i think that theres been so much criticism of the police that people almost forgot for a minute that a four year old little girl has gone missing.

im not usually a defender of the police but in this case I would say if the parents had of not gone off and left their daughter she would not now be missing.
Also, if the parents had been "non proffesionals" and from a run down council estate, the headlines would probably have been very different. The sun would have been screaming about how a mother had gone off and left her children alone instead of saying the police investigation was crap!

I think there's a lot of xenephobia going on in the UK press. The investigation is on every news program. If a child had gone missing in the UK under similar circumstances it would probably still be mentioned on the local news, but by now would have disapeared off the main bulletins until there was something to report.

I have to say I think a lot of the media's coverage of this event has been questionable. Some newspapers appear obsessed with turning it into some kind of soap opera with heavily sensationalised reporting, i think some of it has been in bad taste to be perfectly honest.

http://media.guardian.co.uk/mediaguardian/...2079059,00.html

"Every parent's nightmare" it is indeed. I can't really bring myself to think about it. I started reading Ian McEwan's "The Child In Time" a good few years ago and had to put it down after a few pages. The memory of walking across the field at Cropredy with a load of bags but then discovering that Ruth was not there was just too much.

She turned up at the lost children tent but I'm on the verge of tears as I write this .........

The fact that the Portugese police won't feed details to the media unless they need to be fed is probably a good move, you'd hate for the press to speculate and report false details, invariably causing enough of a bias in the public perception of a suspect to skew a trial - as is often the case.
That said, the lack of details fed to the press is causing enough speculation that they'll latch onto anything......

I completely agree with PS comments on the class of the parents.

i endorse everything that PS and Jon have said, having said it myself on the news thread 9 days ago.

when they get home, social services should take the other 2 off of them an' all.

every parents nightmare? not really. i've never left 3 kids under 4 on their own whilst i've gone out enjoying myself.

I don't like the way this is being covered. Today on the front page of the Daily Mirror, and inside the Daily Mail there is the story that someone swears they saw Maddie in Marrakesh. She asked the person (who didn't at the time know about the case) when she could see her mummy.
I expect this to be headline news tomorow, or else we are being played with.

I'd like to post something I found on another band's site by someone known as Dprid. It says exactly what I've been thinking but soooo much better than I can. The guy gave me permission to copy the post

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Yes, the parents made a mistake, especially when baby sitting services were available, but it must be said that they've been extremely unlucky. I mean, who actually believes that their child will get kidnapped after all? I would wager that thousands of people on holiday have done similar things - people relax their guard on holiday because they think they're safe. And child kidnapping is hardly rife - the chance was it happening were 1 in millions. Heck, go back 30 years and there'd be barely a parent in existance that wouldn't be guilty under these criteria, and despite what the media would have us believe the dangers aren't actually that much higher now than they were then - it's just receives far more publicity. In fact in some regards you could almost blame the media hype for what they did - they didn't want their children left with strangers presumably because they were afraid of child abuse, and actually thought what they were doing was safer.

If we're going to crucify these parents for not preventing a million to one chance then I think we'll need to start criticising any parent who actually lets their child do anything other than stay in bed! Let's start with all the drivers who don't strap their children into specialist child car seats, all drivers who use mobiles whilst children are in the car etc etc - the chances of a child being killed or injured in a car accident are far higher than of the child being kidnapped.

At the end of the day however let's not forget one thing - the guilty party in this case is 100% the kidnapper. And given what these parents must be going through I would say that prosecuting them would be little more than cruel and vindictive, even if she turns up dead.

Agree with the last part but I do actually think it's extremely irresponsible to not strap your child into a proper car seat, even on short journeys or to use mobiles whilst kids are in the car. So I'm not sure agree with every part of your argument. I still think they were stupid but, fuck!, don't they know it now.

I agree with Red Star's post. The person responsible for that child's disappearance is the person who took her. People do slightly irresponsible stuff with their kids all the time. Only 99.9% of the time, it doesn't have horrendous consequences that the parents will then have to live with for the rest of their lives. Persecuting them now serves no purpose.

It must be unthinkably horrific for her parents and they now have to live with it all for the rest of their lives. You wouldn't wish that on anyone.
I can totally understand them wanting to do everything they possibly can to keep the media and public interest alive.

My thing about it is the fact that children get abused, exploited and go missing every day. Because people dont want "abuse saturation" these children are never heard about until theres a big concert or a "foreign dignitry" visits the country!

