Madeleine McCann

ViceVersa

The 'British culture' to leave children alone? Not where I come from - and as I said, I genuinely do not know a single parent who would have done that. None of us know what really happened to Madeleine - but the cold hard truth is that it probably wouldn't have happened if three very young children had not been left alone.

Not the culture in our family or friendship
Group
The children came out in the evening with us

SporeRB

What I found strange is when Kate McCann found her daughter missing, she screamed ‘They’ve taken her’.

If I go to a hotel room and find my daughter missing, I will scream ‘Oh my God, she has wandered off somewhere’.

The fact she said that put the idea of abduction right at the very beginning of the investigation.

If the dogs could smell the odour of blood and body in their apartment and their hired car, it could well have been an accident in the apartment that night.

Another thing I found strange is the funding McCann received from the British police amounting to £13.2 million which is a colossal amount of money.

Where did you get the idea that the McCanns received ANY money from the British police?

There is also much weight put upon Kate ‘screaming ‘ They’ve taken her’’ Who reported that, and is it accurate? So many times it is repeated that in their engagement interview Prince Charles said ‘ Whatever love is’, even when the interview has been shown hundreds of times, and his exact words were, ‘ Whatever ‘in love’ means’ Just illustrates that recollections may indeed vary, so why not in Kate McCann’s?

Kandinsky

It’s well known - white, pretty, girls/ young women ( and extra bonus if they’re middle class ) almost always get more press attention than any other type of missing person / murder victim.
It’s just the way it is.
People are more interested in them it seems.

I have noticed this too.

Millie22

It's all so terribly sad and I wonder if we will ever know what really happened that night.

I had some sympathy for the M'Cann's but not when I read some excepts from her book. Very odd comments from a mother. There is something not right about how they behaved at the time.

I'm so glad you said that about the book, Millie22. I read it a few years ago. There's no way I believe the conspiracy theories put out by people, but I did find the tone of some of KM's writing very defensive.

dragonfly46

I find it very upsetting that people are still believing the conspiracy theories about the McCann’s. They are local to me and I have followed the case closely.
Yes they were wrong to leave the children in the chalets and maybe Madeleine did go looking for them although I believe she told them that the night before a man had been in the room, but I don’t believe for a minute that they had anything to do with her disappearance.
They have suffered enough.

dragonfly, where did you see that Madeleine had said there had been a man in the room? I remember seeing somewhere that she had asked why the parents hadn’t come when they cried, but no mention of a man. The problem with the whole thing is that the armchair detectives have, like all of us, got their information from the internet, and in all probability most of it is inaccurate, but people still repeat it, especially to blame the parents.
They would have been told to show as little emotion as possible by police, as seeing parents upset can please abductors, but this, coupled with the parents ( mostly Gerry) coming across as arrogant, made people turn against them.
The McCanns appear educated, articulate, and are perceived by many as privileged middle class, so, according to the ‘Just World Hypothesis’ where it’s human nature to want the world to be just and fair, the parents must have done something to deserve such a dreadful thing to happen.
Another basic human instinct is the fear that this could happen to you. This is dealt with by saying we would never leave children alone/ go jogging/ play tennis/ wash cuddly toys/ dump fridges, or any of the other probably made up stuff we see online. I’m always aware that it never occurs to these ‘experts’ that surely nobody who was trying to conceal guilt would do all the ‘suspicious’ things that the online sleuths quote as proof!
If it had been the oft-quoted ‘single mother from a council estate’, and she appeared on telly sobbing uncontrollably, she would have got more sympathy ( once folk had finished speculating how she could afford a foreign holiday!)
Sadly, no matter what the outcome, the internet psychologists and detectives will never admit they were wrong, as they must continue to deal with their own insecurities.

dragonfly46

I find it very upsetting that people are still believing the conspiracy theories about the McCann’s. They are local to me and I have followed the case closely.
Yes they were wrong to leave the children in the chalets and maybe Madeleine did go looking for them although I believe she told them that the night before a man had been in the room, but I don’t believe for a minute that they had anything to do with her disappearance.
They have suffered enough.

I agree with you and think the conspiracy theories about this couple are terrible.
Their mistake and the friends with them too, was in leaving all the children alone while they went out to dine.Not that you would expect abduction, but sickness or fear if they woke and wanted their parents.I never left my children on holiday on their own at any tine of day and I don’t believe many others do either.We’re not talking about Butlins in the 1950’s are we.
I think the police handled things very poorly there but the only evil was by the man/men who took her.

I also find it amazing that anybody can believe the vile conspiracy theories about the parents, I'm sure that they have suffered every day since Madeleines disappearance.

My older granddaughter is about the same age as Madeleine, when she was taken I asked DD if she ever left her children like this, she said that she didn't but knew plenty of people who did.

Smileless2012

The online Daily Mirror has reported that human remains and clothing have been found where the German police were searching .

Let's hope that this is relevant and a conclusion to the case.
Fingers crossed.

No one in their right mind are saying they should have left their children, no doubt they loved them. They have to live with that, but they are not bad people and they have been through hell. You shouldn't judge unless you're perfect. I can see how lynch mobs start.

