rape victim analogy is not appropriate because the rape victim does not do anything wrong. Parents who neglect their children do.

You don't get a free pass for a criminal action of yours just because someone else commits another crime at the same time frame.

They may have been academic but they were obviously stupid and inexperienced as parents. Perhaps that was how they were brought up, and how they witnessed their friends bringing up their kids. The fact that they're doctors could have made them more "hard-nosed" thinking that children don't remember what they experience at that age anyway and therefore over-worrying or mollycoddling them is silly. Many men and many high-flying women seem to have this attitude.

It's a fair point about rape victims not doing anything wrong because it's their choice what they do with their own lives.

However I think having something terrible happen for the McCann's lazy and selfish parenting choices is the ultimate punishment, and the focus should now be on helping them to find their daughter. If every parent who left their children in similar situations was charged with neglect probably 1/4 of all children would be in care by now!

 

[Donjeta]

If everybody who left their small children in such circumstances was charged with neglect hopefully people would eventually catch on and stop doing it.

 

[LinasK]

A child just disappears and there's not a shred of evidence of an abduction? What possible motive could the McCann's have had for harming her? They wouldn't have had the time to kill her and dispose of her. If Madeleine had died accidentally due to an accident while left alone (for example) and therefore fully the parents fault, they still wouldn't have had the time to dispose of her than fake an abduction. Its impossibly unlikely that a child of that age would disappear of her own accord. An abduction is the only feasible explanation, especially since 8 year old Joana Cipriano disappeared in 2004 only 7 miles away. The same police where involved in that crime, and interrogated and beat her poor mother for 48 hours until they got her to "confess" that she killed her child for catching her having incest with her brother, for which the police where later punished.

I agree that they will never be in the running for Parents Of The Year, but that could be said of a lot of parents. I would also agree with people who say that drunk women ought to take better care of themselves, but they still don't deserve to be raped. The difference is this family were unlucky enough that an abductor found their child.

Unlucky??? :banghead::banghead::banghead: Unlucky is not winning the lottery. Even if these parents didn't harm their child (which I believe they did), they are guilt of negligence by setting the stage for Maddy and her sibs to be harmed by leaving them with the door unlocked when they were not in sight nor hearing distance for 30 min!!! Plenty of time for something to happen.
The McCanns are selfish people in my opinion.
And Brit1981, although I agree with you about not letting children walk alone to school, that's not what happened in this case.

 

[SapphireSteel]

They may have been academic but they were obviously stupid and inexperienced as parents. Perhaps that was how they were brought up, and how they witnessed their friends bringing up their kids. The fact that they're doctors could have made them more "hard-nosed" thinking that children don't remember what they experience at that age anyway and therefore over-worrying or mollycoddling them is silly. Many men and many high-flying women seem to have this attitude.

It's a fair point about rape victims not doing anything wrong because it's their choice what they do with their own lives.

However I think having something terrible happen for the McCann's lazy and selfish parenting choices is the ultimate punishment, and the focus should now be on helping them to find their daughter. If every parent who left their children in similar situations was charged with neglect probably 1/4 of all children would be in care by now!

This is woefully incorrect.

The McCann children were the only ones left alone night after night. They were also the only ones parked in day care ALL DAY EVERY DAY. The others all stayed home with their children if they were unsettled, and spent time with them in the resort and out of the resort, taking their kids on short outings. The McCanns spent less than 2 hours a day with their children, every single day of the trip, and one could opine that was only because the creche closed for lunch and they were forced to come and get them...they promptly put the children down for naps for most of this time.

The way these "parents" waltzed off and left their babies alone and frightened (which they KNEW) for the final night of their holidays is inexcusable at best and psychopathic at worst.

I don't know if you have children but it is ingrained to human beings to watch their children...especially their babies. It is also natural to call for your missing children. At no time did Kate or Gerry ever call for Madeleine. Not that evening, and not since.

The human race would not have survived and thrived to the point it has, if this care for our young was not an inherent trait. There would be at least one dead/missing child per family!

Even animals demonstrate this instinctive care for their young. Mother bears call for and search for missing baby bears.

The McCanns did NONE OF THIS.

It is beyond being "innocent" or even "careless"...it is totally against all human programming and instinct and reveals an extreme streak of callousness that hints to deeper issues.

 

[Donjeta]

A child just disappears and there's not a shred of evidence of an abduction? What possible motive could the McCann's have had for harming her? They wouldn't have had the time to kill her and dispose of her. If Madeleine had died accidentally due to an accident while left alone (for example) and therefore fully the parents fault, they still wouldn't have had the time to dispose of her than fake an abduction. Its impossibly unlikely that a child of that age would disappear of her own accord. An abduction is the only feasible explanation, especially since 8 year old Joana Cipriano disappeared in 2004 only 7 miles away. The same police where involved in that crime, and interrogated and beat her poor mother for 48 hours until they got her to "confess" that she killed her child for catching her having incest with her brother, for which the police where later punished.

