Solicitor:
Good morning, How can I help you?.
Clients:
Good morning. We’re Doctor 1 and Doctor 2, we’re looking for some legal advice about child neglect. We’re not sure if how we have behaved towards our three children was proper?
Solicitor:
Oh, I see, but you are doctors, yes, and you’re not sure if you have behaved in an appropriate manner towards your children, have I understood you correctly?
Doctor 1 – You have!
Doctor 2 – yeah !
Solicitor:
Well perhaps you’d better explain. Who wants to begin?
Doctor 1 –
Well we took our three children on holiday…and in the evenings we would go out and leave them on their own so that we could go out to a bar with our holiday companions.
Solicitor:
What age are your children?
Doctor 1:
Well the one who mysteriously disappeared when we were out with our mates….
Solicitor:
Oh, wait hold on a minute…what do you mean the one who disappeared?
Doctor 2:
Well it wasn’t our fault, the situation she found herself…
Solicitor:
And what situation might that have been?
Doctor 1:
Erm, erm…
Doctor 2,
Erm, erm, erm…
Solictor:
I think you’d better spit out the whole story…
Doctor 1:
Well as we said we left the kids alone in the apartment every night.
Our eldest daughter was almost 4 years old…and our twin children, a boy and a girl are two years old.
Solicitor:
So, all just little kids, tots?
Doctor 2 :
But our eldest, she was quite the little mother, very clever child, would never leave the little ones she knew better than to do that…erm…she loved…playing at doctors…and erm erm, she loved Harry Potter, all the books in the series…and Dr Who...erm erm erm…she was chatty, loud took after her father’s side of the family….didn’t sleep much….always woke in the night…erm…
Solicitor:
Right let’s cut to the chase. Were they asleep at night when you left them?
Doctor 1:
Well we would put them to bed when they fell asleep we would leave the apartment. There was a back entrance with a sliding glass patio door and a front entrance too.
We would lock the patio door from the inside and then leave by the front door, locking it behind us.
Doctor 2:
Yeah, we did like, we felt it was so safe, like…
Solicitor:
Were the kids in cots?
Doctor 2:
Well our eldest she was in a bed and the twins they were in travel cots, yeah, erm yeah, like…in cots, travel cots…very safe like…
Solicitor:
What about windows, did you lock the windows before leaving?
Doctor 1:
Well NO, we didn’t!
Doctor 2:
Erm No, we felt it was so safe like, erm, really safe, erm , like, safe like…
Solicitor:
You never checked the windows on the night she disappeared or on any night?
Doctor 2:
Like erm we said, erm,like it was so safe, like…so NO we never checked the windows any time…just like so safe like…
Solicitor:
Not when you arrived at the apartment on the first day?
Doctor 1:
Never! Why?
Solicitor:
Well parents would generally check out a holiday apartment on arrival especially with children so young, they could climb, open a window, fall out? It’s not unheard of children falling from windows, balconies, toppling down stairways…
Solicitor:
Was there a balcony?
Doctor 2:
Well I like call it a ground floor apartment, but it was situated on a hill, so if you entered by the front door it was on the flat, to reach the patio door you had to climb a staircase…so yeah you could say there was a balcony…quite high too…like, but very safe like, yeah, just so safe like…so I generally just say it was a ground floor apartment if anyone asks, and I don’t bother mentioning the side with the high balcony/patio area.
Doctor 1:
It had a child safety gate at the top of the stairs…so the kids couldn’t fall down the steps.
Solicitor:
This patio door could the kids open it to reach the child safety gate?
Was the child safety gate in working order?
Doctor 2:
Well the one that disappeared, the eldest, I like to say that she couldn’t slide open the patio door, but she probably could, she was almost 4 years old, days from her 4th birthday…so yeah she probably could…but I just always say she couldn’t…
Solicitor:
And the twin children?
Doctor 2:
Erm well NO, they were too little to open a door. Wouldn't have strength.
Solicitor:
But someone could open the patio door from the outside and enter the apartment, anyone at all, and do anything they wanted to your three children or remove them from the apartment if it was ever left unlocked with the kids inside and you two not there?
