PM: To Kate McCaan

[DodgyAgent]

You are trying to re-frame this into something it isn't to make your point. Fact is they left a 3 and two 2 years old alone while going out for a drink with friends. Do you think that is appropriate care? NSPCC says not. What do you think?

They left the children at 7.30 checked again at 9.00 and at 10.00 when they checked the child had disappeared. So OK the intervals were longer than most would have allowed but the risk of them being abducted was tiny. Maybe they forgot (we all do whilst we are glued to the internet or something else) but to have a child abducted was never remotely likely to happen.

So to vilify the Mcanns is plain wrong apart from being cruel

I have not read one leading commentator pass judgement on the Mcanns in the way that some of you people have. I fancy that the reasons for your sanctimonious behaviour are something to do with the amount of time you spend on this site.

[DodgyAgent]

Not likely to happen as mine have grown up now, but I would have done my best to mitigate any risk of it happening.

I noticed in your link they put which I don't agree with, it was NOT a mistake in my book as it was totally avoidable and neglect.

I asked you the question of what would happen if your child had been abducted? Don't be shy tell us your conscience would have been clear and that no one would have judged you the way they have judged the Mcanns

[Batcher]

I am not the only one that has this view. Blah, blah, blah

I'm willng to bet you are the blogger on Grumpy Old Archive

[DodgyAgent]

I'm willng to bet you are the blogger on Grumpy Old Archive

If only I could be that eloquent. Here is a bit more:

Nor am I alone in my disgust at this torrent of spite. India Knight has written more than once on the subject in the Sunday Times - click here and here.

"Behind the capitals," she wrote, "you can almost feel their quickening breath and their peculiar excitement as they comprehensively trash the reputation of a grieving woman who is a stranger to them. Power to the people!

So here we are, obsessed, in the throes of one of those weird national seizures; sitting in judgment, wallowing in what the novelist Philip Roth (apropos Bill Clinton's infidelity) memorably called "the ecstasy of sanctimony". The woman at the checkout at Tesco has a view, as does the dinner party guest. The hitherto unsayable - "Do you think they killed their own child?" - has become commonplace. You hear it everywhere. We're gossiping about a four-year-old child who may be dead, or abducted and raped, or both, and there are no holds barred any more. What brutal thing does this say about us?

She (Mrs.McCann) has also (more straws) been accused of seeming "unfeeling", of looking "too groomed" ("I'd look a mess, therefore we're not the same, therefore it could never happen to me"), of seeming strangely "calm" (or tranquillised, surely?), of basically not falling to her knees screaming like an animal in pain - it's "Show us you care, Ma'am" all over again.

In some internet chatrooms and message boards, women bitch about Kate McCann for not reacting exactly like them - not that they'd know how they'd react in her situation, since they have never been in it. No matter: weird, isn't it, how she seems so composed - and let's not call it composure, let's call it "arrogance" (this from the country that invented the stiff upper lip). Must make her a child killer, and not have anything to do with being told that visible distress might give pleasure to a hypothetical abductor.

And why are her clothes nice? Who thinks about clothes at a time like this? Why does she wash her hair? Couldn't she wear rags, or sackcloth and ashes? Or - any day now - tar and feathers? And what was that nonsense with the Pope? (Who'd have thought the devout Catholic/Pope combination would be so perplexing and aggravating to so many people?).

[Churchill]

I am not the only one that has this view. It seems that despite the over the top detail of the coverage there are very few commentators and journalists that hold your view: I am sure you will find some clinically depressed member of mumsnet to agree with the sanctity of your own position:

Grumpy Old Sod.com - persecuting the McCanns

The McCann's decision to put their kids to bed and pop back every so often to check on them was a tragic mistake which they'll no doubt regret for the rest of their lives. But we all make mistakes. Usually we're lucky and no harm comes from them. More to the point, there are people all over the country thinking "There but for the grace of God ….", because let's face it, and despite the wave of self-righteous posturing we're currently experiencing, many of us have done it - left our kids asleep somewhere, in bed while we pop next door, in the back of the car while we dash into a shop. It's not irresponsible: for most of us it's a rational decision. You weigh up the chances of them waking (very slim), the possible dangers from molesters (even slimmer) or, say, the car catching fire (statistically much more likely, I should think), and you decide that you live in the real world and the risk is acceptable. That's what the McCanns did, and they were caught out.

No doubt there are tiny little minds reading this and protesting "No! That's not on! A parent should never, ever, under any circumstances, leave their children!" Unthinking obduracy is often the first, and only, resort of the unintelligent.

Just where do you draw the line? If a kid gets stolen from her bed, is it the mum's fault because she didn't sit at the actual bedside all night long? Why not tie the kid to the bed, wouldn't that help? Or nail its feet to the floor? When that little six-year-old was snatched right out of her bath, was that the mother's fault because she wasn't actually in the room with her? Does a caring, responsible mother stay in the lavatory when her 10-year-old son is having a crap?

