Madeleine McCann

tinytobe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120643477#Comment_120643477

You don't have to pay, it's just to register.

It's in other papers as well.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/madeleine-mccann-update-reservoir-search-portugal-b2346217.html

As far as I know there is no mention as to what this "relevant clue" is, or how this clue can make the connection and or missing link to either convict Brueckner or evidence that Madeleine is dead?

Most likely this relevant clue is a piece of evidence which has the highest potential after analytics in the lab in Germany.

Gusser09

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120643585#Comment_120643585

Or it's just the media selling papers. Hopefully though it's something substantial that they think they can get a DNA match for the child off it to prove she was at the location. It must be an agonising wait again for the McCanns hoping that something comes from this.

tinytobe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120643606#Comment_120643606

I've heard about 2 to 3 weeks until the labs will come up with something.

reclose

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120641466#Comment_120641466

Making up some random post about parents leaving children in cars while in the pub isn’t refuting my post and if anyone did do that they’d be a bad parent too.

if you leave a 4 year old unattended in an unlocked apartment while you go out to socialise then you are a bad parent. That’s not a new thing. No matter what decade it is.

you seem so hung up on not letting the parents have any culpability that you are coming up with weird whatabouttery scenarios to justify your opinion.

average_runner

Their job doesn't define anything to been a parent.

At the end of the day, they choosed a few drinks etc and left the young kids unattended. Hard one for them to live with and at a big cost

rogber

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120639476#Comment_120639476

The people with kids are often the loudest blamers, "oh my god I would NEVER do something like that", patents love condemning others as bad parents

spurious

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120644620#Comment_120644620

Most teachers in this country could tell tales might frighten those who think nobody in this country leaves children home alone/unattended etc..

Goldengirl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120644620#Comment_120644620

Respectfully disagree . Most parents are staying quiet here because none of us are perfect. 👀

I fundamentally disagree with what they did because they actively chose to do this with their group. They should have laid down the " checking rules " better at the very least and had baby monitors with every child .

That is the type of baby sitting service offered by many hotels and holiday compounds .

We just brought our kids out with us in buggys .

But I have made a dash into a shop now and then with kids sleeping in the car outside and a window cracked open. Door locked.. Only for a few minutes. Probably on my own daddy working and needed something that couldn't wait ...and the little one was out for the count . The car could have been broken into or gone on fire !

And my small kids have played in the front garden while I chatted to a neighbour nearby .

Am I negligent ? I don't think so ( maybe others would think differently )

Am I perfect ? Definitely not. But I am an average parent .

Am I lucky they weren't taken like Madeleine ? Yes I am . I thank the heavens for their safety now but can see the younger mam who was doing her best even if that wasn't perfect all the time .

The McCanns guilty of child negligence in the UK ?

Firstly nobody has ever pushed this in the UK. They were questioned by social services there when they came home but that was the end of it as it is realistically for most parents who do wrong now and then. There is no appetite in social services in UK , or Ireland , for that matter , to criminalise reasonably good parents , which they are , for a mistake or even a series of mistakes .

And if they had been charged of child neglect ...the time they would have served would have been nothing to what they have gone through the last 16 years .

This conversation is ludicrous at this stage .

briany

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120644304#Comment_120644304

You said,

I grew up in the 80s and this would have been the considered the same then too.

I say that's incorrect. It was absolutely common for parents back then to let their little kids run off around the locality with their friends and have only a vague idea of where they might even be at a given time. It was common to have a few pints and drive them in a car because that was the limit back then. Parents were even smoking indoors around their kids back then. Yes, standards of parenting were looser back then, so no, I don't think that leaving one's kids sleeping in the holiday apartment and checking in on them every half hour would be treated with the same moral indignation as has been heaped on the McCanns for the last 16 years.

And for the part the McCanns played, they have more than paid the price and everyone who's interested has learned the lesson. Continuing to direct criticism at them achieves nothing. All that remains is to find Madeleine and the perpetrator of her abduction.

tinytobe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120644304#Comment_120644304

I would presume that the local authorities in the UK were probably lenient, maybe also incompetent or both. Doctors in a region of the UK where one doesn't really normally want to move to are possibly rare, - the authorities probably didn't want to be too strict? All speculation.

