..yeah I do agree they are guilty of that and because the search for Madeleine took priority after her disappearance, that appears to have been completely overlooked but would the same have happened if they weren't middle class doctors..(unless there were investigations by social services..?..)

oh brother :suspect:

what?

It's a valid point.

You're saying that 2 young parents from a council estate leaving 3 children alone to go out drinking in a foreign country wouldn't be treated differently?

yes I concur , the actual classism here is in favor of the mccanns and against the lower classes who would be hung drawn and quartered if they had been that neglectful

I disagree with your summary of what happened I am afraid

You mean that 2 parents left their children alone in a foreign country to have a night of drinking?

Which bit did I get wrong?

All of it.

Well, the class system does exist to sort the wheat from the chaff.

By all means go ahead and correct the sentence.

marshs summary was 100% accurate

another non contribution from yourself, if only you were as funny as you think you are

There is evidence to suggest he has a point. I will say no more.

Madeleine and her younger siblings had been left asleep at 20:30 in the ground-floor apartment while her parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, dined with their travelling companions in a restaurant 50 metres (160 ft) away. The parents checked on the children throughout the evening until Madeleine's mother discovered she was missing at 22:00.

They did nothing wrong and did what millions of parents would do and do do every day of the year. What was wrong was that they were targeted by an abductor.

The fact that you would not have done that (if you had children) is neither here nor there. For all you know the child could have been nabbed in the supermarket the next day, or on the beach.

I tend to agree with that. I'm not sure why the door was unlocked, it should have been locked, but hindsight is a wonderful thing.

..I don't agree that leaving children of that age alone in a holiday apartment is what an 'average' person does or something that millions of people do, it doesn't matter that they checked them at intervals, the children were alone for a portion of time and it takes seconds/minutes for someone to abduct them or for them to have an accident...

perhaps in case of fire or it did not have a lock

yes and it can happen on a crowded beach, in a shop, in a street...


abductions happen in all sorts of circumstances and the 1 thread that runs through all is a dedicated abductor

it takes but a few seconds to snatch a child as in ALL abduction cases. Most happen in the street and involving cars.

There was everything wrong with it.

Their apartment was accessible from the street via a blind spot they couldn't see from the restaurant. A door was left unlocked for anyone to get inside. That's completely irresponsible when all of your children are so small.

Whether other people would have done it doesn't make it right.

..so you would consider that there may be a fire and leave the door unlocked as a precaution and trust a 3 year old to get herself and her siblings out safely if it should happen...

It was not illegal and millions leave children to play out of sight in streets and gardens.

Do you ever leave your children out of your sight for any length of time?

Not really the point.

There's a difference between having your child snatched from you and giving the abductors a an easy opportunity to do it.

Who said it was illegal? But if Maddie was found to have had an accident whilst left without adult supervision it would be a different story.

better than locking it so that staff could get access - who knows what the thought process was but as responsible parents they made that call based on circumstances at that time

..yeah, abductions can happen anywhere which is why parents are cautious to know that their children are always in view, so leaving them alone in an apartment would seem quite a careless thing to do...