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.

But sorry to keep returning to this. Is it unacceptable for someone to say they wouldn't do it? Is that regarded as critical or (as I would see it) a personal decision.

OK, if we are inevitably discussing the pros and cons of taking your children on holiday does this mean that those of you who are horrified about the parents not being in the apartment would also expect the parents to be actually in the same room? Or is it acceptable to be asleep in a different room from your 3 children? After all I presume that 2 children were still left sleeping in the room, so if the parents were asleep next door they might not have heard anything - especially if there are a lot of people in the resort. I'm just wondering at what point you experience compassion rather than horror at the parents fecklessness?

This is a tragic event. Just as tragic as say the number of toddlers who die every year from drowning - presumably they also have stupid parents who take their children on holiday near water without physically strapping them to themselves.

I note that the newspaper coverage so far aren't blaming the parents, but in fact at questioning whether the police have responded quickly and thoroughly enough. Though I haven't read the Mail yet - presumably it is only a matter of time. But like most of you I'm hoping and praying for a positive outcome for the family.

I suspect that this incident will do a great deal of harm to Mark Warner though. I've been on a number of their holidays and I will be amazed if the local MW staff even speak Portuguese. They're going to have to tread very carefully to get out of this one without either blaming the parents (ignoring the fact that many of the parents will have done similar) or implying that their facilities were not up to scratch. They may well try to defend themselves as merely supplying certain facilties and not being responsible for all aspects of the site, but given the prices they charge and the reputation that they try to maintain I suspect that they're screwed whatever the outcome.

It is unacceptable to keep going on about it right now yes, well IMO anyway.

well said ladymuck.

Do Mark Warner employ any local people at all in their resorts ladymuck?

I don't think anyone is blaming the parents. I think we are all desperately shocked and saddened by the news and are asking ourselves the would we/would we not question and not really knowing where to draw the line. As long as there are people out there who have noideas about moral boundaries (I'm talking about the abductor here!), it is in fact impossible to avoid all danger.

We've all taken calculated risks with our children, as this poor family did and we all will do so again. A thread like this is a good way of helping us all to help process our thoughts. I am 100% sure there is not one person here who is here to criticise.

Absolutely.

If just one comment makes a parent think twice about their child safety, it has been worthwhile.

LM, the Mark Warner bloke came across very well this morning on TV - looked incredibly concerned (had obviously been up all night). I read all the papers this morning and the coverage was very similar (most of them mentioning the fact that MW had a service where the children could be dropped off and looked after while the parents had a meal but the parents had chosen not to use it for whatever reason. So not being directly critical but pointing it out iyswim).

Connie, you've based that decision on the story not on people saying they wouldn't have done it in the first place though.

No matter what the parents did, it's the person/persons who did this who are the focus of my thoughts. Someone determined to grab a child could grab them off the street when they are a few steps in front of you - you just CANNOT protect your child against every single risk in the world. We can't live our lives thinking that there's a potential paedophile round every corner.

It really varies from site to site as far as I can see. They do not own the hotels - these are usually locally owned, though I think that they use a Hilton on one site now. MW recruit British sailing staff, kids club staff , tennis coaches, gym instructors, beauty therapists and nannies as well as team leaderss for these areas. I have seen a mix between MW and local staff on restaurant staff and life guards and generally cleaning, gardening, cooking, recpetion and security have been local staff (employed by hotel and not MW). Locations such as Lakitira in Kos have 2 managers - the hotel manager and the MW mamager who somehow work together. But customers are buying a package from MW.

I could imagine that in a crisis situation that this dual responsibility goes somehow tits up, and I really feel for the paretns who will be trying to deal with local procedures possibly with less than impressive backup from MW. I am however very impressed to hear that British police and family liaison staff are out there with them and that the Embassy staff got their act together so quickly - so perhaps I'm being too quick to criticise MW. It is just one of those hideous situations that most of us don't analyse until something like this happens.

