Anyone watching Madeleine McCann ten years on?

[spottysuperted]

They're framing it slightly differently now.. 😧 interesting from the bbc...

The theories that the police didn't want attention drawing to the area and the resort didn't want their image being tarnished don't make sense though, because they don't know what happened, and as such, in those early days, they couldn't have known that Madeleine wouldn't be found.

A friend of mine found a 3yo wandering the streets in her PJs at 7am this morning. Who knows how long she'd been out and it was gone 9am before police identified her/ located her parents.

I do feel that's probably what happened to MM with much sadder consequences.

Of course it makes sense it's a tourist area

I fell down a really deep internet hole last night watching documentaries on youtube. I wish I hadn't it was really depressing. Analysis of the parents body language etc, one conspiracy after another and even a psychic medium.

My understanding of this case has been based on news reports, the crimewatch programme and the panorama doc. So not much. I find it upsetting so I have never really gone looking for other sources.

My view is still the same, I feel so sorry for Madeleine and her family and I hope they find peace, anything else would just make you lose hope for humanity

I think that's what makes the whole situation even worse, she wasn't left alone as a one off. They did it night after night despite knowing she was waking frequently. This is why it's so hard to have sympathy for them.

Yes that's it for me too. I don't spread vitriol about them but I don't have much sympathy for them either. My sympathy lies with Madeleine, a defenceless 3 year old child. What ever happened, she was massively let down by her parents on this holiday and has ultimately paid the price for it.

That's about the size of it for me too. I've never been able to get past the fact that they thought it was OK to go on holiday with three very young children and spend every evening away from them. My family never went on a holiday like that when I was growing up, and my husband and I never did either. It's not to do with class or generation, it's to do with personality, I think. We like to eat early, we don't drink heavily, our children never needed much sleep and rarely settled for the night before at least 9pm. Accordingly, our children were an integral part of our evenings whenever we went on holiday, just as they were at home.

Even if we had wanted to stay out late I can't begin to imagine thinking it would be OK to leave them unattended in a ground-floor apartment on a busy street, with an unlocked door, out of our immediate line of sight.

None of which takes away from the fact that if somebody did abduct Madeleine or otherwise harm her, the responsibility lies with them, not with her parents, who have clearly been through hell these last ten years.

The theories about the police not wanting to draw attention to crime in the area are based on the fact that the police were already keeping quiet about crime in the area. I'm sure if the Mcanns had known about repeated break-ins at apartments where they were staying they might have thought twice about leaving their children alone. If the Mark Warner reception had told the group when they arrived: "I don't want to alarm you, but just to let you know there have been a few break-ins in recent weeks so don't leave any valuables in the apartment" that might have given them all pause for thought. They'd gone to stay in what they thought was a safe, family friendly resort - no one in Portugal wanted to do anything to dispel that image.

Reading Pamala Fenn's statement, she states that the night before she heard crying for an hour and 15 mins which only ceased when the parents came back
Who listens to a crying child for over an hour & does nothing you'd go to the reception or dining area to look for the parents wouldn't you? She mustve been so thirsty & exhausted crying for that long. (Perhaps someone thought the same & went to 'rescue' her?)

Leaving them at that age was daft but as pp said it was the culture of their group. What KM said in her book about taking turns to bathe each others kids beggars belief though, for a start who would willing bath 1 yr old twins & a 3 yr old for their friend, esp when the others only had one or two kids??

I really hope she's safe somewhere but its not likely is it? Most likely is that she just wandered off & died that night. Other theories seem too out there. Why would a burglar use the window when the door was open? Why would a pedophile ring bother when there's so many children in the world who aren't missed or traceable?

Portugal is an amazing country, lovely friendly gentle people this is a tragedy for them too. They always refer to her as Maddie over there & there's a real feeling of concern & sadness for her. But Portuguese people do have a hard time feeling sympathy for kate & Gerry. In a country where children are very much part of meals & socialising & every child stays up till at least 10pm in their eyes she was neglected.

Rach I couldn't understand that woman hearing a child crying and doing nothing about it. I would have gone to reception so the parents could be traced.
😱
Was the door or the window left open?

The McCanns still look broken today (as they would understandably) and what's all this rubbish about Kate McCann not pleading with the kidnappers. She did so at least once and that video footage is still widely shown whenever the case is discussed.

I've read all the research, all the statements too because they are freely available on line. These parents didn't kill their child, they made a horrendous mistake by thinking the resort was a safe place where they could check in on their children periodically. British people used to do this all the time at holiday camps in the Fifties.

Their child was kidnapped...either from the apartment or because she wandered off through an unlocked door and met the wrong person. . Likelihood now is that she is long dead and they will never have an answer. Absolutely awful.

Totally agree with all of your post Alfie

holly and Rach There was no 'reception' - the family were in a self-contained apartment on an ordinary main street in a town.

No- the apartment is actually on the Ocean club complex where there are pools and other facilities; it happens to be on the end where the road is but there is a reception where keys are collected and the management of the properties is organised from.

Would it have been open that late at night?

Sorry you probably don't know that, no reason why you should.

24 hour reception I believe.

The whole thing is extraordinary. An apartment where staff have 24 hour access to keys, the door was left open, the window was forced, the children were known to have previously been left crying, an argument the previous night, a stranger seen looking in through the window, a backdrop of in-and-out burglaries.

