A letter to the parents of Madeleine McCann...

[Ewe]

From Esther Rantzen.

What do you think?

Whilst I do see the point she is raising I think this type of journalism (if you can call it that?) is unnecessary, like much of the Daily Mail I suppose.

Magaly, that is only your opinion, unless you know something we don't?

There have been several incidences when an abducted child has shown up years later, who are you to say MM wont be one of them?

Well I suppose about .005% of children who disappear turn up alive, so they could 'betray her' by trying to move on a bit or they could accept regular counselling and try to accept her death so that they can be 'there' properly there, for their other children.

There's no medal for staying stuck in 2007. Life goes on and they have a responsibility to their other two children to try and accept what's happened, not to carry on launching new appeals and urging police to get behind new searches.

I can't believe that they are still talking about new campaigns. Is nobody looking after their mental health at all?

only in the DM.

i scanned it and thought esther what r u doing??

I thought this letter was awful, what was she thinking??

I'm quite sure they have accepted she's missing hence the campaigns etc.

I think you're quite off to say they are neglecting their other children because they wont give up on another.

I had to give up on the article as it made me feel physically ill. How DARE Rantzen.

Did she say 'move on' or was she saying more that it would be great if they HAD some closure so that they could? While acknowledging that they don't, and cannot.

I do think it is inappropriate however you interpret it. It's none of her business.

Bad, bad letter - how awful for the parents to get that view from somone, particularly someone who is so well regarded by the public.

No one knows she's dead. If alive highly unlikely she'll be found.

fliiight, tbh, i'm not entirely sure what ER's point is, but I just think that they are in really really bad place still. Obviously. if they could be moving gradually towards a slightly less bad place with every passing anniversary, it would be better for their whole family, inc their twins.

Fliight, i didnt actually read it as a suggestion to move on on her part
still think it was bad taste & inappropriate

oooh, bad miscalculation and I am usually quite fond of St Esther

so presumptive

really horrible

big thumbs down to the daily fail for comissioning and publishing this self serving drivel

I'd always quite liked Esther.....but I really hope Kate McCann doesn't read that.

Esther,how dare you!

Loving the bit about how kate McCann looked so frail lst time they met as if she personally knows them and that justifies her meddling concern.

I presume Esther has something to promote?

Book, political career, new post in the Diplomatic Corps?

She has made herself look crass and stupid.

Get back to what you do best, Esther; start a nationwide search for a singing dog or an amusingly-shaped potato - we always knew the rest was just an act.

Horrible letter. Talk about pouring salt in the wound. She should have kept it to herself.

The only reason I can think of that people would be hacked off with the McCanns and want them to 'move on' and get over it, etc, is if they believed that they were implicated in the child's disappearance.

Clearly that would make their media hunger obscene.
However anyone who does NOT consider them guilty would surely support the continuing fight for some kind of lead or information.

I don't know the truth - from the two opposing viewpoints it looks very different.
That's partly why I think Esther should can it. It insidiously gives weight to the argument that they could possibly be guilty...whether she means it to or not.

I read it yesterday and was in shock, couldn't believe the letter, I'm very surprised it was printed, it was mean beyond belief, even before she suggested abandoning the search.

What LittleRock said

Fliight, that hadn't even occurred to me!

I agree with the majority here - Esther Rantzen is an interfering fishwife. WTF giver her the right to presume three years is an acceptable cut off point after which you 'move on' ?

How supremely arrogant and patronising. She really ought to fuck off.

will someone please link this whole thread to twitter or the DM or something - I also really would like it to blow up in Rantzen's face in the same way as that repulsive vulture Jan Moir and her Stephen Gately character assassination. The more I think about this the more angry I get.

Don't see her point at all and all the examples she gave were for children who had been murdered well over 10 years ago, I'm sure Kate McCann feels like its only yesterday 3 years isn't very long at all

Don't see the point of that letter at all

Beyound belief.........

We could all send a complaint to the PCC
www.pcc.org.uk/complaints/form.html
That got Jan Moir into trouble and if Twitterers could link it to Twitter too we could kick up the fuss this disgusting and thoughtless "journalism" deserves.

Words really do fail me here. That is the most self-serving parasitic and vulgar piece of journalism I have read since Jan Moir's little debacle.