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.

I so wanted there to be good news today. And I have to confess my 'pretty blonde' 3 year old dd has had so many hugs last night and this morning. It's always dreadful to hear news like this, but it brings it closer to home when the news descriptions could be of your own dd. I lit 5 candles at church last night for Madeleine and her family.

there is no doubt they will have to live with this for the rest of their lives, but if you went slightly over the drink drive limit for instance and got in a car and drove your children somewhere and had an accident and the children were killed, you would have to live with that for the rest of your life, but you would most likely still be prosecuted for causing death by dangerous driving and may even go to prison for it.

if you left a three year old home alone and something happened to that child, social services would certainly become involved and would at very least question your suitability as a parent.

just for once could we not have some good news

it is really not the time for recriminations.

No ones's making recriminations though - just discussing whether in the worst case scenario there would be any.

theres a news conference on sky in 10 mins

I hope she is found soon and I feel for the parents but I also find it unbelievable that anyone would find it acceptable to leave children alone. Never mind abduction, I couldn't risk letting a small child wake up and find that nobody was there for them.

there aren't any recriminations, but it's a fair question. no one is saying they should be charged with anything, just questioning whether they would be.

If she had wandered off, surely someone would have seen her, if she did that and then realised she counldn't find her parents or that she was lost, would she not have started crying or panicking? Someone would have heard her. It's all so strange and sad.

ruty - i think people are just speculating/ wondering what the deal would be in a situation like this, not casting stones at the parents.

FWIW I don't think leaving a child alone is illegal in these circumstances, (it is no different to me having a bonfire down the bottom of my (long) garden, whilst the children are asleep in the house. The house faces a busy little road - lots of pedestrian 'traffic' - and if anyone wanted to break in, it is not impossible sadly) and I don't think the parents will be blamed/found negligent.
But in the grand scheme of things it is irrelevant, all that matters is their little girl comes back.

I can't believe the judgementalists have crawled once more out of the woodwork.

These parents are going through hell, do you really think your comments about holding them accountable are actually helpful at all? Or do they just make you feel better?

I shall repeat my earlier post;

"Has anyone ever left their children in the garden playing whilst they were in the house? Good grief someone could have snatched your child from over the fence!

Or perhaps your child has slept in a tent in the garden - how irresponsible! Or in a crowded playground whilst you chatted with other mothers?

Oh how easy it is to point the finger whilst smugly smothering your own children.

I have left my children asleep in a hotel room with a baby alarm whilst me and dh have had a drink in the bar. It's a risk you take but the chances of them being abducted are slimmer than them being run over whilst holding your hand on a pedestrian crossing.

A paedo who had abducted and killed a girl was once asked if there was anything the mother could have done to have prevented him kidnapping the girl (from a busy fairground whilst the mother was distracted), he replied, maybe if the girl had been strapped to her mother, but then again he mused, he would have probably just killed the mother too.

We don't know what went on here. But I suggest all the smugger than thous take a hike and hope to goodness that nothing happens to their precious charges one day that will make them rethink their judgementalist attitudes.

And I'm sure we all sincerely hope that this girl is found safe and sound. The parents must be going through hell, without the added insult of being judged on their parenting skills."

Daisy - do you sit with your children all night, or do you go into the garden of a nice evening, sit on the patio, clear out the garage, pop down the basement to get a bottle of wine??

Cross posted rhubarb, but I think most of us were NOT judging, merely question the legality of cases like this.

Totally agree with Rhubarb, compassion is the order of the day here.

Poor, poor parents, poor sweet child. There but for the Grace of God go I.

hippi, I stay in the house and they know where to find me. I can't see your point.

I appreciate holding parents accountable is not helpful tofinding the little girl and that things happen to make you reconsider the assessments you make and i think the high profile of this situation makes peopel consider the decisions they make as parents, whichis sometime voiced in comments relating to the current situation

me too MB

gothicmama, you said what I wanted to say, only so much more eloquently.

Daisy - sorry, your post sounded like you would be there the second your child woke up.
My bad.

Those who are saying 'Well it is unacceptable to ever leave a child' or 'Well in this situation I would never leave my children unattended' are really just searching for a way to to comfort themselves that it will never happen to them because they would never do such a 'reckless thing'

The fact is these parent have a terrible, and agonising thing happen (hopefully not tragic) and that they were incredibly unlucky. The reality is that the risk of abduction in this sort of situation is tiny small and probably did not even occur to the parents.

I have left ds in a hotel room with a listening service while dh and I go downstairs for a drink. However even if I had not - my first thought would still be 'there but for the grace of God' not 'Well that's very sad but it would never happen to me because I would never leave my kids in that situation'

Even those of you who would never leave their children unattended in this situation - do you really believe that you 'NEVER' take any risks of ANY sort with your children? If you do you are living in cloud cuckoo land.

That poor poor family, I just hope and pray the little girl is returned safely.

you can't compare going into the garden while your children are asleep in the house to going to a restaurant while your children are asleep in a hotel room. I might go into my garden but my childrens' bedrooms are above the garden so they could call me if they needed me. but I wouldn't go to a neighbour's house or to the pub. If those children had needed their parents they would have called and the parents wouldn't have been there.

if the parents had been drink drivers would people still be saying "spare a thought for the parents?" I don't think so.

no one is saying they should be held accountable, my question was purely as to whether, if this child is proven to have not been abducted, whether they will then be put through the hell of legal recriminations for the decision they made to leave young children unsupervised in an unsecured hotel room where they had access to the outside without parental supervision.

and if they had decided to use the baby listening, I would imagine they would almost certainly be seaking compensation from mw at some stage.

hatrick - that is the classic 'what is more dangerous, leaving them or taking them?' TO me it is more dangerous to take 3 children across a petrol forecourt with cars manouvering everywhere in all sorts of directions than to leave them in the car where I can see them.

abduction wouldn't cross my mind either, but I would be worried that such a young child could wander out, as generally the doors of hotelrooms are extremely easy to open.