Doctors 1 & 2 :
Yeah!
Solicitor:
And the eldest, there is every possibility that she could open that patio door?
Doctor 2:
Well, yeah, suppose, yeah…
Solicitor:
I’m still trying to understand why neither of you at any time checked out the windows at the apartment? You did say you are both doctors?
Doctors 1 & 2 :
Yeah!
Solicitor:
And I’m still trying to understand why you would leave your three little children at all?
Could one of you not have stayed with them?
Could you not have taken it in turn to look after your children?
Could you not have both stayed in the apartment and looked after the children? Could you not have taken the children out with you in the evenings?
Could you not have hired a babysitter?
So many safe options!
Was there any facility for looking after children in the evening most family friendly hotels provide that service?
Doctor 2:
Well there was. We wanted to. But we’d been partying really hard that week, enjoying time to do what we as a couple like to do, ya know, tennis, and jogging, and eating out together with our mates…you know it was our holiday too…you can’t always put the kids first…adult time is important to us…best just to put them to bed and leave it at that...
Solicitor:
Well I have to say I am utterly astonished – three kids alone in a holiday apartment every night?
Doctor 1:
We did take it in turn to go and check on them, every half hour…
Doctor 2:
Yeah we did like, every half hour like, erm, really safe, like.
Solicitor:
This bar, how far from the apartment was it?
Doctor 1:
Truthfully, quite far but we told everyone it wasn’t but that bastard crime reporter Crunt he did a documentary and stuck us right in it – made it clear to the viewers it wasn’t that close – 'not quite what Doctor 1 said’ said Crunt. I’ll make him pay for that though. I’ve got just the plan…might take a while but he'll get his comeuppance.
But, I did come up with a good idea, I thought it would be a great idea to tell everyone that it was like dining in your back garden…well not your back garden…our back garden…
Solicitor:
So it wasn’t like dining in your back garden? You don't have a back garden of a size required, to equal the distance from the apartment to the bar?
Doctor 2 :
Erm, no, but still very safe like, really safe like…if we didn’t like think it was erm safe like erm, we’d never have done it erm, like…safe, so safe, never known anywhere to be so safe, just safe like..didn't even have to think about it, we just left them, if we'd had to think about it we'd never have done it...
Solicitor:
So what do you think happened to your daughter?
Doctor 2:
Well like, I like think, like, that an intruder got in and whisked her away?
Solicitor:
But how do you think he gained access?
Doctor 2:
Well we told everyone that the shutter on the window of the children’s bedroom had been busted open, the window too. But that wasn’t true, like…those DARN FORENSICS…
Solicitor:
So if the window wasn’t busted open by an intruder – how did it come to be in an open state?
Doctor 1 :
Winks, taps side of his nose with his forefinger…
Solicitor:
You saying you know who opened it?
Doctor 2:
Don't look at me. It wasn’t me, my fingerprints were found on window area, but it wasn’t me…and my daughter…I just knew right away she couldn’t have opened that window…erm because erm...well I can't tell you why...oh yeah because it must have been an intruder...
Doctor 1:
Smirks, smug look, taps his nose again…
Solicitor:
I think you two have got a big problem here!
Solicitor:
When you checked on your children, did you go inside the apartment and do a visual check?
Doctor 1:
Why would we do that?
Solicitor:
To make sure they were all okay, not ill, not awake, not afraid?
Doctor 1:
No, we only listened for crying?
Solicitor:
But what if one of the children had choked and died, they wouldn’t be crying?
At least, although it’s not much you did lock both the front and back door so that the children could not get out, and it would have made it difficult for an intruder to get in he'd have to break in...
Doctor 1:
Oh no we didn’t!
Solicitor:
But you said you did?
Doctor 1:
Well I told the Police that is what we did, and it was, but when the police let the cat out of the bag that that window and shutter hadn’t been busted open, we had to think of another way that an intruder could have gotten in. So I changed my story. I had told police I had entered the apartment through front door and that my wife had too, but I changed it, saying that we had left the patio door open/unlocked and that we had entered the apartment by that route, and that meant we could say the intruder entered that way too.
