Damned McCanns

[NickFitz]

(think about how many times you've seen press conferences/interviews with the guilty involved - Harold Shipman, Ian Huntley, Fred & Rosemary West, etc etc)

Erm, never in the case of Shipman and the Wests. None of them ever gave any kind of press conference or interview, or ever made any public statement relating in any way to their crimes other than in the course of court proceedings.

[snaw]

Erm, never in the case of Shipman and the Wests. None of them ever gave any kind of press conference or interview, or ever made any public statement relating in any way to their crimes other than in the course of court proceedings.

Hey why let the facts get in the way of a good old fashioned witch hunt. Burn them I say, burn them.

Even better tie them up and throw them in water: if they float they're guilty as sin.

[Cowboy Bob]

Erm, never in the case of Shipman and the Wests. None of them ever gave any kind of press conference or interview, or ever made any public statement relating in any way to their crimes other than in the course of court proceedings.

Yes they did. The Shipman one is particularly famous. He gave the interview out in the street when some TV cameras caught up with him. Though it is true that serial killers have a different psychology, so Shipman and the Wests were probably bad examples.

[Cowboy Bob]

Well then there you have it, they must be guilty, statistics say so.

Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, and when used in an argument demonstrates the lack of a reasoned response.

Besides, you can't turn the words "highly likely to be" into "must be" no matter how much you want to read it that way.

[Cowboy Bob]

Hey why let the facts get in the way of a good old fashioned witch hunt. Burn them I say, burn them.

Even better tie them up and throw them in water: if they float they're guilty as sin.

To be honest, I don't care who did it. There's certainly no witchhunt from me. I don't even read the papers so have no idea what people are talking about most of the time. I was merely pointing out the statistical facts as they relate to any murder. Now, are you going to try and refute those statistics, or not?

[snaw]

Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, and when used in an argument demonstrates the lack of a reasoned response.

Besides, you can't turn the words "highly likely to be" into "must be" no matter how much you want to read it that way.

Well if you could be bothered to read this tread you'd find, I believe, that I've gave a pretty thorough response to the argument of whether or not they're guilty, based on what we now know.

Your suggestion in itself goes against the very principle of the legal system we're brought up in, namely innocent until proven guilty, no matter how likely it is based on 'statistics'.

And sarcasm is funny as hell, and is one of the founding pillars of the British sense of humour. Then again maybe you're American with a name like cowboy boy. In which case I'm sorry (For you).

[WotNxt]

Statistics show that the vast majority of murders (assuming she has been by now) are committed by close family members. I also remember reading somewhere that those people who are desperate to get in front of the media in this kind of situation immediately become suspects in the eyes of the investigating officers - the psychological profilers talk about using the public forum as a way of getting over guilt (think about how many times you've seen press conferences/interviews with the guilty involved - Harold Shipman, Ian Huntley, Fred & Rosemary West, etc etc). Statistical evidence demonstrates that the McCanns are highly likely to be the purpetrators...

Statistics are general rules of thumb derived from a large data set. They cannot be used to predict the outcome in one individual case with any meaningful degree of accuracy regardless of how much you would like them to.

Come on, if you are an IT contractor then you must surely be more intelligent than this?

[zeitghost]

Come on, if you are an IT contractor then you must surely be more intelligent than this?

[Bagpuss]

He has a point, the menacing abductor/abuser stranger/paedo is very rare. Yet public perception is it's quite common. Not to say it doesn't happen but why not start with evidence based behaviour? Rather than what The Sun would like to be true, but is very often not.

[SandyDown]

Why don’t we have poll on whether we think the McCans are guilty or innocent… when I was studying law (yes one of my degrees I was studying Science and Law, but stupidly I changed to do double honours in science, cuz I though as a FOREIGNER, it wont be easy for me to get a job as a solicitor (sorry Ferret ))

Anyhow, in one of the classes we have to pretend to be jury, when we gave the outcome it was identical to other pretend juries, the lecturer told us it is soooooo amazing, their has been a reserches going on forming so many juries to judge the same case, and always always always the outcome of all Juries on one case is Identical, no matter who is in the jury!!