Maddy McCann

[Jerry The Saint]

Spoiler tags please, damnit!

That spoils nothing, surely. The joke will still be good because you haven't seen the logo or heard the theme tune yet. :)

[jebus]

I think the Portugese lawyer of Robert Murat nailed what a lot of us are thinking with this statement. Sadly the British Media are taking this as an insult on the McCanns and in some respect on the British themselves, although I don't think the child just ran away

"As a Portuguese person, I think it is strange that somebody would leave their kids.

Then, after the first thing happened, they left their twins and went to see the Pope.

It was like the McCanns on tour. People are getting tired of it all. This used to be a quiet place and people have businesses to think about. They rent houses and it is a question of bad publicity.

When I was a child my parents had me on a leash so I would not run away. Kids are like that. Incidents can happen.

Maybe the poor child could open the door and got away.

You would never leave them alone like that in a foreign country and go and have a drink. It is not a normal thing."

[Erstwhile Bóz]

Absolutely spot on.

Somebody here, I think, said that the media coverage is going to swing violently against the McCanns at some stage. I think that is correct. I wouldn't be surprised if this giving out about the above fair comment represents a bit of a watershed; when this dies down the comments might sink in.

The McCann Show isn't really making the tabloids any money any more. Time, think the unscrupulous editors, for a new angle?

[pete]

"As a Portuguese person, I think it is strange that somebody would leave their kids.

I do not think you need to be Portuguese to think that. I suppose its the hard question the media afraid to ask so far.

[galwayhoop]

I do not think you need to be Portuguese to think that.

it is a cunning way of getting the reader/listener to listen to your point, agree with you and then discount the caveat at the start of it.
eg:
"As a married man, I think it is strange that somebody would sleep with drug-ravaged transvestite prostitutes who are HIV positive"
i.e - I do not think you need to be Married to think that!!!!

[bellavistaman]

it is a cunning way of getting the reader/listener to listen to your point, agree with you and then discount the caveat at the start of it.
eg:
"As a married man, I think it is strange that somebody would sleep with drug-ravaged transvestite prostitutes who are HIV positive"
i.e - I do not think you need to be Married to think that!!!!

:D:D:D...

[cheifo]

I dont know where people are getting this thing about questions not been asked in the media about the kids being left alone, its being everywhere from the off.The McCanns made a stupid mistake but what their going through is only something a parent can understand.Does everybody not think at this point they have a damn good idea they should not of left the kid alone.
I am less horrified by sensationalist media that what must have happened to the poor kid.The McCanns deserved a bollocking but not this.

[jebus]

The McCanns deserved a bollocking but not this.

I think their neglect that lead to the abduction and possible rape and murder (touch wood) deserves more than a bollocking to be honest. They may be getting a rough time of it at the moment, but their daughter has, or is, getting worse, and it's their fault

[Dodge]

You're as bad as the tabloids jebus.

[jebus]

You're as bad as the tabloids jebus.

I don't think so (aren't the red tops on their side anyway, and are verging on racist name calling to the Portugese police?). I think this attitude of they have been punished enough is a bit off to be honest. I'm sure they are going through a living hell at the moment, but I do think more needs to be said and looked at as to what type of parents they are overall, not just in this instance. Reports have said that the night Maddy was taken wasn't the first night that she and the twins had been left alone in the apartment whilst the parents went down for a few drinks, so I think it needs to be looked into as to whether they do that at home as well. It might turn out that they just did it on holiday and that they are model parents at home, it might not, all I'm saying is that we don't know. So until we know full details of what happened here (I realise we may never)I don't think this attitude of leave them alone, they know they've messed up, is wrong. Fair enough insulting them through mass circulated papers is wrong, but I'm hardly doing that

[John83]

...I don't think this attitude of leave them alone, they know they've messed up, is wrong...
There are three reasons for punishing someone for an action:

discouraging them from doing it again,
making them pay for their action and
making a public example of them.Which one of those do the McCanns need more of?

[jebus]

There are three reasons for punishing someone for an action:

discouraging them from doing it again,
making them pay for their action and
making a public example of them.Which one of those do the McCanns need more of?

Depends who you talk to, some want them investigated by social welfare, so thats making them pay for their action, some want a public example made of them, some might argue that by doing so to the McCanns might discourage other parents for doing similiar in the future

[John83]

...some might argue that by doing so to the McCanns might discourage other parents for doing similiar in the future
In a way that them losing their daughter won't?