I agree that they will never be in the running for Parents Of The Year, but that could be said of a lot of parents. I would also agree with people who say that drunk women ought to take better care of themselves, but they still don't deserve to be raped. The difference is this family were unlucky enough that an abductor found their child.

BBM. The apartment was not far from the ocean and it's easy enough for small children to wander outside alone (to look for their parents perhaps), drown and never be found. We have several cases on WS.
JMO.

 

[squish]

This is woefully incorrect.

The McCann children were the only ones left alone night after night. They were also the only ones parked in day care ALL DAY EVERY DAY. The others all stayed home with their children if they were unsettled, and spent time with them in the resort and out of the resort, taking their kids on short outings. The McCanns spent less than 2 hours a day with their children, every single day of the trip, and one could opine that was only because the creche closed for lunch and they were forced to come and get them...they promptly put the children down for naps for most of this time.

The way these "parents" waltzed off and left their babies alone and frightened (which they KNEW) for the final night of their holidays is inexcusable at best and psychopathic at worst.

I don't know if you have children but it is ingrained to human beings to watch their children...especially their babies. It is also natural to call for your missing children. At no time did Kate or Gerry ever call for Madeleine. Not that evening, and not since.

The human race would not have survived and thrived to the point it has, if this care for our young was not an inherent trait. There would be at least one dead/missing child per family!

Even animals demonstrate this instinctive care for their young. Mother bears call for and search for missing baby bears.

The McCanns did NONE OF THIS.

It is beyond being "innocent" or even "careless"...it is totally against all human programming and instinct and reveals an extreme streak of callousness that hints to deeper issues.

I don't dispute that they were poor, self-centred parents, but they obviously loved their kids or they wouldn't have spent so much money on IVF to have them, or spent so much effort trying to find Madeleine after she disappeared.

The part of your quote I bolded shows what I meant in my previous posts - in that hypothetical scenario, there would only be so many deaths and disappearances because of the existence of paedophiles and other crimes against children, not because of the children being left alone! Leaving a child alone leaves them vulnerable to predators but is not the direct cause of harm itself.

How Madeleine and the twins ended up in a vulnerable situation is irrelevant to solving the problem. You don't honestly think the parents had something deliberate to do with her disappearance?

 

[squish]

Fair point Donjeta, but if this was the case the McCann's would have no way of knowing this and therefore nothing to hide. They would prefer to think of the abduction scenario because, like Jaycee Lee Dugard, there would be a chance that she's still alive.

Going back to my earlier posts again, I must add that people feel very relaxed and safe on holiday complexes, like nothing can ever happen, so maybe the McCann's were more lax than usual.

 

[SapphireSteel]

I don't dispute that they were poor, self-centred parents, but they obviously loved their kids or they wouldn't have spent so much money on IVF to have them, or spent so much effort trying to find Madeleine after she disappeared.

The part of your quote I bolded shows what I meant in my previous posts - in that hypothetical scenario, there would only be so many deaths and disappearances because of the existence of paedophiles and other crimes against children, not because of the children being left alone! Leaving a child alone leaves them vulnerable to predators but is not the direct cause of harm itself.

How Madeleine and the twins ended up in a vulnerable situation is irrelevant to solving the problem. You don't honestly think the parents had something deliberate to do with her disappearance?

Yes, I absolutely do.

Unfortunately the McCann supporters seem to base their arguments solely on the fact that they find it difficult to believe that the parents could possibly be involved.

If you read extensively on this case, by which I mean ALL sides of the story, and you have a little education on things like forensics, human behaviour, statistics, knowledge of the facts of the investigation (not easy admittedly) plus statement analysis and body language, you will inevitably come to the same conclusion.

I do not think they murdered their daughter. I do think they viewed their children as status symbols, found Madeleine more difficult than the "fairy tale" would suggest, and took steps to counteract some of her behaviours so that it wouldn't interfere with their social life. Having 3 small children under 3 is no picnic, plus one more than they planned (twins). Three children are much more difficult to handle than two, in many unforseen ways.

Once you consider the totality of the evidence and the McCanns behaviour both before and after the disappearance, orchestrating a false abduction is completely consistent with their self-serving decision making processes.

As always, my opinion only.

 

[Tink]

Where I live (Ontario, Canada), it is clearly considered neglect to leave children as young as this alone in an apartment (with an unlocked door!) while you go to another location where you can't see or hear the children. Parents have been charged and children placed in care for situations somewhat similar to this - I can think of one example where a mother who didn't have a phone left her sleeping toddler in a locked apartment while she walked to the corner to make a phone call from a phone booth. The toddler woke up and cried, a neighbour heard the crying going on and on and called police, and the mother was charged.

