Madeleine McCann new evidence - BREAKING NEWS

[PrettyFlyforaMaiTai]

A Senior German detective has told a court that investigators had found emails on a Hotmail account used by Christian Brueckner that linked him directly to the Madeleine McCann case.

However, the detective was unable to share details of the evidence as it was 'related to the killing' of Madeleine. Brueckner, the prime suspect, is currently on trial in Germany for unrelated sex crimes.

Oh maybe, sorry, I might have got mixed up. I was thinking of the Jane Tanner sighting, yes.

Agree. It was a bad decision with terrible consequences, but it wasn’t so far out of the realms of reasonable that a prosecution for neglect would have a high chance of “success”

Imagine this hypothetical mumsnet thread.

AIBU - I left my one year old babies and three year old alone in the house while they were sleeping. I went for a drink down the road with my friend but it’s only a few mins away and I was popping back to check on them. The 3 year old got out of bed and came looking for me and got hit by a car. Now she’s seriously injured and police and social services are involved. Apparently I might be prosecuted for child neglect.
AIBU to say I just did what any parent would have done?

I think there would be sympathy for the injured child but the poster would be told pretty clearly where the responsibility lay. I don’t think the responses would be materially different in 2007 either.

I agree re consensus, @Superfans - but I still doubt the McCanns’ actions would pass the CPS test of more likely than not to get a conviction, and the public interest test re the impact on the other children.

Plus - I am not a lawyer - but I don’t know which jurisdiction would bring the neglect charge in the case of the McCanns

Isn't a possible difference that the child was hurt looking for the parents who weren't in the house, as opposed to someone kidnapping the child from the house which has happened with parents in the house and you can easily foresee the former, a stranger abducting the child must be less likely than child wanders off on their own.

If MM had been hurt out looking for her parents then most likely a body would have been found.
In my opinion it started as a burglary. MM possibly woke up, and then an abduction

Yes. There's a distinction between was this a good idea and is it usual for a person in these circumstances to be successfully prosecuted.

A cursory google reveals plenty of parents prosecuted in UK courts for leaving often older children for similar time periods. Even when nothing bad happened to the children. The public interest would be the same as in those cases I imagine - protection of children’s well-being by making minimum standards of caregiving clear.
As to who would prosecute I imagine that would be the Portuguese authorities. But suspect the huge media and political interest around the case might have persuaded them any prosecution was unwise.

Kate and Gerry McCann are both doctors and Gerry appears to have a very successful career. Those familiar with the GMC might note some recent decisions including suspending from the medical register a doctor who used someone else travel pass. A conviction for child neglect would have been potentially career ending certainly damaging. By ensuring the focus remained on an unknown abductor they avoid scrutiny of their own actions.

I don’t think it makes a different, no. It’s about reasonable standards of care. So hypothetically if a parent for example has the tv on loudly but is in the house with their 3 year old child, and the child somehow either sneaks out onto the road or is taken by an unknown person breaking in while parent unaware that is a tragic accident. It could happen but would seem very unlikely and not something you could reasonable guard against, no one is suggesting 3 year olds need watched every nomment, most sleep in their own bedrooms. But if a parents is out for dinner, even nearby, that is an entirely different scenario.

I've always believed this was not the first occasion the McCanns had left their children alone. If they were willing to do so in a foreign country, it wouldn't be unreasonable to suspect that they might have done the same thing at home.

I often wonder if they are still friends all these years later..

I was curious so I went looking for old MN threads from 2006 and earlier and found that there was a range of opinions on MN at the time. From some posters saying absolutely not, never ever ever and others saying it's fine/we take other risks in life. Though yes, on MN definitely skewed towards not leaving kids at all.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/parenting/165726-leaving-kids-in-the-car

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/other_subjects/83117-would-you-do-this

Or (perhaps a bit like some of the thinking around Michael Mosely's decision making), being in a new environment and on holiday made them take risks they would normally be averse to. This is a situational/behaviour change which is fairly well documented.

It could go either way couldn't it? And I guess we'll never know.

My Sister in law and her DH used to leave their small children with a baby monitor/video on linked to their phone and go to the pub a 5 min walk away (this was in London with a high rate of break ins, they have been burgled twice since I've known them).

I thought they were batshit. This was maybe 10 years ago. They thought I was over cautious. Thankfully we never went away with them but even so I would have said not on my watch. If you make the choice to have babies you do it understanding that your adult activities like pub/eating out visits are going to be curtailed/done in a different way (like you all eat together at lunchtime with the kids and have quiet evenings in) so you meet those children's rights to a safe and secure environment.

Anyway, its history now. I'm sure MM's parent would have done things differently if they could turn back the clock. With hindsight I am sure they feel every day that it was a reckless things to do, whatever happened that night.

*parents

Or (perhaps a bit like some of the thinking around Michael Mosely's decision making), being in a new environment and on holiday made them take risks they would normally be averse to. This is a situational/behaviour change which is fairly well documented.

Yes, exactly.

I don’t know, lots of parents used to do this on holiday and it was seen as perfectly acceptable if the parents were still in the resort (it was seen more like sitting out in your garden than going out for the night as it was still technically the same place).

