Madeleine McCann

I personally think that regardless of what happens to Maddy, and she's almost certainly dead, the parents should be prosecuted. It's absolutely disgraceful and unbelievable that they would leave two babies and a three year old in a room in a foreign country on their own when they went out for a night out.

Whatever happens they should be put in jail for reckless endangerment or neglect or whatever you could prosecute them for and the two other kids should be taken off them and given to parents who would properly care for them.

I have all the sympathy in the world for Maddy but their parents I have no sympathy for and would love to see them pay a serious penalty for what they did on top of having to live with what they did.

My parents used to leave me in the room on holiday often whilst they sat by the pool or had a couple of drinks at night. I'm still here and, *shock horror*, have never been abducted once. The only reason people are making a fuss is because it's easier to find a scapegoat when a tragedy happens than to accept that it's a case of bad luck. I'm sure her parents are beating themselves up over this enough without a group of people who don't have kids (and have no idea how they would have reacted in that situation) putting the boot in too.

As for Jim's point; I fully agree. As a nation, we enjoy championing these causes, as we feel we're doing our little bit, but don't take a second glance at the posters of missing children we see in our own towns and cities.

becuase the death of thier 4 year old daughter wouldnt be punishment?

i know what these people did was wrong, but everyone makes mistakes and in this case it is a massive misjudgement on the parents part but my sympthy goes out to everyone who is involved with this terrible event.

all people make mistakes and your lack of sympthy is pretty shocking to be honest! they made a mistake and now there making all efforts to make up for it, there child has just gone missing, they deserve help not ridicule!

as for her being dead, i dont think so, tho maybe thats more hoping she isnt but finding her is becoming harder as each day passes, not that the police were much help at the start of the search!

No. They should pay the price for their neglect and their responsibility in this incident.

What if I went out tonight and had a few drinks and got into my car and ended up killing a three year old girl tonight. It was a misjudgement on my part and I'd have to live with the fact that I unintentionally killed a young girl but that doesn't absolve me of what I'd have done and I'd deserve to be locked away, not to mention having my licence to drive taken away. The same thing should be true for the parents. They made a catastrophic mistake that will almost surely result in their daughter getting killed. They should pay the price for that and they shouldn't have the right to those two kids that are still alive. They have more then proven they are not fit parents and the lives of the two that are still alive should not be left in their hands.

They don't deserve any help, they deserve all the misery they have coing to them. Maddy, if she's still alive, deserves all the help and sympathy not to mention all the extended family who are suffering through this.

In cases like this, where the child hasn't been taken by a relative, if she's not been found withing the first 24 hours and the kidnapper(s) has made no attempt to come forward the chances of her being found alive significantly decrease with each passing day. Another thing that is always a giveaway that a missing person is dead is when the papers get involved a put up a massive reward for her safe return. They only ever do that when they have been told by experts that the missing person is almost certainly dead. I haven't been following the case closely so I don't know if that's happening or not but I would be stuned if she's found alive after this long. She may well be but it's more likely she was taken and kept alive for a couple of days being continuously rapped and then when her dissapearence started to make major headlines she was probably killed and dumped somewhere.

Re-read that and tell me it isn't utterly ****ing ridiculous?! How is getting tanked up and running somebody over the same as leaving children alone in a room on holiday?

Allow me to reiterate: my parents left me alone in numerous apartments whilst on various holidays. I haven't suffered for it and will probably do the same when I have children myself. You have to draw a line somewhere and have a small amount of time to yourselves. I wonder if you'd have made the same judgment about a couple doing the same thing on holiday had their child not been abducted? I very much doubt it.


Are you privy to some information which the rest of us aren't? Did THEY abduct their own child? Only I'm finding difficult to see how you're attempting to form a rational argument out of this utter drivel.


Ah, so you're a complete and utter cynic as well as being a complete and utter cretin. Which 'experts' have these newspapers been talking to; the kidnappers?

