Madeleine McCann - new suspect

[KatherineJaneway]

A 43-year-old German prisoner who travelled around Portugal in a camper van is now the focus of Scotland Yard's investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.

[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52914016]

@SisterAgatha

I mean people leave their cars alone every night and don’t get the blame when someone steals it. The criminal does.

I'm not suggesting at all they should get the blame. I'm just not comfortable with how leaving your kids like that is apparently ok because it was normal then.

Hitting your kids was normal too and I don't think that's ok either.

That's exactly the same for me Vix as my DD was also a baby when Madeleine went missing.
I remember I was giving DD her pre bedtime bottle & the news was on & it was announced a 3 yr old girl had gone missing in Portugal.
It was so shocking to hear & I have that memory seared in my mind like a photo, like you have when hearing about The Twin Towers, Princess Diana, The London Underground Bombings etc.

Yes I know it's naive but as a parent you never give up hope that your child is still alive & somewhere out there.
I've been told that on one hand it's a almighty relief to know what happened to your child but the other hand discovering your child is dead is horrendous. Until that day there is always a tiny spark of hope your child will walk through the front door.
You pray for a miracle.

I'm one of the people who has always suspected the parents: not that it was intentional but maybe that they'd come back and she had called and hit her head or something like that.

I will accept if I am proven wrong and it looks like I might be.

However, in light of this suspects previous history and what he might have done to her, I hope it wasnt him and I am right. I hope something quick happened rather than the abuse that that monster might have subjected her to. My heart breaks thinking about it and if it is the case then, much as I think parents were wrong to leave her, I would not wish that happening to a child on my worst enemy. I cannot imagine what is going through their minds.

I can't believe there's now a man who it's highly likely abducted, abused and murdered Madeleine in the spotlight and yet so many people keep banging the same old 'oh but the parents' drum.
It's as if he's less to blame than they are! People are fixated, it's so frustrating!

Fallen not called

I think leaving their children alone was a bad idea, but it doesn’t make them murderers. Suggesting otherwise is essentially victim blaming. Even though Madeline had been left alone, someone else made the conscious decision to take her. It’s like saying a woman chose to be murdered because she walked home alone at night.

Also, I think it’s incidents like these which cause the norm to change. Most people now wouldn’t leave their children alone because of what happened to Madeline.

I don't particularly like the McCanns, mostly for their poor decision making. Also the arrogance of Gerry. He always acted as though he had a bad smell under his nose.

However, if this suspect turns out to be the one who took MM then I will feel bad for them because it will undoubtedly mean their DD is dead and the end of all hope. That will bring with it the despair of wondering how it happened, how soon after it happened, what she endured in the meantime, and I would not want to wish those thoughts on anybody.

@TopBitchoftheWitches

If the parents hadn't left Madeline and the twins alone, this wouldn't have happened, how hard is that to understand?

If the parents hadn't left Madeline and the twins alone, this wouldn't have happened, how hard is that to understand?

Not necessarily. Whoever took her could have easily come 4 hours later when K&G were sleeping and taken her just as easily. The bedroom window of Madeleine’s room was on the street. The parents bedroom and living area were on the other side of the apartment. A few years ago my parents were on holiday with family in a second floor apartment. One of their party was snoozing on the sofa while the others were having drinks on the veranda. He woke to a man crawling past the sofa right beside him who then escaped out the window. He’d been in every room in the apartment before anyone noticed him. This was during the day. Loads of people are burgled whilst their homes and yes some children have been taken from their beds whilst their parents are home. There was a french-British Teen who managed to go missing from her bed last year.

I think one of the issues is that rightly or wrongly we have higher expectations of people like the McCann’s - intelligent, educated doctors. We would expect a better “risk assessment” from them.

As somebody who hasn’t got children, (which on this site, probably disqualified me from any opinion), I think if you are fortunate enough to have them then you should take better care. Didn’t Kate McCann have difficulty conceiving?

It’s never been about condemning them for a mistake. We all make them. I just think this was way, way more than that.