My own parents used to go down to the Eurocamp restaurant in the 80s leaving me and DBro in the caravan, and they wouldn’t have dreamt of leaving us for a night out at home - they always got a babysitter.

I don’t doubt they probably left them on holiday more than once, but people (probably wrongly) saw it as totally different to leaving them at home so I’d be happy to believe they didn’t do it in England.

MWT thinks - and I agree - that Madeleine woke up, went looking for her parents and was abducted by an opportunistic predator.

As said before, Sarah Payne was abducted with her brother literally seconds behind her.

He also says that they were categorically wrong
to leave her that night and that it’s undeniable that if they hadn’t, she’d never have gone missing. He says that them refusing to admit they shouldn’t have left her is also a mistake in terms of the public perception of them.

I think what makes this different is that although the restaurant and apartment block were technically within the same resort, you couldn't get to either from within the resort. The only way the McCanns could get back and forward to do their checks was to leave the resort, walk along a public street, and then enter through an unlocked gate at the side of the apartment block. So this wasn't like sitting in your own back garden while your children slept in your secure house. It was more like sitting in a friend's garden, three streets away, where you could still see the roof of your house that you had left unlocked for people to walk into.

@BertieBotts I did the same earlier today:

Hmmm - couldn't do it myself but have friends who go out for the evening and leave their next door neighbours with their monitor and a key ! *
*
Their kids are 5 and 2 - I can't believe they do it - but they do at least once a week.

www.mumsnet.com/talk/other_subjects/231954-popping-out-with-kids-asleep-at-home

I am glad it is not illegal. I have left my baby sleeping while getting my dd from playgroup. I knew he would not wake up but I was nervous leaving him I admit. *
*
More recently, same baby (now 3) fell asleep on the sofa and I left him with my other three sons (aged 10 and 8) while I went and got dd from ballet. I timed myself and I was gone from the house literally 7 minutes. I did give ds1 and ds2 a quick run down of dos and don'ts before I left - ie don't answer the phone, don't answer the door, do listen out for ds3 etc - but I knew they would not do anything silly. My children aren't the sort to do anything silly, while I am there or while I am absent. You can tell. I knew they would continue playing lego and that is precisely what they did.

www.mumsnet.com/talk/parenting/185680-why-can-t-i-go-out-and-leave-my-3

It was a lot less than 100% against , unlike now

It's interesting how people are determined that it must be their fault one way or another.

I think psychologically people get some comfort thinking that because then they can say "it would never happen to me."

Well it wouldn't happen to me as I wouldn't leave my small children alone. That's not smug or saying I'm a perfect parent. Just a fact.

I think psychologically people get some comfort thinking that because then they can say "it would never happen to me."

That would only be true if leaving your children alone is something that happens to everyone. But it's not. It's a choice. It's something you have to actively do. So people can say it would never happen to them because it's true. It has nothing to do with getting comfort from it.

People judge risk differently. Leaving a baby in a car, leaving a baby in the garden, leaving a baby in the bath, leaving a baby in the house while you go next door, leaving a baby for 5 minutes while you pop to the shop, leaving 2 babies and a toddler in an unlocked apartment on a public street in a tourist area in a foreign country while you go drink with your friends at a restaurant 80m walk away where you can't see the unlocked door from etc.

Yes, DH and I used to differ about risks e.g. leaving a young child in a car when paying for petrol. I am very risk averse and don't think it's appropriate, he is not.

A very young child near us drowned in a bath while the mum left them and went downstairs. I think she did get done for neglect. Again, I'd never do that. DH says I am the health and safety dept. but I am happy to be safe rather than sorry especially where a child is concerned. Toddlers seem to seek out danger as it is, its my job to anticipate/intervene. DS almost choked on something when he was 2 or 3 in the bath - it was only that I was there and could act swiftly.

The difficulty with my parenting is as the child gets older, how do you help them assess risk? DS has SEN but likely he will live independently. He is no judge of whether someone can be trusted or not though!

Children have disappeared in lots of different circumstances, though. Not only through being left alone. James Bulger was lured away while his mum was paying in a shop. I have heard of very young children opening the front door and leaving the house while their parents were sleeping, or thought they were playing in their room (luckily in the cases I heard about, the children were found and returned safely). Children have wandered off in parks and drowned in rivers. Both of my eldest children, aged around 4, (ten years apart, so long enough for us to not have thought to warn the second not to) spontaneously decided that it would be really fun to play hide and seek, but didn't tell us of this idea, so one minute they were with us and the next minute they were gone. Absolutely panic inducing. They had just been hiding, but the first time was in a motorway service station, the second was in an outer section of a large supermarket, and the thought goes through your mind - what if someone had taken them? So many people going through those places and very easy access to whisk them away without detection. Or what if they had spotted some place they thought was a brilliant hiding place but it was actually a mortal danger for a 4yo, and nobody had noticed them in time?

It's just horrible in any case to get a reminder of how vulnerable tiny children are through a news story about something terrible happening to them. And I'm not saying it's OK to leave children alone, obviously. But I think we shouldn't forget that a tragedy could happen to any of us at any time. Not necessarily a disappearance, but a freak accident, illness etc.