i found this about madeleine

[loopylou6]

Intercepted telephone calls and emails between the McCanns and their friends have "confirmed the death of Madeleine" say police, according to one Portuguese newspaper today. The intercepts are said to have been made in a joint operation conducted by Portuguese and British police officers.
Diario de Noticias reports investigators have already concluded that the missing four-year-old was killed in the apartment where she slept in Praia da Luz.

It says that Maddy's parents, Kate and Gerry McCann (right), and their friends who were holidaying at the Ocean Club, will be brought in for further questioning. Police are awaiting new tests from the McCanns' Renault Scenic.

According to another paper, Jornal de Noticias, police want to examine inconsistencies in the statements of Kate and Gerry McCann, who were interviewed separately late into the night early on in the investigation. In particular, they want to focus on a three-hour period in which only the McCanns saw Madeleine.

Respected news agency Lusa quotes one police source saying that they think "there's light at the end of the tunnel" and that the authorities have "an idea of what could have happened" to the four-year-old.

Police have known "for a month" that Madeleine had died in the apartment, it is widely reported. The tabloid newspaper 24 Horas says that the police are looking for Madeleine's body in the sea, helped by English sniffer dogs. They have intensified searches around the nearby town of Lagos and along the Algarvian coast, it says.

Blood found in the apartment two days ago has arrived in Britain for DNA analysis: a result can be expected inside 48 hours.

their choice of PR was wrong i guess.
it made them look unpopular a bit.

LittleBellatrix's excellent post of 20.29 yesterday reminded me of another case where the parents did, in fact, get villified - in the Louise Woodward baby murder case, there was a section of the American press and even some demonstrators with placards who felt that the parents were at fault for leaving their children with a young, untrained and therefore cheap nanny. There was one particularly nasty banner which said something like, IIRC, 'one more Mercedes [or whatever car it was], one less child'.

I think the 'it couldn't have happened to me' brigade are missing the point - maybe exactly that thing could not have happened to you, but something pretty similar could have - if the parents hadn't left their children alone a determined abductor (and we don't know if it was planned or opportunitic) could simply have waited a few hours and gone in when the parents were asleep.

but I'm going over well-trodden ground again here.....

That isn't the point, though, Katy, stranger abductions from a child's bedroom whilst others in the house are extremely rare.

Because most of the time, as with burglaries, a criminal will try to determine a pattern of when the opportunity is best for him/her to strike - when you're not home.

But child abductions of any sort are rare. And you may be right about burglaries in the US where people have guns but I know many, many people in this country (my parents and my brother included) who have been burgled while they were in the house.

BTW Expat it's Kathy, not Katy.

It is far, far more likely that a criminal will strike when you are NOT there to catch them, though. Most criminals are opportunists.

And who's to say she was abducted? No one really knows what the hell happened for sure, because the parents weren't around, were a ways away having a meal.

So no, whatever happened to Madeline couldn't have happened to me, because I'd never have left three small children alone in a ground floor apartment in a foreign country next to a pavement and a road every night for a week straight so I could go have dinner with a group of adults.

Other cases are just that, other cases - kids of different ages, in different place, in different scenarios.

Have to say I totally and completely agree Expat. I know it wouldn't have happened to me because of the same reasons. Its not just "easy to say" its the truth, I would not leave my children alone now and they are 7 and 5.

My kids weren't reliable sleepers when they were little, so it was never an option to leave them alone in the room. I always put them into the even kids' clubs if we were in a hotel. For later at night, when they were guaranteed to be asleep, we would use a baby monitor and the hotel's listening service. If we were self-catering, we would do our family lunch out, and then eat supper in.

I haven't wanted to criticise the McCanns, but I just found out on reading some articles today that they actually left their apartment door open. I'm gobsmacked at that. I thought that all these places were open from the inside, whether locked from the outside or not.

We took ours out to dinner with us, yes they moaned and played up if they were tired but that was the only option for us. Never thought of anything else.

Well said expat.

According to news reports they left the patio doors ajar but if you read Kate McCanns latest interview she says that she never thought a predator would "break in" and snatch her child.

I read in the Sunday Express yesterday that apparently the Mcanns had left the children for the previous 4 nights before Madeline was taken and followed the same checking routine. This probably made it easy for someone watching to know they had time to take her. I was shocked as I was under the impression that it had neen a one off.