"Frank, let's go to that new restaurant across the way. We can leave the kids on their own for a few hours."
"But what if social services catch us?"

[jebus]

In a way that them losing their daughter won't?

"Frank, let's go to that new restaurant across the way. We can leave the kids on their own for a few hours."
"But what if social services catch us?"

Not really, most people walk around with a 'it will never happen to me' attitude about most things, so taking someone to task over their negligence might hit home, or at least make them think twice, who knows?

[osarusan]

There are three reasons for punishing someone for an action:

discouraging them from doing it again,
making them pay for their action and
making a public example of them.

Where did you get this from?

[John83]

Where did you get this from?
A few pounds of grey goo. No one's really sure how it works though.

[osarusan]

A few pounds of grey goo. No one's really sure how it works though.fair enough:). I thought you'd taken it from another source, it was written with so much authority.

[Dodge]

I don't think so...

I was talking about you trying to sensationalise it even further by bringing up words like rape when there's no evidence to suggest anything.

I wasn't disagreeing with the thrust of your post

[galwayhoop]

the mccanns deserve any bad press they get imo. the press (red tops especially) have been behind them from the start and have not held them responsibile at all for their part in the whole story.

had the mcCanns been black,on the social and holidaying in benidorm then the media would be crying out for social services to come and take the rest of their kids away.

it is a sad story but the mcCanns must accept responsibility for their actions and be held accountable.

[John83]

fair enough:). I thought you'd taken it from another source, it was written with so much authority.
It's something I've thought about before, hence the structure (and therefore the appearance of authority). Feel free to poke holes as they occur to you.

[Jerry The Saint]

Article from a US perspective but I think the general principles apply for here and the UK


Missing People Face Disparity in Media Coverage
‘Sex sells, kidnapping sells, but not every kidnapping is equal’
By Michele Chan Santos; Special to MSN.com

If you are kidnapped or missing, it helps to be the right race, age, social class and gender. Otherwise, don't expect the media to cover your story.

http://lifestyle.msn.com/specialguides/article.aspx?cp-documentid=5289082&GT1=10323

[drinkfeckarse]

it is a sad story but the mcCanns must accept responsibility for their actions and be held accountable.

I think the fact that they have lost their daughter is punishment enough don't you. They know they made a mistake and have been punished to the full. What more do you want?

[Dodge]

I think the fact that they have lost their daughter is punishment enough don't you. They know they made a mistake and have been punished to the full. What more do you want?

A sense of perspective from the UK press

[John83]

A sense of perspective from the UK press
That would require a Total Perspective Vortex (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_Perspective_Vortex).

[galwayhoop]

I think the fact that they have lost their daughter is punishment enough don't you. They know they made a mistake and have been punished to the full. What more do you want?

the media to point out that they are at fault for leaving their children alone and unsupervised in a hotel room in a foreign country. then perhaps others won't be so stupid.

yes we all feel sorry for the child but tbh my patience is running thin with the whole 'cult of madeline'. i heard a very good report recently where it was said that the whole blanket coverage has in fact immesurably reduced the chances of finding the child safely. the question of what we have learned or gained by the whold media circus surrounding this, very sad, story must also be asked.

but if you are asking me to exonorate the parents then i am sorry i can't. i wouldn't go so far as to say you reap what you sow but these people obviously find it acceptable to leave their children alone in a room while they are out socialising! it appears that the night when madeline went missing was NOT an issolated incident. if the child had not been kidnapped then they would probably still be doing the same thing. i feel sorry for the child and what has/is/may have happened to her but my sympathy for the parents is much much less.

[cheifo]

Perspective works two ways.Some of the bile aimed at the McCanns(not on foot.ie) has been bordering on the Ghoulish.As people they might not be my cup of tea either but peoples rage should be aimed at people who snatch children.Hopefully this case will lead to a more concentrated international approach to protecting children from predators.

[galwayhoop]

Hopefully this case will lead to a more concentrated international approach to protecting children from predators.

authorities can only do so much - and usually after the event. the first line of defense has to be parents protecting their own children in the first place. if this is done adequately then you can start pointing fingers at authorities.....

