OMG. Anybody just seen GMTV? 3 yr old girl abducted on holiday on the Algarve.

[tiredemma]

kate said reports just in, cant find anything on bbc.

bloody awful.

Personally I wouldnt leave my kids alne, but I completely agree with the 'there but for he grace of god, go i' comment. We should be grateful all our kids are safe and hope this child is found.

The recriminations/analysis of what should shouldnt have happened will definitely happen but lets find the little girl first.

IMHO

Sadly maybe the porteguese authorities were very ill equipped to deal with something like this. It is a place where thousands of holiday makers go and this has never happened. Sadly it takes things like this for the authorities to learn how to deal with it if it was to happen again

I am speechless at this thread.

What about the little girl taken from a tent in her back garden and murdered? Sarah Payne? The little girl taken from her bath? The girl taken from her dormitory on a school trip? Do you blame all those parents too?

All of us have to assess many risks to do with our children every single day. The one thing you can never ever factor in is someone determined to snatch your child precisely because you cannot watch them 24 hours a day.

Shame on all of you who have judged this couple.

I would like to think if I reported a 3 year old child missing at 10.00 pm that I would get a response sooner than a few hours later..though I know as a parent that it could seem longer than it was.

I hope she's found safe but in reality most of us here are helpless to do anything constructive for this family..but there must be mumsnetters in Portugal & Spain with eyes & ears open for this child.

this has had me in tears since thursday - this would be my worst nightmare realised!!! i think as a parent if my child was abducted and never found (like ben needham) it would be the worst possible situation and i think i would seriously lose my mind. the uncertainty and the imagining what happened would end me up in a secure psychiatric unit.

i hope this little one is found safe and sound and returned to her distraught parents/

I really hoped that Maddie would have been found when I woke this morning. I keep imagining how those parents must be feeling - imagine trying to sleep - imagine that moment when you wake and then you remember - heart breaking.

Whenever I go to Greece there are photos of Ben Needham and a photo fit of what he might look like now.

I cannot work out if the authorities believe she has been abducted or if she has wandered off. Surely if she had wandered off she would have been found by now.

My heart goes out to her and her family

how old where the other children left with her? were they old enough to look after a 3yr old? Havne't has chance to see much on the news. It must be a horrensdous feeling. I do feel v sorry for them

apologies for the crap spelling

1 year old twins

There does seem to be an odd lack of info from the POrtugese authorities, and the police are still not referring to it as an abduction.

oh...

The people criticising the parents are missing the point.

The parents must have believed that they were leaving their children sleeping in a safe environment or else they would not have left them. They didn't leave her thinking 'someone could come in and take the kids, but that's a risk I'll take'.
They came back to check on them in case they had woken - not to see if they had been taken.

They could not have imagined in a million years that something like this would happen.

It is ridiculous to suggest you should never leave your children unattended while they are asleep, btw.

Save your anger for the person who took Madeleine, not her parents. It's not their fault.

Yes Beety I hoped too - I keep talking to her - its so so too horrible for her x

The 3 yr old was the oldest child I think.

Things like this blow my mind. I just can't begin to imagine the agony those parents must be going through.

Please God let her be found safe, a little cold and dehydrated but please God let her be found soon.

So has she definitely been abducted or could she have climbed out of the window.

So saad to see that this thread has included blame the parents mentality.

My thoughts are with them and I hope to god she's found today. I have a 3 year old dd and they must be in hell right now.

If she hads climbed out, surely she would have been found by now and/or been seen.

Ben needham was blond too

evrerytime this thread is at the top i think someone has heard some good news...

Cannot believe there is still no news. Are they conducting door to door searches I wonder? If they were checking so often on the children then surely she couldn't have been too far away when they discovered that she was gone. Which just makes it even more frusrating for her parents.
It doesn't matter what situation you are in shopping, school, work or holidays. No one imagines that this could ever happen to them. Cases like this are always described as 'every parents worst nightmare' because there is no other way to put in into words.
I hope to God she is found safe and well.

Lots of British children are blonde though. Both mine are (dsd was a fair redhead at three) but they won't be when they are older.
I found reports about her looks and blonde hair really creepy tbh. I know what it is meant to imply, and I don't like it.

It's all so very, very sad. All this talk about whether she should have been left alone or not... it seems to me inappropriate just now. If the little girl has been abducted, there is only one (or maybe more) villan. Her parents did not act maliciously, they did not wilfully put there children in danger. There's nothing to assume they are not the same loving and protective parents we probably all are. And lets face it, if a GP and a cardiologist can make an incorrect judgement regarding risk assesment, safety and protection, then you can bet the rest of us could as well. You don't get to those positions without a certain degree of intelligence and commen sense. I also know that if (god forbid) I was going through the same thing, and I went to my gp, I would be treated with compassion and empathy, not critism and judgement. Maybe we should all do the same for this poor woman.

As to the debate. When someone is struck down with say lung cancer, you don't immediately start a debate in a public arena how inappropriate it is that they smoke. You're more likely to offer support. No way is the same, but there's a vague parallel there. All I'm saying is maybe there's a more appropriate time to discuss this. Just my opinion.

God willing, she'll be found alive.

Caught it on the news again. She's still not been found. It's unimaginable what those parents are going through. Unbearable to contemplate.

Just awful...

I know Aloha -

And on the 'wisdom' of leaving a child in a locked hotel room like this - it speaks for itself that the last similar reported incident was 1991. This sort of thing simply does not happen and the parents did not make a rash or unwise decision in any way