Madeleine McCann

[Julian]

In the UK they have a full time nanny, I wonder why she didn't accompany them. If it was so that they could have a "family" holiday why were the children placed in the creche everday?

Th parents claim that they didn't want a stranger looking after their children ( but it was OK during the day ) The creche staff were also the babysitting staff.

One thing I didn't realise was that that fateful night was not the first time they had left the children in the room alone. Indeed every night they were there they had the same routine whereby the children would be checked on evry 30 mins or so while they dined with six other doctor types.

It wouldn't be difficult for someone to spot the pattern.....

Originally Posted by Julian

...Indeed every night they were there they had the same routine whereby the children would be checked on evry 30 mins or so while they dined with six other doctor types...

I have just watched the interview by the BBC recorded a few days ago, and Mr. McCann is vague about how often they checked their apartment. Although the text on the website twice mentions 30 minutes, in the actual interview he only says that the apartment was checked at regular intervals. How often is regular?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6692161.stm


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[Saaf_laandon_mo]

Originally Posted by XFS03

I have just watched the interview by the BBC recorded a few days ago, and Mr. McCann is vague about how often they checked their apartment. Although the text on the website twice mentions 30 minutes, in the actual interview he only says that the apartment was checked at regular intervals. How often is regular?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6692161.stm


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In the statement given to the police the last check in which Maddie was discovered missing was 50 mins after the previous one.

[bringerofnoise]

no kids should be left on their own, no matter where they are, and especially in a foreign country.

Dispicable. I for one only feel sorry for the kid, but not the parents.

ik

yup when the details first came out i could not believe what i was hearing, me and the missus would never do anything so stupid as that yea it's harsh to say but your childrens safety is the first thing on your mind when you wake up and stays there until your asleep and even then it's kinda still there(those who have kids will understand what i mean).

Suffering because of someone elses stupidity is the worst thing

[jkat]

Originally Posted by gazzae

So if the driver kills a member of his family he shouldn't be punished?

Maddie is not an inanimate object. so what do u hope to achieve by punishing??

[alferret]

Portuguese law says that you can't leave young children unattended.

Copied a post from elsewhere.
[copied]
Some of the scenarios given here about about when or where we leave our children are just daft. Leaving your child in another room whilst the family sleep or in some other part of the house/garden while you do something else is very, very different to leaving them entirely alone whilst you go out to dinner in a different building, out of eye/ear shot and for half an hour at a time. In addition, these weren't young children or teenagers who may have been able to fend for themselves should something go wrong, they were near enough babies. If we're saying it's okay to leave children in circumstances similiar to this story then the world really has gone mad![/copied]

CHILD rights lawyer Professor Carolyn Hamilton says the McCanns leaving their kids and checking on them every half-hour was legally acceptable.
She said: "It is not desirable but parents have to balance the demands of life and will probably have to consider such issues regularly. Leaving them for a short while, asleep in a locked room with regular checks is acceptable. Leaving them for two hours, or with unlocked doors, is not."
Other common situations parents find themselves in could include leaving under-fives sleeping in an unlocked car for 20 minutes while you shop.
Prof Hamilton says this is not acceptable as the kids might wake up and get out.
In a third scenario, a parent leaves 18-month twins in their cots for an afternoon sleep while they nip out for less than 10 minutes.
Prof Hamilton said: "If they were asleep and couldn't get out of the cots, a parent might reasonably leave them."
A final scenario involves going out leaving children aged 10, eight and six in bed, with the oldest told to ring your mobile if there are problems.
Prof Hamilton said: "This would be a real matter for concern. If the parent could not get back within 15 minutes there is a possibility he or she might be charged with abandonment."
The Times

LINK

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by Xaccers

Children's screams normally go further than 100yds.

That is, of course, assuming she screamed.

[Xaccers]

Originally Posted by Stuart C

That is, of course, assuming she screamed.

Actually it's got nothing to do with the abduction, it was in response to people's suggestion that if you're 100 yards away you can't possible ever in a million years know that your child is calling for you

That nothing was heard, and their window was opened with a crow bar suggests that the parents being in the next room wouldn't have made a blind bit of difference.

Originally Posted by alferret

...LINK

"Leaving them for a short while, asleep in a locked room with regular checks is acceptable. Leaving them for two hours, or with unlocked doors, is not."

That leaves quite a large grey area doesn't it!...and how short is "short", how regular is "regular"?
Why do the checks have to be regular anyway? Surely it doesn't matter whether the checks are regular or irregular. It's the frequency of the checks that are important i.e how often the checks are made.
btw...it has now been reported that the patio doors were left unlocked.

Leaving children alone in this manner is not desirable, but parents have to balance the demands of life and will probably have to consider such issues regularly.

The demands of life? I suppose in general this is true, but does it apply in this case?

Also from that link:-

The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children believes that babies and toddlers should never be left alone, whether asleep or awake, even for a few minutes.
"It doesn't take long for unsupervised young children or babies to injure themselves," said Chris Cloke, head of child protection awareness at the charity.
"Put simply, it is too risky to leave them alone at all at such a young age."

[Xaccers]

Oh dear:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/6720661.stm

What has happened in the last 30 years or so?

The risk of abduction remains tiny. In Britain, there are now half as many children killed every year in road accidents as there were in 1922 - despite a more than 25-fold increase in traffic.

In 1970, 80% of primary school-age children made the journey from home to school on their own. It was what you did.

Today the figure is under 9%. Escorting children is now the norm - often in the back of a 4x4.

We are rearing our children in captivity - their habitat shrinking almost daily.

In 1970 the average nine-year-old girl would have been free to wander 840 metres from her front door. By 1997 it was 280 metres.

Now the limit appears to have come down to the front doorstep.

[Osem]

............... and the media are largely to blame for this parental paranoia.

by 2007 they all wanna play on a console

The abduction will be featured on tonight's Crimewatch. It will be interesting to see the sequence of events.

After watching the BBC interview, I also watched the ITV & Sky interviews. Once again the McCann's did not say that they checked every 30 minutes. They again used the meaningless word "regularly". Strangely, Kate McCann says, in the Sky interview, that she can't go into any more detail. She doesn't say why.

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[peanut]

Originally Posted by XFS03

The abduction will be featured on tonight's Crimewatch. It will be interesting to see the sequence of events.

After watching the BBC interview, I also watched the ITV & Sky interviews. Once again the McCann's did not say that they checked every 30 minutes. They again used the meaningless word "regularly". Strangely, Kate McCann says, in the Sky interview, that she can't go into any more detail. She doesn't say why.

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Sounds interesting and I'll try to catch it when it's on.

I'm sure that anyone would bend the truth a little in those circumstances, I think they would say 30 mins to start with, but I wouldn't be surprised ( at all) if it was once in 4 hours to be honest. Could it be they've got found out and don't want to own up?

Think of the differnces IF they did say we just leave them there all night, we ain't that far away so is that bad?

[Osem]

Agree about the timing question - this aspect has seemed rather fuzzy since day one. It's the sort of thing many people would say initially in the circumstances but I really wouldn't be surprised if it turns out that whatever checks were made were far less frequent.