He looks like the type
Nothing would surprise me ref any british government but honestly doubt it
I’m the one taking the moral high ground???
Says your man who wants criminal charges pressed on parents who leave their holiday apartment to eat 
But yeah, let’s all have a laugh about it
Hopefully no one laughing here about this subject?
Know it van be rough at times here, but generally most are alright
I think you might have left out a bit there.
They are of course, but the edginess is a bit overwhelming sometimes,
I know you’ve suffered terrible tragedy so you might understand or help me to,
If your child was abducted and your actions in leaving her were partly/strongly to blame for allowing it to happen how would it feel to become the butt of a million jokes, dreadful accusations that you had a bigger part in it,
I think they’ve suffered enough, it’s heartbreaking, I’ve never acted like they did that night but we always holiday alone, I know that lots of parents do similar or would have done so before Maddie.
I’m done on the topic, it’s alll been said before
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WTF?
You think it’s ok to leave a 3 year old alone for a number of hours to socialise?
If this was a couple of chavs, social services would be involved and the kids would be taken away.
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This is what it all boils down to. Nothing more. Nothing less.
What it boils down to is that kid is desd
You don’t know that. We do know they left them alone.
That’s a long way from ‘leaning their apartment to eat’.
The McCann case was an early example of a couple of phenomena. First the online mob. I think it was pre twitter but the online mob had their outlet through the comments section of the UK tabloids. The commentary about the McCanns here was appalling and unchecked by the tabloids.
It was also an early manifestation of anti elitism. Contrary to the suggestion that if the McCanns were chavs they’d have been locked up within a week, in fact because they were upper middle class professionals they became a target of abuse and ridicule from the chavs that populated the comments section of the tabloids at the time.
The McCanns made a terrible mistake. People who have had kids since don’t make that mistake, precisely because the McCanns got caught out. Before that what the McCanns did was not unique among people on foreign holidays. They were probably at the outer edge of this practice given the distance to the apartment and the fact that the apartment was adjacent to a public road. But to suggest that nobody else took this risk is plain wrong.
As to their behavior I’m not aware that there was a protocol for how to behave in a situation like this. They struck me as a very reserved couple who were thrust in a tabloid storm and had to learn on the hoof. Who knows what steps you’d take if you had a child stolen and at the same time were racked with guilt and at the same time had a foreign and incompetent police force trying to stitch you up?
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The McCanns got an extremely easy ride from the media and authorities.
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Fair points. I remember Sky News going to town on it as well. Wall to wall coverage. Think they flew Kay Burley out there.
They may have from the media and the UK authorities and that would have been that a decade earlier but they were destroyed online. They were absolutely hounded by the Portuguese authorities to protect their tourism industry.
They had to be treated as suspects.
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Maybe so but the media coverage of the incident is what prompted the backlash.
There’s no doubt if this had been a mechanic and a hairdresser from Stoke they would have been absolutely pilloried by the British press and child neglect would be the only topic of discussion.
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Arguido, I think the expression was. It’s amazing how much we got to know about the Portuguese justice system.
I doubt that. If it had been a mechanic and a hairdresser the media would have shrugged and moved on. The status of the McCanns was a key factor in keeping the story in the public eye.
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I severely doubt it. The British media would have kicked them until one of the parents had offed themselves more than likely, if it’s one thing the British media truly despise and will try and kick at every opportunity it is a person of working class origin.