Leave No Stone Unturned

The cadaver dog and blood hound alerts on the presence of cadaver and blood odour in appartment 5A and on items associated with the McCann's are very reliable. I trust the tested and proven detection capabilities of those specific dogs whose alerts you can observe visually factually for yourself over the verbal 3rd hand and hearsay information of humans.

The statements and timelines aren't reliable and purposely obscured and warped to throw off investigators.
It is a mistake to assume just because it involved a coverup from higher up this equals that all moving parts are automatically working in concert. That this wouldn't require a fair amount of on the fly improvisation inserting false information and leads altering timelines. Once the dissapearance was reported and the alarm was raised the clock starts ticking and the story was partially out of the conspirators hands and in the public domain from that moment on.

The biggest question is why the coverup? Considering the parents medical backgrounds, to avoid thorough toxicology and or physiological investigation and the consequences of that seems to be a reasonable assumption. Why so many people would willingly assist in the coverup is likely a mix of complicity, financial interests and other personal political agendas.

For example the McCanns visit the pope. The Vatican sees this as a perfect Public Relations opportunity to publicly seem to be supporting the victimized parents of a missing child to pad their own piousness. Now they've made the pope himself complicit in their charade and lies and upped the stakes. Afterwards it turns out the McCanns are tainted and that the pope praised and shook the hands of potential killers/neglectful parents and staked his reputation on that. This process draws in a bunch of unwilling ignorant accomplices and muddies the waters big time.

This makes many people tainted and complicit merely by touching this case out of misguided self serving interests that may have nothing to do with the case itself. Many important public peoples reputations are staked on the reliability of the McCanns and risk getting damaged by it for merely letting themselves get used for towing the McCann line. You will also see this on the lower levels of people involved in the investigation (journalists, public and private investigators) anyone who got baited into towing the line for the McCanns and promoting their lies has to stick to their guns and tell themselves now they where right or lose their self respect for being fooled/bribed into complicity in the coverup (of crimes against children). They have to tell themselves until the day they die that they did the right thing to sleep better at night or face they where terribly wrong for the rest of their lives.

I don't think it can be said with any certainty that Madeleine died in apartment 5a. the dog alerts signaled the scent of blood and death not attributable to a specific individual - I think there is a distinct possibility the death occurred elsewhere and the body taken to apartment 5a for some reason.

I've never been entirely happy about the accident/death/neglect theories.   The witness statements of the main players spell out a contrived sequence of events leading up to Kate McCann's missing person alert on the night of 3rd May 2007.

It's quite apparent, again from the primary witness statements, that the holiday went haywire on or before Tuesday 1st May 2007.  Children have accidents all the time at the familial domicile and outside, I can see no reason to enter panic mode to cover-up what could have been simply explained - even if that explanation was somewhat economical with the truth.  In short, the groups future wouldn't have been in jeopardy because one of the children had an accident, albeit fatal.

Nor do I buy the sedation theory, that could also be easily explained by the child finding and taking medicament found hidden (or not) somewhere on the premises.  It's too speculative for my liking.

Looking at all aspects individually I see good reason to suspect foul play - something that would need to be deeply hidden, never to be found.  That would certainly call for the degree of apparent lies and deceit uncovered by release of the PJ files back in the summer of 2008.

Tuesday 1st May 2007 is the key in my view.  Follow the trail .... no family photographs, not family gatherings, no group activities, no evidence of a family of five seen out and about the Ocean Club complex - opting out of the groups communal eating arrangements and other activities, apart from the nightly Tapas restaurant booking, even that's shrouded in mist.  All typical things you would expect to see a family on holiday doing together.  

I am not basing my thoughts on speculation or any wild imaginings but on the evidence - or lack of, as the case may be.

As for ever understanding the level of support and protection awarded to the McCanns and their group of friends/acquaintances, I fear we will never know   It is however known from the evidence that members of the group, including the McCanns themselves, had contacts with the British media and press and political links.  As we know from experience, folk in any profession close ranks when the going gets tough - and possibly a knee jerk reaction to a potential intercontinental disaster.

Personally I believe the band wagon was (and is) overloaded with do-gooders accompanied by dodgy-doers, all looking for a piece of the action.

