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!

Hm.

"Police are searching the house of a young couple, reported to be one of the last places two missing 10-year-olds were seen.

The school caretaker and his girlfriend have left police stations after giving witness statements in relation to the disappearance of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman.

Ian Huntley, 28, has been the site manager at Soham Village College for the past nine months, and 25-year-old Maxine Carr is a former teaching assistant in the girls' class.

They have both spent seven hours at separate police stations, helping police with the investigation.

Cambridgeshire Police said the couple had agreed to be questioned and had been treated as "significant witnesses".

A spokeswoman said the pair had now completed witness statements and were no longer with officers.

The couple will not be returning to their house, which is the subject of a detailed search using what police described as highly sensitive equipment.

The girls' school St Andrews Primary, is also being scoured for clues in a process that is expected to last several days."

Well, it seems that they've arrested a 28 year old man and a 25 year old woman on suspicion of abduction and murder. But I still think the police/media could have handled it better.
This must be so awful for those parents, I can't imagine what they're feeling.
My dh came home without his keys yesterday, and dd1 answered the door to him before I could get there - I had to tell her never to answer the door without me being there. How sad that we live in a world where a child can't open the door of their own home.

If this couple is guilty I can only hope that they will tell where the children can be found. My thoughts and prayers are with their families.

What's so disturbing is that these are people that all the children at both schools would have automatically trusted. So for them the school can no longer be seen as a place of safety. Awful.
I do agree about the reporting, though - it seems a very odd way to go about it.

I was devastated to hear this morning that two people had been arrested on suspicion of abduction and murder. I don't understand how they know they have been murdered and still pray for a miracle. All I can think of is their poor parents and family and don't know how to say that I hope they can get through this, there are no words.

Police have up to 96 hours to either charge the couple or release them.

Under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, the couple can now be detained for up to 24 hours from the time of their arrest without being charged while police question them and other witnesses and sift through evidence.

If police need more time, they will have to apply to a magistrate for a warrant to hold the couple for 72 hours.

If necessary, the magistrate can extend the warrant for another 24 hours - meaning the couple could be held in custody for a total of 96 hours before being either charged or released.

There are things we just don't know yet though, which I guess we will in time.

Why did the girls leave without saying they were going out and where were the going? I guess they could have shouted down to say they were going out but even then, you ask if you can go out, you don't tell people you are going out. If this couple are guilty, was it planned ie did the children actually go to their house?

What a mess, to say the least. It's just beyond comprehension.

I just don't understand how both the police and the media can continue to say that this couple are being 'very cooperative with enquiries'. Surely if that was the case then the girls (alive or dead ) would have been found by now.

Just watched the news, too. I still cannot take in the possibilty of their own classroom assistant being one of their murderers. So many children must know this couple - surely it's going to affect them all. There you are, 10 years old, growing up, thinking you have a handle on the adults around you, leaning to trust your judgement, then you find out that your nice classroom assistant has murdered your friends.

My husband saw the news with me. Wondered if Soham Village College has a furnace, awful thoughts going through our minds.

I think we all feel horrible this morning, it's so hard to take in. Those poor, poor families.

I also agree about the comments about the media, this is real life, not a bloody story. IMO they behave in this way because they know that they play a part in the way that children are sexualised these days.

I was in tears this morning - like, I'm sure, so many of us. But please, let's not keep demonising the 'media'. From what I gather the family were extremely keen to keep this story in the news, as were friends, neighbours and schoolfriends. The children would NOT have been photographed or interviewed without the express permission of their own parents (it is illegal not to get this permission) and, I'm sure, the police. The statements which implied guilt that earlier posters referred to would have been a result of information got directly from the police, who would have been pretty sure - for reasons I'm sure will become clear - that they had the guilty parties. Maybe in the next few weeks we'll find out why and how they came to think that - and maybe the press & TV coverage helped and maybe it didn't. It usually does, which is why families are so keen to help. Ian Brady and Myra Hindley kidnapped and murdered children in a much less sexualised society. I too hate FCUK t-shirts etc but they don't cause paedophiles to exist IMO. Also, I hardly think Damilola Taylor came from a 'middle class' background. His parents lived on sink estate in Peckham and he went to truly awful school that middle class parents wouldn't touch with a bargepole - and it's at the bottom of my street, so I do think I know what I'm talking about here. The reason we worry more about Jessica and Holly, is that we KNOW we won't kill, beat or molest our kids, so what frightens us is random abduction. It's so obvious! Also, yes, more parents abduct kids in custody rows, but they don't, on the whole, rape and murder them too.

How truly, truly terrible. So much for police checks.

