Why the hell did they leave their kid on her own in that apartment?

needproof

Well, a big story here in the UK is that of missing three year old girl Madeleine McCann, who was abducted from a hotel room in Portugal whilst on holiday.

I don't know if International posters know much about this story but the news is massive here and top businessmen, sports stars and celebs have put up over 2 million as a reward for her safe return.

This is the map of where she went missing:

Now her parents, her father a surgeon and her mother a doctor, were dining with friends down at the Tapas bar when the little girl was abducted. Amazingly, according to the friends they were dining with, they checked back on the girl once in two hours and left the French doors unlocked.

They also seemed to have been making a habit of leaving the kids (they have other younger children on holiday with them) on their own as they went out during the holiday.

Now I am sure that they will forever regret this, and no doubt it the suffering is more than sufficient (not that they deserve any of this) but what kind of a mad, stupid people leave their kids in an unlocked room like this> The oldest was 3 years old! To me, it completely beggers belief. I would keep my eyes on my kids and would not let them out of my sight.

Here is the link. I think what we have here is a perfect example of people who are "highly educated" but have absolutely no common sense. I cannot imagine they pain of regret they are going through right now.

free2think

I've been keeping up with this story but I didn't realize they had left the children alone, that's awful if they did esp with unlocked doors. I keep seeing them on the news its so sad. I hope they find her alive and well soon.

fifi40

Needproof whilst I agree with you that is was very stupid to have left the children unsupervised.............I thought that they had locked up and that whoever has taken Maddy broke in through a window.........not that it makes a lot of difference.

I also heard that there was talk about whether the parents would be prosecuted for neglect...........although I agree the way that they must be feeling is punishment enough.

But here is a question...........If this had been a single mum who had left her kids and one had been taken, would people be putting up 2.5 million reward money, with the like of David Beckham getting involved? Would the media have been far more damning on a single parent mum than they are on these highly educated people?

Fifi (of the 'dont teach your dog to pee up the leg of witnesses' org)

greendawn

Unfortunately these things can happen parents don't easily suspect that there is much of a chance for a child to get abducted from a hotel room after a couple of hours of being alone, when was the last time this happened?

When the unexpected does happen everyone says oh why did they do it. Some of the hotel staff must have been involved.

Madame Quixote

It is possible that they sold the child, or abused her to death, or any number of such things, and simply didn't want to get caught. Sometimes parents who report missing children are caught in such situations.

I can't imagine anyone being stupid enough to leave such young kids unattended, even if the doors were locked. it might not be as stupid as it seems, but rather, very crafty of them, if the child happened to have died from such neglect and they knew what the consequences would be to get caught. In such cases, instead of lots of well-deserved reprobation, they get all kinds of sympathy (and search and rescue crap going) while deflecting attention from their own neglectfulness or abusiveness.

Does anyone remember the U.S. parents who went to prison for such a thing? It was on the national news here a couple years ago . . .I believe there was a NC couple recently who did this and went to prison for it.

bubble

In my opinion they are stupid, irresponsible parents and they are paying the highest price for their lack of regard for the safety of their children. I don't know anyone who would leave three sleeping toddlers alone and go out enjoying themselves. These people obviously don't realise that when you have children your life has to change, that means you don't go out for meals as much as you used to and if you do you get a responsible babysitter or you take them with you.

What if one of the children had woken up, they would've been terrified to find themselves alone.

What if there'd been a fire.

What if one of them was sick.

What if there'd been a sicko paedophile in the area - oh there was!!!

I feel for that little girl but I totally blame the dim wit parents.

poppers

I'll bet they'll be asking themselves that question several thousand times a time, perhaps for the rest of their lives. You can't unring a bell and you can't change what wasn't done in the past, but you sure as hell can think about it. I hope they get their child back and I hope they can find some peace within themselves.

Quandry

Most people would never dream of leaving their jewelry out in plain sight in their room, and then leaving. Why in the world would they leave their precious children alone?

I see people leave children in cars while they go into a store "just for a minute." Sometimes this has resulted in the car and child being stolen. In Florida some years back, a mother left her child in the toy department, while she looked a few isles over. The child was abducted and only his head was found in a ditch.

It is not worth it. Not for anything. As some said, no common sense......

neverin

I agree with the point about how sympathetic the media have been because the parents are middle class professionals. The argument has been put forward that it was a family friendly resort - well where do peados usually hang out? It's a bit of a no brainer really. Also if this had been a working class family who'd left their kids in a caravan (trailer) park to go down the pub the other kids would have been taken into care by now.

I also agree that of course no one could have anticipated that Maddy would be stolen but for goodness sakes the chances of a 3 year old and 2 year old twins waking up because they've wet the bed or are thirsty are pretty high.

A very hard lesson to learn indeed.

needproof

Fifi raised the point about these people being 'professionals' and would the media go completely OTT if they were some single mother or warehouse workers. I did plan to raise this in my initial post. If it was a couple of dole-claiming ASBOS from the Monsell or the Saff they would be completely slagged off.

Why the hell did they leave their kid on her own in that apartment?

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