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is there any evidence that Madeleine actually arrived at the resort?

I believe so. Going on what I can remember from Richard Hall's videos (and I know his work isn't perfect and definitive but it does seem forensic in its collection of data/facts) the good doctors had used child minding/babysitting services for their children at other times during their stay. I believe the children's names are on registers/roll calls of the services being used.

My memory may be faulty but I think one of the oddities of the case is that if they had used such facilities earlier on during their stay why not that night.
 
I believe so. Going on what I can remember from Richard Hall's videos (and I know his work isn't perfect and definitive but it does seem forensic in its collection of data/facts) the good doctors had used child minding/babysitting services for their children at other times during their stay. I believe the children's names are on registers/roll calls of the services being used.

My memory may be faulty but I think one of the oddities of the case is that if they had used such facilities earlier on during their stay why not that night.
I'd guess many reasons:

Maybe the service was busy and didn't have space. Or the fact that nothing ever seemed to happen in the resort made it feel unnecessary. Or the other couple reassured them that they'd all check on the children frequently so a service wasn't needed. Or the fact that other couples didn't use the service made it seem pointless.
 
I'd guess many reasons:

Maybe the service was busy and didn't have space. Or the fact that nothing ever seemed to happen in the resort made it feel unnecessary. Or the other couple reassured them that they'd all check on the children frequently so a service wasn't needed. Or the fact that other couples didn't use the service made it seem pointless.
Seem to recall they had allegedly used a sort of creche/nursery set up by the company who owned the resort in the daytime and people who worked for that would babysit on a less formal sort of basis, in the evenings. But they only put them in the daytime daycare thing, then, allegedly, said they "didn't want them left with strangers" at night. So it seemed odd because it was the same people who cared for them in the day...
 
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Seem to recall they had allegedly used a sort of creche/nursery set up by the company who owned the resort in the daytime and people who worked for that would babysit on a less formal sort of basis, in the evenings. But they only put them in the daytime daycare thing, then, allegedly, said they "didn't want them left with strangers" at night. So it seemed odd because it was the same people who cared for them in the day...
I do have to point out that it won't have been 'the same people', unless they were working 24 hour shifts. Daytime daycare would likely have different staff to the evening babysitting crew. Although that doesn't explain why really why they didn't use them.
 
It gives me the cold shivers to remember that, back in the '70's, my husband (as was) and I took our daughter, aged about 7, to a holiday camp in this country.
We were happy to leave her alone in the chalet in the evening, and relied on the camp's "Listening Service" to let us know if there were any problems.
Our daughter understood the set up, and I don't remember her minding -she knew where we were.

BUT anyone could have broken into the chalet, gagged and abducted her in a matter of moments.

Thank God nothing went wrong!
I'm now much wiser. (Hindsight!)
 
It gives me the cold shivers to remember that, back in the '70's, my husband (as was) and I took our daughter, aged about 7, to a holiday camp in this country.
We were happy to leave her alone in the chalet in the evening, and relied on the camp's "Listening Service" to let us know if there were any problems.
Our daughter understood the set up, and I don't remember her minding -she knew where we were.

BUT anyone could have broken into the chalet, gagged and abducted her in a matter of moments.

Thank God nothing went wrong!
I'm now much wiser. (Hindsight!)
This is the point, though. That almost never happens. Normally child abduction/child murder is by someone close to the family. When it is a stranger it is almost always a snatch off the streets. And incidentally is no more common now than it was 40 years ago.

I don't know of a single case of a child being snatched from a Holiday Camp chalet in the UK, but my knowledge is not encyclopediac - let me know if you have one.

Children have been snatched after a break in (was there any evidence of a break in for this case?) but it is fantastically rare.
 
It gives me the cold shivers to remember that, back in the '70's, my husband (as was) and I took our daughter, aged about 7, to a holiday camp in this country.
We were happy to leave her alone in the chalet in the evening, and relied on the camp's "Listening Service" to let us know if there were any problems.
Our daughter understood the set up, and I don't remember her minding -she knew where we were.

