Madeline McCann...

[shaunbhoy]

Well, if you believe the British police the family was being stalked for several days leadin up to the abduction. If that was the case then the child would have eventually been taken.

Maybe they were being stalked because word had got around the Paedo community that they had a habit of leaving the kids so isolated though?
Whatever you believe, I am sure they are suffering for their cavalier approach far more than we know.
Not convinced that Maddy is definitely dead, but very much doubt they will find her again now.

[SizeZero]

To take it to the extreme, yes. But, I would say it's all about balancing risk.

A child abducted from you back garden (assuming you don't live on a 50hectare country estate) could probably have been said to have been supervised.

According to that logic, the mother of the Payne girl is totally exonerated, yet the mother of the McCann girl is guilty as sin. The McCann girl was in a locked room, and the Payne girl was in a field. Result: both sets of parents will never, ever forgive themselves their mistake and any discussion over guilt and innocence here is completely meanlingless compared with what they have to face each morning when they wake up.

I live in the Netherlands. I don't speak fluent Dutch. I'd imagine that if there were ever a situation where the police needed to question me, I'd have a bilingual lawyer to advise me not to answer, as so much can and would be misinterpretted in translation - and in a courtroom you would have no idea how misconstrued your words could be (in real time)

[TykeMerc]

I'm sure most parents would probably do the same thing, the bar was on the other side of the gardens and they were checking up.

Neither I nor my now ex wife would ever have left our children alone, especially at the ages theirs were.
The boys would either be with us or one of us would stay with them or if there was someone we really trusted maybe with them.

Especially so in a different country where English really isn't that widely spoken (common enough in the Algarve, but pretty rare in the rest of Portugal).

My first thought when the story broke was why the hell did they leave their 3 small children alone in a place where thousands of complete strangers could gain access via a window left open?

[AtW]

Agreed but if the people asking the questions have you fingered for the crime already you could answer 39 correctly, mess up the 40th and they would have you stripped naked and fumbling for soap in a foreign jail faster than you can blink.

If they answered 39 correctly and did not answer 1 then it would be ok in my view - court would need bigger proof then wrong answer, however refusing to answer all of them is pretty much position of someone who has been charged and chooses to exercise right of silence in order to avoid self-incrimination.

If they are witnesses then IMHO refusing to answer pretty reasonable questions is probably obstruction of justice.

I would hazard a guess but I think keeping quiet in the face of accusing questions is only fair in the circumstances.

So your kid has been kidnapped and you'd want to play safe and keep silence to reduce chance of going to jail?!?!?!

[threaded]

If they answered 39 correctly and did not answer 1 then it would be ok in my view - court would need bigger proof then wrong answer, however refusing to answer all of them is pretty much position of someone who has been charged and chooses to exercise right of silence in order to avoid self-incrimination.

If they are witnesses then IMHO refusing to answer pretty reasonable questions is probably obstruction of justice.



So your kid has been kidnapped and you'd want to play safe and keep silence to reduce chance of going to jail?!?!?!

I do hope you never end up in front of a copper, 'cause with that attitude he'll have you banged up dead easy, almost certainly for something you didn't do.

Everyone knows it is best to say the absolute minimum, and best is nothing at all. Law professors and Police officers will tell you that.

[TiroFijo]

whoever did it, they are guilty

DUH, no sh1t Sherlock!

[TiroFijo]

I think concensus is that Medellin is city in Columbia.

It's called Colombia!

[TiroFijo]

The whole case seems rather odd to me and to be honest I'm still think they had something to do with it, but that's all it is - my personal thoughts.

[NotAllThere]

Seems like a reasonable list of questions some of which one might refuse to answer, however refusing them all is suspicious at the very least.

She was probably advised by her lawyer, quite correctly, not to answer any questions while she was a suspect. She didn't answer these questions when they were put to her under caution - but has she answered them since? Or even before?

I do hope you never end up in front of a copper, 'cause with that attitude he'll have you banged up dead easy, almost certainly for something you didn't do.

You make that sound like a bad thing.

But you're right. The police are not trying to find the truth of what happened, they just want a result. A crime has been committed, someone has been convicted. It's just serendipitous if the convict actually was guilty. Having had one experience with the way the police twist what is said under caution, I will always exercise my right to remain silent. If I'm not under caution, I will be cooperative and helpful.

[NotAllThere]

The whole case seems rather odd to me and to be honest I'm still think they had something to do with it, but that's all it is - my personal thoughts.

People do daft things, they have mixed motives. In real life there are often apparent discrepencies. All those oddities could be because, for example, they weren't in a bar, but were taking part in a wild orgy in the cellar, or a bible study, and didn't want people to find out.