Madeleine Mccann Australian Documentary

[Captain...]

On 23/04/2017 at 19:46, Sharpe's Fox said:

End of the day parents shouldn't have left their children to go on the razz. They'll deny it in public but they'll know and have to live with that till they die.

 

23 hours ago, Alf Bentley said:

 

According to Wikipedia, they were eating 55m away, not "hundreds of metres", although they had to go a longer way round to get to the flat and didn't have a view of the street windows. One or other of the group checked on the kids every 30 mins or so.

I'm not denying that they made a misjudgment, but find it interesting that the scale of that misjudgment tends to be talked up.

 

I'm also interested in the circumstances in which people think parents should be condemned. If you, @Wookie or @The Doctor or anyone else feel like it, what are your opinions on these hypothetical scenarios:

 

1) A father is paying for his 3-year-old daughter's toys at the cash till and there's a complication. Suddenly, he realises his daughter has gone. An alert staff member notices her leaving the shop with a suspicious man. Lucky escape!

2) A mother is cooking in the kitchen. Her 2-year-old is securely in his playpen in the lounge. After about 15 minutes, she receives a phone call. An acquaintance has just seen her son 400m away. He has somehow escaped from the playpen, walked 200m down a main road with no pavements and then another 200m down pavements to the village shop, where she finds him.

3) A mother sits her 1-year-old at the back of a bed ready to change his nappy, then realises she's left the nappies at the other side of the room. He's not crawling yet so she feels safe to leave him for 10 seconds while she crosses the room for the nappies. But he chooses that moment to crawl for the first time and falls head first onto the carpeted floor. She rushes him to A&E. Thankfully, he is unhurt.

4) A father is dashing about making food for his 2-year-old, who is safely crawling around the lounge floor. Out of the corner of his eye, he notices the bottle of laxative on a shelf lower than it should be, but is confident that the medical safety lock will be on. 20 seconds later, he dashes back in to find his son taking a glug from the bottle. It makes the lad vomit but no harm done, thankfully.

5) A mother sees her husband off for his night shift. She puts her daughter to bed. She has had a truly shitty day and is looking forward to a couple of glasses of wine...then realises she's forgotten to buy any. She waits until she is sure her daughter is sound asleep, then, after locking the door, pops to the off-licence across the road for a bottle. Within 4 minutes she is home. Her daughter is still sleeping soundly.

6) A father is doing a bit of decorating. His 2-year-old has been coming and going from the garden, but no problem as they live out in the country. Then he realises that he hasn't seen him for a while. Frantic when he finds that the lad is not in the garden, he is so relieved when he finds him outside a neighbour's house, watching the bloke work on his extension.

 

Which of these parents would you condemn - and would it change anything if the outcomes had been different?

 

I think Sharpe's point is being missed here (his post started this chain), they left their child unattended and have to live the consequences.

 

In all the above examples and probably many many more where parents have done something (deliberately or carelessly or accidentally) that they shouldn't have done when looking after their children and no harm has been done, then it can't be compared. If in any of those cases the child had died the parents would have to live with the guilt of knowing it could have been avoided. As do the McCanns. Whatever they say publicly, they know they took a risk (however small) leaving their children unattended and have had to pay a heavy price.

 

They will spend the rest of their lives without Maddie knowing they could have prevented it and that must be horrendous.

[Jon the Hat]

9 minutes ago, Captain... said:

 

I think Sharpe's point is being missed here (his post started this chain), they left their child unattended and have to live the consequences.

 

In all the above examples and probably many many more where parents have done something (deliberately or carelessly or accidentally) that they shouldn't have done when looking after their children and no harm has been done, then it can't be compared. If in any of those cases the child had died the parents would have to live with the guilt of knowing it could have been avoided. As do the McCanns. Whatever they say publicly, they know they took a risk (however small) leaving their children unattended and have had to pay a heavy price.

 

They will spend the rest of their lives without Maddie knowing they could have prevented it and that must be horrendous.

This is all completely obvious and no one disagrees with it.  Literally no one.  Sharpe is taking it further and saying they are 100% responsible for the consequences, which is simply not true.  Victims of crime are not responsible for the crime.  Ever.

[Captain...]

7 minutes ago, Jon the Hat said:

This is all completely obvious and no one disagrees with it.  Literally no one.  Sharpe is taking it further and saying they are 100% responsible for the consequences, which is simply not true.  Victims of crime are not responsible for the crime.  Ever.

That wasn't Sharpe, that was ShaneB (who is wrong), Thracian jumped on Sharpe's comment and it escalated.