Ooops, where's me manners.

nox0123

As I've said on so many occasions .... why was Dianne Webster there in the first place?

The mother/mother-in-law just didn't fit in with the 30'somethings mentality, if you believe the witness statements she didn't spend much time with her family aside from acting as their skivvy, so what was her purpose - to babysit whilst they all went on a jolly every night?

At the time there was the crèche option available, the staff listening service and/or the baby sitting service - why opt to leave your children alone every night in their respective apartments when childcare services were available, even if you had to pay something - and then there was Dianne Webster on tap.

None of it makes any sense to me.  If you're going to reject the available Ocean Club services why not leave all the children in one apartment under the care of one person.  Surely a more sensible arrangement than communal apartment watching.

The excuse the McCanns made was a) the children were used to routine and b) they didn't feel comfortable leaving their children with a stranger !?!, so they opted to leave them alone in an apartment situated on the ground floor with an unlocked patio door situated up a small flight of concrete steps.

The story is made-up to facilitate stranger abduction - there can be no other explanation.

I'll wager something happened earlier in the week and the entire story and time lines were invented to conceal the truth.

Kate McCann knows the abduction happened under other circumstances .... she was there.  A Freudian slip - you don't get much closer to the truth than that!

Verdi wrote:I don't think it can be said with any certainty that Madeleine died in apartment 5a. the dog alerts signaled the scent of blood and death not attributable to a specific individual - I think there is a distinct possibility the death occurred elsewhere and the body taken to apartment 5a for some reason.

I've never been entirely happy about the accident/death/neglect theories.   The witness statements of the main players spell out a contrived sequence of events leading up to Kate McCann's missing person alert on the night of 3rd May 2007.

It's quite apparent, again from the primary witness statements, that the holiday went haywire on or before Tuesday 1st May 2007.  Children have accidents all the time at the familial domicile and outside, I can see no reason to enter panic mode to cover-up what could have been simply explained - even if that explanation was somewhat economical with the truth.  In short, the groups future wouldn't have been in jeopardy because one of the children had an accident, albeit fatal.

Nor do I buy the sedation theory, that could also be easily explained by the child finding and taking medicament found hidden (or not) somewhere on the premises.  It's too speculative for my liking.

Looking at all aspects individually I see good reason to suspect foul play - something that would need to be deeply hidden, never to be found.  That would certainly call for the degree of apparent lies and deceit uncovered by release of the PJ files back in the summer of 2008.

Tuesday 1st May 2007 is the key in my view.  Follow the trail .... no family photographs, not family gatherings, no group activities, no evidence of a family of five seen out and about the Ocean Club complex - opting out of the groups communal eating arrangements and other activities, apart from the nightly Tapas restaurant booking, even that's shrouded in mist.  All typical things you would expect to see a family on holiday doing together.  

I am not basing my thoughts on speculation or any wild imaginings but on the evidence - or lack of, as the case may be.

As for ever understanding the level of support and protection awarded to the McCanns and their group of friends/acquaintances, I fear we will never know   It is however known from the evidence that members of the group, including the McCanns themselves, had contacts with the British media and press and political links.  As we know from experience, folk in any profession close ranks when the going gets tough - and possibly a knee jerk reaction to a potential intercontinental disaster.

Personally I believe the band wagon was (and is) overloaded with do-gooders accompanied by dodgy-doers, all looking for a piece of the action.

The sedation theory takes less speculation, foul play/murder takes much more speculation. It can't be easily explained if they all sedated their kids to have a good time and they could lose custody over the other kids. Then there's the possibility of signs of prior forms of abuse. It doesn't seem preplanned and wasn't staged well. Their connections, soliciting donations throwing a lot of money at it and gaining celebrities favors under false pretenses was what saved them for getting the average plebian treatment. 

Actually it takes a lot more speculation to go by the thesis that it was preplanned far in advance since the whole abduction story was shoddy and full of holes and contradictions. That tells you pretty clearly they probably didn't have a lot of time to prepare and mesh their stories or think things through very well. Most help from third parties seemed to come afterwards.

It is very likely she died in apartment 5A and the specialized cadaver and blood dogs prove that with a high accuracy, likely around the couch area. Also that the body decomposed in appartment 5A and was stored in a cupboard there for a period of time. The detection dog readings are very reliable and they have a proven track record and aren't your average neighbours pooch. That's the strongest circumstantial  evidence and indication of a death having occured to begin with. 

