Madeleine McCann

i dont things have changed that much, its not like it was the 80s 🤣

the real issue is that people think they did it, they have something to hide

I remember not really listening to the details of the case at the time as it was a bizzare circus, but after like 10 years or whatever they had a doco on UK tv and I remember looking at where they had the dinner and sat and where the apts were and how many times they checked on the kids and its just normal, they were good parents really. And to be this judged

like madness

When all this first happened, a group of us were talking about the circumstances of her disappearance. We all had children in that age group. I'd say 70/30 split on whether the parents held any blame. Of those who thought it was okay to leave Maddie alone I asked a simple question...if you were minding my child, would you leave her alone in the manner the McCanns left Maddie? The answer.. No, I wouldn't. Why...I'd be afraid something would happen to her in my care. Is your own child not as important? I'm still waiting on an answer to that one.

That's a normal enough way of thinking. Your own kid getting a bump on the head or skinning their knee while you have them is a bit different to it happening to someone else's kid when you're looking after them.

Look at the map of the resort, they weren't simply downstairs or 50m away. You have to leave the resort and walk back up a public road to get back to the apartment which also faces an even busier public road.

70/30 split because the public had no-one to blame apart from the parents. The abductor has never been caught (yet). Contrast this to Denise Bulger. She turned away from James and let go of his hand. Failure to exercise duty of care? I think the tabloids would have insinuated it was had James simply disappeared, and it would have been a much larger talking point with the public. Small mercy that he was found and his killers brought to justice. When a high profile disappearance of a child occurs like this, the public are crying out for someone to pillory, and they'll look for other targets if the actual perpetrator isn't found.

Anyone who thinks the McCanns were criminally negligent, they're welcome to write to the UK DPP, if they like. Their waste paper bin may not yet be full.

I see it the same as driving drunk, - there is no excuse for that, same as in this case.

I honestly do believe strongly that the McCanns are to a strong degree legally guilty of negligence. Their acting made the disappearance happen. Whether they are grieving for their loss, that is frankly not my problem. Let them grief, it was their negligence to begin with and they should have known better. They should also have faced legal consequences for their negligence.

However I am more interested about the case and the investigation. Brueckner, if he's the one, must be a real nutcase. Apparently he raped an over 70 year old? And who knows what he did to Madeleine? We don't even want to speculate.

I'd be interested when the police would release new information on the case. I am also interested how they connected Brueckner to the case or how they came to the understanding that Madeleine was indeed dead. So far it's only speculation.

Probably around 50m as the crow flies.

I dont think its normal to leave small babies on their own though. Ever.

But i wouldnt be crucifying the McCanns either. They'll be doing that themselves.

It may “never have been safe to leave kids alone” as you say- but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen- and the 70s and 80s would have been significant decades where this happened regularly - you might have been sheltered in the 80s by your parents but it certainly wasn’t “the vast majority” that took that approach and I’m talking all income levels and educational levels here

Oh spare us please- you’re 16 years too late with your “outrage” - if you feel so passionately about it, phone 999

No they dont.

Yep.

The story about the upside down playpen with books on top as JDD said rings bells for me, not personally, but know from talking about this.

I think our generation are more cautious because we are more aware of the dangers.

To be honest this group is relatively recent , really Oscar, and all should have known better. Esp the McCanns who would have seen every accident possible in their daily lives.

I think it was holiday /group think and they parked their reason and quelled any little inside voice that may have interrupted the fun.

I am sure they regret it every day since, and will never forgive themselves.

Having said that have come across more since re the father, and he is more than a bit of an arrogant gobshxxe!

I can't remember whether they were ever under investigation for child abandonment or similar charges in either jurisdiction. But I always thought they should have been. I would have given them the benefit of the doubt regarding causing Maddie's death, but their actions leading up to the abduction were at best, selfishly, fecklessly, irresponsible.

I have enormous sympathy for that little girl and her siblings. Can't imagine what she went through or what her brother and sister still go through.

Her parents. Not an ounce.

They do. Between the time a child is an infant and an adolescent, there will be times when both the child and both parents are asleep, and nothing technically protecting the child from god-knows-what other than a crappy tumbler lock on the front door that isn't even an obstacle to anyone who actually wants to bypass it.

And we know that at least some parents leave their small babies alone for periods of time because in a small amount of very tragic cases, they come in to find the baby dead. So, where were they when the baby was dying?

can you see in the dark is suppose maybe you can

people break into houses with the occupants in them, how do they manage this

More people left kids alone in the 70s and 80s, certainly in Dublin.

I mean what's the difference between leaving a kid to sleep in a room a distance away from the parents or letting 6,7 and 8 year old kids go off and play wherever they pleased for 4 and 5 hours at a time, only being missed if they themselves missed a meal.

I know there is a perceived difference, but for all practical purposes, there isn't.

How many of us went to caravan parks when we were kids and the parents might leave 5 or 6 of us together while they went for a pint at the end of a long hot day?

It only became the wrong thing to do when someone got hurt or something was damaged.

The only difference is today, 2023, there’s a hell of a lot more hindsight. A lot of ways of rearing children in the past are no longer acceptable today - some ways weren’t necessarily “acceptable” by many back then, but were common, or at least weren’t uncommon.

This post-event hatred 16 years on toward the McCanns about their childcare arrangements on this thread right now has been talked to death- what’s done is done. The only positive aspect of the “outrage” so many years later, is that it hopefully means current or future parents have got the message that leaving kids alone in a foreign apartment whilst eating downstairs probably isn’t the cleverest method of parenting

But I’ve no doubt some of the “holier than thou” posters who are “outraged” will likely do similarly stupid things when they have kids - hopefully the roll of the fate dice will be kind to their kids.

or was in view lit by street lights, they could see it, with multiple parents checking on a regular basis, no one is going to be watching every second obviously

they left it unlocked so the parents could check

this person abducted a child and has disappeared it for nearly 20 years, it was planned

anyway what does this matter to a woke man like yourself

Oh Thank Christ- only for ya, Labre34 and a few others, I’d be losing the will to live here.

There really isn’t any understanding here on this thread as to how kids were raised pre 1990s.

At the age of 9 I came home to an empty house around 2pm, and for the next few hours until my mother came home, heated up my dinner using a gas oven, did my homework listened to pirate radio stations and phoned (yes we had a phone) my friends for a chat😀

Good times !

I didn't think they did it. Which is why I said I gave them the benefit of the doubt.

Is my wrong attitude worse than their parenting skills??? Bloody hardly.

No you're not because you can't see the back of the apartment from the bar and you also can't see the door or window at the front of the apartment which is the side the kid's bedroom was on.

The apartment is a lot more than 50 meters away and an even longer walk to get from the bar back to apartment.

They went out night after night leaving the kids on their own in the apartment. There was an incident the night before where Madeleine was looking for them and they weren't there, she even asked them why they didn't come when she was calling for them. Someone in a neighbouring apartment said she had been crying for some time the night before.

Even after this, they continued to go out and leave the kids alone.

its 50meters away, you can measure it if you want

its a minutes walk

no one is saying you should leave the kids alone, I never have, but they didn't abduct the child

do i lock doors etc at night

yes

why because of the likes of what happened to the mcanns

are they terrible parents, no

the fact the other parents were at it too, show it wasn't abnormal

do I walk kids the school yes

are parents who let kids walk to school bad

not really, but like philip Cairns ffs

is the guy a monster

yes, that whats the focus should be on