Madeleine McCann

@tinytobe

Briany likes to defend the McCanns for whatever reason. In my opinion the McCanns were criminally negligent and voluntarily have chosen not to fulfill their legal duties as parents that night. They didn't even bother using a babyphone, which was available back then.

"for whatever reason"

You've obviously not been reading very closely if this is your interpretation. I would neither use the McCanns for childcare advice, nor would I send them to prison. Being neither one nor the other, I'd say they've suffered enough and beaten themselves up enough just through losing a child. They don't need more recrimination heaped on them by tabloids and some of the public. I know this point won't be taken, because people love a pile-on.

In my opinion the McCanns were criminally negligent and voluntarily have chosen not to fulfill their legal duties as parents that night.

Yeah, well that opinion wasn't shared by those in a position to deliver justice in the UK system, because there was never a serious move made to prosecute the McCanns, and maybe those people know more than you do. So, no, not criminally negligent.

@tinytobe

I think it's simply not credible to master a doctor's degree in medicine and then volunarily chose not to fulfill their legal duties as parents that night. A ground floor apartment, an apartment door with a lock which can be easily picked, or openend with a spare key, even an open or unlocked window. Do you know how quickly a professional can pick a lock? - And I doubt it was a security door.

And a burglar of that type with a penchant to stealing children would be considered an extremely low-probability event. Regarding the 'likely to cause harm' clause in the UK's definition of child neglect, I have major, major doubts of the situation the McCann children were left in meeting the standard.

No, this means read flags all over. The McCanns volunarly chose drinks with friends at a bar, and to abandon their children that night. It was the McCanns who made this crime possible.

Despite whatever your opinion might be, the UK's legal standard of child abandonment is more like this,

Child abandonment is considered to be the act of leaving of a child on their own without any intention of returning to ensure their safety and wellbeing. It is considered to be among the most serious of offences a parent can commit in relation to their child.

https://www.lawandparents.co.uk/child-abandonment.html

But the parents not only intended to return at the end of the night, they were also checking in every half hour. If this were to be presented to a court per your insistence of criminal neglect and/or child abandonment, I believe this supporting pillar of the case would be shot down faster than an F-15 could take out a Sopwith Camel.

And yes, it's also possible that Madeleine was met with an accident and died in the apartment, unsupervised by her parents and they decided to cover it up.

The timeline that would have to be involved makes this not the most compelling theory.

If there were any legal chances of success or not, I don't know.

There wouldn't have been. But if you want to try, you can start writing letters to the UK authorities as there is no statute of limitations on criminal liability. Maybe you're seeing something they aren't. I highly doubt it, but if you keep insisting…

I just don't believe that "the poor McCanns have sufered enough" if they volunarily provided the basis for this to happen.

I cannot dissuade you of this opinion. I can, however, point out why your opinion of criminal negligence doesn't pass legal muster, as above. So, your opinion stays just that.

Yes, they were one minute's walk away and checking every half an hour. You're absolutely free to find that inadequate, and I am certainly not saying it was A-grade parenting, but I was pushing back on the assertion of criminal negligence.

I think the answer by the McCanns was that locking and unlocking a door would have made too much noise and could have woken the children up. It's another lame excuse by the McCanns I find very hard to accept for somebody with a university degree in medicine. It would have been the answer of somebody with a very low IQ.

Yes, they could have given the keys to whoever was doing the round.

The McCanns left their patio door unlocked so they could come in quietly when checking on their kids and not inadvertently rouse them. They thought the front door too noisy in this regard, hence their decision to use the sliding patio door instead, which could only be locked from the inside, so they left it unlocked in order to come in from the outside.

Whether that door was locked or not would probably be irrelevant when it comes to Bruckner. He was/is a committed sex attacker and his 'lair' that was found speaks to a person who likes to prepare. This is on top of the Helge Busching claim that Brueckner could pick any lock. Bypassing that door would have been a formality.

It wouldn't meet the standard of criminal neglect in UK or Portuguese courts, or child abandonment. Maybe it does in the court of your personal opinion, but that has no legal jurisdiction. I suppose I have to say this every time, now, lest my words be twisted, but this isn't trying to tell people what they should think about the McCanns' parenting, but it is to push back on the original assertion of criminal negligence.

As for burglaries and so forth around the resort, I don't understand the McCanns to have had knowledge of these incidents and I seem to recall another poster mentioning that the resort staff failed to communicate to them, or indeed any of the guests, the occurrence of anything untoward that they would need to know about. This is why that would have little weight in some hypothetical neglect prosecution - you can't really be done over dangers you weren't aware of and otherwise didn't have any particular expectation that they would occur.

I wonder why the C4 documentary isn't on their iplayer?

A lot about this case is very very strange. It's possible that the McCanns were really so dumb and naive that they fell for everything, however I find this very very hard to believe for somebody with a doctor's degree. Forensics for instance is very much part of what you learn and train for when you study medicine. Anybody who studies medicine would be very much familiar with the "darker side" of humanity and what humans are capable of doing.

This is why I don't believe a word the McCanns are saying.

