Missing Children

[Scared]

I don't know about anyone else, but the latest story of the two missing girls just terrifies me. I don't want to turn into one of these mothers who won't let their child out of their sight, but think that it is a distinct possibility.

I tend to look at the parents of children who go missing and wonder how they let it happen, but I know that it wasn't their fault really. It's just the unfairness of life that allows a child to wander off when the parent looks away for a second.

I watched a programme on James Bulger, and it broke my heart. I still cry when I see news articles about the killers being released. It scares me for my ds. I know I would never get over it if anything ever happened to him. I don't think that I would want to carry on living if it did.

As a child I went through a stage where I was really obsessed with strangers, because we had a 'funny' man (weird euphamism) outside our school gates offering money to girls. I wouldn't go anywhere on my own, and it reached a stage where my mum despaired about me. I still worry about being out on my own in certain situations.

Anyway, I guess that I am asking how people on this site have ensured the safety of their children, without making them scared of everyone in the town!

To go back to the death penalty debate, I beleive that it has been brought up again by an mp. I am totally against it, imagine if it was your child being electrocuted and it was later proven that they were innocent. I understand the anguish of the parents and can empathise with the 'I'd like to get my hands on them' feelings but if some one tortured and killed my cat, hanging would be too good for them, that doesn't mean it is the right thing to happen. We need an emotionless fair trial, based on facts not on press hysteria, We need to treat prisoners awaiting trial how we would want ourselves to be treated had we been wrongly arrested. Innocent until proven guilty is one of the cornerstones of our judicial rules and as a democratic society we should abide by this. My heart goes out to the families of the two girls, and I beleive that the police would not make an arrest until they were absolutley certain, but please let' s not become a lynch mob over this.

sorry, but what does IMO mean?

Aloha, your comments about D. Orr and her self obsessed tosser husband were spot on.
You expressed what I was (clumsily ) trying to say earlier - and I speak as one who hates the press.
Lilibet IMO=in my opinion
(also, IMHO = in my humble opinion)

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Sorry, I'm in a rush have to get to work.

At the end of the day, if Ian Huntley killed those girls he should not be allowed out in any shape or form, it doesn't matter whether he is locked up in Rampton or in Prison, if he did that terrible thing, then no way should he be given any opportunity because he will do it again.

The parents and the family have just started a life sentence, they will never forget the last two weeks and I don't think they could ever get over the trauma of those beautiful girls being killed. They don't get another chance and nor should the killer.

I just hope that the police have got the right people, ie that Ian Huntley and Maxine Carr were involved and that the killer is not still about.

Sorry but this case has hurt me and upset me so much, and has stirred up a lot of anger and emotion.

Why I think it is relevant who Deborah Orr is married to is because the pair of them have been whoring it around the press writing near-identical and revolting self-righteous articles about how everyone's got it wrong except them, and they are the only people in Britain who are interested in the case/writing about the case for the right reasons. Ie: you lot (reading about the case) are all ghoulish and purient, we, however (writing about it and making lots and lots of money) are pure and moral. And that they, and only they, are above being influenced by anything other than the very highest moral considerations - unlike the police who are just slaves to the lowest common denominator of public opinion, which I think is a bloody cheek. Oooh, it makes me sick! If the parents of Jessica and Holly come out and say anything negative about the coverage I might change my mind, but so far they have scrupulously thanked the press all the way along, and made one request that as far as I can see, has been scrupulously followed. Any filming done recently (ie of the church) has been done with the express permission of those filmed and the vicar etc. So they clearly don't mind either. Would you all like to live in a country with a tightly controlled state press? Yes the writing is often emotional, but this is a terribly emotional subject. I notice a lot of posters on this threat use very emotional language. It's how people feel right now. I honestly can't see the press have done anything very wrong here. I don't write news myself, so have no axe to grind (my field is totally different), but as both parents and the police have praised the cooperation and help, then I hardly think it's for us to say what they really think. I think I better bow out of this now, though as it's not good for my blood pressure!

I see high blood pressure leads to lots of typing errors - revoltingLY, threaD (not threat) etc etc.

Aloha, just a thought. I don't want to send your blood pressure rocketing, but if the parents objected to the press handling of this issue, do you think the press would report it?

You say the parents are happy with the media attention etc. Have they actually come out and said this anywhere? or are we to take their silence as a 'yes'?

I would think that the parents of these two girls have rather more to think about right now than what is going on in the press!

