[Closed] Madeleine McCann investigation receives 150k more government funding

Whilst a £150k is 7/10th of sod all in terms of funding something like this, I agree, it's more money down the drain. Even the cops must be fed up of sunning themselves by now.

The McCanns are smart though and have powerful friends it seems. I can never forget the fact they decided to leave their children unattended to go drinking with friends. If they'd been a working class family they would have been hauled over the coals. The McCanns on the other hand crowdfunded a fortune and drag anyone who dares say anything bad about them in the media through the courts.

As above.

I think at t very least there should be some broad explanation of how this money could be used productively , and what after all this time is the prospect of any resolution.

At the moment the government has to do anything it can to gain some support. IMO this and the sudden u turn on FOB machines are just trying to manipulate the electorate to support them and their brexit proposals, I expect to see many more "gifts" over the coming days.

Appealing the Express readership is basically Tory spending advice 101 isn't it?

They did it.  £150K please 🙂

The Police seem to find budget for everything except tackling real solvable crimes.

the benefit of being white and middle class

As long as as all the other 100's of missing persons cases got £150K as well...

I can never forget the fact they decided to leave their children unattended to go drinking with friends.

Easy to be judgemental.

I'll confess that I've left my kids asleep in a hotel room while we had dinner. And I've left them up in their rooms in the house while we've sat out in the garden. I'm quite sure others have too.

It's not ideal, but parenting rarely is. That shouldn't be a death sentence or mean that they are less deserving of justice.

That said, unless there are still open fresh lines of investigation in this case then it does seem like that money might have been put to better use elsewhere.

P-Jay nails it - end of thread.

I'm intrigued as to whether other missing people enquiries have same funding.

Easy to be judgemental.
I’ll confess that I’ve left my kids asleep in a hotel room while we had dinner. And I’ve left them up in their rooms in the house while we’ve sat out in the garden. I’m quite sure others have too.

I think there is a massive difference between your kids sleeping upstairs in their own home with the front door locked while parents sit in the garden, and leaving in a hotel room room alone while you go out eating and drinking with friends.

One is generally a lot less risky than the other.

And I’ve left them up in their rooms in the house while we’ve sat out in the garden. I’m quite sure others have too.

Your own home with front door locked probably isn't that risky, unless you live in a war zone.

I think the highlight of the whole thing was when the massive missing persons tv screen in Glasgow was just showing Madeleine Mccann nonstop for days. Usually it'd have a rolling screen of dozens of missing persons, from runaway kids to lost alzheimers grandmas, all local, but forget about all that! A child has been misplaced in another country, several weeks ago!

And it's still happening now, without a shadow of a doubt another missing person case could use that money more effectively, but we've never heard of that missing person so they don't matter. And we never will.

My sister works missing persons in West Mids. (West Bromwich, not sure how big an area she covers).

Mainly teenage runaways, that sort of thing. Obviously not the most salubrious area either so a lot of troubled people who don’t want to be found.

Used to be her & a PCSO but now it’s just her. She’s got piles of cases & no real help dealing with them.

woody2000 - nails it, if they didn't do it, they know who did. I believe the cadavar dogs more than the McCann's.

The money spent on this farce would've paid for a half decent babysitter.

Not sure why the Met feel it necessay to waste time on this. Do they investigate every crime involving brits abroad? No, so why is this one so important?

A chance to top up their tans and visit the duty free.

She's dead, the parents know far more than they're letting on in my opinion. Draw a line under it now.

If we knew the rate at which the average missing persons case is solved, and then apply that to the amount of police time the McCanns case has been bought, we could figure out just how many runaway kids and terminally confused grannies the McCanns have made disappear by virtue of hogging the rozzers.

edit:

The money spent on this farce would’ve paid for a half decent babysitter.

Have you seen the price of childcare lately!?

oof, that's a bad one birky

They did it.

I used to think this, but now I'm not so sure. Probably because I'm a parent myself.