 

I just think it is worth repeating that they know they made a mistake and have to live with the consequences, as would any parent. Despite the fact it was only a momentary lapse from Bulger's Mum or Needham's grandparents I bet they are wracked with guilt. The McCanns are no different, it is just that their lapse in parenting was more obvious.

[Thracian]

10 minutes ago, Shaneb said:

My point maybe didn't get across...I am not claiming they had anything to do with the disappearance, I just said they are 100% responsible. They left their children unattended in an unsafe situation. that is not responsible parenting, therefore making them 100% responsible. 

Lots of situations are made "unsafe" because there are so many people around us who shouldn't be on the streets and are well known to be a serious and sometimes permanent danger.

 

So many of them have "previous" (and not just convicted criminal "previous") you'd need a book to fully record it all, and many perhaps all, have mental or connected addiction problems. Once we'd contain some of these people, but now we seem to have abdicated much of that responsibility, presumably due to money and/or human rights concerns. 

 

When societies stop making excuses and take back the responsibility they seem to have voluntarily shelved in recent years, we'll go a lot further towards having the safe, or safer,  streets we all desire.

 

That doesn't excuse parental mistakes but neither do parental mistakes excuse the authorities' lack of responsibility.

 

Health and safety is fast enough to highlight inanimate dangers that make our streets unsafe. 

 

Quite why we don't deal with the far more threatening human dangers as responsibly escapes me. If a Staffordshire bull terrier goes out of control and bites a child we don't let it back on the streets after six months. So why are we so recklessly irresponsible when people go the same way and is it even the right way to treat those who are mentally sick and perhaps don't really want to be the people they become at times?

 

One thing I'd ask relating to the McCanns is whether they were made aware of the spate of break-ins reported at their holiday complex and about reportedly predatory aspects of those break-ins. If not, why not and if so, why would even the most trusted of children be left so vulnerable?

 

Seems like a whole lot of mistakes have been made right along the line.

 

 

 

         

 

 

    

[Jon the Hat]

15 minutes ago, Captain... said:

That wasn't Sharpe, that was ShaneB (who is wrong), Thracian jumped on Sharpe's comment and it escalated.

 

I just think it is worth repeating that they know they made a mistake and have to live with the consequences, as would any parent. Despite the fact it was only a momentary lapse from Bulger's Mum or Needham's grandparents I bet they are wracked with guilt. The McCanns are no different, it is just that their lapse in parenting was more obvious.

Quite right, well spotted.

[Thracian]

1 hour ago, Shaneb said:

My point maybe didn't get across...I am not claiming they had anything to do with the disappearance, I just said they are 100% responsible. They left their children unattended in an unsafe situation. that is not responsible parenting, therefore making them 100% responsible. 

Any situation where children are left unattended is potentially unsafe and the same for adults sometimes. Parenting is as much about teaching kids to cope/survive/recognise dangers etc as anything. And a lot more difficult now than it ever used to be,   

[Strokes]

3 minutes ago, Thracian said:

Any situation where children are left unattended is potentially unsafe and the same for adults sometimes. Parenting is as much about teaching kids to cope/survive/recognise dangers etc as anything. And a lot more difficult now than it ever used to be,   

Yeah learn them young, at two and three years old, they should be earning their own keep. Ffs

[Out Foxed]

i think there's a lot more sinister reason as to why they "left" her. but that's not for discussion here. 

[Thracian]

1 minute ago, Strokes said:

Yeah learn them young, at two and three years old, they should be earning their own keep. Ffs

Kids learn lots even when they're way younger than two. It starts whenever they're ready/capable of learning and the sooner the better given the dangers to be found in every home.

And strange as it may seem lots of kids love to help out from a very young age, and why not?. It's the way they gain experience and build trust between you.  

   

[Strokes]

Just now, Thracian said:

Kids learn lots even when they're way younger than two. It starts whenever they're ready/capable of learning and the sooner the better given the dangers to be found in every home.

And strange as it may seem lots of kids love to help out from a very young age, and why not?. It's the way they gain experience and build trust between you.  

   

Behave Thrac, you cannot wilfully leave 2-3 year olds on their own for long periods and not be guilty of neglect. It's wrong, there is absolutely no justification for it.

[Strokes]

We have already established taking your eye off them can lead to horrendous consequences, how on earth you can leave them for 'half an hour' intervals and expect it to be ok is beyond me.

