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.

Sue, people are notoriously bad at spotting when someone else is lying. Even people who think they are good are actually rubbish - no-one is better than 50:50 i.e. chance. There have been lots of studies on this. So to imply Gerry McCann was lying at that point is rather unfair.

Desi, I really don't understand 'there's no need for it'. I didn't say anything rude - it was a perfectly reasonable post. You were the one making cruel accusations against the victims of miscarriages of justice - people who have suffered greatly. I merely pointed out how unfair you were being, and inaccurate in assuming no-one knows anything about those cases.

I don't, LaBoheme. I do criticise them for their actions, however, because they were foolish when they were cleverer enough to know better and someone else paid the ultimate price for that. Also, they lied about how far away they were from that apartment. Well, then, how's anyone supposed to believe them when it cames to how often they say they checked their children?

Yes, the rearview mirror is 20/20, but ffs, you're supposed to check it whilst you're driving every now and again - otherwise, you fail the test.

I totally see your first point expat and I agree with you. But do you not think this recent backlash against/ accusing them is completely off the mark? Seeing them so wearily give an interview on GMTV defending themselves "we have to ask you ..did you have anything to do with her disappearance?" just made me feel a bit ill - dunno why they did it to be honest.

Also - do we know for sure that they lied about the distance of the restaurant to the villa?

Well, Kate McCann gave an interview in The Times last week in which she says the restaurant was 20 yards away (funny how the distance keeps changing, getting closer usually) and they could see the door of their apartment.

But when she originally disappeared, maps of the resort clearly show the restaurant wasn't that close, there was a pool between their apartment and the restaurant, and it certainly wasn't 20 yards away.

Unfortunately, yes, the folks are always suspects. Look at the JonBenet Ramsay case -Patsy Ramsay finally died last year, still with the septre of suspicion over them both, although there is now strong evidence to demonstrate how cocked up the investigation was from the get-go.

Why assume a lie? It was about 70 yards from the apartment - a 'one minute' walk, according to the Evening Standard journalist who was there. I wouldn't know 2o yards from 70 yards. Hell, I once ordered a box to put a lamp in, that when it arrived was big enough for me to sit in it. It's the assumption that there is invariably something sinister in everything they do that I find so appalling and distressing. My god, why does losing a child make people hate them so? It does remind me of the Lindy Chamberlain dingo baby case.
And no, I wouldn't have left my kids the way they left theirs. I admit I am astonished, even shocked by it. But I don't hold my child's hand all the way up the escalator, I would leave a baby strapped into a high chair in a restaurant while I took an older child to the toilet urgently, I leave my kids in the car while I pay for petrol and I would (& have) leave a child asleep in a locked hotel room and used a baby monitor while having a meal downstairs. There are plenty of people on this site who have shrieked that these things are 'child abuse' and 'neglect'.

I feel desperately sorry for the McCanns I really do but like others have said I myself would not leave my children alone for fear of them choking in their sleep which did in fact happen to Orangehead's child. My children are 7 and 5 and now I would not leave them alone in an apartment, I just wouldn't. I think they were incredibly foolish. But sadly, it is something they are going to have to live with for the rest of their lives should anything have happened to poor little Maddie

Media blackout my arse! It's called common decency.

In July I went to Majorca with my two children of two and five, my 15 year old stepdaughter and her best friend. We stayed in a lovely big villa in the middle of the countryside. We all ate dinner together (with wine) in restaurants or on the terrace of our villa, then all swam in the floodlit pool under the stars. Then we bundled up the little ones and popped them into bed and sometimes opened a bottle of cava or had gin and tonics. One of the children was in downstairs bedroom, opposite the teenagers, one was upstairs. I doubt we would hear either when on the terrace. I can just see the headlines now, 'parents booze while child chokes to death'. In fact. loads of people would think us evil that we had a small child sleep on the ground floor while we were on the first floor. You can make anything sound shocking if you put it in the right way. what else? 'Mother has sex as child dies'? 'Mother drinks champagne as child dies'? 'Parents take midnight dip as child dies'? Sound disgusting, doesn't it?

they were not adjacent to the same building as in your terrace example aloha.

they were nowhere near. there was also a pool between them and their children so if say if one had perhaps awoken and wanted mummy quite naturally and wandered towards the noise coming from the tapas bar what else could (probably wouldnt have but COULD) have occurred?