Worked in newsrooms at the time and journos were conditioned by experience to always think it was the husband/dad.

Looks like we'll never know now anyway.

I’ll confess that I’ve left my kids asleep in a hotel room while we had dinner. And I’ve left them up in their rooms in the house while we’ve sat out in the garden. I’m quite sure others have too.

What they did was the same as me leaving my kids in bed sleeping while I go down the pub and have a few. The pub is less than 100m away, I can see the front of my house. If a child falls out of bed, has a nightmare or a coughing fit, or just wakes up needing comforting I'm not there, but who cares really...parenting is all about not losing your children mysteriously in the night, isn't it?

without a shadow of a doubt another missing person case could use that money more effectively,

I'm not sure on that. There's not many children of her age go missing, presumed abducted to meet an as yet unknown fate. But if there's no new lines of inquiry I'm not sure how any amount of money would help. 🙁

So what's the scale of human empathy here exactly?

- If your child is abducted/murdered while you are downstairs then you get full sympathy and a full investigation.

- If you are less than 100m away in the garden but the front door was locked and you live somewhere nice then you get what, 80% sympathy and and 80% of the investigation?

- And if you are in the pub but less than 100m away and still in sight of the house then you deserve no sympathy or investigation as really its your own fault when you think about it?

That about right?

My Mum used to leave me outside the house in the pram. Of course that was safe back then we were 50 miles from Manchester and Saddleworth Moor.

Why does this page repeatedly reload?

Is there some JHJ voodoo going on?

Whilst a £150k is 7/10th of sod all in terms of funding something like this, I agree, it’s more money down the drain. Even the cops must be fed up of sunning themselves by now.

The McCanns are smart though and have powerful friends it seems. I can never forget the fact they decided to leave their children unattended to go drinking with friends. If they’d been a working class family they would have been hauled over the coals. The McCanns on the other hand crowdfunded a fortune and drag anyone who dares say anything bad about them in the media through the courts.

<div class="bbp-reply-author">GrahamS
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So what’s the scale of human empathy here exactly?

– If your child is abducted/murdered while you are downstairs then you get full sympathy and a full investigation.

– If you are less than 100m away in the garden but the front door was locked and you live somewhere nice then you get what, 80% sympathy and and 80% of the investigation?

– And if you are in the pub but less than 100m away and still in sight of the house then you deserve no sympathy or investigation as really its your own fault when you think about it?

That about right?

That's about the size of it Graham yes. Very sad.

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My Mum used to leave me outside the house in the pram.

Not so very long ago it was standard practise to leave your baby in the pram outside the shop while you went in to do your shopping.

Still happens in some countries:

There are loads of ‘interesting’ videos on youtube regarding this case. A majority are saying the parents are guilty as sin.

11.75 million is a huge amount of money though, its actually excessive bordering obscene.

 at the expense of a whole bunch of other equally worthy cases.

Which are ? Thankfully these kind of cases are very rare.

Plenty of examples of unsolved murders of UK nationals abroad if you google it. Sadly not as rare as you’d hope. Just that this one case has a huge, never ending amount of publicity & seemingly never ending public funding, and the others don’t. I guess technically she is still just missing & they are hoping to find her alive, not sure many people really believe that’s still the case though unfortunately.

Plenty of examples of unsolved murders of UK nationals abroad if you google it.

Yes, but how many unsolved stranger abductions of small children. Some types of cases are always going to be more high profile than others.

There are loads of ‘interesting’ videos on youtube regarding this case. A majority are saying the parents are guilty as sin.

Those youtube videos are always made by impartial observers with a full command of the facts, law and evidence. And they are in colour so must be 100% correct.

I feel sorry for the family having no closure, but also agree that the money is best spent elsewhere. After the amount of time that has lapsed there can’t be much chance of finding her.

