Should this not have happened long ago?

[Brownie]

You cannot be serious.  They were almost frozen with grief, had great difficulty speaking except in a deadpan way.  What ego are you talking about?  The couple were stripped to the bone.  Kate particularly looked as though she hadn't stopped crying and hadn't slept for goodness knows how long but they managed to sort of pull themselves together and be dignified and coherent when interviewed.  You must be thinking of two different people.  The memory of their interviews is still quite vivid in my mind, I can picture them now.

[Owlswing]

You cannot be serious.  They were almost frozen with grief, had great difficulty speaking except in a deadpan way.  What ego are you talking about?  The couple were stripped to the bone.  Kate particularly looked as though she hadn't stopped crying and hadn't slept for goodness knows how long but they managed to sort of pull themselves together and be dignified and coherent when interviewed.  You must be thinking of two different people.  The memory of their interviews is still quite vivid in my mind, I can picture them now.

Frozen with grief or guilty conscience?

I know which I think it is/was!

[bluehillside Retd.]

Owls,

There is evidence that the finaces were NOT strictly above bpard and logical and the accounts are not completely in line with what is considered to be proper.

And, If you bothered to lok you will find that I have withdrawn ther offending paragraph!

It was stated as my opinion after 50 years working in accounts - thus I withdrew it and added the link which clearly states the inconsistancies in the operation of the fund and its acconts.

My main point was and is that these people have been guilty, by my standards, of serious neglect and yet people are still willing to see them as the victims instead of their daughter when the only thing of which they are victims is their own stupidity. It has been stated on this thread that it only takes seconds for a child to 'disappear', they only checked on their children once every half an hour - just how many seconds is that?

I see them on TV etc weepily telling the world how bad they feel - a high price to pay for a meal out while on holiday! 'Find her! 'Find her!' and expect others to find their child for them, a child they lost through their selfishness and stupidity!

I have, as above, withdrawn my comment about personal profit but I stand by my belief that, ultimately THEY and ONLY THEY are resposcible for Madeline's disappearance and nothing, absolutely nothing, will change my opinion on that score.   

If you decided to withdraw the accusation then you should have said so. You cannot expect people to keep going back to your OP just in case you've done that.

As for the rest, what you describe a their "stupidity" is the kind of thing parents do every day with no harmful consequences. On the basis of an informal risk assessment, it wasn't particularly irresponsible either - what happened was vanishingly rare; rarer for example than deaths caused in road traffic accidents. What you've done here is to look at what happened and then to back-ft that onto their actions?

You say you worked in finance. What if you'd put in place all the industry standard protections for your company's money, but someone had found a way to steal it anyway. Should you be responsible for your "negligence" and "stupidity" too?     

[bluehillside Retd.]

Owls,

Frozen with grief or guilty conscience?

I know which I think it is/was!

Possibly we should have an award for the most unfeelingly contemptible post ever?

You win.

[Brownie]

Of course they felt guilt, Kate McCann has said so since, if only she could go back in time etc.  Who wouldn't?  I would think the friends who were holidaying with them also feel guilt and have horrible thoughts about it being one of their kids who was taken.  Doesn't help for any of us to revel in or add to it.

[Jack Knave]

You cannot be serious.  They were almost frozen with grief, had great difficulty speaking except in a deadpan way.  What ego are you talking about?  The couple were stripped to the bone.  Kate particularly looked as though she hadn't stopped crying and hadn't slept for goodness knows how long but they managed to sort of pull themselves together and be dignified and coherent when interviewed.  You must be thinking of two different people.  The memory of their interviews is still quite vivid in my mind, I can picture them now.

That's not what I saw.

[Jack Knave]

Of course they felt guilt, Kate McCann has said so since, if only she could go back in time etc.  Who wouldn't?  I would think the friends who were holidaying with them also feel guilt and have horrible thoughts about it being one of their kids who was taken.  Doesn't help for any of us to revel in or add to it.

Words are cheap.

[Nearly Sane]

That's not what I saw.

So pray tell us, what you saw?

[Nearly Sane]

Words are cheap.

Indeed they are so what do you mean? (after all it's not going to cost you much to explain)

[L.A.]

I submit the followig:

http://www.mccannfiles.com/id405.html

This report on the finances of the McCann fund shows that there were, and, as far as I can find out, still are serious questions about the financial matters relating to the fund.

Nothing on that website is surprising or demonstrates illegality.  Obviously, they wanted to do everything in their power to find their daughter, and to do that they needed money. As a professional couple they had access to good advise on the best way to raise and manage funds and presumably, followed it.

What else could anyone in their position have done?


Clearly, they have not succeeded, but that should not be something for people to gloat over.

[Nearly Sane]

I agree. It all looked very odd to me from day one and the appeals seem to be more about their egos than Madeleine. They never looked sad or distraught by her kidnap.

Ah the old reverse snobbery. They didn't grieve like I would, I would have done... etc etc. What do the chips on your shoulders taste of?

[Nearly Sane]

I submit the followig:

http://www.mccannfiles.com/id405.html

This report on the finances of the McCann fund shows that there were, and, as far as I can find out, still are serious questions about the financial matters relating to the fund.

So to back up your unevidenced libel, you submit a 4 year old website that doesn't support your claims.

