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Original poster

Madeleine McCann

1606 replies

morningpaper · 11/09/2007 20:49

Instead of starting lots of new posts about Madeleine, could I politely request that anyone who wants to post on the subject please post on this one thread? (N.B. Duplicate threads may be flamed hysterically.)

Please note that this thread is not to criticise Madeleine's parents or family, as this is not in the spirit of Mumsnet.

Please can I take the liberty to quote from this article:

"This is the real life of Kate and Gerry McCann, and it must now have become a place of agony beyond all understanding. Pity them, if you have any compassion at all, and demonstrate the minimum of grace: the ability to desist from judgment."

OP posts:
haychee · 12/09/2007 21:46

Are you being forced at gunpoint to read or open this thread though? Why not start your own thread about the news you want to discuss?

andlipsticktoo · 12/09/2007 21:46

Prettybird my sons too are excellent sleepers, and I agree that a certain amount of independence should be encouraged. My oldest walks to the shops and to school (he is 10), and all 3 are encouraged to play on the field behind our house while I check every so often that I can still hear/see them. However I could never leave my children sleeping alone in the house, without regular (every 15 mins) check ups, after my colleagues children (aged 3 and 5) were burned to death in their beds having been left alone while their father 'popped' to the local shops. They too were excellent sleepers.
I think it is pure laziness not to ensure some sort of supervision for your sleeping children, whether that be a monitor, regular checks or a babysitter.

Blu · 12/09/2007 21:47

Haychee - I can come on to this thread and try and peg things down to facts rather than the speculation that can sometimnes lead to unjust treatment, can't I? I can say 'but that's hearsay not fact' can't I? When it is true?

haychee - I have never tried to shout you or anyone down over this matter. I am simply telling you why I don't like speculation.

I have chosen not to respond to this discussion for a long period, in fact I have boycotted it. But now i am simpley goiving my view in reponse to yours. But now you are telling me to stay off the thread for having a different oipinion?

WideWebWitch · 12/09/2007 21:48

Haychee the gun picture was a reference to shooting oneself in the head due to having made a private vow not to get embroiled and having failed. So it was what we call "a joke"

BeetrootBevan · 12/09/2007 21:48

nht forced to - popped in to see how it was going and was dumb struck at the behaviour of you lot.

and I am allowed to express my disgust if I so wish.

As you are allowed to speculate about this poor family, whom you have never met

I saw gtwo headlines today
thje Sun and The Telegraph

BOTH WERE TOTALLY OPPOSITE TO EACH OTHER

WideWebWitch · 12/09/2007 21:49

wannabe, I think it should be discussed on another thread and I think it's fine to discuss it. Although it has been discsused here a lot before.

BeetrootBevan · 12/09/2007 21:49

are we allowed to joke on here WWW?

donnie · 12/09/2007 21:50

yes well anyone who gives the slightest credence to the red tops is a bubble head.

haychee · 12/09/2007 21:51

Blu
My post about need and why the need and motives was for WWW

To you i was talking about how the media are actually very nosey detectives

Sorry for the confusion. You can of course have any opinion you like.

lucyellensmum · 12/09/2007 21:52

Fabby come back, please honest, i wont be slapping around the head, not even with a sardine. I guess if you haven't been around then you wont have seen the fact that this has been dissected to the Nth degree. I honestly wasn't aiming my fark off comments just at you. But if you have flounced, i think i may come with you as this thread has degenerated.

But we are a nice bunch really, this topic just brings out the worst in us, its so emotive and upsetting.

DarrellRivers · 12/09/2007 21:52

This becomes a cat fight when one poster returns
I'm off

WideWebWitch · 12/09/2007 21:52

Haychee, you haven't given me any reason for your 'need' to discuss this though. Only 'you don;t know why'

quint · 12/09/2007 21:54

thank god reinforcements!

And we are still here because we refuse to be bullied off of this thread by people who appear to enjoy gossip and speculation

I seem to remember a case fairly recently where the parents were vilified in the press and jailed for the murder of their adopted son (something to do with salt), but they were also found innocent on appeal. Also Sally Clark and a couple of other mums. I am terrified that one day something will happen to my beautiful DD's, but what also upsets me is that I might be accused of wrongdoing, which must make everything so much more painful.