To those inadequates I repeat, the rest of us live in the real world. We go to work, we go shopping, we have lives to lead and obligations to many other people as well as the kids. We simply don't have the opportunity to fit grilles to every window, dig a moat in the front garden, install a portcullis and drawbridge, let loose a couple of Alsatians and sit in a darkened room cuddling the children.

Unfortunately there are plenty of narrow-minded little bigots who are only too pleased to seize any opportunity to show how self-righteous they can be, or who are delighted that for once the missing child comes from a nice middle-class family instead of a council estate, or who see the McCanns' vulnerability as an invitation.

They're indulging in that great British pastime, kicking people when they're down. We don't know who took the child, we can only imagine in our darkest moments what they've done with her, but never mind, we've got a much easier target for our spite - the parents. They're not grieving enough? They're too well dressed? They seem to be both well-heeled and well-connected? They could afford to take a holiday at a time most of us are working? They can exercise a level of self-control most of us would find difficult? They're good-looking, and have good-looking friends? Great, now's our chance. Let's get the bastards!

It's little more than simple jealousy. And sadly it's the internet that gives them the freedom to indulge their cruelty.

You see I don't feel a need to justify my opinions and thoughts by seeking out those that agree with me. I'm my own man.

[ZARDOZ]

They left the children at 7.30 checked again at 9.00 and at 10.00 when they checked the child had disappeared. So OK the intervals were longer than most would have allowed but the risk of them being abducted was tiny. Maybe they forgot (we all do whilst we are glued to the internet or something else) but to have a child abducted was never remotely likely to happen.

So to vilify the Mcanns is plain wrong apart from being cruel

I have not read one leading commentator pass judgement on the Mcanns in the way that some of you people have. I fancy that the reasons for your sanctimonious behaviour are something to do with the amount of time you spend on this site.

Leaving them alone for 90mins is downright negligent. It doesn't matter what the risk of child abduction is, that's a red herring. Children that age should not be left alone for many reasons. A hotel room has more than enough dangers. Likelihood of them being at risk of harm is too high. Sanctimony has nothing to do with it.

[Churchill]

I asked you the question of what would happen if your child had been abducted? Don't be shy tell us your conscience would have been clear and that no one would have judged you the way they have judged the Mcanns

If my child is abducted after I have invested care and forethought, defended with all my might then it was meant to happen. Failing that I could **** off to the pub and make it easier for the kidnappers.

Or I could accidentally overdose a sedative for my child accidentally killing them and then hide the body in the concrete foundations of a nearby car park.

[DodgyAgent]

Leaving them alone for 90mins is downright negligent. It doesn't matter what the risk of child abduction is, that's a red herring. Children that age should not be left alone for many reasons. A hotel room has more than enough dangers. Likelihood of them being at risk of harm is too high. Sanctimony has nothing to do with it.

Maybe they should not be left alone for that amount of time but the risks of them being abducted are tiny. Your sanctimony (which it is) is exactly the same as saying a girl who is raped whilst wearing "provocative clothes" is asking for it.

Boris Johnson

I am interested in this hostility - this aggressive desire to ascribe guilt - and it seems to me to have several causes.

We want the story to end, of course. It has been the most wretched event of a wretched summer, and we want it to climax one way or another, even if the denouement exceeds even the ghastliest Channel Five real-life family murder drama.

Perhaps we are more inclined to blame the McCanns because our sympathy has curdled.

Everyone was so horrified at the idea of a child being snatched; everyone felt they could so easily have been in the same position as those poor parents - and of course people's irritation may be all the greater to find that matters are not as they seemed.

And then there is the simple but awful fact of human nature - the emotional weakness that drives the sale of so many newspapers. It is an inescapable fact of human nature that we seem unable to judge ourselves, and to value ourselves, except by reference to other people. If we see others doing much better than us, we often feel threatened and unhappy; and we too often feel reassured to see someone else fail, or get their comeuppance."

[DodgyAgent]

If my child is abducted after I have invested care and forethought, defended with all my might then it was meant to happen. Failing that I could **** off to the pub and make it easier for the kidnappers.

Or I could accidentally overdose a sedative for my child accidentally killing them and then hide the body in the concrete foundations of a nearby car park.

Your point is?

[Batcher]

I don't think the Huelva trip has ever been fully explained and there are a lot of questions unanswered such as how did the cadaver dogs pick up scent in the car that was rented 3 weeks after the disappearance. They made the trip during a local Spanish holiday when most of the town was closed and bypassed several larger (open) towns on the way. I also read about a Roman Catholic sect ritual that you have to visit the recently departed exactly 3 months after death and the trip was exactly 3 months to the day of the disappearance.

The Huelva Trip