[Macy]

I think that the debate has been that to be critical of the McCann's has to be someway evil, bourne out by stuff like Journalists being reprimanded for asking the hard questions of why they were left alone. The media has been totally one sided, and now it's beginning to balance out to some degree, but because of how far it has to come it's inevitable that it's going to appear unpleasant to those that brought into the story so much when it broke.

[Lionel Ritchie]

Perspective works two ways.Some of the bile aimed at the McCanns(not on foot.ie) has been bordering on the Ghoulish.As people they might not be my cup of tea either but peoples rage should be aimed at people who snatch children.Hopefully this case will lead to a more concentrated international approach to protecting children from predators.

There isn't a shred, not a shred, of evidence that this child has been "snatched" by any "predator". The media in this part of the world is just so jumped up about this particular bugbear/cashcow that everyone now assumes the bogeyman is inolved when a child goes missing.

The heavy rains will probably hit Portugal in October/November and if workers clearing a reported blockage make a tragic discovery ...well, in the unlikely event that an autopsy can rule out foul play and concludes it was a tragic accident -then that's the McCann parents asses.

[drinkfeckarse]

the media to point out that they are at fault for leaving their children alone and unsupervised in a hotel room in a foreign country. then perhaps others won't be so stupid.



Oh right, so with all the publicicty you don't think people will have learned from what has happened to the McCann's or do you think that it needs to be spelt out in black & white in a courtroom or something?

There isn't a parent alive who hasn't asked themselves questions or realised it's not a sensible option to do something like that since all this happened. If you don't already know that then you've missed something. Everybody with half a brain knows they were at fault.

[Erstwhile Bóz]

The McCanns made a stupid mistake but what their going through is only something a parent can understand.
I'm a parent and I have no clue what they're going through. I can empathize on a human level but it's all as much speculation as my childless friends (and far, far less of an understanding than unfortunate acquaintances of acquaintances of mine who have a still-missing relative).

The thing is, there are far more things about this that I can't understand as a parent, more than people with no children who would just think of these things as curious. Leaving my kids sleeping alone in a room with an out-of-view door they could up and walk out of (well, only the one that was old enough to walk :rolleyes:)? That's unfathomable -- not that I'm a great believer in there being hordes of bogeymen child-rapists out there, more that I know that sleeping children have this tendency to, well, wake up (something "only a parent can understand"). And if they wake up alone they get scared. Now, I worry about my daughter getting scared about fifty billion times more than I worry about her getting plucked from her bed by that chap from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. If they don't recognise the place they're in, they get even more scared. And when they're scared they try and find one of their parents so that they can calm them down.

Everybody's saying things like they were mad unlucky that this child-snatcher (totally hypothetical) happened to break into (lies) this safe place (lies) and steal their adored child from under their very noses (lies) and it was a one in a million chance and all. What is not a one in a million chance, though, is that a sleeping kid would wake up. They appear either not to have been aware of this fact -- even though they're doctors and this is pretty much a 'medical' fact -- or not to have given two hoots.

How many other times has that kid woken up on her own not having a clue where they were, and they out gallivanting? How many times has she wandered off, crying, frightened, from where she was sleeping to go and find them and get a hug off them?

I do relate to this story as a parent, but that's not where my compassion and whatever empathy I feel for them comes from. Absolutely the opposite. I feel for them despite being a parent myself.

Hopefully they get their kid back (unless they had something to do with it, obviously).

[drinkfeckarse]

A sense of perspective from the UK press

Hardly the McCanns fault even if they have rightly courted the press in an effort to keep the story in eveybody's minds. It is us who continue to talk about it and wanting to hear about it that have kept it a story.

Anyway, a sense of perspective will follow as soon as this is resolved whether it's good or bad news.

[galwayhoop]

Hardly the McCanns fault even if they have rightly courted the press in an effort to keep the story in eveybody's minds.

it is the mcCanns who have driven the whole press story. obviously they feel that by keeping it in the public arena that it may increase the chances of the child being returned safely (a debatable point imo). but to say that the story would be in the limelight as much without the mcCanns pushing it is simply not true.