The specialized detection dogs Eddie and Keela readings are key and what broke the case wide open. They tell you with a high degree of certainty she died in appartment 5A. Her body was stored there for some time hours at least I believe, and her body was moved from the couch area to the cupboard in the parents bedroom to the reading outside in stages it seems. The parents moved their beds away from the cupboard and left a large open space there maybe because a decomposing body was there for sometime and they had to sleep next to it. That's why maybe one of the parents slept in the other bed in the other room. Their timeline is off and something had to have occurred much earlier. They obviously had time to clean and rearanged things but the dogs still detected it. The cadaver dog Eddie's reaction to 5A being the primary source of the cadaver odour was as powerful as when the interviewer put it to Gerry about the dogs alerts in 5A.

Since 30 april they already changed their routines and stopped walking to the restaurant for breakfast and had breakfast in 5a from that day forward from what I remember. The lack of photographs is a problem and may have been deleted if they where like those inappropriate make up photos. I don't believe the McCanns timeline and think she died earlier and am fairly certain they distorted the timeline and waited sometime before sounding the alarm to give themselves a head start. But they did not seem to have a lot of preparation time to match their stories and think about obvious contradictions and mesh their staged abduction theory such as the window only opening from the inside.

The McCann's proposing the thesis she was abducted by pedophiles from the start implies that they maybe tried to create an alibi for if her body was retrieved for some unforseen reason and showing signs of abuse. This would be the most obvious reasons for medical specialists to cover up an accidental death and Kate McCann making references to torn genitalia in her book substantiates that thesis. The use of sedatives and Gaspar statements about David Payne also give further clues why the others would lie for the McCanns. 

The most obvious thesis is that there was an unforseen accidental death in 5A and that sedatives and/or signs of abuse would be discovered and multiple people risked losing custody and/or their freedom and reputations including the unknowing celebrities who got duped into towing the McCann line later. It's a proper clusterfuck. Anyways those are some observations.

I'm not reading you, I haven't said Madeleine's fate was pre-planned if that's what you imply.

The dog alerts don't indicate anything other than the odour of blood and death - not who where or when.

You are clearly not new to fora, in particular CMOMM, so you will know instinctively how to navigate the forum in order to acquaint yourself with past discussion on any subject matter but should you require any assistance feel free to ask.

We are at your disposal.

That aside, you are on the right track

crusader wrote:I'm certain the McCann's know what happened to Madeleine, the actions of them within a day or two of her disappearance is proof enough for me.
The need to hide her body and invent a scenario where she was abducted is a question that may never be answered.
I'm convinced Madeleine died in the apartment but didn't remain there long, definately not overnight.
The statements of the friends of the McCann's only add to the confusion, events that should have been clear in their minds, they conveniently can't remember.

Yes everything points to the McCanns knowing exactly what happened.

It is pretty obvious she likely died in 5A considering the dogs alerts and the cadaver dog alerts being corroborated by the blood hound alerts. Two dogs with a succes rate of around 100% indicate she died there and that they at the very least kept her cadaver there in multiple places.

I am not sure how long a cadaver was in 5A but the parents moved the beds away from the cupboard with the cadaver odour which makes it seem as if they didn't want to sleep to close next to a decomposing body. Some claim the mother slept in the other room away from the cadaver storage cupboard in the parents bedroom. Which at least allows for a reasonable possibility cadaver having been there overnight.

The thesis the parents raised the alarm very shortly after the calamity doesn't fly with me and the cadaver seems to have been there for sometime (a few hours, a day or so is my guess based on the evidence). Which favors people who theorize it happened a day/s or so before the alarm was raised giving the parents a fair head start.

For anyone who wants to dispute the dogs alerts consider this. Those are specialized types of K9s that cost a lot of  time and resources to train, more then most people make, and security services around the world depend their lives on those cadaver/bodily fluids/bomb/threat sniffers. Do you honestly believe professionals would trust their lives and reputations on dogs "whose results indicate nothing"?