I escaped from our house at 3 in my PJs and was found wandering in a back lane by a man. Parents still asleep.
I do think she might have done something like that and got lost but it is more likely she was taken. It is such an awful thought.I feel so sorry for the McCanns.

I know someone who considers herself an intrepid traveller - been all over the world - but always stays in Mark Warner type resorts and gated communities. It means although she's ostensibly well travelled she is not at all streetwise and always nervous on the Paris metro or London underground for instance even in unthreatening situations. I think her perception of risk is reduced by staying a resort - she feels insulated from the outside world, in a safe holiday bubble My point is I can see how staying in such a resort might give you a false sense of security (I think that's the whole point of them actually). I don't think if the Mcanns had been staying in an AirBnB in Lisbon they would have left the kids and popped across the street to a bar - they felt safe in their Mark Warner bubble with its apartments and tennis courts and swimming pools and restaurants. They felt as safe as you might eating at the end of a long garden (when you don't have a 360 degree view of the house with all its entrances and exits) and you've left the back door open so someone can keep nipping in to listen for any crying. With hindsight that was a mistake - they had no right to feel safe and Mark Warner should have made that clear to them when they arrived. If they'd been on holiday as a family of five I doubt they'd have done it, it when all your friends are doing the same and telling you it will be fine it's easy to see how it might feel OK.

Lillian - I agree. And particularly the 'safety in numbers' perspective. "If we all think it's ok, then it's fine."
If they'd gone away as a family of 5, it would've been a very different holiday.

Were all the children in the same room? Why was madaline taken, if this was the case, rather than one of the other children? Surely the other children would have been woken up?

Where were the children of their friends?

... just so bizarre... can't get my head around stuff like this...

From Rachael Oldfield's Rogatory Interview
www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/RACHAEL-OLDFIELD-ROGATORY.htm

1578 'Okay, and when you went to check on Grace, what sort of checks would you conduct''
Reply 'Erm well we'd go into the room, which ordinarily we wouldn't do to be honest, erm but she seemed to have diarrhoea and kind of, I mean she'd settled quite well actually cos she'd been tired every evening, erm but every morning when she woke up, she had diarrhoea and it had gone right through her grow bag and so there's all of this sort of horrendous smell, so in the evenings when we were checking, we'd go into the room just to see if you know, there was any sort of smell yet, erm and just to make sure she was alright, to make sure she hadn't been sick, partly I think cos Matt had been sick, just wanted to make sure that she hadn't been, in case it was some sort of bug'.

1578 'Okay, and the route taken''
Reply 'Was up the road and then in through the car park at the back and in through the front door'.

1578 'In through the front door''
Reply 'Mmm yeah, I mean the patio doors were locked, erm yeah I didn't really like going up there by myself, it was, like going through that car park was quite dark and there was never anyone around, it was a bit, you know made me feel a bit uneasy'.

1578 'Okay. What about the lighting there''
Reply 'Well there were lights, there were street lights along the road as you came out of the Ocean Club, erm sort of orangey you know street lights and along the main road at the back and the car park was quite dark cos there were quite a lot of trees that were sort of on that corner, erm and so the car park was quite dark and then when you actually got, you came down a ramp, or down some steps into the sort of area in front of the apartments and erm you know they were, there were sort of lights, you press a button and they come on for a certain length of time, so you know, you put those on to get to the front door, it wasn't pitch black but I'm not keen on the dark anyway so erm'.

This is why it's so hard to have sympathy for them

You seriously cannot have sympathy for someone who has lost their child in these circumstances, and who has been in hell for the last ten years? I'm sorry, with that statement you completely lose any claim to a a right to judge their conduct.

Purple - No- the apartment is actually on the Ocean club complex where there are pools and other facilities; it happens to be on the end where the road is but there is a reception where keys are collected and the management of the properties is organised from

This is not strictly true. I know because I have stayed there in those very apartments.

The Ocean Club is not a discrete complex but the apartments and facilities are mixed in with private accommodation and other businesses. This is one description I found:
"The Ocean Club has several hubs. One is a 24-hour reception, the other two have swimming pools, restaurants and tennis courts. At their furthest point, these centres are 10 minutes walk apart. In between are Ocean Club apartments mixed with local homes."

Mrs Fenn owned her own apartment, as no doubt did most of her friends and community. We don't know how much noise, etc residents had had to face previously from holidaymakers or how any previous complaints had been dealt with and, as an older lady living alone, she may not have wanted to risk any unpleasantness.

Alec It does make you wonder how, if adults don't feel 100% safe themselves, how they could justify leaving children. Even worse if they thought there was a risk they could be sick

I've just wasted a few hours of my life reading the police files. They interviewed a number of families that stayed in the same appartment in the months leading up to Madeleine's disappearance. Apparently the baby sitting service was open until 11pm, most either used it or took the kids out with them. There's just something about those statements that made the Tapas group's behaviour seem even more bizarre, in a way I hadn't really thought about it before. The way every other family described the apartment and set up makes it more bizarre, really really bizarre.

Why insult people with words like sanctimonious, perfect parent and medal of the year while making martyrs of a bunch of parents who thought filling their bellies was more important than looking after their children? That's ridiculous and I don't for one minute lessen the pain that parents go through when they lose a child because of a tragic accident but this was a wholly preventable tragedy and now which many people will have decided opinions on or are we not supposed to express any other opinion other than those expressed by the ' we love kate & jerry' brigade?