Both parents now suspects

[Ewan Husami]

Something doesn't really add up. Both parents suspects? Blood in the hire car?

[Jono]

I don't think there's much point in speculating. The police won't announce anything about the investigation; so more than likely, all the information the media reports will be from the oh-so objective testamony of friends and lawyers.

[hr]

BY FIRE; BE PURGED!


http://www.myspace.com/tauntra

[Batman]

I have no problems with the parents being given suspect status. It is actually a good thing for them, as when they where witnesses they had very little rights. But now with this Suspect status they have more rights to defend themselves.

Personally I don't care if they are guilty or not, it is just a shame that they weren't treated as suspects sooner before they developed their cult following. As that would have enabled themselves to build up a better legal defence. Without public sympathy automatically assuming they are innocent.

People in this country are going to be over-reacting to this as they probably won't understand what the status allows them todo.

And from what I believe in most British missing child cases parents are often the first to be declared suspects as that is the best/first place to start.

[hr]

Have you ever danced with the Devil in the Pale Moonlight!

[novium]

I knew this was coming. It's just part of the gruesome spectacle called the media frenzy.

Doesn't matter what actually happened- if this is true or not- but it was coming anyway, just as all the praise making the parents out to be saints....

[hr]

Neither the storms of crisis, nor the breezes of ambition could ever divert him, either by hope or by fear, from the course that he had chosen

[DrAlex]

I thought they did it ever since the meeting with the Pope. Prove me wrong, please.

[hr]

The Sinner: Where no one ever learned "if you haven't got any thing nice to say, don't say anything at all."

[harmless loony]

If the McCann family had left their children alone in the UK they would have been jailed for neglect and had had all their children removed from them. Ultimately, if you're a parent you're responsible for looking after your children and if that means you have to sacrifice dinner with your friends then so be it. Your kids have to come first. I don't understand how two educated professionals did not grasp this concept?

I've often wondered - had the family been from say (for arguments sake) a deprived ward, and lived in a council house would people have been so sympathetic? Would the media have (initially) been so sympathetic? Would people be donating money to the cause? Would they have had an audience with the Pope? Somehow I think not.....interestingly they have a seriously good propaganda machine and that has ultimately proved to be their downfall - the media sometimes get bored of being sympathetic (it only sells so many papers....)

I thought it was rather odd how after one child goes missing - the parents are quite happy to leave their twins with someone else to go meet the Pope and travel round Europe - I would have thought most rational parents would be terrified of leaving their remaining children with anyone and would want to keep them with them at all time - given that they are such a precious gift.

Whether they did it or not (I obviously don't know)...I am suprised that people immediately assume they wouldn't have done it (why wouldn't they have? - most child abuse/murder cases are perpetrated by parents). I'm not saying they did or they didn't.....I'm just questioning the automatic assumption most people come out with (for the record I hope to God that she is ok..)

I wouldn't really say the Portugese police bungled it (rather harsh) it's not like the police forces across the UK are particularly good with missing children cases - we have thousands missing in the UK and the police here haven't come up with results....

Finally, in all child murder/abduction cases it is normal for the parents to be the first angle of inquiry - I'm suprised this wasn't the case in Portugal.

[Steveo]

Everyone lambasted me for suspecting them at the outset.

The possibility of being right is satisfying.

[hr]

Get off my internet.

[Haunted]

It may be bad taste but I can't help but be reminded of this sketch

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1n9u4LTjtI

[hr]

Now with 100% more corn

[DrAlex]

Quoting harmless loony from 17:28, 8th Sep 2007
I've often wondered - had the family been from say (for arguments sake) a deprived ward, and lived in a council house would people have been so sympathetic?

http://www.milkandcookies.com/link/56225/detail/

[hr]

The Sinner: Where no one ever learned "if you haven't got any thing nice to say, don't say anything at all."

[househunter]

Quoting Haunted from 11:27, 9th Sep 2007
It may be bad taste but I can't help but be reminded of this sketch

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1n9u4LTjtI

[hr]

Now with 100% more corn

Personally the situation reminds me of the 'Butters' episode of South Park. Season 5 episode 14 if you're interested.

[Haunted]

Quoting househunter from 11:48, 9th Sep 2007
Personally the situation reminds me of the 'Butters' episode of South Park. Season 5 episode 14 if you're interested.

A personal favourite

[hr]

Now with 100% more corn

[October]

Quoting DrAlex from 17:02, 8th Sep 2007
I thought they did it ever since the meeting with the Pope. Prove me wrong, please.