This is why these kind of MW resorts are not family friendly places, no matter what they claim to be. Children are not encouraged to eat out late with their parents. Parents are encouraged to eat alone later, albeit using the resort's baby listening or creche. Why can't they just encourage families eating all together in their restaurants, and maybe just have one adult only restaurant if the really must.

Hulababy you are right about the restaurants. We are no better in this country sometimes. I was trying to book a hotel in Penzance and was shocked to read on one hotel's website, "Well behaved children over the age of 3 are welcomed"

How Rude!

We always go with Thompsons as it is geared to families eating together, although you can take your children for their meal early and put them in an evening club while you have a quiet meal.

I personally go on holiday to spend time with my children - although I know that this is only my view and that its not everyones idea of a holiday to spend all of their time with their children (which I respect).

Can anyone clarify this point for me.

There is a report which states that one of the McCanns friends saw a man running away with a child in a blanket who they thought was Madeline - if so why did they not raise the alarm as I understand that they only knew she was missing when Kate went to check on her and discovered she was gone?

Sorry to sidetrack.

I guess she didn't put two and two together until later. She didn't know it was M, at the time , or even that she was missing. However I'm curiosu as to why she was wandering about at the time when they were all having the meal. Maybe she went to the loo or bar btu not check on the kids too ?

oh and bearing in mind that the evenign MW baby sitting service was a creche located in another part of the resort, it would probably be normal to find your child tired and sleepy when collecting them and then have to carry them back to your own room - one reason why , with 3 to move around, the McCanns may have decided not done so.

According to reports, that same witness's partner was the only other main witness who is supposed to have said he saw Robert Murat peeping through the McCanns apartment window.

Again if he had really seen that why would he not have challenged him for a start and then alerted the McCanns.

Also why would he not have immediately given the description to the police if it was Mr Murat he saw.

If those reports are correct the police don't seem to be placing much weight to that testimony.

Any statement from a witness or suspect is sub judice in Portugal, so the police won't comment.

Not to take anything away from the tragedy but this whole event has, nevertheless, been hard on the Luz community. It depends on tourism and their visitors are down 50% on previous years. I think we can also feel compassion for these Portuguese people who just want to make a living for their own families and must feel that this endless vigil can only harm their future.
I don't blame anyone in the case, but i do feel bad for the local people too.
I think this Portuguese perspective partly explains some of the negative reporting.

I dont think that those posters who criticise the parents are 'nasty'. Quite the opposite they are sensitive to childrens rights and safety.
I have done Child Protection course when i was a nanny and
IT IS WRONG to leave 3 children under five alone in a hotel room while you are dining outside the hotel. IT IS ALSO VERY DANGEROUS to leave toddlers and babies alone in the same room (while you are miles away) for the obvious reasons. A lot could happen, apart from abduction.
I do empathise with them and i understand they are in pain. But WE HAVE to speak the truth and the truth is that they ve been very irresponsible that night.
I ve heard young au-pairs saying that 'oh,so it is ok to leave the baby in the cot and pop out'. Thats why we cannot shut up and we own to all children to protest for their safety.

You keep talking about 'empathy for the grieving parents'. Yes, but i also have empathy for poor Madeleine and the twins.
And i seriously believe that if they have been young parents or on low income or non-British the reaction would be very different.

You are so right and it is something that should be talked about, if it makes just one parent think twice who would have thought before that it was ok to leave any small child then that in itself is a good thing.

I think that if people didn't express how wrong it is then some niave parent out there might think well it must be ok because people are saying it was ok.

That is what as a parent I found quite galling the attitude that well it's something any parent would do when quite clearly from these debates it is not.

I just feel deperately sorry for the children no child deserves this.

The thing is mandalena, is that an awful lot of people appear to believe that you can't have empathy with Maddie and with her parents at the same time. The two are not mutually exclusive.

It seems to me that many people who claim they don't have empathy with the parents, are using the fact that the McCann's made the mother of all fuck-ups, as an excuse for not feeling empathy with them.

One bunch of people doing wrong, doesn't give another bunch of people the moral right to do wrong to them. It's not a particularly complicated moral concept.