I had to rant, cos I'm sick of seeing their faces on the news.

Look past all the sympathy and pandering media (cos it really is pissing me off, btw) - if they, the "parents" hadn't left their children alone in an apartment, in a FOREIGN country, then their little girl wouldn't have been abducted. If you've got kids, you always put them first, not busy dining yourself in some posh restaurant with your fellow, poncy 'well-off' friends. They must have really craved some alone time, so they let the 4 year old play 'caretaker'. My parents never left me alone when I was young, especially when we were on holiday. And for all these idiot talking heads on the news who jump to their defense and go on to say that what parent out there is perfect, well, speak for yourself.

The best part of all this? I cant help but think that if these parents were unemployed/had considerably more working-class occupations, and were not doctors, then the media would be portraying them differently. For example, putting the blame on them instead.

Oh fuck, I just deleted a huge fucking post...

Ugh...let's summarise then...

I haven't heard much about this, but what I have heard has made me think the exact same thing. They left the kid on her own? In a forgein country? In an apartment complex? Those places aren't exactly that secure - balconies, patio doors, flat or gently sloping roofs. Plus the kid was probably playing on the balcony or watching TV with the door wide open or something too.

I question the mentality of a parent who lets this stuff happen and who makes decisions like this. Maybe it's that thing where you judge the inhabitants of an entire nation based on the few waiters and bar staff you meet in your resort ("Oh, I've been to Portugal. Such lovely people!")? It's not so hard to prepare for crimes when you're at home and you can see the effects of crime all around you and, if you don't, at least there's The Bill to remind you that it exists. It's easy to sit in an insular little resort in a foreign country though, see the clean streets and lack of graffiti and forget that this corner of that country is not representative of the whole. Paedophiles and kidnappers exist everywhere else too and, if anything, holiday makers are even easier to prey on because of this false sense of security and safety engendered by the extreme conditions of being on holiday.

It was such an absurdly preventable crime, which makes it even more heart breaking.

I'm not entirely in favour of blaming the parents (oh god, don't attack me).

Ok, so they'd left their kids asleep in the apartment (I don't think she was the only one left), at a small resort, to go for dinner around the corner. They were checking every half hour, and the place was locked (fire hazard I would say, but that's a different issue). The resort actually runs it's own 'listen at the door' service for parents who want to go out in the evenings, where by some one goes round every half hour and listens to check everything is ok, which kind of suggests that it's a safe areas - no hotel is going to do something like that if there's a chance of something going wrong.

It may not be the smartest thing, but I'm sure it's not a unique situation, the number of times I was left standing outside shops when I was little so I wouldn't break anything, or all the time I spent running around the woods behind my house near to a physiactric hospital. You can't wrap your kids in cotton wool, and it just happened that this time it had a horrible outcome.

I'm a bit more concerned at the police's reaction, the resort is 2 hours from the spanish border and it took nearly 24hours (i think, it could have been 12) for them to talk to the border patrol.

And where is the hotel CCTV? Who ever it is broke in though the window and there's no camera footage?

Well, there's a difference between leaving a child outside a shop so there's plenty of witnesses walking around (no one is going to snatch a kid in broad daylight on a busy street) or letting them play outside in the immediate vicinity of their home and leaving a kid in a apartment in a strange country.

I mean, whatever the security measures, it's still unfamiliar. Plus how is listening at the door every half hour going to prevent anything from happening? All it tells you is that no one's being violently attacked at that exact moment.

Plus, I don't think anyone is blaming the parents - just saying that this was easily preventable.

The best part about all this is that we got the story here ELEVEN days after the fact. And they issued an Amber Alert. Ha.

I think you're on your own here Freya, at least for now. I've gotta go with Rich and Thommy. I can't see the sense in leaving little kids alone in a strange place, let alone another country. Yeah you can't wrap your kids in cotton wool, but you still have to be a parent and take responsibility for your little ones. With that comes the acknowledgment that there are creepos in the world who will happily snatch a gorgeous little girl out of her bed.

I could maybe see leaving her alone if she's sleeping and checking up on her every little bit. But she was the OLDEST at 4! What was she going to do if something happened to one of the littler ones?

Anything can happen in a half an hour. Anything. They can go check and go back to their wine and cheese and they could easily go grab this poor kid.

Whether or not they should have watched doesn't really matter anymore, they've really got to find this girl now, no matter what. However, I don't think shes safe with her parents. Parents don't have a lot of power today, they can't give their kid a smack in the head at the mall, they can't yell without having their kids getting taken away by the state but this is far more neglectful than that. Its really sad to see when parents willingly give up their rights as parents.

I'm not saying, 'yeah stay home, keep your kids under lock and key' but christ, look after them, teach them to be decent people, always know where they are. You have to now, didn't use to be like that when I was a kid either but now, its no longer an option.

And the McCann World Tour continues...



Nice bit of 1st Class, looks like a vodka and coke there. Very cushy.