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Sunday, August 12, 2007

Madeleine: The McCanns leave stones unturned


You're a British middle class, professional, couple in your late 30s, on holiday abroad with your 3 year old daughter, and 2 year old twins, at the Mark Warner resort in Praia da Luz in Portugal. You're holidaying with a group of friends. You all decide to have an adults only evening, drinking and eating and engaging in a quiz in a Tapas Bar. Mark Warner offers a creche facility where you can leave your children in a safe environment up to 11.30pm, whilst you enjoy yourselves. But, you choose not to use this facility. Mark Warner offers you a baby monitor instead, but you choose not to use this either. Another alternative is a private baby sitting service offered at 10 Euros (approx £7) per hour, again this is not used. Instead, it is claimed, that you decide with your friends that you will all, at regular intervals, take it in turns to go and check upon the children yourselves. Given the options available, this would appear to be the least safe option. And, yet, Kate McCann has said, if she for one minute thought it was not safe to leave the children home alone she wouldn't have done it. And, Gerry McCann has said, that they left the patio doors unlocked in case of fire, and to enable entry to the apartment for those checking up on the children. To be aware of fire danger is surely one reason not to leave the children alone?

I don't know what the law is in Portugal about leaving young children unattended by adults. Certainly, in the UK, it is illegal to neglect and or abandon young children for between 2-3 hours.

The Portugese police are saying that they believe Madeleine to be dead. The McCanns are saying that Madeleine has been abducted, and they have a find Madeleine fund which has managed to get almost a £1M in donations. This fund is dependent upon Madeleine still being missing, who would continue to donate if the McCanns stated that they believed that Madeleine was dead?

The McCanns are aware that under Portugese law they cannot talk about specifics because of the police investigation. So, they dodge awkward questions why they left their children in the first place. And, why there is inconsistencies in their groups accounts about who checked up on who and at what times, and who claimed to see what at what times does not appear to hold up to scrutiny. Kate McCann accepts that staying in Portugal appears to be illogical, and yet the McCanns intend to stay there in spite of growing unfriendliness amongst the locals. They want an end to the circus. If the McCanns returned to the UK, they would be free to answer questions and not be bound by Portugese law. It is doubtful that the police and social services would see the McCanns as responsible parents as the McCanns appear to think they are.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Today's Observer reports on a Portugese newspaper story about when Gerry McCann checked the room at 9:05PM. It says that he "had noticed that the door to the children's room was more open than before and that there was more light than usual in the apartment. It claims that he had assumed that Madeleine had moved into her parents' room because the twins' crying disturbed her, but that he didn't check."

Maybe it's been misreported but what that seems to saying is, it was Gerry's turn to check. He approached the apartment and noticed that it looked different from how they'd left it. So what did he do then ?

Did he actually check inside to see if the kids were OK, which was the sole reason that he'd left his dinner to go there in the first place ? No; he assumed that the most likely explanation was that his 2-year-old twins had been crying so much that Madeleine had been forced to open the doors ... and than left without looking and returned to dinner !

What !!!??? He assumed that his 2-year-old twin babies were crying in distress, having woken up alone, and his reaction was to turn around, leave them to it and continue stuffing his face and tipping back the vino. That's (literally) incredible.

What exactly was the point of even bothering to check, if the reaction on seeing supposed evidence that the children were awake and distressed was to completely ignore it?

That said, we don't know how true this report is and you would have thought that people as intelligent as the McCanns would have got their stories a bit more straight than the above which couldn't sound more incriminating if they'd tried.

The Sunday Mirror lead on a story that their "sources" have told them that the police have evidence that she was snatched and was alive when she left. The plot thickens.

Anonymous said...

MSM have failed us on this story massively.

notice the way ch.insp sousa said yesterday in interview that, "At this point they are not suspects."

later on he said " at this point they are victims".

note " at this point".

they will be aguidos soon.

beeb latch onto this and going big with "maddys parents not supects" story. then "parents heartened to know they are not suspects" issues forth from the mccann pr machine.

how frigging naive are our poxy journalists.

Anonymous said...

I think you will find they have OVER 1 million in donations - the counter on their website has not been updated since July.

Anonymous said...

interesting survey, requested, but not reported by the Sunday Times (by yougov),

Turning now to the disappearance of the young girl Madeleine
McCann, the British toddler missing in Portugal, some people
have criticised her parents for leaving her unsupervised when
she disappeared. Do you agree or disagree with such
criticisms?
Agree - they were wrong to leave her alone 71
Disagree - most parents have done this at times, they were just very
unlucky
23
Not sure 6

Madeleine McCann's parents have been criticised in the
Portuguese press but given a sympathetic treatment in the
British press. Which of these statements best sums up your
view?
The Portuguese local press has been right to criticise 22
The Portuguese local press is wrong and the British press has been
right to treat them sympathetically
29
The British press has been wrong, and should have been more
critical of Madeleine’s parents
27
Don't know 22
Some say Madeline McCann's parents have been given
sympathetic treatment here because they are middle-class
professionals. Do you agree or disagree with this?
Agree - that is why they have been treated sympathetically 54
Disagree - any British family would have been treated
sympathetically
34
Don't know 12