Those dogs are actually the only investigators involved in the case whom you can say with absolute 100% certainty they didn't have any hidden agendas and can't tell lies, literally their only purpose in life is to detect cadaver and blood odour. So to claim their results indicate nothing is simply insulting to the intelligence.

The proper argument to make against the dogs is that their alerts did not yield enough tangible results to convict the McCanns in the court of law. But its not my job to prove this in the public court of law beyond the shadow of anyone's doubts. All that matters to me is that two K9s with a solid proven track record alerted to cadaver and blood odour in 5A and the rental car and yielded biological results that matches Madeleine. Combine that with the parents aversion to the thesis of something having happened in 5A and ridiculing moving a body with their rental car and it's pretty obvious where things go. The investigators on the ground who responded first will likely have come to the same conclusions if you asked them.

Madeleine had nosebleeds according to Gerry , though he couldn't remember her having one on holiday , some father and a doctor as well ! What was the cause of the alleged nosebleeds I wonder , did she hide behind the sofa and pick her nose ? Why did Keela and Eddie indicate the presence of blood behind said sofa ? 
I have full confidence in the dogs , yet Gerry insisting from his research ( which turned out to be incorrect ) that they were " incredibly unreliable " seems to have been accepted and their findings ignored ! 
How many red flags are needed ?

There are not enough Red Flags in China to wake up Op Grange.
IMHO

i also have a very hard time to rule the dog alerts out of it. and as i am no longer thinking it only can be explained by only the time the body could have been in the area behind the sofa, because of the blood residu under the tiles and in the air pockets in the grout, could very well feed the decomposition relics eddy reacted on. 

but the dogs could not give any indication of the person who left traces of decomposition of organic nature there, or when as in date and time. 

how likely can it be that a young girl with a heavy nosebleed stays in one place to make a blood deposit large enough to form a puddle, because that is what is needed to seep through in the grout, and even is found under the tile. some large drops of a nosebleed can of course just seep through some grout, often pockets of air could work with some capillary effects. still it was an floor that was tiled years before, cleaned many times, so the permeability= how easy some fluid can seep through it is far lesser then in a fresh tiled project. even if the cleaning used industrial housekeeping products that often have bleach or peroxide contens, that only would weaken the top layer of the grout. 

also there was no alert on clothing by keela, and having a heavy nosebleed and being known for nosebleeds, would be quite a miracle that never once the clothes has not gotten a stain. keela was also very good with just tiny specks. 

the often brought on other possible source for the behind the sofa alert is from a maybe shaving accident by the former inhabitant of 5a. again how likely is it a man with a shaving cut, gets behind a sofa to drop out. 

it is for nose bleeds and shaving cuts no natural human behavior to want to hide behind a sofa. if the alerts had been found in front of a sofa it would be far more explainable. taking a seat,sit quietly and keep your bleeding parts away from yourself and harder to clean objects, that is the most common behavior. learned behavior from a young age on, because there often was a mother or carer near telling not to get the blood on clothing or hard to clean objects, because blood stains are hard to clean. 

so for me the dog alerts as alerts still stands, but i can no longer use them to create a timeline at all. 

i never have gone for must be blood because both dogs gave an alert. because at every bloody crime scene there could be both in the same area. keela only reacted to direct blood deposits that had been dried out in situ. so that means from very small specks to larger amounts, but they must had the time to dry in situ.
but there is no valid reason why there could not have been small amounts of blood that indeed could have dried up in situ, the smaller the sample, the quicker it will dry out, and a larger deposit that was not able to just dry in situ but kept enough fluid content to let is decompose. 

you simply do not need the full body, all organic human matter can also decompose, for blood or parts you do not even have to be death, usually the fluid content is what decides if it can be able to break down by hydrolysis and bacterial decomposition. other factors have usually more influence on that fluid content, than the the rest of the processes. mopping the floor could even made it more of an active decomposition on later moments. it must be cleaned before the 3 parties got in between the mccanns and the dogs, so at lest 2 other cleaning actions.

eddy was trained on the full palet of the scent of death, and no that is not called cadaverine, that is slipped in, probably by a not so expert kind of media, cadaverine in itself is only one of the first recognized substance around dead bodies, the other one was putriscine. but the scent of death, cadaver odor, cadaver scent is in reality a mix of many, many different substances together, and still not all are known. 
also cadaverine is a bit special, it likes to stays very close to the body in the decomposition process, so it is understood that is is far less around when the body is taken away. from that it is very likely the dogs noses do not have a special feel for it. 