However the law in the UK is very clear: Abandonment, neglect, and failure to protect in relation to a child is a criminal matter and all three of them happened in this case solely by account of the McCanns and nobody else. The law is beyond doubt to anybody who can read. In any court room in the UK this would have been a straight conviction if it came to a court proceeding.

And even if it's not a criminal matter, or an accusation of bad parenting it's common sense not to leave children unsupervised in an unlocked room far from the view of an adult.

rogber

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120644737#Comment_120644737

Absolutely agree. As a kid in the 80s I could head off with friends in the morning and just be told "be back by 5 for dinner" with no knowledge of where I'd go, no mobiles or anything like that. Just the assumption that everything would be fine. Times have changed.

The McCanns made a terrible mistake but in retrospect such mistakes look graver than they really are. 999 times out of 1,000 it would end harmlessly.

I wouldn't excuse them but also don't think they deserve to be pilloried constantly

reclose

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120644737#Comment_120644737

More whatbouttary.

in the 80s it would not have been socially acceptable to leave two 2 year olds and and a 4 year old alone in an unlocked house while the parents socialised.

EmmetSpiceland

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120645037#Comment_120645037

You think? Parents calling in to a party a few doors down and checking back in every half hour wouldn’t have raised any eyebrows in the 80’s.

Kids were still getting a slap and told to shut up if they came back telling their parents that’s someone in a position of power, or family member, was interfering with them. That went on until 1994.

The McCann case was a watershed moment on how people looked after their kids on trips away.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120640865#Comment_120640865

This case was the greatest pain in my arse in life. I studied this to a ridiculous degree in law school.

When I started I was hoping to be the one to solve it. Based on the all the evidence to me it's just a case of negligence.

The McCanns didn't kill her or do away with her.

Duke of Schomberg

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120637989#Comment_120637989

Regarding predictability - was the night of the abduction the only night the McCanns and their friends had adopted this system of supervision? . . . I can't believe that it was. So the abductor might have had prior knowledge of their routine.

The McCanns were beyond stupid, but in their middle-class world perhaps nothing bad ever happened, so perhaps it never would - until their world collided with another.

I don't doubt that they've suffered turmoil/guilt/etc - but there are many drunk drivers out there who have felt the same as a result of the consequenses of their actions . . . and that doesn't stop them escaping punishment for the decisions they made.

I do feel sorry for the McCanns, but the fact is they were guilty of child-neglect . . . they left their children unattended and out-of-sight for thirty-minutes at-a-time - would anybody on this forum leave a lap-top in an unlocked car in CenterParcs/Mosney and go back and check on it every thirty-minutes?

It shouldn't happen, but it does - and you have to plan for that. I grew up in Rhodesia in the early 1970s, that's something that was drummed into us as schoolchildren.

Duke of Schomberg

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120637123#Comment_120637123

Because, others who abandoned children in similar circumstances have been. I'm a former police officer, so perhaps have more knowledge than you do. Jog-on.

iamwhoiam

Not in my world . I had three kids in the 80’s , my friends anf family and neighbours all had kids then . Not one of us ever left a child alone in a house . It was not common then among anyone I knew

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120632443#Comment_120632443

It wouldn't surprise me if the German police had sfa to go on, other than the terrible prospect of paid time in Portugal in summer.

This time it's a reservoir, last time they were sure Madeleine's remains could be found at the bottom of a well.

German police believe he may have tried to bury or throw Madeleine’s body in wells in the area, but there are dozens.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/madeleine-mccann-police-to-search-22345809

The Germain police are either trying to save face in light of their apallingly unprofessional previous accouncements or they are milking it for all the paid time in the sun, by the sea, that they can get. The UK police were scarcely any better in this regard, either.