Wholeheartedly agree wth that. The coverage is disproportionate. It's one of those times when ordinarily sane British people, who ignore their real family and friends on a regular basis, suddenly feel compelled to indulge a vicarious relationship with someone they never met. It's Dianamania all over again. I hesitate to call it emotional masturbation - oh hell, let's call it that.

It says something quite scary about how many people feel dislocated within their own lives.

Dear me, this article caused me a few problems. Have I switched off because of the media coverage? Do I really think what I think about the case? Are they really unfortunate people or simply careless? Why are there so many mambers of the press out there?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/st...2083855,00.html

The dad has lost his wallet now, he really is careless isn't he.

I went to Portugal on holiday a few years ago. I came back with both my kids, it can be done but I suppose the trick is I didn't leave them alone!!!

Should I shouldn't I?
Mick, that wasn't so good.
The poor parents.

... the stupid parents, i think you mean, Damon. i mean, leaving your kids home alone in a place you don't know very well.... but yeah, drawing an analogy with losing a wallet is a bit of a cuntish thing to do too....

I don't mind the insult nev you see I work hard at my parenting, I put the time and effort in I was playing football and bowls with my boys yesterday afternoon after taking them out in the morning (inbetween the housework). Kids are a lot of effort. Sometimes in life you have to give up some freedom because you have a very great responsibility.

The parents of this poor child made a bad mistake but many more people would have sympathy for them if they admitted they had, but as far as I'm aware when asked they would not admit they feel guilty.

This is the key point isn't it?

It's one of the reasons that I firmly believe that children shouldn't be allowed in pubs at any time. The fact that food might be being served and it might be OK until 21:00 is neither here nor there. Pubs are for grown ups and children shouldn't be in them. I shudder at the number of times my two mates and I sat wide eyed and speechless as small children played beneath OUR table in our local whilst their "parents" drank, smoked and chatted animatedly a few feet away. This was between 21:30 and 22:00 on a Sunday night during term time.

"Wrong" seems such an inadequate word and yet to describe the adults here as criminal would undoubtedly leave me open to accusations of over reaction.

When you become a parent your life changes and that includes not being able to have romantic candle lit suppers with your partner, unless you can find a sitter and not going down the pub with your mates for a few bevvies, WITH THE CHILDREN!

It seems crazy that this needs to be spelt out to people.

we've always taken our kids to the pub, but then we've always supervised them.

we've also kept them out of the sort of pub i like, and only taken them to family oriented premises.

we've also always abided by the law of having them out by 9pm.

like everything else, if you approach it in a responsible manner, there's rarely a problem.

golden rule. if my kids started playing up, we'd leave.

True.

But how do you protect children from people who have litle or no respect for the law, other people or their own offspring?

It is because of their failure to take responsibility that blanket bans, which disrupt the lives of the responsible parent, like yourself Mo', come into being.

My Ex and took Chris and Holly to the pub in the afternoons on Saturdays or Sundays in the summer. We could have a swift half, a nice meal and the children could enjoy being outside, away from home but safe.

On the occasions in the past, and there were far too many I have to admit, that I got so shit faced I couldn't stand or talk, the next day was a nightmare not only of hangover and stomach pain but of overwhelming shame and guilt. It seems that as the years have passed and getting totally rat-arsed has grown seemingly more acceptable in Britain, the sense of shame has disappeared. This must have an effect on children.

It can't be good for a society if it loses a sense of shame, can it?

better to take your kids out to a child friendly pub than leave them home alone. eh?

better yet to turn your front room into a pub... when are you coming over anyway?

SOON.

There are a lot of weird things about this case. The campaign thing, for a start, freaked me out, with its people speaking on behalf of and all that. I'm not surprised that the parents have been named as suspects, largely because the case has dragged on for so long now and, well, I think it's all so peculiar.

i find the 'campaign' the least strange thing.

'don't mourn, organise' comes to mind.

Apparently, the school where she would have gone has a vacant peg, a vacant chair and place etc. Now that's ... well what is it? Barmy? Mental?

um, this isn't a campaign to fight for workers' rights...

i think hiring a PR spokesperson is a bit odd. and the fact we've never seen these people cry in public is a bit odd too... if it was my kid the last thing on my mind would be updating a fucking blog about what the twins did during the day and i would be a wreck, a crying ball of misery all the time. as far as i can tell from the news coverage kate and jerry haven't shed a tear in public and i think something so emotional you wouldn't be able to contain it so well.

and thinking about it, do you get a one way ticket to hell for lying directly to the pope? was the media campaign all part of the plan to take attention away from themselves?

i hope they didn't do anyting to her, i hope the little kid is still alive somewhere, but the longer this goes on... the more doubts i have about the whole thing.