The online Daily Mirror has reported that human remains and clothing have been found where the German police were searching .

Franski

Please let this thread not be a new retrashing of the McCanns. This family have been through enough hell. They loved their little girl more than any of us who didnt even know her. I can put up my hands and say I made many mistakes in bringing up mine. Partly through naivety and a lot through carelessness. There but got the grace of God... I can only feel compassion for this family. The only person deserving of disdain and condemnation is the one who stole her from her bed on a happy family holiday.

This.

The parents should not have left them on their own. They could afford good babysitters. I took my children everywhere with me and if I couldn’t then I paid someone I knew to look after them.
I think they have been through enough though and I do feel sorry for them.

www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/06/new-zealand-fisherman-pulls-drowning-toddler-from-ocean?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

Apart from being abducted, there could have been an accident, kids do wake up! Or a fire!

There was an almost tragedy in NZ a couple of years ago when a toddler walked out of the family tent and into the sea while the parents slept.

The first they knew of what happened was when a fisherman returned her almost lifeless body which he thought was a doll, and she was given life saving treatment on the beach.

Grammaretto

Whatever is said about the lack of judgement or common sense shown by the parents - and please remember there were 2 parents, don't keep saying "Kate this and Kate that". They paid the ultimate price.
Poor, poor souls.

That child was the poor, poor soul, don’t you think?

Am I alone in wondering about this? no Doodledog I've always thought that things didn't add up.

Like another poster has said on this thread, we've been there and you can't see the apartment from the restaurant because the view's blocked by the reception building.

I have not been able to fathom the negligent actions of her parents from the get go. Leaving three young kids alone like that and salt now they’ve had to pay for it all these years. I feel awful for the poor girl in question and whatever it is she had to endure but my sympathy for her parents is limited in asking how on earth you could leave your kids unattended like that.

What I found strange is when Kate McCann found her daughter missing, she screamed ‘They’ve taken her’.

If I go to a hotel room and find my daughter missing, I will scream ‘Oh my God, she has wandered off somewhere’.

The fact she said that put the idea of abduction right at the very beginning of the investigation.

If the dogs could smell the odour of blood and body in their apartment and their hired car, it could well have been an accident in the apartment that night.

Another thing I found strange is the funding McCann received from the British police amounting to £13.2 million which is a colossal amount of money.

So many theories , we may never know what happened to that precious little girl or to other children that have gone missing. Easy to throw blame on the parents, but haven't we all made mistakes !?

AuntieE

Actually, I feel it is time the McCanns faced up to the fact that it is very, very unlikely that their daughter is still alive.

By now, she is old enough to have got in touch if she is somewhere and doubts that the people or person she regards as parents actually are her parents.

The man who is now being investigated for the second, if not the third time, has one, perhaps more, previous convictions for molesting little boys, which I would have thought makes him a very odd suspect in this case.

Nor, does it necessarily have to have been a pervet who kidnapped Madeleine.

It icould have been either someone who was unable to have a child and desperate to have one, or someone stealing a child to supply a childless rich couple with a little girl. If this is the case, the child could have been brainwashed into thinking that these people are her parents, by surely by now, she like the rest of the world will have heard of Madeleine McCann's disappearance.

I said at the time, that I could easily, if I were a criminal have got a little girl out of Portugal, into Spain and from there to France, simply by dying the child's and my own hair black, and walking camino de Santiago, saying we had started in Fàtima in Portugal and were going to Compostela and from there home to whichever country sounded realistic.

And if the McCanns have murdered their own child, why on earth would they do so when on holiday? Surely, it would have been far easier for them to do so at home, and claim the child had wandered off somewhere?

He was imprisoned for raping an elderly woman so I think everyone was fair game to him .

On the " child neglect" argument I don't feel vindictive about this.
People make mistakes and misjudgements and accidents and tragedies happen.
My beloved late mother was one of the sweetest people on the planet. She adored us children and was an excellent loving mother. One day however my toddler baby sister got lost in a department store having accidentally been separated from Mum when she turned away for a moment.
No harm , no foul ? There was no tragedy; we were just lucky and the whingeing little nuisance was discovered at Customer Care.
Also I was given immense freedom as a child. I was allowed to play out literally all day with my friends and their families and our dogs.
If one of us had been kidnapped or murdered , would my parents have been neglectful ? Or were they letting us grow up and develop self-confidence and autonomy and all the other things you need to manage life ??
I feel sorry for the McCanns.
To anyone who thinks they should be punished , what possible punishment can you imagine that is worse than the guilt and distress they must feel and have felt all these years.

I also think it is possible that the child wandered out and met with an accident ( this happened to Ben Needham in Greece?,).
I don't remember the detail of the McCann case but I thought there were all sorts of arguments about why this couldn't have happened - gates to the outside/street locked and too difficult for a toddler to open etc. That is why I think the foul play argument more probable.

It’s well known - white, pretty, girls/ young women ( and extra bonus if they’re middle class ) almost always get more press attention than any other type of missing person / murder victim.
It’s just the way it is.
People are more interested in them it seems.