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120643304#Comment_120643304

Lets start with a comparison of the number of children who drown every year due to gross parental neglect vs the number of children abducted by strangers.

I was being facetious in using the word 'gross', instead of 'perfectly understandable'. The McCanns thought the situation was safe, and were right to do so, it's likely that most of the parents of the large numbers drowned toddlers didn't even get as far as the thinking bit.

It's never ceased to amaze me the number of toddler drownings that happen without a subsequent public witch hunt vs the McCanns and the millions of people standing in line to buy bundles of twigs to throw on the pyres when they are lashed to stakes and burnt alive - if they had their way.

tibruit

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120646394#Comment_120646394

"The McCanns thought the situation was safe, and were right to do so..."

What a bizarre thing to say. They left three toddlers in an unlocked apartment on the side of the street that wasn`t in a clear line of sight from where they dined and performed no visual check on them for an hour.

Immortal Starlight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120646394#Comment_120646394

First of all how the McCanns could ever have thought that leaving three children under four on their own in an unlocked hotel room in a foreign country was safe is unbelievable. The second thing is there’s no way what happened to Madeleine can be compared to an accidental drowning of a child. Madeleine’s parents didn’t lose sight of their daughter for one minute or even two. They willingly put their three children in great danger every night when they went out and left them alone. They did this over and over again on numerous nights even though they knew Madeleine had been crying looking for them on at least one of those nights. That to me is unbelievable and unforgivable.

tinytobe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120646002#Comment_120646002

The thing is with predictability in this case is that there were reports of strange characters loitering the property before the disappearance of Madeline McCann.

Possibly it was Brueckner being in contact with one or two of these characters or it was Brueckner himself? Not impossible to think of. Brueckner must have been crazy in his mind and he knew that.

He knew it was wrong and in conflict with the law, so I suppose that if Brueckner or somebody like Brueckner did it he must have observed and staked out the place and planned it. He probably knew the behaviour of British tourists, being out, drinking habits, lose behaviour here and there.

They were easy prey for somebody like Brueckner and when he felt secure enough, he made his move. I am not saying that all Brits in tourist resorts behave a certain way, but somebody like Brueckner most likely figured his chance of succeeding would be far better with Brits than with fellow Germans or Austrians or Swiss.

briany

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120645037#Comment_120645037

Not whataboutery to point out that parenting was looser in the 80s, with relevant examples, and conclude that, no, it very likely wouldn't have been considered socially unacceptable to have dinner across the pool from a holiday apartment where your kids where and perform regular checks on them.

But hey, attitudes change. Who knew?

Strumms

Either way…

no body or remains found…you can be certain the ‘material collected’ that is going for analysis is just a piece of theatre on behalf of the police of giving serious attention to the smallest possible details… German prosecutor Christian Wolters said : "Of course there is a certain expectation, but it is not high. it’s important to show that the authorities are investigating the case “

those comments are very enlightening and interesting…. The Wolters guy admitting it is for show, a token effort rather then any conclusive attempt to act on anything be it new evidence , hear say or a tip off to find the body….

in 7 more years, what ? have a look at google maps, pick a forest, go digging….200,000 euros on plant, police overtime and logistics…..

keeps the family pacified ? But “ it’s important to show the authorities are investigating the case ? “ looks like a German / Portuguese international pacification mission…

Wonder if the McCanns and or local politicians in the UK were kicking up….? Firing a few shots to get things moving…. A diplomatic dig… seems like it…the McCanns certainly have the press wrapped around their fingers….

cops can say now “we dug we didn’t find”…..

tinytobe

The problem is that there is no murder charge without a body. To date they have no body and I am sure the police searched long and hard. Suppose Brueckner kept pictures from Madeleine somewhere on a USB stick? Some evasive answer of having gotten them from some shady long dead character, no way to prove otherwise....

Police need to either tie something of Madeleine's ( such as a piece of clothing ) to Brueckner to either convict him of something like abduction, or find a body to prove murder and connect the body of Madeleine to Brueckner.

So far nothing like this has happened.