I’m not sure on that. There’s not many children of her age go missing, presumed abducted to meet an as yet unknown fate

Missing person case not just kids. Hiring someone to help mattbee sister would almost certainly give better returns. If only answers rather than anything more.

– And if you are in the pub but less than 100m away and still in sight of the house then you deserve no sympathy or investigation as really its your own fault when you think about it?

Has anyone said that? Although tbh, a large portion of the blame falls with them. Assuming they didn't do it then clearly she would still be alive if they had been better parents

But either way it deserves to be investigated..and it has been..lots. but another 150 k, on top of an existing 11million quid? Unless they have new leads to follow then they need to draw a line under this and move on I'm afraid.

So what’s the scale of human empathy here exactly?

– If your child is abducted/murdered while you are downstairs then you get full sympathy and a full investigation.

– If you are less than 100m away in the garden but the front door was locked and you live somewhere nice then you get what, 80% sympathy and and 80% of the investigation?

– And if you are in the pub but less than 100m away and still in sight of the house then you deserve no sympathy or investigation as really its your own fault when you think about it?

Who is to blame then? The neighbours, the people you're dining with, society?

They chose to repeatedly leave their children alone while they went out. Maddie asked them not to, but they put their enjoyment above the childrens wellbeing.

Somhow that's someone else's fault??

Who is to blame then?

Whoever abducted the child is to blame.

McScamed

So in summary, crap parents have contributed to disappearance or death of child and we should keep paying year on year for their error?

It's a crock of 💩

Yeah they were asking for it really, weren’t they?

FFS. 😡

Not at all but c'mon the public should not have to fund this latest "search".

Yeah they were asking for it really, weren’t they?

It is a waste of money though. Are there really some new leads worth spending this cash on?

Couldnt it be better spent on other missing persons searches?

Leaving aside everything else about the parents should the fact they were good at working with the press really mean money should keep being spent on it? Sure if they had some good new lead or some DNA worth investigating but as I understand it they have absolute bugger all.

I can't see there being any form of closure in this which is acceptable to all but the time has now come to end any further public funding, The parents must accept that the chance of any worthwhile information coming from this is vanishingly small. The additional funding won't buy much investigatory support. The whole subject has been subject to past threads so there's not much more to say - other than the level of support the McCann's have had will build an expectation that any other parents in a similar situation will receive substantial support - and certain sections of the print media will take up their cause.

So what’s the scale of human empathy here exactly?

For me, a missing child is a horrific thing for any parent to have to suffer.

Where does my empathy end? About 10 years and 10 million ago.

I wouldn’t care if her parents had committed genocide, it wasn’t her fault and an appropriate effort to find her should have been made.

The case has been massively disproportional compared to other missing children cases, the likelihood of finding her fit and well now is near zero, yet millions has been spent, millions that could have been spent finding children who could be found if only the police had the resources in this age of austerity. The McCanns get ‘special treatment’ because they’ve got the profile and ‘the fund’ to cause a big stink of they don’t get their way.

My personal opinion is that at the very least, to avoid being accused of negligence they aggressively and ruthlessly attacked anyone who dares to speak ill of them in the public domain.

And no, I wouldn’t leave my 3 small kids to sleep in a ground floor apartment and go drinking with my friends for 3 hours it was a stupid and selfish thing

My Mum used to leave me outside the house in the pram. Of course that was safe back then we were 50 miles from Manchester and Saddleworth Moor.

Well my Mum used to leave me outside the pub in the pram and we were 2 miles from Saddleworth moor.

My mum left me outside co-op in corporation street - only prob was she didn’t realise until she got home 😄

GrahamS, lets just take the stance that the parents don’t know anything at all about what happened.

so, if they were at the hotel room with their children, not in a restaurant/bar with their friends, would Maddie be alive?

I personally take fatherhood as a responsibility. It is judgemental from me, but yes the parents have a level of responsibility and culpability.

And no I don’t believe the tax payer would be paying for a working class missing person case. This isn’t unique, but what is unique is the amount of tax payer money that has been used.

