In England the McCanns would be arrested

[LostPuppy]

Off the bat, I of course hope with all my heart that Madeleine is returned safely

But her "parents" are a disgrace. They left Madeleine and two-year-old twins Sean and Amelie sleeping in the apartment ON THEIR OWN. They had taken turns to return from the restaurant to check on their children.

Now hang on! In this country that is illegal, for very good reason.

Even if they 'checked on them' every five minutes that's plenty of time for one of the kids to wake up and try to go to the toilet and crack it's head open slipping on the bathroom floor, or something equally disastrous. They'd never hear the screaming from a bloody restaurant down the road!

Obviously it's unlikely, but I just cant comprehend the mentality of leaving three children under 3 alone on their own, ever, let alone at night in a foreign country!

Part of me just can't believe that there are families with THREE young children who just SLEEP once you put them down.

I think I have now had five years without sleeping more than 2 hours straight

grr

Mine certainly wake zillions of times during the evening

I'm doing something wrong

Maybe the social standing of the couple doesn?t make a difference to individuals but it certainly makes a difference in the media. ?doctors Gerry and Kate Mccann?, why do we need to know that? Because how something is reported makes a difference to how people react to it. ?pregnant teenager murdered? for instance invokes a far deeper sympathy for the teenager murdered, if it were ?teenager? people would think how sad, but ?pregnant teenager? immediately touches a different emotion, she was going to have a baby, a baby has also died, it?s far more tragic than if it were just a teenager.

?doctors Gerry and Kate Mccann? indicates to people that they were intelligent, well educated, that they had money. ?mr smith, a convicted drug dealer, and mrs smith, a lap dancer? invokes a totally different reaction from the reader.

Whether we like it or not, we are very strongly influenced by what we read, even on a sub conscious level.

and morningpaper have you not thought of trying controled crying?

Can I ask, very politely, that you take a moment out of this thread to look at this one. I thank you and apologise for the interruption

i do think they were wrong to leave their children but there is a child still missing and punishing them now is just pointless, i am sure that the pair of them living with the guilt of what they did is enough punishment for these people

I think that generally it would be seen as illegal in this country

The NSPCC says:

"What the law says

The law does not set a minimum age at which children can be left alone.

Parents can be prosecuted for wilful neglect
if they leave a child unsupervised in a manner likely to cause unecessary suffering or injury to health.

There is no set age at which it is OK to leave children home alone. It depends on whether the child is mature enough to cope in an emergency.

Don't forget
NEVER leave babies or young children home alone (whether sleeping or awake), not even for a few minutes."

I was looking at the NSPCC site a few weeks ago when I was tempted to leave baby at home asleep while I picked up DD from nursery (100 yards away). Reading their advice put me off.

I think, Wannabe, it makes a difference to the media reporting the case because it's very "shit, I do that" to a lot of them.

There was a piece in the Evening Standard about how Mark Warner holidays were "different" and you couldn't understand unless you'd been on one how lulled into a false sense of security the McCanns had been, by the MW ethos.

Talked of preschoolers singing in crocodiles and not seeing your children from morning to night because their time was so organised.

mp, depends on the child. You've had bad luck. My sister's are the same as yours. My brother who had 2 under 2 now slightly older hasn't had one through night in the last 3 years.

Our twins are 10 months when we took them on an equivalent of a MW holiday in Antigua (Sunsail) and we would always leave them sleeping and go to eat with the older children and they always stayed sleeping and we'd do exactly what you said - keep coming back and usually the youngest boy who hates long meals would miss pudding anyway and go back and babysit in a sense once he'd wolfed his food down very grateful to be allowed back to his villa.

In fact I thought the thread title when I saw it would have been about it is virtually always the parents or relatives in any case of harm. Police who follow up investigating parents are usually on the right track in 80% of cases but if it meant in the UK they woudl be arrested then that's untrue and the comments that they have broken English law are untrue and I think potentially defame them not that I'm sure they are in the remotest bit interested given the other issues they have.

I think this case hasn't helped mark warner publicity. I know a few people who have said things like "I'd thought of mark warner holidays before this, but they sound horrible". and I agree, mw holidays sound ghastly, and if I was ever considering going on one I certainly wouldn't be now. who ever wants to go on a holiday where children are banned at certain times of the day - mad.

hm, that's true and it's not a false sense of security at all. They are probably safer than on the average cheap English caravan holiday. it's a true sense of security. These incidents are very rare. I can think of more children killed with parents at English resorts than on MW type holidays.

It's the mode of holiday which won't suit some parents' styles and does suit others, though. It suited us well. It's not true you don't see them from morning to night. They can go in or out of the very good child care as much as you like. Our chidlren at university remember them as great holidays, good chance to mix with and play with other children and yes they were usually in the club from 9 to about 4 and happily there and then lots of time to go to beach with parents after etc or you take them out for a day on a trip or you never leave them at all. Entirely up to the parents.