This is an horrendous crime and my heart goes out to those involoved but all of the speculation and pouring over of the facts does not help (whether by the public or the press). frankly I believe we get the media we deserve and if the readership didn't exist news would not be presented in the way that it is.

I think people have been touched by this simply because it could happen to anyone. Telling ones children not to trust strangers or not to go out alone is not enough. People realise that whatever they do they cannot always protect their children and this makes us feel awful.

I haven't got time to go into all of the arguments but I would like to say firstly that all child murderers DO NOT have mental health problems. People can be simply be horrible, horrible people. The suggestion that everyone who commits such crimes is ill masks the fact that some people do these awful things knowing exactly what they are doing. It may be easier to believe that people who do such things are ill but it is simply not a fact.

1 in 3 adults in this country suffer from mental health problems and to tar those individuals with this brush is unhelpful. Some - a few - people are ill when they commit crimes but this does not let them off the hook either.

Furthermore many(most) people with mental illness do not present with physical signs of it. How can anyone tell by simply looking at someone in a tv interview decide whether someone has a mental illness.

If the man charged with this crime is found guilty we have a judicial system to deal with it. Words cannot convey how difficult it is to believe how anyone can do such a thing and I certainly would not defend such a crime but please don't judge mental health in the balck and white terms that IMO it has been judged here.

I definately do not believe in the death penalty. Call me naive but I do believe that life is precious and that people can and do change (although I am also realistic enough to realise this is not always the case). Taking life has no place in any civilised society.

Feel slightly shamefaced at being so irritable on this issue - it's just that Will Self really gets me going. Grrr. The parents (who seem models of grace under pressure) said thank you both at press conferences and in their statements read out by their lawyers after they knew the bodies were those of their daughters. I know that papers like the Independent and Guardian would LOVE to report that both families were angry at press intrusion etc, so I'm pretty sure if they were in any way distressed, it would be reported, along with pages and pages of stuff by Deborah Orr and Will Self.. oops, there goes the blood pressure...

So sad and sorry about the girls. So amazed by the turns of events since. I think a lot of the desperation for details, gossip, pictures etc is because of the very human need to know WHY this awful, pointless thing happened. If he was crazy, and she was scared and cowed and beaten, then at least it would make a kind of sense - though not much. I think we long for explanations. I know I do.

Aloha, I read Will Self's article in the Evening Standard last Friday and totally agree with you. The implication that the public was getting a 'thrill' of some kind at reading about these girls was disgusting.

I only live a few miles from where this atrocity happened and have been absolutely shocked and stunned that two beautiful, innocent children could be destroyed by a "mad" man. My heart goes out to all the families and friends of Jessica and Holly.

Whether he is mad, or playing a blinder of an act for the psycharists - he has ripped out the heart of 2 families and devastated a close knit community, who will know doubt bind together to support all the families and friends in this time of unspeakable grief.

I, for one, think the police have done a marvellous job under extremely difficult circumstances. I also think that, on the whole, the media reporting has been very sensitive (although I have only seen TV not read any of the tabloids, etc...) I, for one, am finding it very hard to understand why! and yes, I do want to know what drove this man to commit such a awful crime - maybe it will help me in some small way come to terms with the horror of it all.

On a final note, my calenders "thought for every day" was rather profound, which I shall share with you all:
"So long as little children are allowed to suffer, there is no true love in this world"
Isadora Duncan 1878 - 1927

The reader on my local news said that the girls had been taken from their house! That is, I'm 99% sure, not true. We will probably never know why they left their house without a word but I'm 99% sure they left their house of their own accord and were not taken from their house. In a case so horrendous as this, it's even more important that the truth - the relevant facts this is - is given not stuff like this.

One way or another the facts will come out. There is still another couple saying that they saw the 2 girls looking OK outside a restaurant and they were seen on CCTV going to a garage (why, exactly, nobody is sure but they weren't hurt then) or something some time after they went past Mr Huntley's house.

In the meantime who are these scum who stand outside court rooms? It's an excuse for a bit of thuggery!

www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_654533.html

This is interesting. I don't know if it's a talk board or a kind of letters page thing.

talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?50@@.2cbe6fa3/0

I'm sure they weren't taken from their house - they went to the garage to buy sweets I think, and the CCTV picked them up at various points. I agree about the news reporting - it should just report facts.