[galwayhoop]

Oh right, so with all the publicicty you don't think people will have learned from what has happened to the McCann's or do you think that it needs to be spelt out in black & white in a courtroom or something?

i think it needs to be spelt out in black and white tbh.

i know they were wrong to leave their children unsupervised, you seem to know they were wrong but the press has been blinkered on that particular issue. by leving their children unsupervised they increased the odds of the child being abducted (assuming that is what happened) by many times.

do i want to see them suffer in court? No. should social workers visit them and interview them about their parenting ability? Yes.

their actions contributed vastly to the situation they now find themselves in and as such are partly responsible.

[bellavistaman]

The police said last night there was strong theory for her being dead!

[OneRedArmy]

The police said last night there was strong theory for her being dead!
The fact she hasn't been seen alive for months and isn't able to look after herself?

[bellavistaman]

The fact she hasn't been seen alive for months and isn't able to look after herself?

:D. Correct as you say 5 months and its just a theory:rolleyes:

[Magicme]

God I hope her Mum had nothing to do with it. I just cant understand how any parent could do such a thing.

[jebus]

God I hope her Mum had nothing to do with it. I just cant understand how any parent could do such a thing.

To be honest the signs have pointed to the Portugese police believing she had for a while now, I mean when the McCann's asked why they weren't clued in on the breakthroughs on the case straight away I thought, it's because you're a suspect. I find it worrying that the McCann's released a statement to the moronic press saying that they are worried they are going to be framed (by who? the police?) for Maddy's murder on the day they were taken in for questioning, it just smells of damage limitation, and a possible 'Free the Innocent McCanns' appeal should they be charged with the kid's death.

The only, and it's a stretch, silver lining that might come from this case if the McCann's are charged with Maddy's death is that it might be a wake up call to the media and the public to not believe everything the British/Irish families tell you just because we're from the same country, and to not be so reactionary until the details of the case are known

[endabob1]

I've thought from the early stages that the parents know more than they've let on, something hasn't seemed right from the start, difficult to put a finger on it because as said above it's unimaginable that a parent could be invoved.

Sky News have sent Martin Brunt, their Crime Correspondent out there, he hasn't been out before. Makes me think something's going to happen.
There will be some serious U-Turns in the British media if the parents were involved.

[jebus]

Sky News have sent Martin Brunt, their Crime Correspondent out there, he hasn't been out before. Makes me think something's going to happen.
There will be some serious U-Turns in the British media if the parents were involved.

To be honest they'll probably all say they've been telling us for weeks that something was fishy, ALL newspapers have gone the way of the Sun in that respect

[Dodge]

To be honest they'll probably all say they've been telling us for weeks that something was fishy, ALL newspapers have gone the way of the Sun in that respect

I don't think that will happen. What I think will happen is a backlash of biblical proportions. It'll be like it was worse that she lied to the British press than actually killing her own daughter (and I'm not saying she did)

[bennocelt]

i would have tought it was the fella more so than the woman, so it is quite a surprise

[Dodge]

i would have tought it was the fella more so than the woman, so it is quite a surprise

Any reason for thinking it was him rather than her?

[joeSoap]

I'm pretty sure that this is all just another dead end. Nothing new, nobody will be charged, and we'll be wondering about this for the rest of our lives.

[Ringo]

I think the theory of a sedative given to keep the child quiet or asleep is credible. The child woke up, fell and died. The other children didn’t wake up, because they had been given the same sedative. Someone hid the body. The media circus makes it impossible to for whoever did it to come clean. The sedative could have been given innocently. The likes of Phenorgen, for *****ly heat, usually knocks out or makes kids drowsy.

[Risteard]

I'd say so.
The main headline on Sky last night was that the mother was making a fresh appeal for the culprit to come forward.
I didn't understnad the significance of it at all.

[Ringo]

I'd say so.
The main headline on Sky last night was that the mother was making a fresh appeal for the culprit to come forward.
I didn't understnad the significance of it at all.


Madeleine mother named as suspect


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6982969.stm

[Macy]

Madeleine mother named as suspect
As with the case of that poor fooker who the UK press decided was too "huntley like" to not be considered, being a suspect actually gives more rights under questioning. However, it's been fairly obvious that the cops had more questions - everytime the McCanns mentioned going home, the cops released to the press that they were close to a breakthrough and that they should stay.

Just caught the start of liveline there - someone already on claiming their being made scapegoats and calling on Gordon Brown to intervene! :rolleyes:

[Dodge]

Interesting to see the Portuguese crowd boo and whistle as she was brought in. As the English crowd would do if she was in England.