I don’t believe the parents were asking for it. But if they didn’t do it, if they didn’t leave their toddlers at home to go drinking with friends, then their child could well be alive.

That's 50 extra front line police for 4 years salary and contributions eaten up there in funding.

There's a couple of petitions on Change.org if you wish to object.

I was listening to this girl's https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Charlene_Downes mother on the radio a couple of weeks ago. It struck me how different these two cases were dealt with.<span style="font-size: 0.8rem;"> </span>

<span style="font-size: 0.8rem;">It took the police 6 months to even start investigating her disappearance.   Working class, troubled not worth investigating.  Messed up two trials, probably never bring the culprits to justice.</span>

Middle class, doctors as parents, pretty girl £11 million still no leads.

For the record, I don't think additional funding is warranted, and I think leaving their kids alone was a terrible decision.

However, I despair at the people saying that it was the parent's "fault" that she was kidnapped/killed.  It wasn't..... the only person responsible was the person who kidnapped/killed her.

If you believe that Maddie was killed/kidnapped by a third party (which I don't btw), then that person must have targeted her and have been watching/waiting for an opportunity to kidnap her.  If it hadn't have been then, it would have been at the beach/playground, whatever.

I think it was the mum.

There's no evidence MM was abducted. Seems to me she just woke, wandered out of the apartment as 3yos tend to do, fell in a hole in one of the building sites around the area or somesuch. In the morning cement gets poured in and that's it.

A lot of people were saying similar for years about Ben Needham and it turned out to be, most likely, true.

Accidents are common - murdering peados are rare. Accidents don't sell papers though, peados do.

I have 2 questions around this case.

1. Why have the parents ever been charged with child abandonment at the very least?

2. When did the Mets jurisdiction extend to Portugal? The only reason I can see is because the Portuguese keep coming back to the parents as their main suspect

It is clear that the McCanns are very well connected and have made an awful lot of money out of this crime

1. Why have the parents ever been charged with child abandonment at the very least?

I suspect because they're suffering enough and because as a deterrent to others the loss offf a 3yo is more powerful than a fine/short prison sentence.

2. When did the Mets jurisdiction extend to Portugal?

That's a pretty good point. What has it got to do with the Met?

It is clear that the McCanns are very well connected

And it is clear that a lot of people seem to resent them for this.

I agree that the case absolutely has had disproportionate publicity and funding.. but I can hardly blame the parents for that.

When would you give up if it was your child? Would you honestly decide not to use your connections because it might be seen as a bit "unfair"?

Stop talking about this, you're supposed to be distracted by Brexit!!

At this rate someone will mention the Gaspar Statement...

"When would you give up if it was your child?"

Wouldn't have been and never was an issue. We didn't ever leave our 3 year old daughter alone, 100 meters up the road while we went for a drink nor left her upstairs on her own in the hotel room while we went down stairs to have some food. Not until she was a surly teenager who would rather stay in than be seen with her parents anyway.

By leaving your child in the hotel room while you go for food, you are placing your child at a heightened risk of misadventure. That's your choice. *Most parents would deem that risk too high. That's why most parents don't do it.

*At least this would appear to be the case.

No parent would disagree that losing a child must be the worst thing that can happen, worse than losing a parent or sibling or friend, especially when there's no body and hence a suspicion that your child is suffering in some way. In those circumstances I bet no parent would be willing to give up the search or turn down any offer of help. In the McCann case I think there was a lingering suspicion that the child had been stolen to order by professionals and that this could be the tip of a very big iceberg, which is why I think so much money was spent on the case. It's my belief that she was taken somewhere where fair-skinned children would be very much prized like the Gulf or Africa and that by now she is so completely indoctrinated that there's no chance of her escaping or making herself known, unless something unforseen happens like a house fire and somebody asks questions.

That’s a pretty good point. What has it got to do with the Met?