If it transpires that this couple are the murderers (and I see two bodies have now been found) then to me the most frightening aspect is that we, as parents, are virtually powerless to do anything to protect our own children. No amount of stranger danger chats can protect children against people they know. My 6yr old daughter had three classroom assistants in her school, all of whom I had implicit trust in. No doubt parents at the school in Soham felt the same about their classroom assistants.

I'm completely against capital punishment but sometimes, just sometimes, I wonder........

The thing is with "stranger danger", is that it isn't usually strangers. 6 children die every year at the hands of someone they don't know. 1 child dies every week at the hands of someone they do. Frightening.

I was going to say something else, but I can't remember what it was.

Im so upset to hear that they've found two bodies,I hoped against all hope that the two little girls would be found alive.I cant imagine how their parents must feel to go through two weeks of torture now this.I think prison is too good for these bs im sorry but i just feel so angry those girls must have trusted them to go with them and they do that to them , I just pray that they didn't suffer too much.

Yesterday, I heard an interview with the woman (done during the week after the girls disappeared), and I just can't get it out of my head. How can someone who's done what she is supposed to have done talk so calmly and rationally to a radio interviewer. It's been haunting me all day, she was talking about how they were close to her (Holly in particular, I think), and they were going to be bridesmaids at her wedding etc, etc... It's just so awful. Dd1 has been asking me all about it, and I'm reluctant to give her too many details, as it's just so unexplainable.
I found this on the CBBC website, and will be discussing it with dd1, and maybe even dd2 (3). I think it gives sensible advice in a non-upsetting way.

message withdrawn

Suew, I too can't stand those t-shirts. They're so horrible. R

Agree with Aloha - on a case like this the press will have been working with the police and not stating anything that they haven't been strongly led to believe. It's worth remembering that a lot of stuff goes on behind the scenes - eg: during the Iranian embassy siege the BBC were asked to broadcast an item explaining the terrorists demands - not something they would normally do - but did so in order to help.

It is all so so sad. Can't even begin to imagine how their famillies must be feeling.

Makes me think of Milly Dowlers family too, still no trace of her.

It is a very sad day, and feels very close to home now as I used to live near where the bodies were found (didn't realise Soham was so close). Even so I still can't help thinking that the sheer amount of press coverage has generated too much fear and hate. Of course these cases should be publicised, but the amount of interviews and non-news from reporters was phenomenal. At one point the BBC presenter was on camera saying "yes they're asking us to leave this building now..." without actually moving an inch.

I suggested that Damilola Taylor was from a middle class background because his parents in interviews came accross as very middle class (perhaps that is all you need for wide press coverage). I can't name an example due to poor press covarage, but youngish kids with reputations as little thugs are sometimes killed in fights, and fathers who abduct their kids do sometimes kill them (there was a case last month in London - 3 kids in a burned out car).

Thankfully all of these scenarios are rare, but everyone reacts as if they are a common occurance - and we are effectively punishing our children because of it.

I can't believe them giving interviews either. The man was on GMTV yesterday, or was it Thursday?

Anyway, I have been criticising the media for reporting every slight little thing but I now think maybe the police encouraged it, because they had an idea and wanted someone who may have been responsible, to basically trip themselves up.

I find it strange that a child would be so close to a member of staff outside hours. But then, all my teachers lived miles away.

The press do use such emotive words though and it gets on my nerves. They should just be reporting the facts. We don't need to know if people - who don't even know the families involved - are laying flowers. I can't believe daytrippers are doing this.

And people going to church - who probably don't go at any other time - being reported every 2 mins. And just the language eg "close knit community". Does everyone really know each other there or are the press just tearing at the heartstrings for sensationalism?

If it was me, I wouldn't like it on the news, every little thing being reported, not after it's now effectively solved. I would want to grieve in peace now. However the media argument is, people can't use the press when and how they want to.

Sorry... I got caught short there. DS decided he needed another bedtime story, or three. Anyway, the point I was trying to make - rather than jumping to the defence of all the media coverage - is that the police do use the media to help them. Take the interview with the woman -it was done over a week ago - maybe we missed it, but my DH seems to think it wasn't transmitted until after she was taken in for question. When he saw it yesterday he said he was struck by how completely devoid of emotion she seemed. Possibly hindsight - but she hadn't been arrested at this point. Was the interview itself all part of some larger plan that we know nothing about?
Anyway, it doesn't really matter does it? Two bodies, you can only conclude of Holly and Jessica, have been found - and I hope that whoever is responsible rots in hell. And yes Copper, the thought that it may be two people who had close legitimate ties with the children chills me to the bone. As I said to my dh - "how can you ever hope to keep them safe faced with that?"