United Kingdom V: Son of a beach

[MartyG]

Yes, some people set up limited companies, ask for cash donations and pay off their mortgages.

As you say though, people handle stuff differently.

[Dogg Thang]

Just saw footage from yesterday of Johnson inviting Italians to come back to the UK. We want you back. He wants Europeans... back in the UK. Maybe don't create a xenophobic and hostile environment for immigrants in your country then, Johnson.

[teddymeow]

And now the planning permission surrounding the cottage that Dominic Cummings went to is being looked at:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-52911605

[MartyG]

And now the planning permission surrounding the cottage that Dominic Cummings went to is being looked at:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-52911605

Doubt that'll come to anything, not because Cummings isn't dodgier than the Artful Dodger on his most dodgiest days, but because property law is mind boggling specialised and complicated and there are certainly clauses that allow things to be built especially on farms without seeking specific planning permissions ahead of time.

It's not something I'd want to take a side on without hearing specifics from a solicitor who does that kind of work.

[Asura]

The McCann thing again...

I was out of the country when it happened and didn't hear about it until years later. My first question was along the lines of...

"So her parents left her in a hotel room, unsupervised, at 3 years-old, to go out drinking. She was kidnapped or otherwise is now missing or dead.

Why aren't the parents in prison for criminal negligence?!"

And I'm sorry if this offends anyone, but I still feel that way. Don't get me wrong, they lost a daughter and that must be terrible, but I'm sure anyone who loses a child due to CRIMINAL NEGLIGENCE feels that way. It's bizarre, to me. I just don't understand it.

Is it because they're middle-class, affluent white people? Serious question.

[MartyG]

The McCann thing again...

I was out of the country when it happened

Please tell us you weren't in Portugal

[Asura]

Please tell us you weren't in Portugal

Rumbled!!

Seriously though, no, I was in Japan, and without social media etc. back then I only kept up with the very topline news from the UK. No-one in Japan reported about a little girl who'd gone missing on holiday; I actually first became aware of it when my coworkers mentioned her parents had met the pope, but that was literally all I knew about it until a couple of years later.

[wakka]

So much of the theorising around the McCanns having done it seems to centre around the idea that the girl died accidentally in the apartment a day or two before the alleged abduction (falling off a sofa and breaking her neck or having an anaphylactic shock due to sleeping pills are often mentioned), then they hid/disposed of the body, successfully recruited their 7 (!) friends to lie for them, and raised a false alarm.

The idea that you would do that rather than just taking the hit on the manslaughter charge - with the likelihood that the judge will be lenient on jailtime considering the other two children, with probably one parent getting a suspended sentence - and then follow that up with 13 years of practically nonstop campaigning, seems kinda hard to credit to me.

Who knows what really happened, but I don't think it's totally open and shut personally.

[Asura]

Who knows what really happened, but I don't think it's totally open and shut personally.

My point though is that while all of that is absolutely fair, it's still criminal negligence of some sort.

People get sent to prison because they left a baby in the car for 10 minutes on a hot day, and the baby died. I remember a few years ago there was a bloke who went to work and left his sleeping baby in the car park all day, as he just forgot to take it to the day-care place, and the baby was so quiet that he simply didn't notice. I think the kid froze to death. It's tragic, yes, but it's still criminal negligence. If the baby had been kidnapped from the car you'd still hold the father partly responsible.

I just feel the McCanns have dodged all that because they have other children and they seem like affluent, nice people. I can't help but feel if they were from a council estate in Oldham, both unemployed with seven more kids, one of them would've ended up in jail.

[wakka]

Yeah, I wasn't answering the point on criminal negligence, just the idea that they accidentally killed her and covered it up, which seems to be the prevailing theory as to what happened

On the negligence side - there is certainly a whole book to be written on why the McCanns weren't accused of it, why the case was given so much attention, and so on. It's a classic case of missing white woman syndrome, and yes I think race and class are absolutely relevant to how the public received it.

[MartyG]

Yeah, I wasn't answering the point on criminal negligence, just the idea that they accidentally killed her and covered it up, which seems to be the prevailing theory as to what happened

On the negligence side - there is certainly a whole book to be written on why the McCanns weren't accused of it, why the case was given so much attention, and so on. It's a classic case of missing white woman syndrome, and yes I think race and class are absolutely relevant to how the public received it.

