Am sorry to say this but.....Maddie's full DNA has been found in the hire car.

[Jezebeltheharlot]

tis on SKY news now.......

Pan - are you being mean to me?

This is a case about finding Madeleine, not them leaving thier children alone, have they not had enough to deal with already?

in a way i agree with the SHEEP who are registering their distaste in such a mindless copycat way. did one of the popular girls tell you to do it???

it is distasteful but if we never discussed anything distasteful of mumsnet there wouldn't be an awful lot left to discuss.

yes, it's horrible as there's an innocent little girl at the centre of all this. but you can't stop people from wanting to know what happened to her. and unfortunately speculation is a part of that.

stillsleeping...oh thats very mature

merely expressing an opinion fred.

one of my own, i might add.

JV ..the very thought shakes me!!!!!

I was using your pithyness to highlight how my "adolescent" alter ego was having to compete with so many other adolescent nasties on this thread.

Mean to you? I have to lie down.

stillsleeping..and one you are very welcome to...baaaaa baaaa

Awww....and all is right with the world!

(not counting this horror of horrors, obviously).

One thing confuses me. If DNA evidence is as unreliable as has been mentioned, then why do police rely on it during investigations? I was under the impression that DNA was seen as somewhat of a breakthrough in crime investigation, not something that can confuse things even more?

It depends what it is being used for, its reliable to determine who it cam efrom, but in this case its not 100% proof a body was present, just her DNA, IYKWIM.

Well that would make sense but we don?t really know what other evidence there is do we? We only know what the ?sources? are telling the media (wonder how much they?re being paid?).

I find it bizarre that anyone could suggest a body would have been kept for 5 weeks and then removed, but I suppose time will tell what really happened. I would imagine there must be more substantial evidence than just what has been reported if they?re taking the case to the prosecution.

Also wonder if Robert Murat?s file is being seen as well today and if so whether he will be cleared of any involvement?

This thread is a mess. It reads just like everyone is shouting.
I don't understand this registering this distaste thing which to myself and infrequent visitors to the site seems childish and pointless.

Mogwai, if you read my post at about 21.09 last night you will see that I very much share your thoughts on this case. I understand your need to discuss this because the sheer awfulness haunts me to distraction.

Unfortunately I'm finding that my assumption that this forum would be dealing with case sensitively has been a mistake.
Which is a shame.

At the risk of waking her up last night I couldn't help myself from squeezing my little girl before I went to bed.
"Mummy you can stop cuddling me now" she mummbled, through the two fingers she keeps stuck in her mouth "You're squashin' me".

Mogwai makes an excellent point. I live in Germany - among French people - and both communities are discussing this case, particularly in light of their recent developments. They obviously feel slightly more distanced from the case as they are not English and I can tell you their attitude is not to give the benefit of the doubt. Most people are saying "Well if they left their children alone they are to blame - whatever the scenario". I logged on to MN in the hope of getting a more measured response and reasoned discussion - some hope!!

DNA evidence isn't necessarily unreliable- but in this case the DNA was degraded, and also there was such a possibility of cross contamination (eg the car was used to transport items that maddie would have had contact with) so it would be impossible to give the same rating as if, for example, her DNA was found on a person who claimed never to have had any contact with a member of the family or their posessions.

And DNA testing has been known to be less than accurate in the past due to tester fallabvility (s in all procedures) so there would rpesumable need to be other evidence.

None of us can possible know who was responsible for this (unless one of us was responsible which is rpetty unikely). And unless we're on the Portugese Police Force ata high level, we cannot know what all the evidence is either.

RE: The social services question, apaprently they are meeting with british police to discuss (according to news- so maybe untrue). However, when I worked alongside SS they wouldnt necessarily ahve removed a childf or this fiorm of neglect, thouhgh they would have monitored closely afterwards.

I think Social Services should take away the mass of media camped outside their house, not the twins fgs.

Outrageous and downright rude. If I was them I'd get the police to throw them out.They need time alone to try and resuce something from all of this.

LillianGish , I've lived among expats of all nationalities and a German mum in particualr would regualrly leave her ds ,then aged about 18 moinths, home alone asleep while she did her school run , of at least 25 minutes. She saw little wrong with this when challenged by Brits/Australians etc and said it was commonplace in Germany. Similarly I've known Swiss leave their lo's napping to go to the shops. Simply proves it is impossible to generalise.

I feel the need to register my complete horror regarding the front page of the Daily Express this morning, which was bascially taking the bit about the DNA in the car and saying it is very likely to be sufficient to bring about charges against Kate McCann.

Not that I read the sodding thing but the lady in front of me in the queue in Sainsburys had it on the belt in front of my shopping and was tutting in horror at it - I was shopping for my DS's 4th birthday party which made the timing even worse.

Reading the BBC report I am furious beyond belief that papers can print stuff like this without checking their facts first, it is a complete outrage. And that goes for SKY news too .

The problem with people saying that the SS should remove the children for having left them is that it would result in the SS being even more overloaded than they already are.

Many many hundreds of the Mark Warner customer base in all MW (and similar companies' resorts) will have done exactly the same thing.

Some will have stayed with their children.
Some will have arranged babysitting.
MANY will have used the MW listening service (ie someone passing the door every 1/2 hour and listening - not even looking in)
Some will have done what the McCann group did - ie an adult periodically checking
No doubt there will have been a few who will have not bothered at all and stayed in the restaurant all evening without checking.

So what should the SS do - take into care the many hundreds/thousands of children who over the summer were left???? Mad.

Damn. I wasn't going to post on these threads.

Lizs, I agree with you entirely. The point I was trying to make is that I log on to MN to talk to English mums as I sometimes feel like a fish out of water among all those foreigners! I have followed the Mccann case and the parents campaign and was frankly horrified by the turn of events on Friday and having to come to terms with the fact that her parents might be to blame - it hadn't occurred to me that they might be, but obviously police feel that is a reasonable line of inquiry. Wondered what mums in England were saying and was slightly surprised to find that it's not up for discussion.

hmmm hold on though maybe social services have a duty to ensure the welfare of the children in the current situation. I mean, it is bound to have taken its toll on the whole family - being away from home, the stress on the parents, the ongoing media attention, the inevitable lack of stability in the environment.
all of these matters are surely worthy of attention ithout necessarily implying a criticism of the McCann's, just a realistic assessment of their current position.
I saw a headline the other day, something like "the twins play carefreely, oblivious to the trauma of their parents" and I thought at he time what total bullshit, of course they aren't oblivious.
I am not posting on this thread by the way.

registering my distaste as well

"MANY will have used the MW listening service (ie someone passing the door every 1/2 hour and listening - not even looking in)"
Can I point out - again - that this service was not on offer at this MW resort. There is a drop-in evening creche located at the opposite end of the complex, which may be awkward to transport 3 sleepy youngsters back from. The practice of leaving children in bed to eat is one repeated in hotels and complexes across Europe with various methods of "listening". Some parents would use it, others might prefer not to. Even if it is against local law to do so , how many tourists are fully conversant with local legislation other than perhaps motorign requiremnts if self driving. Did MW make their customers aware ?

I don't think there is any need for the stars thing. I would never assume that people not present on a thread were complicit to whatever went on on that thread.

We are all, I imagine, mums. We all have a right to be here unless we are attacking each other personally.

Nobody reading the Guardian is likely to be thick enough to imagine one or two posters are representative of everyone on here.

If they do it is their problem.