I will never forget the day after Madeleine disappeared and her parents were walking down the road being filmed.
Kate McCann had tied her hair back but had added ribbons to it Seriously, if your child was missing I imagine the last thing you would do is comb your hair - let alone add ribbons to it.
That always struck me as weird behaviour.

Ok what are u talking about?? No seriously. Stop twisting things to try to suit your beliefs. I don't give two figs about these people. I feel very sorry for that poor girl. But's about it. I've already said i don't have any interest in taking them down. Why don't you auote that. Just because some one doesn't agree with u doen't mean WE are out to get any one.

I remember thinking the same. We lived in the same town/area as the McCanns- so our area was particularly affected by the events.

Ribbons... must be guilty then

once again you're totally missing the point, or choosing not to see it, most parents whose child has just gone missing the day before wouldn't be taking the time to tidy themselves up, they would be on there hands and knees searching, they wouldn't be hosting a media circus as they publicly stroll off to church, they wouldn't be flying off to see the pope etc unless of course they know the child can't be found (imho)

very odd behaviour

What's even more strange is not that she wore ribbons but that she didn't even go out and search for her child. Well, they, they didn't search. They left that to others. I'm not a parent, but if my child were missing I would be out there looking for her & calling for her. Maybe she could have heard my voice, etc.

Very strange behavior.

Has the MaCann oven chip saga stopped one other child disappearing?

Probably not.

Ha all this self-publicity helped in any way in finding out what happend to their daughter?

I doubt it.

Has it made thousands of (Daily Mail reading) parents completely paranoid about letting their children out of their sight for more than five seconds?

Most certainly.

I really think it's time to get some ex-Stasi or current CIA operatives to have a couple of hours alone with the McCanns to find out whether they were involved at all.
Then, someone should gently remind the McCann's that they have two other children and they really should be spending a lot more time with them whilst they are still kids and need the love and support of their parents.

I hope if anything it reminds parents not to leave their child alone in the house for any reason. It's so much more likely that the child has an accident at home than the child being kidnapped.

Neither were they. They attended a special mass 13 days after she disappeared: 16 May not 4 May, the day after she disappeared. As "Roman Catholics and regular churchgoers", it's not surprising that regular churchgoers should go to mass. Not surprising that they were followed everywhere by the media, including to church. Not surprising that Catholics should want to meet the Pope in those circumstances, given the opportunity. If they were not regular churchgoers (like most regular parents) and had warned the disinterested media in advance of a church visit as soon as their daughter had disappeared, that would be odd. If they were not Catholics (like many regular parents) and wanted to meet the Pope, that would definitely be odd. But there's no evidence of that.

Photo of them looking wrecked from above article dated 5 May 2007, two days after she disappeared. Satisfied?

That's not what they did and I am not sure parents have become paranoid. There is nothing wrong with publicising bad parenting if it improves another's parenting, their lackadaisical attitude lost them their child.....................apparently.

And anyway I do not know many parents that would have done that, in fact I don't think I know of any.

Indeed it is ... especially because, if the death and disposal really happened in that short period of time in the apartment, there wouldn't be any decomposing and therefore no cadaver smell yet.

Sorry. That's just not true. Decomposition starts shortly after death. And these dogs are trained to discover early stages as well.

Anyway, what's "that short a period of time"?

I'm sorry but that's rubbish!! your child is missing, you DO NOT fly off to italy while other people are looking for your kid no matter who you'd get to see

Anyone who would jump at the chance to see a souped up priest and get a ride on a private plane while there child is missing isn't all there, what if she'd have been found while they where away?? I'm sorry but that's just not what 'normal' people do.

And the father is on record saying he isn't particularly religious.

They met the Pope 27 days after she disappeared. Assuming this is not 'normal', even for regular churchgoing Catholics, what should they have been doing that day and on the previous 26 days? The answer is presumably "go out searching", since staying indoors would not help and would also look bad (lazy, disinterested, maybe they're not looking because they already know where she is, etc.).
That would mean searching all day every day in a foreign country with the media on their tail. Where would they go and where would they search? How would their days look?

My day would look like this - get off my arse and look for my child, no matter how remote the chance of finding them was

unless they had a hot tip she was at the vatican?? anything is possible I suppose

Where would you look specifically for, say, 12 hours every day in a foreign country? Followed by cameramen and watched by curious and possibly hostile locals.

Personally, I don't necessarily have a problem with them going to see the pope. I don't think it's normal that they didn't go out to look for her. They stayed home and let others look for the child.

Like I said above, I would be out there screaming for my baby hoping she would hear me.


They didn't look AT ALL. Others did. And other foreigners did look in a foreign country. And sorry, the locals were not at all hostile to them....

I'd be looking until I passed out, then I'd look some more, where? every drain, sewer, cave, rock, bush the list is endless and the cameramen etc can help

Yes- but remember they also had the twins to look after. We were in Norfolk when a little boy disappeared from the beach at Hunstanton. We then found out that the mum was one of my colleagues and neighbour and my daughter used to babysit the little boy. When we found out, we rushed to the police station to offer to take the twins so they could join the search party- but they were is such shock they just couldn't leave the little ones. We joined the search party - then arranged for the family to come to the Youth Hostel where we were staying. The police came in the early hours to announce that the little boy had been found, suffocated in a collapsed sand dune. It was so dreadful - and yet they always said at least the knew what had happened and could, perhaps, one day, find closure. (that was about 15 years ago).

Looking there would mean that you'd be assuming from the outset that the child was already dead. That wouldn't be normal in a parent who thought their child had been abducted. You'd want to look elsewhere, e.g. houses, cellars, outhouses, which means that you'd have to speak Portuguese and have permission to search private property. Not very realistic for a foreign tourist.

With the twins strapped to your back.

If the parents making a big noise in the media about abduction was a diversionary tactic because they had something to do with her disappearance, they have managed to keep it up for years, fooling even the people closest to them, deliberately courting scrutiny and, as suspects in the first case, asking to be reinvestigated by having the case reopened. That makes no sense if they're guilty, unless they hope to be convicted. It makes more sense to court the media, risking criticism for that, if they knew that the police were barking up the wrong tree by suspecting them and believed that the police were therefore likely to stop looking for their daughter and that she'd be forgotten about like all the others.