To think the McCanns are being almost tortured by the media and the police?

[ArriettyJones]

See screengrab.

I said several days ago (on a thread here) that the letter was probably sent c/o Scotland Yard (and I wasn’t the only one to think so). If I can work that out why can’t the collective brains of German and U.K. detective teams PLUS dozens of European media outlets figure it out?

Why couldn’t Scotland Yard find a missing letter about a high profile, serious crime in their own building FGS?

How long has the delay been? Four or five days? This is cruel.

They need a new liaison officer now and the police need to pull themselves together.

Given that you dont know anything about Portuguese law, why do you feel so confident making proclamations about what would happen

They were declared formal suspects

And how are you in a position to state with such certainty that there was never SS involvement for any of them? Would you have been informed if there were?

Kate stated herself that she contacted SS herself and they didn’t want to pursue it.

That's the McCanns. You mentioned several other couples. How do you know none of them had any SS involvement?

Well why would they be interested in them when they wasn’t interested in a couple that come home from holiday with out their three year daughter?

[quote understandmenow]@Jkslays they're not public property, the public may have an opinion, but they do not have to answer to public questions. [/quote]
If they want to court the public then they should expect the public to ask awkward questions. If they answer then is totally up to them of course. But they are fond of saying ‘no comment’

They were declared arguidos jkslays, which is not the same as suspects. But even if they had been, you said any other parent would've been in prison. Being a suspect is not proof of your assertion.

So again, why are you making proclamations about Portuguese law when you state you know nothing about it and apparently think it applies in Spain?

@Jkslays

That's the McCanns. You mentioned several other couples. How do you know none of them had any SS involvement?

Well why would they be interested in them when they wasn’t interested in a couple that come home from holiday with out their three year daughter?

So you don't actually know then?

Well this is going well.

or even anyone?

If they want to court the public then they should expect the public to ask awkward questions. If they answer then is totally up to them of course. But they are fond of saying ‘no comment’

@Jkslays that's right they don't have to answer, they're not public property.....

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/evoke.ie/2016/07/30/news/world/selfish-mum-abandons-kids-to-go-boozing-in-benidorm/amp

Slightly different scenario! She left the two kids in the town centre after giving them cash for food and then vanishing. The boys were on their own in town at night, one was taken to a police station and the other found in the apartment after walking three miles back.

@ArriettyJones I think @Jkslays might need the , she's not had enough and doesn't like !

@Noeuf

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/evoke.ie/2016/07/30/news/world/selfish-mum-abandons-kids-to-go-boozing-in-benidorm/amp

Slightly different scenario! She left the two kids in the town centre after giving them cash for food and then vanishing. The boys were on their own in town at night, one was taken to a police station and the other found in the apartment after walking three miles back.

Plus entirely different country. I mean, there are jurisdictions where anyone doing the same wouldve been punished for drinking alcohol but nobody feels moved to bring that up.

Re the arguido status. That expired when the investigation was closed but they were never 'cleared' yet they always trot this out, which is misleading, or disingenuous, at best.

@PrincessConsuelaVaginaHammock

They were declared arguidos jkslays, which is not the same as suspects. But even if they had been, you said any other parent would've been in prison. Being a suspect is not proof of your assertion.

So again, why are you making proclamations about Portuguese law when you state you know nothing about it and apparently think it applies in Spain?

The police place arguido status on someone as a preliminary to an arrest being made or charges brought. I’m not going to argue that point with you any more.

And I reference the Benidorm case as there was similarities. But honestly you knew I was.

Was strange the NSPCC didn’t comment on the MCanns though wasn’t it?

@UmbrellaHat

Re the arguido status. That expired when the investigation was closed but they were never 'cleared' yet they always trot this out, which is misleading, or disingenuous, at best.

I agree

@Noeuf

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/evoke.ie/2016/07/30/news/world/selfish-mum-abandons-kids-to-go-boozing-in-benidorm/amp

Slightly different scenario! She left the two kids in the town centre after giving them cash for food and then vanishing. The boys were on their own in town at night, one was taken to a police station and the other found in the apartment after walking three miles back.

And yet both kids came home alive.

Jk
I'm not sure that's the best way to risk assess parenting choices.

' Things people have survived' - start your list

I think some posters need to put their phones down and go for a walk

Sounds just like more gossip to me ! Who said that these letters even exist ? Who is the source that told the media? Who said where they were sent, to who, what they contained etc ?

You're not going to argue it with me because you know you're digging a hole for yourself. You said any other parent doing what they did would be in prison. In order for this not to be uninformed bullshitting, you'd have to know something about Portuguese law. You do not.

And no, I don't know why you brought up Benidorm because it's a really poor point. Saying that someone got convicted for doing something in one country can't possibly be evidence that the same would or should have happened in a different country with a totally separate legal system.

Lastly, the NSPCC have thrown safeguarding under a bus in recent years so I don't pay any attention to them, but I've no idea what their practice was in 07. I do know it has nothing to do with whether any other parent would've been in prison or whether you know anything about Portuguese law though.

What would SS involvement have achieved? Madeleine was already gone. They weren't likely to leave the twins alone. Separating the twins from their parents after they had already lost their sister would have harmed them.

Children's services don't exist to punish parents but to protect children.

Now that the suspect is known to have been an accomplished burglar, I wonder whether it won't come out that she might just as likely have been taken while the parents slept, and it was the position of the apartment rather than the fact she was unattended that was the decider. Obviously nobody could ever know that for sure, not without a confession. But if that did come out I wonder how the "no sympathy" posters would feel about it then?

I'm not sure about the letter. I'm going to wait for confirmation by a more reliable source. Absolutely awful if it has been released in the press before they've received one, though.

"Celebrity status". Jkslays you're just being ridiculous now

@Jkslays are you honestly saying that because they left Portugal they weren't charged? Why weren't their passports taken to avoid them travelling then?

They made no secret that they were leaving the Portuguese police had every chance to stop them, which they didn't, because they weren't going to charge them.

It does interest me the way this case has led so many people to place so much value on their own uninformed and unconnected feelings. I've no idea what actually happened, for all I know they did it, but what I do know is that lots of people with strong opinions have nothing to back them up. And there's been a whole circus egging them on in the delusion that they're in a position to draw any remotely credible conclusions.

In this very thread we've had someone claiming they're holding the McCanns to account when actually they're just having a bit of argy on AIBU. We've got another one who thinks they can make proclamations about Portuguese law when they know nothing about it and is apparently in psychic league with Social Services such that they're able to state with confidence who has and hasn't had involvement. The internet abounds with individuals who know nothing about trauma response but heroically don't allow that to stop them from deciding whether Kate's was normal or not. They can't all be drunk. It's a perfect example of the Dunning Kruger effect from people too daft to realise how ridiculous they sound.

well said @PrincessConsuela

I'm somewhat puzzled by the references to social class -- Kate and Gerry McCann are both working class, albeit working in traditionally middle-class careers
I dont know if you've noticed but we don't live in a caste system, we have social mobility. The Mccanns may have had humble upbringings but are most definitely middle class by virtue of their education and occupations. Trying to say a Consultant Cardiologist is working class just because he was born in Glasgow is laughable