To quote once again

"none of us knows. Until we do, basic justice demands that we presume the McCanns are wholly innocent. Common decency demands the same. For if they are eventually found guilty, there will be plenty of time for condemnation. But if they are innocent, to presume otherwise is to commit a second crime against people who have already suffered enough."

oliveoil · 12/09/2007 21:54

imo haychee you are loop de farkin loop with added cheese

WideWebWitch · 12/09/2007 21:55

Darrelrivers, I hope you don't mean me? I don't think I've been out of order. but it does make me cross and I prob should bugger off and go and post elsewhere.

Pedanticandproud · 12/09/2007 21:55

But the McCanns courted publicity. They wanted people discussing the case. I daresay the bit about leaving children home alone might make for uncomfortable reading for them but they have always said they did nothing wrong.

Nothing else has been said on this thread that suggests that the McCanns killed their daughter. Nothing. In this regard the thread has been kinder to them than virtually every newspaper in the land.

My feeling is that the McCanns did contribute to the backlash they are experiencing now. If they'd just once said "We did something careless and we are being bitterly punished for it now" then that would have been an acknowledgement.

Instead they said they had done nothing wrong. Since the rest of the parenting world by and large thought they had been mildly/ridiculously irresponsible, that antagonised s large number of parents who would normally have been 100% behind them and grieving with them.

FWIW I do not believe the McCanns had anything to do with killing their daughter. I am sorry that they are suspects.

Rhubarb · 12/09/2007 21:55

Latest news here.

haychee · 12/09/2007 21:55

WWW
I said i couldnt explain the need. I suggested a few possibles or maybe its a combination of all of them. I just do.

Why do you feel the need to be on this thread, is my question to you? You obviously dont agree with discussing it, so why, when you now have options to avoid it, are you still here?

quint · 12/09/2007 21:56

haychee grow up

DarrellRivers · 12/09/2007 21:56

oh not you www
more the loop da looper

WideWebWitch · 12/09/2007 21:57

Oh come on haychee, I'm as entitled as you are to be here, talking about how I feel some of the discussion is inappropriate. Of course I am.

dunga · 12/09/2007 21:58

I actually can't believe that the parents have not been questioned about them neglecting their children by going off for dinner each night. They should be charged with neglect and i bet you if they were a working class couple they would have been by now. i am sick to death of people saying that it's fine to leave your children whilst you selfishly go out for dinner. Can't belive it!!! How selfish. What sort of people do that and doesn't that tell us something about what type of people they are? Also, i can't believe the sympathy that they have received from the media and public for neglecting their children. even if they didn't cause her death etc, they are responsible as they left her unsuoervised at 3 years old!!!! I know it's about keeping an open mind and i try to, but we must remember that over 90% of murders are caused by people known to us. As for Kate, i actually think she's presented as cold and veyr much in control of her emotions. And why have they stayed so long in portugal? Sorry, very cynicle as people are capable of anything - sad but true.

Blu · 12/09/2007 21:58

Haychee - aha. Thanks for that clarification.

haychee, can I ask? Are you concerned that your Mum and DH can jump to a huge conclusion like 'guilty'' on such little hard fact? How and why do you think they have done that (I don't mean what there own reasons for their judgement is, i mean how were they able to make a judgement at all)....and do you think that lots of speculation is behind it? It;s not just your Mum and DH - plenty of people on these threads have managed to sail past loads of posts explaining why the DNA is inconclusive, and that the police have played it down etc etc...an admitted that they don't read the papers just pick up bits and bobs of other peole's talk - and yet come to a conclusion that could add a whole new layer of devastation to someone's life.

Not to mention...is it good for us to be able to make unfounded judgements about other people? It soesn't seem moral to me.

WideWebWitch · 12/09/2007 21:58
oliveoil · 12/09/2007 21:59

whoa there dunga, haychee has got competition on the freakometer

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