And then, suppose they find a piece of Madeleine's clothing with Brueckner's DNA on it, and Brueckner argues in a court in his defense, yes, I've met Madeleine, - the McCanns will most likely contradict, one word against the other, 16 years ago, hard to prove what was said and done back then..

It'll be interesting if the police ever come up with something which is strong enough to convict beyond reasonable doubt whomever did this in a court of law.

To date Brueckner is just a suspect, but as far as we know Madeleine could have been abducted by probably anybody in the area.

Strumms

Even if they find clothes I am guessing any forensic value is nil having been under water any blood, hair or indeed any DNA would be long departed with those garments having been underwater 16 years plus…in a couple of years all clothing would likely have disintegrated. 16 years, just a skeleton left…

no body im thinking also skeletal remains so very hard to even determine a cause of death let alone who did it.

tinytobe

Don't know. Apparently DNA can last 30 or 40 years outside. However I am no expert. Even after 16 years they should be able to identify Madeleine based on DNA, if they find a skeleton, so there would be at least certainty that it was murder.

Goldengirl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120646594#Comment_120646594

I don't agree with what they did personally . It wasn't right . They made a choice which they are paying for forever

But saying that all of the accidental deaths and drownings of children are parents who 'only take their eyes off them for a minute " is not true .

Some, yes , and children get lost with sea fog with frantic parents searching. Or a toddler walks straight into a pool while parents are momentarily distracted .

But there are also parents getting well pvssed on holiday day after day and never put sun lotion on their kids or don't even know that their kids have left the building either .

These are all treated as tragic losses which they undoubtedly are . Little is said in tabloids whatever about privately about the parental negligence .

But for some the fact that these were well heeled people and doctors to boot , is the main reason they are still being pilloried for this . Everywhere.

I think most of us can agree that what they did was negligent , but the tragedy should in my view stir some compassion for these parents , just as people do express compassion for other parents who lose children tragically , regardless if the circumstances .

Immortal Starlight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120647079#Comment_120647079

The fact they were doctors means nothing to me. So what if they were doctors. Anyone absolutely anyone who did what they did night after night are 100% wrong. When you have children their welfare should come before everyone and everything else. In this case that bit of common sense was absent. I don’t feel sorry for the McCanns I feel sorry for their little daughter who they so very badly let down.

Deusexmachina

Here we go again. This case is absolutely horrific.The McCanns have had to suffer the unbearable torture of not knowing what happened to their little girl.

And yet, the morally superior decide the Mc Cann's deserve their plight. It sickens me.

This has added to their suffering for many years now. It's so cruel.

orangerhyme

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120642685#Comment_120642685

Maybe it was a form of groupthink, since the other couples had the same system.

If the McCann's were on their own, maybe they wouldn't have done it.

It's difficult to understand their behaviour.

Although to be fair my mother would often leave me on my own when I was of a similar age. But I bet everyone who was a kid in the 80s has similar stories.

My fear when minding kids isn't that they'll be abducted but that they'll hurt themselves like choking on something or strangle themselves on a cord from a blind.

If I was babysitting someone's kids, there's not a hope I'd pop out to pub or restaurant 50m away and leave them alone. I'd commit to the responsibility.

I don't think Christian Bruckner was stalking them and waiting for his opportunity.

I think it was a burglar who just happened to be a child abductor/paedophile.

Ground floor flats are often broken in to.

I've noticed people are often more complacent with their own kids that they would be with others.

The McCanns have paid the ultimate price for complacency, which is punishment enough I feel.

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120646594#Comment_120646594

It's impossible to explain to emotive people what is dangerous and what isn't. If you have children, and put them in your car to take them somewhere, the statistical danger of them dying in an RTA is likely far higher than the very small risk the McCann's took.

There are roughly 500 million people in Europe/Uk and there's only been one single MM type incident in several decades, maybe half a century. The risk was infintesimally small. MM disappeared in 2007. In 2008, 392 children died as passengers in RTAs in Europe.