A prevalent theory is she died in the apartment from a fall, which given the scent dogs, doesn't seem far fetched. What happened after that, who knows, but they had been off on a jolly, drinking a lot of wine - it's not infeasable they came back discovered that awful sight and in a peed up state of panic, covered it up to save their own skins. And once on that ride it's a one way ticket downwards, you've then no choice but to stick to the story - a story I might add that the McCann's changed several times when they become unstuck on some of the findings from the Portugese police. Her account in the book she wrote isn't consistent with the witness statement given at the time of the event.

When kids go missing, the vast vast majority of the time it's someone known to or within the family, stranger abduction is exceedingly rare - I rather suspect this is yet another dead end, solving cold cases this old is even rarer.

[Cepp]

My point though is that while all of that is absolutely fair, it's still criminal negligence of some sort.

People get sent to prison because they left a baby in the car for 10 minutes on a hot day, and the baby died. I remember a few years ago there was a bloke who went to work and left his sleeping baby in the car park all day, as he just forgot to take it to the day-care place, and the baby was so quiet that he simply didn't notice. I think the kid froze to death. It's tragic, yes, but it's still criminal negligence. If the baby had been kidnapped from the car you'd still hold the father partly responsible.

I just feel the McCanns have dodged all that because they have other children and they seem like affluent, nice people. I can't help but feel if they were from a council estate in Oldham, both unemployed with seven more kids, one of them would've ended up in jail.

Guaranteed.

[wakka]

A prevalent theory is she died in the apartment from a fall, which given the scent dogs, doesn't seem far fetched. What happened after that, who knows, but they had been off on a jolly, drinking a lot of wine - it's not infeasable they came back discovered that awful sight and in a peed up state of panic, covered it up to save their own skins. And once on that ride it's a one way ticket downwards, you've then no choice but to stick to the story - a story I might add that the McCann's changed several times when they become unstuck on some of the findings from the Portugese police.

When kids go missing, the vast vast majority of the time it's someone known to or within the family, stranger abduction is exceedingly rare.

Don't get me wrong, it's definitely possible that that's what happened.

Seems like it would have been quite tricky to hide the body effectively while drunk in an unfamiliar country within quite a narrow timeframe, and to do so effectively enough that it was never found. But then as you say, total strangers stealing in and taking children in the dead of night is not exactly a common occurrence.

I do also question why you would work so hard to keep the case in the public eye if you had done it. After a certain point surely you would quieten down to 'focus on your other children'. The McCanns hired publicists and set up foundations and all sorts.

Then again, maybe they are psychopathic enough simply to do that for the financial gain.

While the ongoing attention it has received is not 'fair' considering how many other terrible missing persons cases have emerged since, it does remain an intriguing case.

[MartyG]

Don't get me wrong, it's definitely possible that that's what happened.

Seems like it would have been quite tricky to hide the body effectively while drunk in an unfamiliar country within quite a narrow timeframe, and to do so effectively enough that it was never found. But then as you say, total strangers stealing in and taking children in the dead of night is not exactly a common occurrence.

I do also question why you would work so hard to keep the case in the public eye if you had done it. After a certain point surely you would quieten down to 'focus on your other children'. The McCanns hired publicists and set up foundations and all sorts.

Then again, maybe they are psychopathic enough simply to do that for the financial gain.

While the ongoing attention it has received is not 'fair' considering how many other terrible missing persons cases have emerged since, it does remain an intriguing case.

It is intriging and there's not much to go on other than witness statements. However, the results of the dog searches are highly indicative there was a dead body in that appartment - that is the most anyone can say with any certaintly, well other than the child went missing on the 3rd May, the company was operating by 13th May and after the first year has assets of £1.8 million.

That the McCanns hired publicists, PR teams, extradiction lawyers, set up a limited company whilst doing very little searching, refusing to cooperate with the Portugese authorities struck me at the time as pretty odd behaviour and it still does. Not something many parents of missing children have done, that's for sure. The whole operation felt like an exercise in misdirection, much as we see in the current political climate.

It seems unlikely it'll ever be properly resolved without a confession from whoever was involved happening.

[fuse]

I'm sure it being a front-page story across all of the papers today has nothing to do with another story needing downplaying.