[leicesterlad1989]

4 minutes ago, Thracian said:

Kids learn lots even when they're way younger than two. It starts whenever they're ready/capable of learning and the sooner the better given the dangers to be found in every home.

And strange as it may seem lots of kids love to help out from a very young age, and why not?. It's the way they gain experience and build trust between you.  

   

Yes kids learn a lot even from a young age but what on earth relevance does that have for the fact children (wasn't just the one) were left unattended for a prolonged period of time, in a foreign country, whilst their parents enjoyed food and drink?

 

We are talking about human children here, not fcking birds fending for themselves in the wild.

[Guest]

35 minutes ago, Strokes said:

Yeah learn them young, at two and three years old, they should be earning their own keep. Ffs

"in my day...."

[Thracian]

3 hours ago, Strokes said:

Behave Thrac, you cannot wilfully leave 2-3 year olds on their own for long periods and not be guilty of neglect. It's wrong, there is absolutely no justification for it.

Where have I defended or justified  "leaving kids for long periods".  I've simply said that the parents - or any parents - are not solely responsible for the consequences.  They may be a factor in the consequences but there's no way they are solely responsible if someone else gets involved. As for "justification" that's about hindsight as much as anything. When something goes wrong everyone will blame the parents, including themselves. Doesn't necessarily tell the full story though. Even concerning "blame".      

[Thracian]

23 minutes ago, Strokes said:

We have already established taking your eye off them can lead to horrendous consequences, how on earth you can leave them for 'half an hour' intervals and expect it to be ok is beyond me.

It's not something I would do or have ever done but I do wonder how many holidaymakers at that complex have left sleeping kids while they had a meal in full sight of the place they'd left them.  And if any were told of the specific dangers present at that time.

For all your judgemental rhetoric, it seems there had been at least several break-ins over a short period and great concern expressed about the predatory aspects of some of them. Were the parents told? Because they certainly should have been.

Or did the complex owners not want to lose custom due to the activities of some burglar or sexual predator who should probably have been locked up long ago and who was perhaps targetting the site through no fault of theirs.

You say blame the parents. I say health and safety is not just the parents responsibility. Seems to me that various people may be to blame for what happened and it's best not to pre-judge.

There is a big, big difference between wilful neglect and bad judgement, especially bad judgement based on appearances rather than a reality the parents should have been told about (assuming they hadn't been, of course).           

[Finnegan]

2 hours ago, Jon the Hat said:

This is all completely obvious and no one disagrees with it.  Literally no one.  Sharpe is taking it further and saying they are 100% responsible for the consequences, which is simply not true.  Victims of crime are not responsible for the crime.  Ever.

 

I'm not sure anyone's suggested that Madeline was responsible....

 

 

 

/facetious

[Carl the Llama]

3 hours ago, Jon the Hat said:

Dogs can smell a lot of history though, could have been blood for many reasons, could be that someone died in a room in the hotel (people do) and the sheets ended up in there.  So many possibilities.

True but for both a blood and cadaver dog to respond to only places in their apartment (and the same places) out the entire block and only their hire car (including inside its boot) out of an entire garage raises a lot of questions.  Could just be bad luck.

[MPH]

10 minutes ago, Carl the Llama said:

True but for both a blood and cadaver dog to respond to only places in their apartment (and the same places) out the entire block and only their hire car (including inside its boot) out of an entire garage raises a lot of questions.  Could just be bad luck.

 

 

They stored some of madeline's things in the boot of their car.

[Wymsey]

There's evidence of Madeleine's blood after deep inspections in both her hotel room and also in the hire car they used during their stay.

With plenty of media papers outlining this at the time.

 

Whilst a former secret service agent isn't 100% content with Gerry McCann's half-brother's statement regarding hire car questions.

http://www.9news.com.au/world/2017/04/24/14/44/madeleine-mccann-statement-analysis-concern-in-statement-about-rental-car-blood-odour

[Webbo]

However good these sniffer dogs are I'm sure they can't distinguish between Madeleine McCanns blood and somebody elses. Somebody could cut their finger, had a nose bleed whatever. 

[Carl the Llama]

Just now, Webbo said:

However good these sniffer dogs are I'm sure they can't distinguish between Madeleine McCanns blood and somebody elses. Somebody could cut their finger, had a nose bleed whatever. 

True but for both a blood and cadaver dog to respond to only places in their apartment (and the same places) out the entire block and only their hire car (including inside its boot) out of an entire garage raises a lot of questions.  Could just be bad luck.

[Manwell Pablo]

On 24/04/2017 at 11:23, Jon the Hat said:

Indeed, many people would be further away if the kids were at the end of the garden and they upstairs in the house or vice versa.