Dark skinned people stealing white children really is the most racist of tropes

In the McCann case I think there was a lingering suspicion that the child had been stolen to order by professionals and that this could be the tip of a very big iceberg, which is why I think so much money was spent on the case. It’s my belief that she was taken somewhere where fair-skinned children would be very much prized like the Gulf or Africa

Which is obvs quite a well known occurrence and outcome. Why  would you go to Portugal to steal a fair skinned child?

"I agree that the case absolutely has had disproportionate publicity and funding.. but I can hardly blame the parents for that."

I think you can - they could have called a halt to the whole charade years ago.

Wouldn't it be great if this extra cash pulled in the one piece of evidence that was enough to convict them.

Wouldn’t it be great if this extra cash pulled in the one piece of evidence that was enough to convict them.

GrahamS - are you trying to play Devils Advocate or do you have links to them?

Interesting theory that... would it tie in with these facts?

http://laidbareblog.blogspot.com/2015/06/20-facts-about-disappearance-of.html

The blog above provides the other side of the story seldom reported in the media and as such isn't entirely neutral, however, I encourage anyone to thoroughly fact check everything stated in the link, as in this day and age, it's hard to know who to trust.

FYI, this is how the media like the portray Working Class people who leave their kids to go socialising.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/6176619/british-couple-arrested-abandoning-kids-majorca-holiday-hotel/

If they'd have been quaffing Pouilly-Fumé it'd be alright as that would fit in with the McCann's narrative.

Crap parents are crap parents irrespective of social class

GrahamS – are you trying to play Devils Advocate or do you have links to them?

Neither. and I've already said I think the case has received disproportionate funding and media attention.

I am just disgusted by the number of people expressing variations of "It's their own fault. What did they expect, leaving their three kids asleep 60 metres away in a locked room while they had dinner? Obviously they are going to get murdered."

Whatever you think of their parenting, it was not their fault. It was the fault of whoever abducted or killed the child. No one else.

Even if you think it was "child abandonment", that shouldn't be a death sentence and doesn't make them any less deserving of justice.

FYI, this is how the media like the portray Working Class people who leave their kids to go socialising.

I've been to a fairly wide variety of places on holiday. I've been in the Alps and seen quite young kids skiing apparently unaccompanied. I've been to caravan parks and seen unsupervised kids running feral at midnight while the adults sit in the bar and play bingo. Neither is ideal. People are not perfect.

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GrahamS – are you trying to play Devils Advocate or do you have links to them?

or just a coincidence in the Nationality and career of partners.

Disappointed in the justification

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IMO leaving your kids in the hotel room is not good, never mind in a restaurant that is not in the same building.

I would never call my self a good parent, just a parent but is a having a meal uninterrupted really worth the risk?

And what was acceptable in the good old days leaving prams in street is totally irrelevant now.

what was acceptable in the good old days leaving prams in street is totally irrelevant now.

That picture was from now. It is common practise is some countries.

Whatever you think of their parenting, it was not their fault. It was the fault of whoever abducted or killed the child. No one else.

Proof of needed for that statement, unless you are a supporter of the McCanns obvz..

Thanks

HRH

I don’t know a great deal about the case and do have empathy for the parents. However, to those saying it’s the fault of the abducter or the killer, is there definitive proof for either of those two scenarios? Is it not possible that the child wandered off and was involved in a tragic accident?

 Is it not possible that the child wandered off and was involved in a tragic accident?

The fault of the child then? (since most have it that the parents aren't culpable).

 Is it not possible that the child wandered off

From a locked bedroom?

From a locked bedroom?

Locks usually stop people coming in not going out.

Was never left outside a shop as a toddler, because of....

Of course that was safe back then we were 50 miles from Manchester and Saddleworth Moor.

This.

I'd like to see a resolution to this, if only for her parents.

Wasn't there something about a shutter that was supposedly damaged by someone trying to break in?