Blimey! I don't understand what Deborah Orr is on about (but I agree her husband is a self-obsessed tosser and I cringe to think about the sort of conversations they have in the evening between lines of coke and bottles of expensive burgundy). I am not a media junkie, I don't even get the Sundays as I find them dull and irrelevant, but I haven't found the news coverage (Guardian, BBC/Sky) to be ghoulish in any way. I think we all drew our own conclusions when it became clear that the girls couldn't be immediately visually identified, the police told us that in the first place, so it was clear that the bodies had decomposed. That wasn't 'ghastly speculation', it was obvious to anyone.

At the risk of being pilloried, I will admit that I have been hungry for details of the case, I want to know why, how, when and where.

Winnie, I agree with what you are saying about not tarring mentally ill people with the same brush, but there is no point in discounting the fact that Ian Huntley could, in fact, be mentally ill.

Aloha & Jasper, someone else who finds the his'n'hers journalism of Deborah and Will deeply annoying.
I don't think I can put into words what I feel about the Soham murders, I have found it too distressing to read much about it. But like others here, I do feel a need to know how this terrible crime could have taken place.
I also feel, again like others, that having a death penalty in place is anti-democratic and drags society down to the same level of the criminals it is dealing with.

Blimey - all I did was post a link. Just thought the article raised a few valid points, and some not so valid ones - but didn't want to cause a row. Also, call me stupid, but I had no idea that Debs and Will were an item or where furthering their joint career by writing on this topic. My excuse is that I lost my marbles with the placenta. Just thought that, considering the many thoughts aired on this thread re press coverage that some might like to read it.

Jbr - on the contrary, I think that you manage to get the tone of your voice across very well, especially when you are misunderstanding my postings.

I did not say that going to Rampton was getting away with it, and in fact, posted the comment before knowing that he had gone there.What I meant was, that a lot of people use the 'mental illness' card when arrested for a particularly nasty crime, and think that this will get them either a lighter sentence, or time in an institution where they won't get grief every day from the other inmates. That is what I meant by 'getting away with it'.

He managed to string a sentence together when being interviewed by the press, so why couldn't he when being questioned? I don't claim to be a psychologist by any means, I was just trying to say that I thought it a bit strange.

My postings are solely my opinions, and not intended to aggravate anyone. Perhaps I should stop posting on this thread (despite actually starting it under an assumed name, because the whole situation scared the s**t out of me). I'm actually a nice person Jbr, and find your many assaults on my postings quite demeaning. At least I can console myself with the fact that I am not the only one to be a recipient of your anger.

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Chinchilla, don't not post. Your opinions are obviously as valid as anyone elses!!! That is IMHO one of the great things about Mumsnet: difference of opinion and different approaches to life.

Enid, I do agree with you that the mental state of this man is extremely relevant. I simply despair at sweeping statements about 'the mentally ill' as IME it remains one of the last taboos in this country (but I'll try not to get into that here).

Why not the press? If not, who? I don't pretend our newspapers are perfect, very far from it, but they are probably the best and most varied in the world IMO. And they - along with tv and radio (also both excellent) - are the way we know what's going on in the world. I'm intrigued by the idea that papers should only report 'facts'. Which facts? Who decides which facts? I think the thing is, there are no such things as pure facts. His brother did marry his wife. It's a fact. Maxine Carr's mother did say she thought her daughter was innocent and covering up for Huntley, so it's factually correct to say she did. The bodies were unidentifiable (for whatever reason). People are terribly upset about the case all over the world. All these things are facts. Also, I'm not sure if people realise how many 'facts' newspapers don't print because they would be so distressing. The reports of the West murders were heavily internally censored because the facts were terrible beyond most human understanding. Several of the reporters at the court had to have counselling afterwards - as did the jurors. I suspect some of the facts in this case are also being suppressed. BTW I'm not such an idealist that I mind people furthering their career, I just object to be called ghoulish for reading about this case by an ex-junkie hack who is making a packet out of writing about how awful everyone else is for writing about it.

in the interest of truth and fairness Deborah Orr is a mother of a 4 year old and a baby (and two stepdaughters) and Will Self is an EX junkie and Ex alcoholic so the image of lines of coke and burgundy is propably way off the mark.
They live in Stockwell and sent their son to the local state school so I think they are reasonably grounded for London journalists. Although I dont agree with them all the time thair work is always impecably researched and factual IMHO.

I must admit I used to hate Deborah Orr, felt she was self-righteous etc. However, in the last year or so, I have with great reluctance, found that I agree with most of the stuff she writes. Think her and Will Self (who I do kind of like as well) would be such fearsome company though. Imagine how inarticulate you would feel with WS.

HOWEVER, the major downside of D.O. is that her best mate is ........INDIA KNIGHT!!!!!!