We don't, however, have one-quarter of all children in care, because the vast majority of parents don't do things like that!

I wouldn't call this behaviour naive. It is more uncaring. You know that two of your children woke the night before and cried for you, but you leave them again (although care-givers are readily available and you can easily afford them). AND you leave the door open, apparently with the idea that this very young child waking up in the night might open the door and find her way to you, walking past a dark roadway, past a swimming pool, past any number of strange adults... Does this make any sense at all? Forget about abductors - any number of dangerous things could have happened to Madeleine if she woke up and went out the door that was DELIBERATELY left unlocked.

Tink

 

[sherlockh]

Where I live (Ontario, Canada), it is clearly considered neglect to leave children as young as this alone in an apartment (with an unlocked door!) while you go to another location where you can't see or hear the children. Parents have been charged and children placed in care for situations somewhat similar to this - I can think of one example where a mother who didn't have a phone left her sleeping toddler in a locked apartment while she walked to the corner to make a phone call from a phone booth. The toddler woke up and cried, a neighbour heard the crying going on and on and called police, and the mother was charged.

We don't, however, have one-quarter of all children in care, because the vast majority of parents don't do things like that!

I wouldn't call this behaviour naive. It is more uncaring. You know that two of your children woke the night before and cried for you, but you leave them again (although care-givers are readily available and you can easily afford them). AND you leave the door open, apparently with the idea that this very young child waking up in the night might open the door and find her way to you, walking past a dark roadway, past a swimming pool, past any number of strange adults... Does this make any sense at all? Forget about abductors - any number of dangerous things could have happened to Madeleine if she woke up and went out the door that was DELIBERATELY left unlocked.

Tink

BBM. Exactly why they changed that part of the story. So anything could have happened. Anything to confuse and distract. It is already amazing that they left their kids alone, but leave them alone with the doors open so they can run away? Come on now. Those doors were locked.
http://www.mccannfiles.com/id31.html

 

[brit1981]

The patio door was unlocked, as it could not be locked from the outside. It was one of those big sliding doors which would be difficult for a toddler to open.
jeremy Wilkins said he saw Gerry coming down the path from the patio doors, so the patio doors had to have been unlocked at this point as Gerry could not have locked them from the outside.

saphire,
people who believe Madeleine was abducted by a stranger ( scotland yard have said this is what they believe happened), are basing their belief on the facts and timeline.
However you have claimed that the FSS, three governments, the police, the mccanns, the mccanns friends, the Us ambassador etc are all involved in a cover-up. Surely you can see why people find this idea a bit tin foil hattish? Plus we have seen people come up with new and wonderful ways of looking at DNA (which involves pretending children to not inherit all of the DNA from their parents etc) in order to say there is forensic evidence against the Mccanns. If you look at how some poor soulds have interpretted the DNA, claiming that 15 out of madeleine's 19 alleles is akin to saying there is a 15 out of 19 chance it is hers, you can see that all belief and intelligence has to be suspended if one is to believe there is any evidence against the mccanns.

 

[Tink]

The patio door was unlocked, as it could not be locked from the outside. It was one of those big sliding doors which would be difficult for a toddler to open.

Well, I heard Kate say in an interview (I apologize, but I can't find a link to it immediately) that she deliberately left the door unlocked because Madeleine had told her about waking up and crying the night before and thought it would be better if the door was open so Madeleine could come and find her if she woke up. Not that they weren't able to lock it (and why not lock it from the inside and then go in and out the front door?), but that they left it unlocked so the child could come find them if/when she woke up in the night. I thought at the time I heard it that it was an incredibly ridiculous thing for a parent to say - who would think it was a good idea for a not-yet-four-year-old to be wandering around in the dark past public streets, a pool, etc., trying to find her parents? But that was Kate's claim.

It is statements like that, though, that make people suspicious of them. It sounds like they are trying to account for why the door was open.

And given that they left it unlocked so that Madeleine could come find them, I am puzzled that Kate's first comments to her friends at the restaurant (when she left the twins alone in the unlocked flat again - not knowing if perhaps someone was hiding and ready to take the twins too) was that Madeleine had been taken. Why did she not first assume that Madeleine had come to find her and gotten lost or wandered away? It seems to me, given the previous night's waking and the fact that they left the door open for Madeleine that it would be a more logical thought.

Tink

 

[brit1981]

I have never heard of Kate saying this, but there was so much rubbish put in the media initially. Kate said that there were two gates that were still on the latch so it would be difficult for a child to open and close them. And patio doors like that are quite heavy for a toddler to slide open. I just heard them say they left it open because it was the easiest door to use, and it could not be locked from the outside.