BUT anyone could have broken into the chalet, gagged and abducted her in a matter of moments.

Thank God nothing went wrong!
I'm now much wiser. (Hindsight!)
As a child in the 70s, if we went away to a hotel, my parents would leave my sister and I in bed in the room and go down to the bar for a nightcap. Not even use of a listening service, AFAIK.
 
This is the point, though. That almost never happens. Normally child abduction/child murder is by someone close to the family. When it is a stranger it is almost always a snatch off the streets. And incidentally is no more common now than it was 40 years ago.

I don't know of a single case of a child being snatched from a Holiday Camp chalet in the UK, but my knowledge is not encyclopediac - let me know if you have one.

Children have been snatched after a break in (was there any evidence of a break in for this case?) but it is fantastically rare.

Although, in this scenario, the residence in question would be temporary, I think such cases would be a type of what's known in the US as residential child abduction. Very rare (but certainly not unheard of) in the US too - but I suspect more common than in the UK. I've no idea what the situation might be in Portugal, or Europe in general.

The FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin has an interesting page on the subject. There are some intriguing details - for example the fact that despite being an extremely high risk crime the majority of perpetrators are disorganised, most abductees offer little or no resistance, and most were sharing a room with siblings at the time of abduction.

Obviously, It's a US based study - but I dare say there will be common factors.

For what it's worth, the only (kind of) residential child abduction case in the UK that comes to mind (and the victim was actually in a tent, although the tent was in the garden of her uncle's house) would be that of Sophie Hook back in the 1990's. There were two other children in the tent when she was abducted. That's always stuck with me.
 
As a child in the 70s, if we went away to a hotel, my parents would leave my sister and I in bed in the room and go down to the bar for a nightcap. Not even use of a listening service, AFAIK.

How old were you then?
 
Like, I suspect, quite a few on here, I was a 'latch-key kid'. From the age of 5 or 6 (iirc) I let myself in to an empty house after walking home from school, (sometimes alone), if my Mother was working or out shopping etc. Only thing was, it was a nice, small village and also not an isolated house.
It was common. I well remember at the age of 5 wanting to walk to and from school on my own, a distance of less than a mile. I did so for a very short time before we moved across the Pennines. (weirdly I drive the same route nearly every day some 60 odd years later). What were my parents thinking? Social services would have a field day now and schools would be calling parents in for a meeting. Times and attitudes have indeed changed, although perhaps to some extent from one extreme to the other.
 
There has always been risks to children; the difference is awareness and reaction to it.
As a child in mid 70's south London, there were public service information films on TV, making children aware of 'stranger danger' and such like ... but we were also allowed to play unsupervised with friends down local parks etc. I was given my front-door key when I was 10 ... it was almost a rite of passage to our family.
But this all depends not on the risks to the child - they're always there - but on the upbringing of the child, the parental guidance, even class expectation.
For instance, the class of the McCanns has been a factor all along. As has been stated, had the parents been from a poor social setting, they'd be seen as a suspect by everyone. As middle class professionals, the UK police may've been influenced and decided to put them low on the list whereas the Portuguese police would have no such restriction. The idea that parents would go for dinner with friends while not using a babysitter service might be regarded as a 'middle class' error of judgement but 'everyone does it'. From a lower social class, the similar situation would be leaving your children at home while you 'nipped down' to the shops or in the local for a quick pint - a 'low class' error of judgement but 'everyone does it'.
When tragedy occurs, the error of judgement is held up to scrutiny, questioning the judgement of the parents, while 'everyone does it' is ignored because, well, people don't want to accept that everyone does something that might end in tragedy.
As far as this case is concerned, the McCann's may or may not be guilty of an error of judgement or a bad reaction to a horrific situation. But what put suspicion in the minds of the public was precisely the way the McCann's were treated at the outset. When a person is murdered, the first suspect (right or wrong) is always the spouse or partner. They are not the only suspect, mind, but police look at balance of probability. In this case, the UK police didn't look at the closest relations - the parents - but for the wandering paedophile.
The assumption was made that the child disappeared in what was considered a 'safe environment', that parents wouldn't cover-up an accident, thus it must've been an outside element such as a kidnapper. Only after the investigation stalled were the initial assumptions questioned ... way after the trail went cold.
 
