Not forgetting little Maddy

[Berek]

I see the parents are starting to take some flak. Hardly surprising.

http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,91210-1277025,00.html

[Barman]

I see the parents are starting to take some flak. Hardly surprising.

http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,91210-1277025,00.html

It was somewhat inevitable ? I?m surprised it has taken so long.

[GROWLER]

I see the parents are starting to take some flak. Hardly surprising.

http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,91210-1277025,00.html

It was somewhat inevitable ? I?m surprised it has taken so long.

It was morally wrong what they did.
IIRC it is also illegal in this country to leave a child under the age of....i dunno, 10 is it??? without an adult over the age of....i dunno, 15 is it???? being in the same house/building?
Popping in every half hour was simply not good enough, the same being JUST 20 yards away or whatever the distance was.

[Barman]

I see the parents are starting to take some flak. Hardly surprising.

http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,91210-1277025,00.html

It was somewhat inevitable ? I?m surprised it has taken so long.

It was morally wrong what they did.
Popping in every half hour was simply not good enough, the same being JUST 20 yards away or whatever the distance was.

I agree with you?

The sad fact is that if they had not been well educated professionals the media would have torn them to pieces on day 1.

[Snoopy]

I see the parents are starting to take some flak. Hardly surprising.

http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,91210-1277025,00.html

It was somewhat inevitable ? I?m surprised it has taken so long.

It was morally wrong what they did.
IIRC it is also illegal in this country to leave a child under the age of....i dunno, 10 is it??? without an adult over the age of....i dunno, 15 is it???? being in the same house/building?
Popping in every half hour was simply not good enough, the same being JUST 20 yards away or whatever the distance was.

The parents were, without doubt, guilty of not taking sufficient care of their children but they were doing what many do. I do not condone that ~ just making the point. As said elsewhere we have never left our children with anyone or on their own. We have not had an evening out of the home as a couple in 14 years. Either the children are with us or we don't go out. Mrs S has her WI and such like and before I got so ill I would have an evening off and have a pint with my brother BUT one of us was always with the children.

As for the age at which children may be left ~ we had a case of that recently when the village bobby and I noted that a certain family were in the habit of leaving the 10 year old girl, in charge of her 5 yo brother and pissing off for a weekend in Prague or somewhere. The bobby asked me what I knew, as they were neighbours, and I was happy to oblige.
Plod went to the Social Services for advice plus chapter and verse on the law in the matter. He was warned off and the SS said that as far as they were concerned the 11yo was "responsible" enough to take care of her brother. Age, they said, had nothing to do with it. Plod, like me had assumed that the minimum age that a child may be left alone or in charge of younger siblings was 13. When the parents returned Plod "Had a word" and was assured that Granny (aged about 85) lived half a mile away and her phone number had been left with the children in case they needed any help. Needless to say we got an earbashing from the neighbour for feeding her kids and having them into play with ours and were told we were "interfering gits etc". Mr Plod then stepped on the husbands neck quite firmly and they had a long discussion about balding tyres, tax discs, driving habits, drinking habits etc.
There is, as Mr Plod said, more than one way to skin a cat.

Point is that the law is no longer clear on these matters and it depends on the interpretation [which probably means the mood (hormone state) and work load] of the SS officer you speak to. And yes I use the abbreviation SS with intent.

[GROWLER]

On saying all this, and agreeing with fellow boozers, I really don't think prosecuting the parents will achieve anything.
I mean, WHAT punishment could any court issue, that could compare to the punishment that this couple are currently living with and will presumably have to carry on living ...it seems so far....for the rest of their lives?

[Snoopy]

On saying all this, and agreeing with fellow boozers, I really don't think prosecuting the parents will achieve anything.
I mean, WHAT punishment could any court issue, that could compare to the punishment that this couple are currently living with and will presumably have to carry on living ...it seems so far....for the rest of their lives?

Absolutely ~ they have to live with this for the rest of their days.

[Bar Wench]

As a general thing I would agree with you Growler. However, that does mean that the next pikey single mother to leave her child whilst "checking" on her every 20 mins should also be released from the necessity of prosecution.

It won't happen though. It was the double standard that I didn't like.

[Barman]

Personally, I?m still not comfortable with the two parents? 

[Misunderstood]

Of course there are - and always has been - children that are loved, or despised or just simple meal tickets.

I have always been aghast at the innocent 'single mother syndrome' where the existence of a child or two, has - by a happy coincidence - secured a council house and then been pressed into a term of servitude to the 'grateful' parent.

And, if they are really good - or noisy - they'll get to share mum's crack or whatever flavour is de rigor at the time.

Seeing what is goes on around me, I am sometimes inclined to support mandatory licencing to breed.

[Mr Happy]

Growler, since the original outcry it has also been discovered that they weren't actually checking up every 30 minutes.  Apparently there was a group of people that took it in turns to have a little walk around, thus her parents prolly left her for up to 3 hours.