FiS - it is one of the very few MW resorts that does have the creche (which is in lieu of its usual room listening service). If the resort had had a room listening service, and the abductor had closed the door behind him then it could have been many hours before the parents had realised that the child was taken. Which is one of the reasons why I think that MW is going to suffer fallout from this. And I suspect from many parents of under 5s a night creche is not their first choice of care.

I agree the MW manager on the news looked properly concerned and came across well.
I asked because I have heard criticism from locals on Corsica in the past that MW and other similar complexes didn't employ locals on principle for the more high-profile, better-paid jobs, and it was a cause of heated resentment.
It was only one POV but that conversation stuck with me and it's been a factor in our not choosing that sort of holiday.
Sounds like times have changed at MW, which is good.

I think MW will suffer too - people will come to associate their brand name with disaster.
It's a shame because we have always found their childcare really superb. We have been to Lemnos twice and Lakitira once and it was excellent.

this is terrible, I have to say, I went to menorca last year, we put the kids to bed at the back of the apartment, which was on the ground floor, while we sat out the front of the apartment, TBH anyone could have got into the apartemnt from the road and taken one of our children. I hope against every hope that they find this little girl.

That's a very good point SparklyGK
For those of you on here who've been quick to judge the parents, how many of you have sat on a balcony or terrace with your children tucked up in bed in your apartment or villa? I have, many times - it could happen to anyone

something is bothering me - why didn't the other two children wake up, did they, it said in the times this am that little maddie was left sleeping between them, am i to assume this means the same bed?

I just want that little girl back with her mummy, Please God.

They were only 2 years old, deep sleepers? - Once my 20 month old is asleep you'd have a hard job waking him!!!

lucyellensmum - It was said that the Girl/boy twins were asleep in a cot either side of the single bed, so Maddy was sleeping between each of them..

oh, i didnt know that, teach me to read properly, actually i do remember something vaguely on the news. I'm just scratching around for explanations because i can't bear to think of what might be happening to this wee lass. So pretty, so innocent, God be with her

I imagine it is someone with links to the hotel (member of staff maybe) as they seems pretty sure who is is - they obv haven't turned up for work, I reckon.

just hope they're not too late.

foxinsocks, interesting point. As a small child, my dh was literally snatched from the street whilst walking with his mum and sister. Luckily a stranger chased the man and caught up with him. But it CAN happen!! I hope this little mite is home soon.

Some of us, me included, are only interested because they are "people like us" who might go on Mark Warner holidays and leave our children in hotel rooms whilst we eat - I've done that for years and it's a perfectly acceptable practice. What is so sad is a child from a family like mine hsa been taken and that in itself is interesting. On 9/11 people felt more for those rich brokers at Canton Fitzgerald who were killed than for the thousands dying of hunger in Africa every day because they are "people like us". In London murdered white lawyers get press coverage and murdered poor blacks less.

Anyway I wonder if we can think laterally as to any clever ways to have her found. What is the most likely explanation when a child goes like that - it seems there was forced entry etc. Sometimes it's a local nutter - a mother whose child died and wants another. Sometimes there's trafficking for adoption or worse - she's blonde and pretty and white. Speed is the thing. The more time passes the less chance of finding her and more likely she's dead.

Also most crime is by someone who knows you although I expect it's unlikely to be the parents here. It could be hotel staff though or another guest. Often they find children very close by and over look that. Natasha who was taken in Germany was hidden not too far away for 10 years or something. They need to look again and again locally. If I were the family I'd hire my own local investigators too and ask amongst the local community and offer big bribes.

They believe that she is alive and been held between 1-3 miles from the resort - so I think you may be on to something Xenia.

yes, I am sure it must be a hotel employee or guest.

Oh great. I hope so.

They never found that boy Ben who went missing on Kos about 15 years ago, a few sightings of a blonde boy over the years but he was never found alive or dead.

There is this:

Not widely reported though so maybe irrelevant.