It was common. I well remember at the age of 5 wanting to walk to and from school on my own, a distance of less than a mile. I did so for a very short time before we moved across the Pennines. (weirdly I drive the same route nearly every day some 60 odd years later). What were my parents thinking? Social services would have a field day now and schools would be calling parents in for a meeting. Times and attitudes have indeed changed, although perhaps to some extent from one extreme to the other.
My younger brother and I walked the best part of two miles to and from primary, once I was decreed old enough to be in charge of him, about the age of eight.
 
In this case, the UK police didn't look at the closest relations - the parents - but for the wandering paedophile.
The assumption was made that the child disappeared in what was considered a 'safe environment', that parents wouldn't cover-up an accident, thus it must've been an outside element such as a kidnapper. Only after the investigation stalled were the initial assumptions questioned ... way after the trail went cold.
I would suppose that this would be because the child is presumed to have gone missing whilst the parents were in full view of others, eating a meal. Until other stories start being brought into the mix (child already dead, although I seem to remember that other parents were also checking in on them and they were all in bed asleep when last checked, or child killed after parents returned to their room), then the parents have a perfectly good alibi.
 
Good point. But that alibi would be the first checked - police can't afford to assume - if only to quickly eliminate the suspects.
"Did you leave the group at any point during the evening? For how long? About what time?"
"They say they only left for a few minutes, Witness A. Did you notice how long it was?"
 
My younger brother and I walked the best part of two miles to and from primary, once I was decreed old enough to be in charge of him, about the age of eight.
My journey to Primary school, on my own, included a bus ride and a half mile walk. Did that from the age of 10 on.

But all these anecdotes tell us is that attitudes in the UK have changed, I think largely due to the spate of children being snatched from the streets in the 70's / 80's , many of them taken by that monster Robert Black.

As PeteS suggests maybe we have gone too far, but we live in a world where people imagine zero risk (of all sorts of things) is achievable. It's a sort of mass delusion, maybe even paranoia. It can't all be blamed on the media, which has been sensationalist for 150 years or more.
 
Exactly. Things like this was always going on - it's our perception and response to it that has changed.
No longer are children educated/warned about strangers in person but the harm possible online. This is because online danger exists now when it didn't then, and it's assumed children won't be let out to play unsupervised and, therefore, not warned of the risks.
 
Perhaps the risk has now increased. If I as a small kid in the late 50s got lost or fell over and grazed a knee or whatever and an adult saw me distressed they would have no qualms about talking to me, perhaps holding my hand or picking me up and getting help.

I like to think that if I saw a small kid wandering the street on their own with no one else around that I'd go and make sure they were OK. But part of me would be expecting cries of alarm and outrage and all sorts of accusations.

We too often had parents abandon their kids in the library while they went shopping. The kids would be there when we closed so we had to be very careful and make sure two members of staff stayed with them. The parents were often amazingly stroppy when they arrived but as we always called the police (after all we didn't know if it was the parents collecting them) their attitude changed very rapidly when they were threatened with prosecution for abandoning their kids.
 
My impression of the Madeleine case is that the Portuguese police never gave a stuff from day one. They only did anything because of media pressure.

A bit like when Caroline Dickinson was murdered in France in 1996, they never gave a stuff and only did anything a year later due to media pressure. Luckily people in the USA solved it.
 
As a child in mid 70's south London, there were public service information films on TV, making children aware of 'stranger danger' and such like ...
I've always thought that the PIF's should be brought back. Not just for warning of strangers, but all the other ones we used to have right down to 'don't leave your indicator on too long' etc.