I'm with the doc. But I always thought they did it, even from the beginning.
I won't be surprised if this all turns out to be some kind of munchausen by proxy.

[hr]

I never thought I be so grateful that my best friend from college went on to become the director of the CIA.

[Jono]

*SPECULATION*

They were both possessed by gypsie magic!

[hr]

BY FIRE; BE PURGED!


http://www.myspace.com/tauntra

[box_of_delights]

I have to say that I'm far from being the only one who finds something very cold about the McCanns. They don't appear to be particularly charismatic or "human" and I wasn't at all surprised that they are now being investigated further.

One can only imagine the furore there would be had it been a single working class mother who'd left her child alone and it was abducted. The McCanns seem to have got off fairly lightly - quite likely because they are seen as respectable, middle class GPs.



[hr]

[s]http://standrews.facebook.com/profile.php?id=37101440&pwstdfy=c9c14f50e63e4951ba5a9abb7ffcdc6e[/s]

[Gealle]

Even there, there's something wrong... I've met some pretty thick medics in my time, but the McCanns take the biscuit. Does anybody know where they 'read'?

[hr]

Funky flunky munky...

[KayBee]

Quoting gealle from 21:01, 9th Sep 2007
Even there, there's something wrong... I've met some pretty thick medics in my time, but the McCanns take the biscuit. Does anybody know where they 'read'?

[hr]

Funky flunky munky...

He studied at Glasgow. She went to Dundee.

[Lyeta]

What is wrong with leaving your kids a few metres away while you have dinner? Would people think it was as big a problem if they were having, say, a BBQ in their (large) garden leaving the kids sleeping upstairs and doors unlocked? Probably not. Anyway, the typical teenage babysitter is probably far less attentive than the half hourly checks(EDIT: reportedly)done by the McCanns.

[box_of_delights]

The fact is that most parents would leave kids sleeping upstairs in their own house because they know the house, know the area and know the guests.

You can't possibly compare that scenario with leaving kids in a ground floor hotel bedroom, to which any number of people could have access and the opportunity to cause trouble.

[hr]

[s]http://standrews.facebook.com/profile.php?id=37101440&pwstdfy=c9c14f50e63e4951ba5a9abb7ffcdc6e[/s]

[David Bean]

You're damned right there's something fishy about this. So the police said they found blood in the hire car, and given that this came out after her arrest which itself followed the results of tests conducted in the UK, we can safely assume these facts are linked. The family's response was that this can't have been true because they didn't hire the car until after the disappearance. Well, that's a non-sequitur if ever I've heard one. Do they not imagine the police might have, you know, thought of that, and consider it rather more damning evidence against them than had the child's blood been found in a car they'd been using before she disappeared (which could easily have got there from some ordinary cut, or a nosebleed, or something)?

And why on earth haven't any news reports - at least the ones I've read - raised that question? The sheer lack of professionalism displayed by the media over this story beggars belief. Even the Times - my own newspaper, which usually runs above all this - ran an article by a psychologist about the effects these allegations would be having on the girl's mother, which didn't even suggest the possibility that they might have been true. After the initial furore died down some journalists, including some from the BBC, began to admit that they had been mistakenly caught up in the whirlwind - as though admitting their mistakes in some way excused them - but now they've just gone right back to it.

It's the same mawkish nonsense as what we saw after Diana Spencer died. Are today's journalists utterly incapable of professionalism?

[hr]

Psalm 91:7

[harmless loony]

Quoting Lyeta from 20:43, 10th Sep 2007
What is wrong with leaving your kids a few metres away while you have dinner? Would people think it was as big a problem if they were having, say, a BBQ in their (large) garden leaving the kids sleeping upstairs and doors unlocked? Probably not. Anyway, the typical teenage babysitter is probably far less attentive than the half hourly checks(EDIT: reportedly)done by the McCanns.

Except when you look at the map of where the restaurant was and in relation to the flat - it wasn't a few metres (like in the garden) - it wasn't even in viewing distance. At least if I am in my garden I can see the house (you'd need to have a freakishly big garden to be that far)....and anyhow I'd have the baby monitor on (portable one) so I can hear what's happening if I'm not that near to them.

I think the equivalent distance is leaving kids in Hope Street and swanning off to Tesco. (According to the Guardian reports the family didn't check on them every half hour as initially reported!)

My issue at the mo isn't with whether they did it or not - but the fact that had they done the same in the UK they would have been arrested for neglect. As someone who works with child protection teams and have seen children removed from families for neglect - I'm stunned at the stupidity of these two somewhat educated parents...