I used to let my daughter climb a tree next to the road. This was probably several orders of magnitutde more dangerous than the McCanns actions. She could have easily fallen out of the tree and died. What's more, I used to leave her to it as she used to like spending some time up there and I had things that needed doing. She could have climbed down the tree, a van could have pulled up and someone could have got out, grabbed her and driven off, but I felt the risk was small.

Was it Ok for me to take these risks? Absolutely. Was the risk greater than the one the Mc Canns took? Absolutely.

Everyone thinks the McCanns took a huge risk, with the blinding benefit of hindsight and several tonnes of emotive superiority. There are many drownings of toddlers in europe every single year. So many that parents should be infinitely more worried about children and water than stranger danger situations, but it's the latter people most obsess about.

German lifeguards have issued a warning that a growing number of child drownings this summer are linked to their parents’ obsession with mobile phones.

More than 300 people have drowned in Germany this year, with hardly a day passing during the current heatwave when a swimmer has not died.

...

“Too few parents and grandparents are heeding the advice: when your children and grandchildren are in the water, put your smartphone away,” Achim Wiese, the DLRG’s spokesman, said.

The McCanns have been on the receiving end of probably the worst witch hunt since lindy Chamberlain was prosecuted for the murder of Azaria. At the time, i never thought she did it, but the vast majority did.

Immortal Starlight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120647743#Comment_120647743

If a child dies in a road traffic accident it’s because there’s been an accident. Madeleine did not die or vanish because of an accident. She is dead or has vanished because her parents left her alone in an unlocked hotel room in a foreign country. They did this on numerous nights even when they knew Madeleine had been upset and crying on one particular night. I don’t think it was a small risk to take to do this. There’s no way those three children should have been exposed to what happened to Madeleine and we would not be having this conversation if the children had been properly looked after. Why would they ever have thought it was ok to do it in the first place is a mystery.

briany

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120647805#Comment_120647805

@cnocbui has posed some statistics to show how small the risk actually was. You've just come back with some feelings. I think this is what the poster means when saying it's impossible to explain comparative danger to emotive people. They'll just play the 'speaking as a parent...' card, or whatever, as if that trumps everything else.

Immortal Starlight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120647859#Comment_120647859

I have never said “speaking as a parent” what I have said is if the children had been looked after properly Madeleine would not be missing today. If the risk was so small Madeleine would be at home today but unfortunately she is not. When a person has children it should be their priority to protect them. This wasn’t done and we all know the result.

happyoutscan

Jesus could you not go and set up another thread which you can dedicate solely to deriding the McCanns as often as you wish!

Immortal Starlight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120647921#Comment_120647921

If you are addressing me I’m just answering posts addressing me. I’m as entitled to my opinion as anyone else.

Spanish Eyes

Well whoever took her from her bed must have used chloroform or some other substance or gag to stop her screaming at a stranger. The other two kids in the same room never woke up either, that has always puzzled me. And why MMcC? There were other kids in other unlocked rooms also, and her siblings. So bizarre.

Anyway the Mcs lost their civil action against Goncalo Amaral of the Portuguese police. They said (I think) that he slandered them by saying they played a role in the child's disappearance, the courts did not agree. But that's them mad clumsy Inspector Clouseaus in Portugal right? The racism jumping out of UK media reports at the time was unreal.

iamwhoiam

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120648055#Comment_120648055

It was definitely the easiest apartment to access . It had direct access from the road , straight in from the path and up a few steps and through the unlocked patio doors. It could be done in seconds .The bins were out that night so anyone could have stood behind one watching the pattern of checking . They would see a gap of 30 minutes and be in and out of that apartment in 5 minutes . Straight into a parked van turn left and within minutes out of the village and into the countryside

Strumms

Any child, being woken up to find a stranger(s) in their room in those circumstances would go batshît crazy…….

unless …

A… they were taken care of by violence or a substance administered rendering them sedated or unconscious or dead before they could react.

or

B… they encountered a person known to them, a friendly face.

chloroform is a possibility and not so hard to acquire…it’s used in multiple industries worldwide…