Going back to rubbish in the media I have posted links to two news stories in the Uk today concerning the death of a young girl called Tia Sharpe. One story claims she was smothered, another claims the post mortem has not yet finished. our media just do not leanr and rush to try to get some sort of a scoop without checking out their facts.

 

[Donjeta]

I don't see why both couldn't be true. There could be signs that might point to being smothered at the first inspection but the final PM report wouldn't be finished until all the test results come back and it could take weeks or months even.

 

[brit1981]

A big headline saying she was smothered, when the PM is not even going to be resumed until later this week is stretching it abit. It seems the media just try to jump the gun in the hopes of getting a scoop. Sometimes they get it right, other times they mess up.
I lived near to where there was a death,and I had the media knocking on my door (the daily mail in fact), and they had no interest in actually being told what you knew (nothing), and seemed to want to put words in my mouth. remember the Amanda Knox trial report. When they heard the guilty verdict (for slander), they assumed it was a guilty of murder verdict and put up their pre-prepared story complete with quotes from her family etc expressing their distress at the verdict and the fact she was remaining in prison for years! oops does not cover it.

 

[Donjeta]

Outside court, a prosecutor said Tia's body had been found wrapped in a bed-sheet inside a black bin bag.
It is believed that the girl had been smothered, although a post-mortem examination is yet to be completed.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...pears-court-charged-murder.html#ixzz23QylislT

Tia Sharp may have been 'smothered' and her body found wrapped in a black bed-sheet and a bin liner, it emerged today as her step-grandfather appeared at court charged with her murder.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...pears-court-charged-murder.html#ixzz23QznLWM7

The way it's phrased it sounds to me like the prosecutor said that's what they believe.
"May have been" and "it is believed" signal that the official COD certificate has not been signed yet and it has not been officially confirmed.

Just because you need an example of the media getting it all wrong does not mean that this ifformation has to be wrong. If someone associated with the case told the press that they believe she has been smothered I would hardly expect them not to report it in fear of jumping the gun.

If the working theory changes as more information comes in then they will probably report the change.

 

[Jersey*Girl]

The patio door was unlocked, as it could not be locked from the outside. It was one of those big sliding doors which would be difficult for a toddler to open.
jeremy Wilkins said he saw Gerry coming down the path from the patio doors, so the patio doors had to have been unlocked at this point as Gerry could not have locked them from the outside.

saphire,
people who believe Madeleine was abducted by a stranger ( scotland yard have said this is what they believe happened), are basing their belief on the facts and timeline.
However you have claimed that the FSS, three governments, the police, the mccanns, the mccanns friends, the Us ambassador etc are all involved in a cover-up. Surely you can see why people find this idea a bit tin foil hattish? Plus we have seen people come up with new and wonderful ways of looking at DNA (which involves pretending children to not inherit all of the DNA from their parents etc) in order to say there is forensic evidence against the Mccanns. If you look at how some poor soulds have interpretted the DNA, claiming that 15 out of madeleine's 19 alleles is akin to saying there is a 15 out of 19 chance it is hers, you can see that all belief and intelligence has to be suspended if one is to believe there is any evidence against the mccanns.

People that believe that DNA comparison lol are people that don't understand the science behind it. I'd even wager most might be people that never took an advanced sci bio chem class in college, therefore wouldn't truly understand and might be basing that belief on emotion. A person needs to cast blame when a missing child is at stake.

Brit1981, I've lurked on this thread for years, before it was pulled and after its reinstatement - while I appreciate & respect everyone's opinions here, I absolutely love reading your posts. They're very thought provoking and I almost always agree with what you've typed. Thank you for your very detailed and educated posts!

 

[SapphireSteel]

The patio door was unlocked, as it could not be locked from the outside. It was one of those big sliding doors which would be difficult for a toddler to open.
jeremy Wilkins said he saw Gerry coming down the path from the patio doors, so the patio doors had to have been unlocked at this point as Gerry could not have locked them from the outside.

saphire,
people who believe Madeleine was abducted by a stranger ( scotland yard have said this is what they believe happened), are basing their belief on the facts and timeline.
However you have claimed that the FSS, three governments, the police, the mccanns, the mccanns friends, the Us ambassador etc are all involved in a cover-up. Surely you can see why people find this idea a bit tin foil hattish? Plus we have seen people come up with new and wonderful ways of looking at DNA (which involves pretending children to not inherit all of the DNA from their parents etc) in order to say there is forensic evidence against the Mccanns. If you look at how some poor soulds have interpretted the DNA, claiming that 15 out of madeleine's 19 alleles is akin to saying there is a 15 out of 19 chance it is hers, you can see that all belief and intelligence has to be suspended if one is to believe there is any evidence against the mccanns.

My name is SAPPHIRE not saphire.

Wilful mispelling of names is against TOS. If you insist on addressing me directly please use my correct name.