Actually Aloha that sounds perfectly reasonable not at all "disgusting"

Well, as I said very explicitly in my previous post that I wouldn't have left them - and even when so far to say I was suprrised and shocked by it - but I also pointed out that I do things that other people regard as neglectful or stupid and should anything appalling happen to my kids, I imagine they'd be gleefully revelling in it and enjoying blaming me, even in my grief.

I dont read papers anymore, I find them tiresome(apart from my local rag)..Ive ignored the reports concerning the latest findings, speculation etc..because it is just that..speculation..the only true facts we have are that, they went to dinner, left the children unattended..and maddy has vanished..I do think they were foolish to leave such young children alone in an apartment..especially given the fact that they were intelligent people who should have known better..however its a decision that they are going to have to live with for the rest of their lives

I think the McCanns made a HUGE misjudgement. But I also know that people on holiday really misjudge risk. Young women in the holiday spirit go walking alone on beaches at midnight and get raped and murdered, for example. People get their bags and purses and cameras stolen at a fantastic rate. Making a stupid misjudgment doesn't automatically make people evil murderers. Kate McCann looks a wreck.

No, it's not disgusting. But it wasn't an accident, either.

It was a mistake. A really, really bad one, too. A mistake that people who were that educated honestly should've known better than to make.

The lot of them. Because it wasn't just the McCanns.

If she were in fact abducted, well, it wouldn't have been hard for a criminal to deduce when the most opportune time was to snatch a child, given that it seems plenty of them were ditched every night for a week whilst their parents went out.

But it's probably a moot point, because it doesn't look likely the girl will be found and it's increasingly unlikely with every day that passes that she is alive.

I don't think they had anything to do with her disappearance, FWIW.

I dont think sitting outside your villa with your children inside could be called neglectful.

Everyone I'm sure wants the best possible resolution to this. Nobody wants something horrific to have happened to this family.

I would stick my neck out and say the majority on MN think what they did was not in the best interests of their children and very few who think that what they did was absolutely fine.

I think what prompts a lot of posts is not the desire to revel in it, just utter disbelief that this situation - whatever it is - was facilitated (unwittingly of course) in this way by the parental care given on that evening.

I think those implying that the McCanns had anything to do with this should really think through what that would mean.

Where are they suggesting Madeleine is now?

What happened to her?

to quote Aloha "Making a stupid misjudgment doesn't automatically make people evil murderers. Kate McCann looks a wreck."

my point exactly

Actually, she doesn't look a wreck. She obviously has inner resources (or her faith maybe???)that enable her to remain extremely calm and articulate and perfectly groomed. Poor Maddy is either dead or in an AWFUL!!!!!! situation.Why are people (especially mumsnetters!!) so concerned about the parents, rahter than mentioning poor, poor Madeleine? Even Kate, in her last interview, said,'please think of us (ie me and Gerry)and keep supporting us (ie contribute to our FUND ), OUR(sic)lives are not complete without Madeleine' What about MADELEINE fgs??????

agree. noticed the other day she had had her hair coloured. I know life has to go on to a degree but I doubt I would be washing or brushing my hair, never mind be bothered enough to get it coloured.
I have felt all along that if she doesn't come home it will be terrible for the parents but what about the poor child? I still have hope she is alive.

Until something like this happens, you have no WAY to know how you'd react.

I think that most people are considering Madeleine, actually. I haven't seen any posts that say "sod Madeleine, what about her poor parents"

She looks utterly drained, sad and haunted.

Look, until you go through something you don't know how you will react in that particular case or how often you will end up brushing your hair.
She is clearly doing her best to keep it together for the twins. Maybe someone is telling her she has to look groomed to be taken seriously by the police or to talk to the media. Maybe someone else is making the appointments for her and she is just going along in a daze. We just don't know.

But I should imagine the McCanns are thinking about their missing daughter all the time. To criticise them for using the first person too many times in one of their statements is a bit unimaginative to say the least.

They'll have people around them encouraging them to wash, eat, dress, all sorts of things.

They also have two other small children.

They can't lie and weep in a darkened room or they'll feel guilty forevermore that they didn't do more to try to get her back.

I can totally understand reacting the way they have.