3 small children unlocked in a ground floor apartment is oddsville… it goes against each and all common sense parenting manuals…

• strange town
• ground floor apartment
• quite accessible

7 friends with them at dinner… I find it odd that one every night wouldn’t have said… hey, I’ll watch the kids…. I’ll get a take away meal, play games, put them to bed, watch tv, everyone sacrifices about 3 hours of the week….

no forensic information alluded to a struggle, no blood. No witnesses heard screaming, thuds… or anything unusual…

the very fact that it’s ground floor and so accessible…. Don’t get the McCanns decision, it makes zero sense for two so called educated and intelligent people…

The focus of course is on Madeleine but to also leave two two year olds and one three year old alone…wow.

briany

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120648397#Comment_120648397

Any conclusions you want to make other than finding certain facts unusual?

Goldengirl

We are all different

Different formative years families snd experiences. My parents were good but they wrren't perfect and I grew up in a more relaxed environment than even my own children.

I have through my work seen every acvident that can befall a child almost and accidents and bad things don't just happen to bad parents or people

As I have said before, would I have done what they did? No probably not. We brought our kids out with us or didn't go out drinking really.

But I think the group were an influence on each other.' This is what we do '

I don't think I am perfect but know I am a good mother. But nevertheless I have taken the odd risk now and again but have been lucky.

Why was Madeleine taken.? .. I think because not only did her parents take a risk with an unlocked door they were also very very unlucky.

Do I feel compassion for them? Yes, its a tragic loss and just as I feel compassion for the mother or father that loses a child to drowning or any other preventable accident, I feel for them.

I think the blame is something they will never get away from themselves for the rest of their lives.

tinytobe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120648397#Comment_120648397

Would a child the age of Madeleine have remembered and recognized all the friends of the McCanns? Probably not? To Madeleine this would have been just another smiling and nice talking adult, like all the visits and check ups before.

Since there was no forensic evidence, no DNA in the room, it must have been a smooth abduction. Brueckner ( if it was him) maybe wearing gloves, maybe he chloroformed her while she was already sleeping and carried her out?

Shank Williams

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120647883#Comment_120647883

Christ, tell me you don’t understand probability and basic maths without telling me you don’t understand probability and basic maths

hamburgham

There was an article in the Daily Telegraph today about it and the comments were absolutely merciless to the McCanns. Not only blaming them for leaving the kids but many suggesting there was no abduction and that the McCanns have been economical with the truth to put it mildly.

tinytobe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120648834#Comment_120648834

Well, it was child abandonment, neglect and failure to protect their children. That's a crime under UK law. Nothing positive to say about the parenting of the McCanns.

John_Rambo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120647883#Comment_120647883

Ah hear.. less of the virtue singling "I'm a spotless parent" finger pointing stuff. My kids surf offshore, we travel around Europe in a camper, sometimes they're left alone, the older ones take part in extreme sports and we ski in the winter. We've had broken bones, sprains and strains.

The blame stops at the pervert, the murderer, the pedophile. Don't try & confuse the situation, don't blame rape on a short skirt, don't blame the chancer perv on the drunk boy or girl, don't finger point the careless teenager on being drunk... There's good people and there's bad people, don't try and take the blame off the bad people only to accuse the parents that suffer the loss & stop trying to normalise child abduction & predation like it's to be expected if kids aren't watched 24/7.

You need to recalibrate your posting style, adjust your moral compass and concentrate on the perpetrators. Not the victims.

Goldengirl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120648834#Comment_120648834

Well thats it then.. case closed.

If the Telegraph readers have them pegged it must be so.

hamburgham

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120648906#Comment_120648906

“Telegraph readers”. Lazy cliche. It’s a brilliant newspaper and not that it’s relevant, but I also read the Guardian. I find “Guardian readers” just as boring a cliche but funnily enough it’s usually smug “Guardian readers” who like to describe themselves as such.

Goldengirl

Don't much read either or care tbh.

English newspapers and their readers McCann bashing... Yawn