there are also very little dogs in the same fields as eddy was, that had been tried and tested under lab conditions. meaning building a situation with putting in the game, substances you do know are there, and in 2014 eddy still was much better than the science project's artificial nose. and that is the only way to be sure how good these dogs can be and eddy certainly was. 
in field conditions eddy could only proof himself and his abilities when the body of parts thereof indeed been found. even if the dna found in that same area, it would be depending on the defense team how long that would be seen as evidence because it was only a lcn-dna result.
the dog alerts would be sufficient without other intel, to get the investigation looking closer to home. 

amaral asked the right questions, was the sample from behind the sofa in testing indeed from blood of the victim. but the uk lab did not do anything to even try to work on the origins of the cells in the sample. and they had been asked.
they only did the lcn-dna on it. that alone restricts later use widely. 

the problem is always just us, being human, we just have no abilities to use our noses in the same manner, the stuff needed is not even there in our noses, also we still have to unravel the full mystery of that scent of death. 
and when humans also get better in producing good test results, maybe we can really know what these dogs smell. 

i still can not say i really do know what happened, why and how, there is just to often a gap in the details to become really sure. write up a likely and possible story, that does not have left out facts that are known, can be done for too much starting times. even only the thursday evening is stil a good fit. yeah, you have to fill gaps with possible actions. but i can do that for far earlier moments in that week too. i do not have them all for earlier times. so it just rest on at least some speculations.
what is stil missing is a sound timeline, there is very little to use that is rock hard fact in this case. 
the result will be it still is just a written story, the facts and the evidence is not there, and what there is in facts could be still used far to versatile. 

my favorite part still is the tapas9 timeline productions, like the gallantry part with the matt check at around 21.30 hours, 21.25 hours per matt even, that is lost in investigation per redwood completely. but matt says in his rogatory that he came back when almost the next round of checks was due. but he already has noted that russell was still not back. and if you have 4 couples and only 3 tell they had a checking effort, the only ones to check around 22.00 hours would be the mccanns and matt or rachel, still nor he nor rachel made the effort. 
rachel only told us it was a dark and obscure walk to the apartment after dark. so why was there no gallantry effort to walk with kate at 22.00 hours, not by matt and even for rachel, if she had to do that one, it must have been nice to go in company. 
because kate her turn was already overdue by gerry his watch, he told her time to go at 22.03 hours. going by matt his told pattern, their checks had been overdue much more. he was the 15 minutes man. and he did not feel as bad as jane must have because all must had already happened when he thinks he made a check. 

look in the rogatories how much effort they took to get that window and shutters open from after 21.00 hours, and then it was redwood time. redwood did actually was gloating on dutch tv. and then poeff it was all gone. 

redwood was not fired, replaced or called bungling in the uk media after ruining the careful build tapas9 timeline.

the timeline is written to exclude the full tapas9 from doing criminal things, and they forgot to leave at least some room for the supposed culprit. also they could not understood the true meaning why a timeline is needed, just to see where there are gaps that things could happen with the result of a missing child. same line of thinking is behind the not participation in the reconstruction of that evening. and their own production did fail completely.

such tiny things are why i never thought they had experts as in pro assistance before that thursday evening, because such mistakes would not have been there. it also proves none had much criminal experiences too, true amateurs at best.

The British police have no jurisdiction over a crime committed in Portugal, they can of course investigate something connected on home soil - like the Madeleine Fund, which could open many plastered wounds of old.

What's needed is for the case to be re-opened in Portugal, re-investigated calling in all the witnesses for further questioning.

A fresh investigation undertaken by the Portuguese authorities alone, without assistance from near far and wide.

In your dreams ....

This at 3:40 minutes - Matt Oldfield says he didn't see the children?



Or this?

I guess it's the coldness of the case as it stands today, the lack of focus that's made me rethink everything - to dust off the cobwebs, rid the mind of all the debris collected over the years and now look at things differently. Always with the Portuguese investigation as the forethought.