 

Id never leave son or daughter unattended in a building without supervision. Not even to go to the shop. The furthest I'd be is a foot outside the back door smoking where I'd be able to head them still anyway. 

 

Taking your eyes off them is different leaving any child under at least six or seven totally defenceless in a unsupervised building is utter negligence.

[DANGEROUS TIGER]

What's new? It's just been re written. It's such a sad case. Poor little girl.

[fuchsntf]

20 hours ago, Alf Bentley said:

 

 

Right, coFCnfession time.... They weren't h ypothetical examples. They were all real, if slightly disguised events: (1) James Bulger's mother; (2) My mother (with my 2-year-old brother); (3), (4) & (5) Me, in my worst 3 parenting moments; (6) Ben Needham's grandparents.

 

- Clarification re. (4), the liquid laxative: What 5 seconds to move the bottle would have meant would have been my daughter's food burnt, when I was confident (wrongly, as it turns out) that, in the unlikely event that she grabbed the bottle, she wouldn't be able to open it because we always put the medical safety lid on securely. To my mind, that is in the same category as (3), the fall from the bed - an understandable, if complacent error of judgment, combined with a bit of bad luck.

- Clarification re. (5), the wine: My daughter was 2 at the time and asleep in a high-sided cot that she could not escape from, on the 1st floor of a locked house: the chances of an intruder, sharp objects, climbing cabinets and filling baths were zero, effectively. What I did feel guilty about at the time, even though I only left for 4 minutes, was if she woke up crying and I didn't come....but then, as @winchesterton points out, that could easily have happened anyway. If I'd gone to the kitchen to make a cup of tea, I wouldn't necessarily have heard the monitor. Likewise, if you're asleep at night, you don't necessarily wake immediately.... Btw, though I've had my issues with drunkenness, I've never got legless while in charge of a child and wasn't seeking to do so on this occasion. I'd just had a bad day and had promised myself a couple of glasses of wine.

 

Some people seem to be quick to jump to harsh judgment of the errors of others. Maybe they are - or will become - perfect parents, unlike me? Maybe they will never take their eyes off their children, 24/7? If so, they are untypical of the parents I've known - almost all of whom would have stories similar to mine. Likewise, I've been to family-friendly pubs and they haven't been full of parents who never take their eyes off their children. Many check on their kids occasionally, but spend much of their time talking to friends, maybe watching a match...

 

To clarify, I think the six examples quoted involve misjudgments and imperfect conduct - of the sort that nearly all parents will be guilty of very occasionally. To me, examples (2) and (6) - my baby brother escaping from his playpen & Ben Needham's grandparents not noticing that he had wandered off - are errors not too dissimilar from the error of the McCanns: a bit of complacency and inattention, of the kind most people are guilty of. Funny enough, I find the McCanns' misplaced confidence that their children were in a safe place easier to understand than them being prepared to risk their children crying for up to half an hour without them hearing....but people are human and make mistakes. They then got horribly unlucky - and I feel for them, as well as their daughter.

 

If anything, my mother was over-attentive - but on the occasion quoted she made a mistake, as humans do. Similarly, nobody ever criticises Ben Needham's grandparents, do they?  Apparently they were renovating their house, their grandson was popping in and out from the garden and they didn't notice for a while that he had wandered off....and sadly got involved in a fatal accident, if the police are correct. Should we loudly condemn them for their inattention, too? Perhaps one or two of us could accuse them of throwing their grandson under the bulldozer? No, there's something about the McCanns that causes people to condemn them vitriolically, in a way they don't condemn others....Is it the fact that they are middle-class and self-controlled? Is it that they have been in the public eye so much, that people get angry and uneasy? As there's no solution to the Madeleine disappearance, do they just want them to get off their TV screens? I find the psychology of the people who pick them out for condemnation interesting.

It seems a few on here still miss the Point on the parents.

They delibrately and knowingly, left their children , the oldest being 4, alone unattended, in a totally strange, unknown enviroment, where they never asked themselves the  question what happens, if they wake up ( visit every 30 minutes, I ask you !!) Nobody in the appartment ?? !!!

50 -100 meters away, Xnr of houses in the way, no direct path, like ones own abode.

Of course those points you mentioned, were in an known enviroment, and of no distance at the time, plus Everyday-life mitigating circumstances.

Madeleines case, was the parents didnt think or play expected Young  parents Percentages!!