April Jones’s parents let her play out in early evening in a quiet street with loads of other kids about. There was a risk in that. There is a risk every time you let kids “off the lead”. However it was a perfectly reasonable thing to do. They couldn’t have predicted a monster driving by.

However leaving 3 kids under 5 alone in an unlocked apartment in a foreign country had the potential for multiple dangerous scenarios. Madeline being taken by a Paedophile probably wouldn’t even have been on their RADAR. However other things should have been. From falling out of bed, to drinking cleaning fluid, to wandering out into the road, etc, etc. They shouldn’t have done it. Common sense should have been enough to tell them that.

Why do people keep saying the parents 'paid the ultimate price'. Madeleine did.

I'd have thought as a parent, having your small daughter abducted, abused and murdered IS 'the ultimate price'.

Also, I think it’s incidents like these which cause the norm to change. Most people now wouldn’t leave their children alone because of what happened to Madeline

Yep definitely. If anything good has come out of this it's that.

Also the arrogance of Gerry. He always acted as though he had a bad smell under his nose.

He's not covered himself in glory, that's for sure.

I'd have thought as a parent, having your small daughter abducted, abused and murdered IS 'the ultimate price'.

She'd be the one to have been abducted, abused and murdered, IF that is the case, not them, who, well, left them all alone etc etc.

It’s never been about condemning them for a mistake.

It absolutely has. I say this as someone who actually disagrees with what they did and thinks it was irresponsible, essentially for the reasons you list. There are people who have done just that.

The reference to the difficulty conceiving is very bemusing, btw. Why would that be relevant? Is the standard expected from me lower because I got up the duff in the first month of trying?

I have heard police say that before re loyalty changing so I wouldn't say they know something definite because of that. I do think saying murder means there is something definite to say that even if we have thought it, they've got something. Please let this get them somewhere.

Also to a pp we're not meant to sit outside with our car all night, it is different!

Madeleine paid 'the ultimate price, for her parents stupidity, and they paid them ultimate price' in her loss, because they went for tapas. It isn't difficult, is it?

Is this really the appropriate time and place to be arguing semantics over an idiom? Really?

@MasakaBuzz it's not Murdered Child Top Trumps and comparing one set of parents to the other with the insinuation that one (left child alone) is more to blame than the other (couldn't have predicted a killer would drive past) is fairly tasteless.

Didn’t Kate McCann have difficulty conceiving?

So?

Is this really the appropriate time and place to be arguing semantics over an idiom? Really?

Why on Earth not? HQ is the arbiter of what is appropriate on their board, not individual posters

I personally wouldn’t leave my kids alone like that either. I admit at first I also felt like they’d let her down. Over the years I’ve started to think differently - everyone is comfortable with their own level of risk, some people have masses of home security, some don’t. I am no less a victim of a crime if I have a state of the art burglar alarm than I am if I only have a bolt on the door.

MasakaBuzz

Didn’t Kate McCann have difficulty conceiving?

What a disgusting comment. Yuck.

I completely disagree with the assertion that it was common to leave children unattended at that time.
I had my first DC in 1991 (and last in 2008) and would never have dreamt of it. Nor did anyone else I know leave ever their children.

I heard about MM in the hairdressers. Hairdresser and I both also had little girls. She was early 20s, I was late 30s and there were some older ladies in the salon, too. Every one of us, mothers of all ages, couldn’t believe the children had been left unattended. It’s never been acceptable.

That said, I feel so sorry for the McCanns and hope this new development brings some answers for them.

At this stage though does it matter?

If this man is charged and convicted with Madeleine’s murder do people expect the parents to be charged as accessories because of the fact they left her?

I have been critical of the decision to leave three small children on their own in those circumstances, but fact is that this was thirteen years ago. If Madeleine was murdered that night, then the parents will already feel responsible.

And in truth when the twins grow up there’s a good chance they too will hold their parents responsible since this has changed their lives as well.

At this stage what point is there really in going over the fact again and again. It’s not going to make a difference is it?

Didn’t Kate McCann have difficulty conceiving?

What a foul comment and it is none of your business none at all!