Keeping an apartment deliberately unlocked, only checking every 30 minutes to be described as sufficient parenting is simply not credible to me and certainly not coming from somebody who mastered medicine. Even worse, if they say, they didn't want to make noise by unlocking a door when they would come home. That's more than a lame excuse.

I also don't know why Kate left her two remaining children again alone and ran to the tapas bar, - it's also not credible for responsible parenting.

Maybe she was under extreme duress, she could have argued that, but still, it's strange to me. Even worse, the "They". How come she said "They"? This would imply two or more persons. How did Kate know that they were two or more persons who had taken her? Others would most likely have said "She was taken", or "Somebody took her" rather than they…

Until nothing is proven, nothing is ruled out I'd say the McCanns are suspect like everyone else no matter how much of a public relations campaign they run and how much they play the grieving parents. It could also be a show of distraction, as harsh as it sounds. Even worse that they volunarily and willingly choose to leave their children alone and in an unlocked groundfloor apartment.

Regarding other suspects, there were lot's of burglars and pedophiles around. We know that.

It's also possible that Bruckner knew them personally as well and he received the pictures on that hard disk drive or USB stick from them. It's also possible that Bruckner wanted to burgle the place and sort of stumbled upon Madeleine and decided to take her as well to satisfy his sexual desires. And then again, it's also possible that Bruckner was only in the area to burgle another apartment other than 5A and his cell phone logged on to the nearest transmitter.

Anybody who was into burglary especially of properties where tourists and foreigners stayed, would also have been familiar that the local police was sort of reluctant or incompetent to really catch the burglars, so they figured their chances were good.

Martin Ney was a known child molester and child murderer, he was in the area.

There was a Swiss citizen called Urs Hans von Aesch who was a known child molester who was also in the area at the time.

Or Robert Murat, his only alibi seems to have been his old mother.

Clement Freud another one, who was often accused of sexual relations with children.

In the end, there were over 60 persons of interest.

It's possible that it was Bruckner, but then again, it's also possible it was someone else.

Yes of course that’s possible. Plenty of photos online of Kate on her phone and it’s possible she may have left her phone behind her in the restaurant that night. And she may possibly have been in shock. But I don’t understand why any parent would then turn around and leave the two other babies alone to go back to the restaurant. That’s just so unbelievable to me. And why jump to Madeline being taken or kidnapped/abducted? She was missing.
If she believed someone had taken Madeline, why take the chance that they might abduct the other two as well just as soon as she left them in the open apartment. A mother discovers her four year old daughter is missing and then leaves her other two babies alone again in the same empty apartment to head back to a restaurant? That sounds like the last thing any parent would do imo.

Another related documentary - Channel 5's The Case Against Christian B.

https://ok.ru/video/3729629186761

it was on it anyway but some programs don't stay that long, maybe a month. might come back.

there wasn't that much new in it from what i can remember. the bit about him writing about abduction & possibly the story from the festival where he said she didn't scream.

there was a 3 part one out years ago that had more in it but most of it is circumstantial & just really highlighting what a pos he is. he owned a camper at the time with a hidden compartment, might used it to smuggle drugs, that he told someone you could fit a child in there. there was something about a bar in hamburg, either he admitted to someone when drunk or they seen a crimecall type program & rang in about him not sure now.

Interesting to watch. Interesting also that a possible alibi came up for Bruckner. Otherwise mostly dead ends I must say. It's possible that Wolters is holding something crucial back out of technical reasons.

Yes, I definitely cannot say this documentary does anything to strengthen the opinion that Brueckner abducted Madeleine. If anything, I would say it moves the needle away from him a bit. The bit about the cell tower can only put him within 35 KM of the Praia de Luz complex. From what I recall, I don't think this puts him out of alibi range because the alibi was that he was with a girlfriend at another place along the coast.

But if I had to guess, German police do have something which gives them reason to believe that CB at least knows who may have abducted her, if he has a picture of her on a USB. There's one bit on the docu that suggests CB could have been part of a larger network of paedophiles which certainly could be possible, and those types are known to trade materials.

So my hunch is that last week's search wasn't primarily about finding direct evidence of Madeleine. It's more about finding enough damning materials to keep Brueckner in jail for a much longer time. To a point where he'd see nothing to lose in taking a plea deal and turn informant.

@tinytobe

The only reason I could think of that she's dead is that there are either pictures on that USB stick or hard drive, or the simple thought that today she would be say around 20 years old, - and unless she's completely shielded from news, she'd found out that her parents are looking for her. Since no contact attempt was made, we can only strongly guess that she's dead.

An interesting one - could a three year old even remember their original identity and family into adulthood if taken and then subjected to mental conditioning to accept a new one? I don't know the answer to this question. I know my own memories from this age are totally fragmented. It's just little snapshots of things here and there. But I cannot extend that experience to every individual. Others may be different, but I don't think it's a given either way.

I would have thought mobile phone tower data could determine distance to a phone far more accurately than that, somewhere between a few tens or hundreds of metres, using signal power and time difference of arrival measurements.