[Brownie]

Seriously Jack, who would not grieve and suffer acute anxiety over the abduction of their daughter ?  They were a couple who wanted children and who initially had difficulty conceiving, Madeline was extremely precious. 

[L.A.]

I agree. It all looked very odd to me from day one and the appeals seem to be more about their egos than Madeleine. They never looked sad or distraught by her kidnap.

That ought to simplify our justice system then - all we need to rely on is how the defendant is perceived on video clips!

Maybe they could make a 'Reality TV show' out of it!

[Brownie]

That was done in Law & Order (the US one);  the public vote was 'guilty' or 'not guilty'.  Whether it was based on a real life story I don't know.  It was well tacky.

[bluehillside Retd.]

NS,

Ah the old reverse snobbery. They didn't grieve like I would, I would have done... etc etc. What do the chips on your shoulders taste of?

Angostura bitters at a guess.

I'm finding the attitudes of Owls, Floo etc to be despicable here. The McCanns took an exceptionally low level risk, much lower than the risks good and loving parents take with their children all the time. Only with the benefit of hindsight though have they decided that the risk was unacceptable, and that they were therefore "negligent", "stupid" etc. Heaven forbid that one of them takes a risk one day that leads to a very unlikely bad outcome.

Then they compound their callousness by suggesting that the McCanns were somehow less feeling at their catastrophic loss than they would have been. If anything the McCanns would have been more distraught I'd have thought because of the knowledge that had they stayed in that night it would never have happened (though may well have happened to a different family).

The total misunderstanding of risk is just ignorance; the callousness towards the suffering of others is much worse than that though.   

[Nearly Sane]

Picking up from bhs's post and mine earlier, can I ask those posters who think the McCanns were wrong, would you have wanted my parents prosecuted for my painting? Or being about to drive the car into the sea?

[Brownie]

My neighbour whose 2 year old boy went out of the back door while she was doing housework and managed to find his way out of the back garden, ending up in the playground at his sister's school wearing only a vest.

Me, whose four year old cut himself shaving with my disposable leg razor.  My fault for leaving it out though it was supposed to be a safety razor.  He went upstairs to the bathroom and came down with blobs of foam all over his face and blood pouring down one side.

My parents for taking the fire guard away so I put my hand in the open fire (very briefly I hasten to say).

I can think of many examples of lack of judgement just from people I have known.

We can't all be perfect.

Back in the old days, holiday camps like Butlins had a child monitoring service which consisted of women walking around the chalet areas listening for a child crying, then an announcement was made in all the communal areas, such as ballroom, restaurant, that there was a baby crying in chalet 12.  That was considered to be adequate.

The McCanns and their friends could see the windows of their apartments from where they were seated and took it in turns to go and check on the children at half hourly intervals.

[SteveH]

The McCanns were very negligent parents to have left their very young children in an apartment on their own, that is a FACT.

No, it's an opinion, albeit one I agree with.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Steve,

No, it's an opinion, albeit one I agree with.

Why?

[jeremyp]

From the age of six I used to walk to and from school by myself. On Tuesdays and Thursdays it was my responsibility to pick up my four year old brother from playgroup on my way home.

Times have changed.

[L.A.]

Back in the old days, holiday camps like Butlins had a child monitoring service which consisted of women walking around the chalet areas listening for a child crying, then an announcement was made in all the communal areas, such as ballroom, restaurant, that there was a baby crying in chalet 12.  That was considered to be adequate.

The McCanns and their friends could see the windows of their apartments from where they were seated and took it in turns to go and check on the children at half hourly intervals.

That's exactly the point I made earlier.

When we went abroad years ago with our young children, the complex advertised a 'baby sitting service' and we contemplated using it, but when we looked into it, we discovered that it just consisted of someone checking the rooms every so often. In the end we decided just to take the kids out with us, but of course, there were people who criticised us for that, though the kids loved it and it doesn't seem to have done them any harm.

A friend of mine came up with a novel approach. He rigged up two hand-held CB radios to act as a baby alarm so they could go out to a near-by restaurant. The one in the child's room had the Press to Talk key taped down so he could hear every sound in the room.

[jeremyp]

A friend of mine came up with a novel approach. He rigged up two hand-held CB radios to act as a baby alarm so they could go out to a near-by restaurant. The one in the child's room had the Press to Talk key taped down so he could hear every sound in the room.

Wouldn't that be the same as jamming the frequency?

[L.A.]

Wouldn't that be the same as jamming the frequency?

Of course it was totally illegal, but there weren't many users in those days and he had the sense to use low power, so the chances of anyone complaining were pretty low.

[Brownie]

LA you were quite right to take the kids out with you in the evening.  I never put mine to bed early either (not that he'd have stayed in bed if I had).   The concept of children's  bedtimes is typically British, on the continent kids are up late eating with the rest of the family, running around laughing, screaming, joining in with everything.  The Spanish, Portugese etc think we are cold in our attitude towards children just from observing that trait in the British.

Well I'm sure we are all agreed that it is a great pity the McCanns and their friends did not adopt the continental approach to dining out with young children - I expect they do now!  From what I've heard loads of people with young children have completely changed their practices since little Madeline's abduction. 

However we can't change the past which, in this instance, is a great shame - but there is no need to add to the tragedy by being hateful towards people who, with hindsight, acted unwisely with no ill intent, the consequence of which was and having someone so precious snatched away from them.