Being a parent and far from perfect, I still cant understand leaving your kids alone in a strange appartment...abroad,knowing kids sleep patterns and waking emotions are off tilt!!!

 

Even in this know-all, socially improved society, these issues should be Allowed to

be openly discussed, it will make other parents just think what responsibilty having children

brings anew, and short selfish freedoms have to be put on hold, or planned with thought.

If they had been in our friends circle, and nothing had happened, but they admitted to their

Child free zone...They would of been openly criticised..

 

I will tell you a story about my then 4 year old daughter, in our own house, in a expected secure enviroment....

 

We had put her to bed, she went sleep quite content...In Germany we have these blinds outside

to roll down at night..

At midnight, somebody rang our house-bell, I was watching tv at the time, So got out of the chair,

and went to the door, with my eyes focused around my own eye-line...who wouldnt..??

Nothing !!!  I then I looked down (entrance is on steps and podest), on the steps looking up at me rather Confused and tired, muttering hallo papa, was Laura my 4 year old...

She had got on her table, opened the big window, drew up the blinds , climbed up the flowerstones (Her room next to our own, was a normal bedroom in a raised living cellar).

God , I swept her up, going hot and cold, my wife wondering  what the fuss was about,

Then seen the door open and me holding our daughter, asking where I was going...!!

Jesus...women.....

Laura after getting out and climbing out, just walked the 10 meters around to the front door,

and calmly rang the bell  Ffs, if she had decided then to go for a walk in her nighty.We live in a village on a quiet street, but even now I still shudder thinking about it.Its a story that still gets spoken about...every christmas one of my other 3 kids will bring it up .All now grown up and Laura has Now her own 5yr old..That is a home incident...not an away game.!!

 

 

 

[Facecloth]

29 minutes ago, fuchsntf said:

It seems a few on here still miss the Point on the parents.

They delibrately and knowingly, left their children , the oldest being 4, alone unattended, in a totally strange, unknown enviroment, where they never asked themselves the  question what happens, if they wake up ( visit every 30 minutes, I ask you !!) Nobody in the appartment ?? !!!

50 -100 meters away, Xnr of houses in the way, no direct path, like ones own abode.

Of course those points you mentioned, were in an known enviroment, and of no distance at the time, plus Everyday-life mitigating circumstances.

Madeleines case, was the parents didnt think or play expected Young  parents Percentages!!

Being a parent and far from perfect, I still cant understand leaving your kids alone in a strange appartment...abroad,knowing kids sleep patterns and waking emotions are off tilt!!!

 

Even in this know-all, socially improved society, these issues should be Allowed to

be openly discussed, it will make other parents just think what responsibilty having children

brings anew, and short selfish freedoms have to be put on hold, or planned with thought.

If they had been in our friends circle, and nothing had happened, but they admitted to their

Child free zone...They would of been openly criticised..

 

I will tell you a story about my then 4 year old daughter, in our own house, in a expected secure enviroment....

 

We had put her to bed, she went sleep quite content...In Germany we have these blinds outside

to roll down at night..

At midnight, somebody rang our house-bell, I was watching tv at the time, So got out of the chair,

and went to the door, with my eyes focused around my own eye-line...who wouldnt..??

Nothing !!!  I then I looked down (entrance is on steps and podest), on the steps looking up at me rather Confused and tired, muttering hallo papa, was Laura my 4 year old...

She had got on her table, opened the big window, drew up the blinds , climbed up the flowerstones (Her room next to our own, was a normal bedroom in a raised living cellar).

God , I swept her up, going hot and cold, my wife wondering  what the fuss was about,

Then seen the door open and me holding our daughter, asking where I was going...!!

Jesus...women.....

Laura after getting out and climbing out, just walked the 10 meters around to the front door,

and calmly rang the bell  Ffs, if she had decided then to go for a walk in her nighty.We live in a village on a quiet street, but even now I still shudder thinking about it.Its a story that still gets spoken about...every christmas one of my other 3 kids will bring it up .All now grown up and Laura has Now her own 5yr old..That is a home incident...not an away game.!!

 

 

 

See you gave yourself a chance to hear something. You might not have heard your daughter climb out the window, but you might have. You were also there when she rang the doorbell. If you'd been down the pub or visiting your mate a few door down and the house was empty, you'd have stood no chance of hearing anything. That's the problem with the McCanns, they gave themselves no chance to stop anything that might go wrong, whether that be abduction, or injury or death to the child in some way. Yes, shit happens, even when you're there, but that's no excuse for not being there. The fact people can't understand this (and they are parents in some cases) is a little worrying.