I don't think many people deny that they made a mistake, and I am sure many people will re-evaluate both their personal view of risk, and bear in mind the possible legal aspect of any decisions they make in the future. Of course most people bellieve laws need keeping...but it's hard where you get lulled into a sense of false security, and it's hard fro a layperson where it is open to degree and interpretation, and muddied by all sorts of factors which impact n our perception of risk - personality, upbringing, culture, environment etc etc. Actually, simply in terms of law, it perhaps shows a greater disregard for the law to speed - that has no 'grey area'. The Mccanns made a mistake, they had desparatel bad luck, and possibly, doubtlessley unknowingly, may have strayed into an illegal position. In many many areas of our lives, there but for the grace of our God, go many of us. Points on your license could easily be manslaughter....

It is fair enough to discuss the bald facts of any case in objective terms...it's the attitude that defines whether we are compassionate or kicking someone when they are down. And hyperbole and innacurate accusations or exaggerations fall into the latter, imo.

mp I agree I think it would be considered breaking the law. moreover, I think that if this family had left their three children at home and had popped to a pub down the road and one had been abducted from their house, far far more questions would have been asked and I think that ss would have become involved and the twins would have been taken into care. for the record, not saying that's what I think should happen but what I think would have happened.

www, well that just shows how we differ. I've not been on a MW holiday but Sunsail never ban children at all but probably most parents put them in the club and they have groups for under 2s, 3 - 5 then 6 - 8 or whatever and up to age 16 if the chidlren want to go in those groups.

Obviously people pick holidays that suit them and these are really nice holidays for families which is why so many go back and back. My oldest daughter worked 2 summers of sunsail, learned to sail though them, it's just led to so much life enhancing things for her and all because we took her on this kind of holiday. She has dealt with all kinds of children in the children's clubs including children with down's syndrome and 3 last year who were paid for by their local authority and I think had behavioural problems.

No, blu many many people don't think they made a mistake. That's the point. Life carries risk and this was not a mistake or risk too far. Many many people don't think they did a single thing wrong actually.

I'll see if I can dig out the article online somewhere - it's mahoosive, so I won't offer to type it all out - but it had a tone I wasn't keen on - kind of "don't judge them, you plebs".

I wasn't saying all children on MW holidays were unseen by their parents from morning to night, but it was very much the experience of the man writing this article.

He said you never had to see anyone who didn't live in the Shires and knew people who didn't leave the resorts at all, which I think is a peculiar way to holiday.

But I think my "ooh, crikey, what a weird way to go on holiday" thoughts are probably best kept off this thread...

wannabe - wherever did you get the diea that children are banned at any time of day on a MW resort?

And please look at my thread in In The News.

there was a thread a couple of weeks back, think the op had it deleted, but talking about mw holidays, and more than one poster made it clear that children are not allowed in the restaurants after a certain time of night... in my view that constitutes the banning of children at certain times of day.

Xenia I think there's a difference between the kind of holiday where activities are provided for children if they want to go on them, and holidays where parents are not allowed to eat with their children. Had my parents gone on sunsail I would have been in my element - as I am a very keen and competent sailor and would have loved the chance to do so on holiday, but I wouldn't have liked a holiday where I wasn't allowed to eat with my family for instance.

It's not too different from Costa de Sol fish and chips though either which is hardly local colour. I will always remember the night my daughter (18+ by then) was with local Antiguans until 5am as just about the only white at a Carnival thing. You certainly don't have to stay on site at these places but I think there's an element of class stuff. I've seen my teenagers walk down the plane going out classifying other guests as cool or whatever the phraseology is.

Xenia - yes, sorry - 'mistake' is hindsight in the context of many many people's view of this. I can quite see how both the sense of security, the genuine rarity of risk and the risk assesment would make it perfectly reasonable for people do do exactly as the McCanns did.
I can completely come to see how hundreds of families make the same decision and that it is rasonable.

Actually, I have revised my opinion of the case with the poor child mauled by the dogs. People really don't imagine that thier own dog will maul their child - outsiders may say 'fancy leaving a dangerous dog with a child' but to them it is their affectionate and loved pet that would never harma fly. And mostly, they don't. The family weren't necessarily wantonly negligent - the small risk became reality, the thing that could go wrong went wrong. As it could for any of us every time we drive.

Wannabe - the information on that thread would have been incorrect I'm afraid. Chidren are not banned formt he main restaurants. In some resorts where there are 2 or 3 restaurants then one of the samller ones may be designated adult only for the evening meals - for those adults who do want to eat without children (bear in mind that there are a reasonable number of people in their 20s who view these hols as a cheap way to get an activity holiday somewhere warn).

Bobby, I didn't know that there is a clause in the fund contract that states the monies can be used for the p's legal costs. Where is it? Can one see it online?

Or could it mean their legal costs in recovering the child, not their defence if they were accused of something? Which they won't be because as I and millions of others have said, what they did is not illegal, ...THEY COULD ONLY BE ACCUSED OF NEGLIGENCE IF WHAT HAPPENED TO THE CHILD COULD HAVE BEEN FORESEEN AND AVOIDED.

Sorry, I'm not shouting, just using caps!!

HM - I think that article was in the Evening Standard if that helps.

but has anyone said for certain that no charges would be brought? It's maybe not considered illegal but what of the woman mp talked about further down the thread? she left her baby for two hours to go to a club and the baby died of sids while she was out. She couldn't have prevented that even if she'd been home, but she was still charged and sent to jail...

I don't think we can say with certainty that there would be no charges... and what of portuguese law. how does that stand?