For example, as regards the timing of Madeleine McCann's disappearance, the biggest red flag to me has always been the absence of family photographs during that week but .... because I haven't seen any doesn't mean they never existed and having said that, apart from the Payne's few documented photographs, there doesn't appear to be any photographs of the parents McCann and their group of friends. Maybe they are just not the type to take scores of photographs.

One thing and one thing only is for sure - Madeleine McCann disappeared during her family holiday in Portugal, which leads to a natural conclusion she met her fate. That is all we know for sure.

So stripping off the dead paint, the aftermath - that's to say after the night of 3rd May 2007, the groups behaviour was so naive, so amateurish, the sort of behaviour you would expect during a period of panic, terror and fear of possible repercussions. Not just for themselves but the entire family network, work and friendships.

I've lately been reading back over some of the investigation files and Gonçalo Amaral's precis which in places gives an indication of information not documented in the files - it really has made me re-think everything.

As I said very recently, clear the mind of all the theory (theory built on little else than misinterpretation of available information, a lot of speculation and a lot of pure invention), take yourself back to basics and a very different picture starts to emerge. I'm guilty as the next person for basing my opinions on a case with little or nothing to work with - until the release of the PJ files into the public domain.

I listened to everything everybody had to say, within reason, read all the theories, took it all on board in the subconscious - it could be said on the surface I went along with a lot of the theory presented until .... Suddenly, having taken a step back from concentrating too much on the case, my thoughts have become so much clearer, a realisation has dawned that all the theorizing has led nowhere but a labyrinth of blind alleys culminating in one massive style conspiracy theory.

Pamela Fenn is another good example, I went along with the possibility of something being not quite right but having taken a step back and looking in with fresh eyes, I see clearly she was just a victim of someone else's tragedy. I feel slightly ashamed for having doubted her innocence. Much of the theorizing I've never gone along with anyway but I need to iron out the creases of doubt on other areas.

As I said, this is not hypocrisy it's looking at the case with fresh eyes having had a long respite. The more you look again at some of the theorizing the more ridiculous it becomes - a classic case of the little acorn do great oak trees grow. I think you could say that's a positive, maybe that's what the case needs - not to weed out anything and everything that might look suspicious in the McCann camp but to weed out the misinterpretation and mis-representation of case detail that's accumulated over the years.

Reading back over old comments on this forum and elsewhere has been another rude awakening about how the case has been mangled by theorizing, misinterpretation, conflicting opinion and basic falsehood - the armchair detective syndrome which seems to be lurking somewhere in all of us.

There is still no doubt in my mind that Gerry and Kate McCann know what happened to their daughter and their group of friends were pretty well forced to help them escape justice. The UK's overwhelming response could be nothing more than the simple explanation of knowing someone who knows someone.

So no, I'm not being hypocritical - just baring my soul. As I say a lot of the theorizing I've never agreed with and made my opinions quite openly here on the forum. I don't like to hear I'm being branded and share the opinions of others just because I belong to a forum that advocates certain theory.

Maybe we could all take another look and clear the path for a way forward without fallen debris to distract.

I omitted to say, I have always had complete faith in the Portuguese investigation under the leadership of Snr Amaral - that never wavers.

The investigation has to take precedence over anything else presented.  That is one of the things that really struck me when looking back more recently, the extent of the Portuguese investigation was phenomenal - despite what other might have you believe.



Watching this case over the years has also educated me on the evils of social media - such an innocent concept but so dangerous in the wrong hands.

Talking of which I saw a clip from TikTok..

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2,200 comments which I haven't read.

The video clip annoyed me but it did prompt me to have another look at Gerry McCann's CV.  Impressive to say the least, enough to give anyone an ego the size of Asia and build self confidence.

More on that later..

I don't think I've seen this before..

BMJ. 2007 Jun 2

From the Frontline

Madeleine McCann

Des Spence, general practitioner, Glasgow

At the time of writing Madeleine McCann is still missing.

I became vaguely aware of the story of the 4 year old girl who went missing while on holiday in Portugal from a crackling radio bulletin. I had an odd sense of unease, but it wasn't until the phone rang—“That's Gerry's daughter”—that the penny dropped. I was at university with Madeleine's father. As the media story took off, my children bombarded me with questions, but I just didn't know what to say. The next day I pulled into a local garage. After sifting through all the banal birthday cards I eventually found a card I felt I could send. Half an hour later the card was still blank: what possible words of comfort could I offer to Gerry and his wife in such plight? I wrote four words.