I suspect that money, as usual, is the reason that they aren't shown anymore. They would be taking up valuable air-time where we could be being sold stuff we don't need - instead of (possibly) saving a child's (or adult's) life.
 
Children these days are warned about everything to the extent that they are often afraid to do normal things for fear of blowing themselves up/burning themselves etc. An enormous number go to university unable to cook a meal, work a washing machine or change a duvet cover, because they've either been warned off even trying or cossetted out of needing to.

I knew my children would come to appreciate my 'hands off' style of parenting when they left home - and I was right!
 
Children these days are warned about everything to the extent that they are often afraid to do normal things for fear of blowing themselves up/burning themselves etc. An enormous number go to university unable to cook a meal, work a washing machine or change a duvet cover, because they've either been warned off even trying or cossetted out of needing to.

I knew my children would come to appreciate my 'hands off' style of parenting when they left home - and I was right!
I'm the king of duvet changing. Get the cover, turn it inside out, put hands in to find top corners, pick up corresponding top corners of duvet and bang! a quick snap of the wrists, pull back your arms and you're sorted for a year or two before you have to change it again.
 
Exactly. Things like this was always going on - it's our perception and response to it that has changed.
No longer are children educated/warned about strangers in person but the harm possible online. This is because online danger exists now when it didn't then, and it's assumed children won't be let out to play unsupervised and, therefore, not warned of the risks.
I think it was much more prevalent than people realise. My Mum was evacuated during the war to a small village in Norfolk. She told me that a man used to wait for her outside school and try to give her small presents like pencils, sweets etc. She told the farmers wife where she was staying and she said "oh, that would be old XX. We have to keep an eye on him. Don't worry I will take care of it". The local bobby got involved and she was never approached again. I wonder how many of these types of incidents were 'local' and dealt with locally?
 
I think it was much more prevalent than people realise. My Mum was evacuated during the war to a small village in Norfolk. She told me that a man used to wait for her outside school and try to give her small presents like pencils, sweets etc. She told the farmers wife where she was staying and she said "oh, that would be old XX. We have to keep an eye on him. Don't worry I will take care of it". The local bobby got involved and she was never approached again. I wonder how many of these types of incidents were 'local' and dealt with locally?
Likewise, we had a local man who was known as 'the kiddly fiddler' and everyone just knew, through some osmotic process, not to go anywhere near him. There were never overt warnings, he was just on our radar from very young.
 
I think it was much more prevalent than people realise. My Mum was evacuated during the war to a small village in Norfolk. She told me that a man used to wait for her outside school and try to give her small presents like pencils, sweets etc. She told the farmers wife where she was staying and she said "oh, that would be old XX. We have to keep an eye on him. Don't worry I will take care of it". The local bobby got involved and she was never approached again. I wonder how many of these types of incidents were 'local' and dealt with locally?
Lots. There was a chap lived up the road from us and we were told never to take sweets off him or go in his house. No-one assaulted him or painted 'paedo' on his house though.

But that was back when we still had actual communities, cops on the beat etc. And even then the occasional child vanished.

There have always been bad things but we seem to have invented quite a lot of extra ones to add to the mix.
 
The other thing about children in current days. Because society tries to do everything possible to prevent harm, kids are not allowed to play in a communal area with other kids their age without parental oversight. This type of freedom is discouraged. But it also leaves the children with little risk assessment skills. So they are not aware of, nor know how to deal with any situation in which they may be at risk.

I am not saying that a toddler would have this awareness, but am only commenting on the "what I used to do as a kid" comments.

Kids together in a group are able to take care of each other when they are taught. Risks with leaving children unsupervised, in a group? Yes, every time. But there is also learning for the child as to how to assess risk. The trick for parents is to assess when their child is ready for the next step. Easy to say, difficult to do.
 
It gives me the cold shivers to remember that, back in the '70's, my husband (as was) and I took our daughter, aged about 7, to a holiday camp in this country.

