Quoting harmless loony from 22:39, 10th Sep 2007
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.
I have very little sympathy remaining for this case whatever the outcome. But when I first read about the geographical details of the night, and when people bring up the whole issue of neglect, I always think back to one of my most vivid childhood memories that I thought I'd share.
On a cheap family holiday to the Canary Islands back in the late 80s, I was left alone in our hotel room while my parents and my older sister went down to the hotel lounge/bar.
My memory is pretty fuzzy on the exact sequence of events, but I must have been between 5-10. I was really tired, and remember being given the choice to join them. I guess I was sort of put to bed, but naturally woke up later, alone in a hotel room, and got quite frightened. I think some random hotel guest in the corridor must have heard me crying, at which point my parents were alerted by hotel staff, and I was happily reunited with them for a late-night ice cream.
Geographically this was no different (I was several floors up, probably 5-10 minutes away from them, out of sight).
Do I think they were wrong to leave me? Hardly.
Was it a different time and a different atmosphere to the one we live in today? Perhaps.
As noted above, I just find it hard to believe that their actions and choices were any more neglectful than having chosen some bumbling babysitter.
[hr]
http://standrews.facebook.com/profile.php?id=37102835