As for age of responsibility it is obvious to all with slightly more cranial capacity than the average doctor, the girl was three years old.  Looking after herself was unlikely as she couldn't tie her laces, looking after her younger twin siblings  

I also feel differently about the prosecution of these two.  Many seem to think they are undergoing a harsh punishment, even if somewhat less harsh than the girl herself.  However, they produced her in a little glass jar so it is possible they've been looking for a method of disposal for sometime, she was obviously preventing them having a nice coq au vin.  Also, freeing up a cell for these two would allow the prison service to release 'Lynton' a 23 year old immigrant serving 9 months for killing a granny for ?4.83 and a packet of Blue Ribband biscuits.  Result!

[TG]

The issue here is that the newspaper (our local rag 'The Leicester Mercury' that Mrs TG insists on buying every day and in my personal opinion is best suited for lining the cats litter tray) have stopped allowing messages being posted on their website.

http://www.thisisleicestershire.co.uk/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=132384&command=displayContent&sourceNode=232710&home=yes&more_nodeId1=132393&contentPK=17919016

" Editor Nick Carter said: "We encourage feedback to our website, but we have to monitor what is said to make sure people are not posting comments that might be libelous, breach the law in any way or cause gratuitous offence "

The Sky news editors comments on the article cited by Berek are incisive :

"The Leicester Mercury's response to the abusers and defamers - to ban all comments - seems to me to be disproportionate and wrongheaded," said Bucks. 

"Banning all debate because of the extreme behaviour of the few seems like a desperate decision to throw the baby out with the bathwater and one that should be discouraged in a free media."

There you have it. The Mercury is frightened of being sued. 

And maybe Sky can afford better lawyers than a provincial rag.

[Mr Happy]

Mr McCann said: "We have been advised that, legally, our behaviour was well within the bounds of responsible parenting..."

Oh that's fine then.

From the moment we discovered Madeleine missing, Kate and I have done everything in our power to try to help get her back

Oh that's fine then.

The real issue is that we should not have a constant fear of abduction of our children from their bedrooms, gardens, or streets, for that matter

A constant fear you say. "I'll have a bottle of the house red and some reassurance that my child wont be abducted whilst I leave her at risk in favour of Anglo-Tapas fine cuisine"

We were essentially performing our own baby listening service

Excuse me a second...

 

A tiny minority of people seem to want to say nasty, spiteful and defamatory things about the McCann family. They are bombarding our site

For tiny minority should we read between the lines and summise that it was the majority, otherwise simply ban a few ISP addresses.  Also, did the original site make it clear that the newspaper welcomes all comments so long as they fit in with their own agenda offering sympathy as opposed to criticising the idiot parents?

I would stop the wife's housekeeping if she spent it on this shite!

[Berek]

saw this on the Expree messageboard

http://www.express.co.uk/comments/viewall/14347




LIARS! LIAR! LIARS!
24.07.07, 11:49am

The McCanns dined out every night of their holiday while their poor children slept alone. They are lucky that this happened on the night they chose to dine in the tapas bar and not Tuesday for example when they dined in Chaplins, below their beloved church, near the beach, 8 times the distance away. They never once checked on their children as they claim, ask the staff! Talk to elderly Mrs. Senn who lives above and she'll tell you on that particular Tuesday night she had to sit listening to one of the children "screeming, crying" from 22:30 til 23:45. They went to dinner around 19:00h. Those poor, poor children. Yes, they should be prosecuted. How DARE they preach to other parents and try to teach us safety measures to ensure our children are safe from predators? How DARE they take the positions of heroes? How DARE they commit this crime upon poor Madeleine? Yes, they did it. If a child was abandoned on a rock surrounded by ocean, fell in and was eaten by a shark, who would you prosecute? The shark? They delivered their baby to her predator. I fear for Sean and Amelie. They haven't "learnt their lesson" as some idiots keep saying. They deny doing anything wrong and still galavant around the globe doing their holier than thou parade while their remaining children are left to (I'm positive) much more competent care. Why did they use the creche all day every day and decline the night time services? Why, when staff got worried did they also decline the monitoring services? What were they afraid of us monitoring? Stop protecting these monsters. Stop raising them to saintliness. They're criminals. Why are people so PC? If they had been Portuguese they'd have been charged within hours and their twins removed from them. I just hope that whoever took Madeleine took her because they witnessed her parents' total lack of care and thought she deserved better. There are lunatics out there who'd do such a thing. We have 2 seperate issues here, please stop getting them confused. We have a poor missing little baby who has been taken away from her family. We have a complete separate issue: two so called parents who committed crime (on a regular basis). YES they should be prosecuted. YES, YES, YES.

[Marley's Ghost (Imbiber of Spirits)]

Of course there are - and always has been - children that are loved, or despised or just simple meal tickets.

I have always been aghast at the innocent 'single mother syndrome' where the existence of a child or two, has - by a happy coincidence - secured a council house and then been pressed into a term of servitude to the 'grateful' parent.

And, if they are really good - or noisy - they'll get to share mum's crack or whatever flavour is de rigor at the time.

Seeing what is goes on around me, I am sometimes inclined to support mandatory licencing to breed.

You're not seriously suggesting incest are you ?