Since then I have stayed silent, partly out of respect and partly through a desire not to intrude on the family's grief. Last week an old friend emailed me and asked if I would write for Madeleine, but I am a hack and do not feel worthy.

The vision of Madeleine's mother, Kate McCann, holding her daughter's soft toy is my abiding memory. Little is made of Gerry and Kate being doctors, because above all else they are simply parents. Despite all the generous offers of support, the pain etched on their faces says it all: there is nothing that they would not sacrifice to have her back.

They have been criticised for leaving their children unattended, but I too have taken my family on a Mark Warner holiday. We did exactly what Gerry and Kate did: left the kids and checked them regularly while we ate. This was a type of holiday promoted as brief respite from the constant onslaught of caring for preschoolers and, above all, considered “safe.” The McCanns merely did as countless thousands of other parents have done. Any blame or guilt is grossly misplaced and unkind, for they are victims of a random act of utter malevolence. No one has the right to question the McCanns' parental commitment.

Our profession can relate directly to Madeleine's disappearance, and many doctors have personalised the tragedy. Yellow ribbons have been widely worn; beautiful Madeleine innocently gazes from posters on every surgery waiting room in Glasgow; and church services have been overflowing. Medicine can seem a disparate profession, as we scurry along pursuing our careers, but Madeleine's abduction reminds us that the professional veneer of coping with anything is just that—a veneer. We are just ordinary people too, and this story pointedly reminds us that without family and friends life has little meaning. Importantly, religious faith has been recognised for what it is, an affirming source of hope and comfort for the McCanns and millions of others.

Kate and Gerry have been dignified and resolute. They should know that they carry the best wishes and thoughts of the whole profession. We hope they find Madeleine soon. They rightly seek to maintain Madeleine's media profile ([You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

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i also can not see why you want to use the opinion pages of a well renown medical journal, to tell the world that is is okay to leave young children on their own. and by mouth of a gp.

of course even if you are very near a young child, nasty things can and do happen, but it gives you valuable time, because you would be there to correct it, you would know what did happen. and they are born to take risk, do bring themselves in danger, you not even can think it is even possible to get hurt in that way.

leaving them out of any humanly ability range to see, hear or notice in any other way, what is happening is just stupid. the risk are there always, and parents and all other carers, are just to be there to at least being able to step in, before the risk results in something that can be getting back into alright.

even at that moment, not being near was still the most hot reasoning why a child was missing, or let say it better it was the most communicated explanation. so when that piece was written, that leaving young children to fight for their own, already had a result and a very nasty one. 

and at this forum most of us do agree with kate mccann in at least one thing, that it did happen all very differently, that was not how it that first month was told to the public. so how as a gp, who must at least have some first hand experience of the capability of young children to harm themselves, to write down, yeah, we did exactly the same, we too left our young children alone with some checking, without any shame at all. 

so his children only had been lucky, not because of responsible parents, but they just not choose that moment in time to do something risky that could have harmed them or worse.

how does that work in his practice, when a mother home with a young child makes an appointment, and says i favor between 10 and 12 hours, because i have someone that could stay with my child. 
would he really instruct his receptionist, to say to mrs. jones, sorry we only have an opening at  9.30 hours, but that would be okay, it is perfectly responsible to leave your toddler at home, you will be only gone for half an hour, and what could happen in such short time, we do it all the time ourselves, even the doctor does it. 

and little jimmy toddles of the stairs when looking for mummy. 
would he also comment with, well of course he had a very bad fall, but at least he only have to stay alive until you got back, and if you had been at home, he could have fell from these stairs too. 

probably not. because when he would do, he got a not so tiny problem with his liability insurance, and the law would just call out to mrs. jones. you could have been the wiser adult in this. 

why was there that urge to tell the whole world, and the whole world in that field will read bmj , that you cannot behave responsible too. because others do it, that does not mean it is okay. it has not even a purpose.

we always have a saying, if ..name.. jumps out of a high window, would you jump too?

Des Spence must have missed his Safeguarding Children training !