We were happy to leave her alone in the chalet in the evening, and relied on the camp's "Listening Service" to let us know if there were any problems.

Our daughter understood the set up, and I don't remember her minding -she knew where we were.


BUT anyone could have broken into the chalet, gagged and abducted her in a matter of moments.


Thank God nothing went wrong!

I'm now much wiser. (Hindsight!)

As a child in the 70s, if we went away to a hotel, my parents would leave my sister and I in bed in the room and go down to the bar for a nightcap. Not even use of a listening service, AFAIK.

Contrary to the comments which infer otherwise, there is no minimum age at which a child can be left on their own in English law, and it is not – in and of itself – a crime to do such a thing. As is not uncommon with such legislation, it allows for some pragmatism on the issue - and is based on circumstance, rather than the specific factor of age. It is probably inevitable that, not being as clear cut as is often claimed, the law is easy to misunderstand or misrepresent (a situation probably not helped by the leeway allowed in acknowledging individual judgement as a valid tool).

From UK.Gov:

The law on leaving your child on their own

The law does not say an age when you can leave a child on their own, but it’s an offence to leave a child alone if it places them at risk.

Use your judgement on how mature your child is before you decide to leave them alone, for example at home or in a car.

The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) says:

children under 12 are rarely mature enough to be left alone for a long period of time

children under 16 should not be left alone overnight

babies, toddlers and very young children should never be left alone

Parents can be prosecuted if they leave a child unsupervised ‘in a manner likely to cause unnecessary suffering or injury to health’.

(Worth bearing in mind that the second section is advice from an interested party, not legal statute.)

In regard to not leaving ‘a child alone if it places them at risk’: It is almost impossible to imagine a scenario in which an unattended child in any circumstances – even those which strictly apply the above advice – is entirely free from risk, and therefore the issue is really one of degree: it’s not really about whether a parent takes a risk, but whether they take an unreasonable risk.

And, to emphasise – as far as the law is concerned, being ‘alone’ is not the primary issue. I suspect – knowing a little about the relationship between law and language – that this is at least partly because it is difficult to define in a general sense at precisely what point a child becomes ‘alone’, and that it is more straightforward to make any judgement on the external risks involved than the state itself. (I’m talking about the law in general - not the particulars of the McCann case.)

It strikes me that there is an inbuilt contradiction to some of the criticism of such acts here:

a) Children are extremely rarely abducted from a place of residence, therefore the parents in such cases must be viewed as suspects.

b) Parents who leave their children unattended in a place of residence are grossly negligent, because of the risk of child abduction.

Despite not being particularly compatible, statements like these often come as a package – sometimes within the same paragraph; sometimes, virtually the same sentence. To be fair, the 'risk' element of the legislation clearly does not refer solely to human intervention, but that seems to be how it is often interpreted – certainly in cases where human intervention actually has taken place.

Some might argue that exposing a child to even a miniscule level of risk is unreasonable, but I doubt that these people, or any parent alive for that matter, could use this as the universal datum for bringing up a child - most parents will expose their children on a regular basis to levels of risk which are statistically far higher than that of being abducted; that’s not a judgement on any parent, it’s simply the statement of a fact of life.
 
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The other thing about children in current days. Because society tries to do everything possible to prevent harm, kids are not allowed to play in a communal area with other kids their age without parental oversight. This type of freedom is discouraged. But it also leaves the children with little risk assessment skills. So they are not aware of, nor know how to deal with any situation in which they may be at risk.

I am not saying that a toddler would have this awareness, but am only commenting on the "what I used to do as a kid" comments.

Kids together in a group are able to take care of each other when they are taught. Risks with leaving children unsupervised, in a group? Yes, every time. But there is also learning for the child as to how to assess risk. The trick for parents is to assess when their child is ready for the next step. Easy to say, difficult to do.

Yes! Children should be encouraged to develop their skills - especially social cues, critical thinking, and when they think someone is off and makes them uneasy.
 
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