I think there's no worse punishment than the death of a child, especially given the circumstances. Anything else (prison, whatever) would be nothing to them. I guess they'd rather go to jail and have their child brought back safely than not go to jail and never see their child again after this.

No ****ing way - you NEVER leave a 4 year old alone by themselves. In the next room perhaps (in your own house). I think that is something any parent should know.

And yes I can judge them for it. If they wanted to be parents they should be informed enough about when and what age a kid can do things by themselves - and when they shouldn't even be expected to.

Kathleen

They are both highly irresponsible things to do and could easily result in somebody getting seriously hurt and killed. Plenty of people drink and drive and don't have accidents and it doesn't make it OK, just like plenty of people leave their kids alone for long periods of time and nothing happens but it doesn't mean that's ok either. If somebody drinks and drives and is unlucky to get caught or get involved in an accident they'll pay the price, and rightly so for their dangerous irresponsiblity and reckless endangerment. This couple were unlucky that their neglect resulted in their daughter being abducted and they should also pay the price for their neglect and reckless endangerment.

What age were you? If you were anything under 14 then I think what your parents did was disgraceful, dangerous and hugely irresponsible.

You might have suffered had you been kidnapped or gotten sick and not had your parents there or if you had gotten into an accident. I don't have kids but I look after my cousins who range from a couple years old to early teens and you just can't take your eyes off them or they get into trouble. I just can't fathom how parents could leave their children alone like this. It makes me so sick that somebody could be that reckless and irresponsible.

Get a babysitter, don't bring your kids on holiday. You can have time alone without your babies been left alone by themselves for hours at a time.

I absolutely would. These parents got unlucky but anyone who does something like this is unbelievabley irresponsible and should be ashamed of themselves.


They don't deserve help or sympathy because they are highly responsible for what has happened. I'm studying to be a psychologist right now and I would have serious issues counselling somebody in this situation.


It's called reality, buddy. Go and look at the statistics for child abductions and recovery rates from the Home Office. I think Jim mentioned that 100,000 kids are abducted every year in the UK which is a huge figure but the vast majority of those are taken by the father, mother or a close relative. The rest are abducted usually by men to be rapped and a lot are subsequently killed.

The newspapers will always talk to many differnet forensic pyschologists and former police officers and people involved in the dissaperence of the person and evaluate the likelyhood of that person still being alive. If they are told the person is likely to be alive and will be found, they stay out, if they are told the person is almost certainly dead, they will put up rewards of £100,000 or some figure because it's pretty safe they are not going to lose it and it's great PR for them. The Professor who taught my forensic psychology class has been asked to do this countless times.

Actually at 10 kids can be alone in a house for a few hours by themselves if they have been taught how to call 911 or even call their parents wherever they are. Up until a kid is 9 - 10 they have a very different perception of reality than you do. They certainly don't perceive danger in the same way - and they shouldn't be expected to. That's why they are called kids.

Kathleen

Your analogy is ridiculous. The two don't correlate in any way.

Ranging from a baby upwards. There was a baby monitor in the room with me but quite what good that would do against somebody breaking in and taking me, I don't know. You can't plan for every eventuality. Please refrain from casting a moral judgment as to the suitability of my parents to bring me up. I have had a far better upbringing than many in pretty much every way and have not suffered as a result of ANY decision my parents made when I was younger.

My parents also allowed me to go out drinking when I was 17 years old. Had I been murdered by a drunken lout whilst out, would you have cast the same opinion over their right to grieve? Would you have them up in the dock for manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility?

No, the person who has taken her is responsible. On what grounds are you dishing out responsibility?

Do stop with the patrony, it isn't becoming of you.


So, on the basis that a lecturer of yours has been asked to give an opinion on the likelihood of a child being alive, the newspapers are purely acting in their own best interests? I would hazard a guess that the majority of the money has been put up by unconnected third parties, eager to see Maddie return home safely and her kidnapper arrested. In addition to this, the media are often instructed by those investigating the case to put a positive spin on what's happening foe the benefit of the family and friends of the victim and in a bid to coax a move out of whoever did it.