I am reminded of the Falconio case, where Joanne Lees was the subjected of all sorts of rumour and innuendo, because she didn't 'behave like a victim' (i.e. in the way that the media expect a victim to behave) and because she didn't cooperate with the press as much as they wanted her to. She was, of course, entirely innocent and the way that the case was handled by the press (and the public response to it) made an appalling experience even worse.....

i know that keri.. but i think, as a one time 'organiser'... that is what i might do.

that's all.

although in reality if i should be in such an unthinkable situation i would probably go to pieces and be no bloddy good at all for my remaining children.

i just hope that some answers are found, for the sake of the siblings, and those answers don't implicate the parents.


if it is all based on the theory that they spirited her away, in a hire car, weeks later, under all that media attention.. ...

Oh yes, I know. The peculiar things about this McCann affair is that the law governing police and press is totally different in Portugal - we're constantly told this anyway - and that the McCann family seem to be trying to handle the case instead of handing it to the media. That seems to be interpreted as 'coldness' on their part, as in the case you rightly mentioned above.

There is another thing that bothers me. This story has been in the media for a long time now but other similar stories have hardly been mentioned. (http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2165445,00.html) Another question to be asked of the UK media's decision making?

this case was partly based on the middle aged woman's attitude.

It's a huge global story Andy. Not just in the UK. A google News search comes up with 5,000 recent stories - that's a huge number - 2.5 times the number of stories on the return of Nawaz Sharif to Pakistan for instance....

this is a quote from one of damon's favoutite columnists....

Irony?

BBC News

hmmmm

I think that's what I don't understand really. In relation to what's going on in Darfur ...... fucking media twats.

You're right of course, but that didn't stop it from being the top story here Thursday and Friday.

It does have the unpleasant flavour of instituional racism about it - what with her being a pretty little blonde girl, an' all...

I wish they'd just it let slip down the news agenda, to maybe sixth or seventh place.

I'm sorry Andy but you are talking complete twaddle.

There are plenty of stories on Darfur. But the fact of the matter is Darfur doesn't sell newspapers or increase viewing figures. The Madeleine McCann story does - it is a gripping tale and that is why it has stuck. People are genuinely interested - now that may very well be morbidly voyeuristic, but news editors know their reader/viewership.

People who read the Daily Mail or watch Sky News care little about Darfur. News for many people is Infotainment - upsets me greatly but there you go. You can try and force Darfur down people necks but they will just turn over or skip to the next page.

There is no conspiracy here - it is just about supply and demand. And the demand is for good human interest stories - and the Madeliene McCann disappearance is as intriguing as it gets.

Don't fucking patronise me. By all means tell me you think I'm wrong but don't patronise.

I wasn't fucking patronising you.

Don't go around saying ridiculous things like fucking media twats.

Barmyrob, when you tell someone that you are "sorry" but they are "talking complete twaddle" that, to me is patronising.

And what is so "ridiculous" about writing "media twats?"

Because it comes across as very ignorant.

I'm glad the nonsence about Maddie's parents seems to be abating. I don't read all that rubbish in the papers, but I do see the front pages in the newsagents when I go in for my Independent.

What a whole load of shite that was. (That they hid her body for over 25 days, then stuck it their new hire car, and drove it away for disposal).

Damon what do you find so unbelievable about it all? children all over the world are abused tortured and murdered on a daily basis!

perhaps damon doesn't believe that two middle class white people could be responsible for the disappearance of their daughter.

i mean. middle class. white. really!

In Holland on average one child a week is killed by it's parents.
It's one of the most shocking statistics I know.

dunno whether it's the shock that her parents might be responsible that damon's expressing incredulity at - i think it's more the horror at the idea that they hid the body for three weeks, then moved and disposed of it...just to save their own arses.

that's a callousness very few people would be able to muster.

Exactly.
But why read a post properly before you reply nevski? (or think what headlines have dominated the coverage in the past couple of weeks - the DNA in the car story).

It would probably cramp your spontaneity.