Solicitor:
So you are telling me you left the patio door unlocked and anyone could go in to your apartment?
And you are saying that that you told everyone that the intruder entered by the patio door side?
Doctor 2:
Yeah, like we did like, it was so safe like, so we left it unlocked like…but no we didn't outright say that that is how the intruder got in, through that patio door, we left that hanging...I like to plant seeds, like, I do it all of the time like...we've never actually said how we think the intruder got in...well we did say through the window but you know the police ruled that one out...
Solicitor:
Well that was pretty reckless of you to place your children in such danger, three little tots? This isn’t looking good at all…
Solicitor:
So when did you last see your daughter?
Doctor 1:
Well when I went to check on the children I saw that the bedroom door was open wide. We usually left it open a little to let some light in from the sitting area, naturally I wondered who had opened it. I looked in. My daughter was fast asleep in the exact same position she had been when we’d left that evening, and the twins were asleep in their cots. So none of the three children had been out of bed.
Solicitor:
So what did you do, you must have been filled with horror knowing that someone had been in the apartment and opened that bedroom door?
Doctor 1:
No, I just left the apartment, and when back on the street I met an acquaintance and had a chat for a few minutes.
Solicitor:
You mean, you established that your three children had not been out of bed, you therefore knew that someone else must have been in the apartment for that bedroom door to be wide open, and knowing you had left the patio door unlocked, it never crossed your mind to stay with your children?
Doctor 1:
No!
Solicitor:
Did you check the apartment to see if there was anyone in the apartment to see If the person who had opened the bedroom door was still in the apartment?
Doctor 1:
No
Solicitor:
Did you phone your wife to tell her what you had found, the bedroom door lying open? To tell her to get back to the apartment quickly?
Doctor 1:
No
Solicitor:
But why not?
Solicitor:
Did you mention it to this acquaintance you met? Did you ask him to go and get your wife, tell her what had happened?
Doctor 1
No.
Solicitor:
Did you tell your wife when you returned to the dinner table that the bedroom door was lying wide open, that the children were all asleep had not been out of bed so therefore someone unknown to you had been in the apartment with your children?
Doctor 1:
No
Solicitor:
Why not, why in heavens name man would you not tell your wife about this? There can be nothing more important than the safety of your children?
Solicitor:
When you left the apartment, did you then lock that patio door?
Doctor 1
No.
Solicitor:
Good Lord man, I cannot believe what I am hearing.
Solicitor:
And this patio door story – You said you entered the apartment by the front door then changed your story. On what night was it that you changed from entering by the front locked door to the back, sliding patio door?
Whose decision was it to change this routine? How did that conversation play out?
Solicitor:
You said you changed routine because of the noise. What noise?
Solicitor:
This isn’t looking good at all.
Solicitor:
No, not good in fact your story just won’t stand up to scrutiny.
You haven’t given me one explanation that could reasonably be acceptable as why you would do what you did, nothing you have said makes any sense. Nothing you have said demonstrates that you gave a damn about the safety of your three children.
To be frank, leaving the kids alone was bad enough but this business of leaving a sliding patio door unlocked that beggars belief quite frankly. What possible reason could there have been for doing this, for placing your kids in further danger?
And why would you have left that apartment the kids alone after discovering that someone had opened the bedroom door?
I’d like to help you, but in a Court of Law, your story would be dead in the water…it’s that patio door being left unlocked how did that come about?
Doctor 2:
Felt really safe like, such a lorra lorra safe feelings I got like, so I thought like hell we’ve left kids all week in a locked apartment, hell, like, why not try an unlocked, unsecured apartment like, very safe like, we’d never have left the kids like if it didn’t feel safe like…
Solicitor
But your husband has just told me that he discovered the bedroom door lying wide open, so someone must have been in that apartment with your kids, and knowing this he simply left them more vulnerable and more in danger than ever, he didn’t even bother to mention it to you…
You realise no one is going to swallow this?
Solicitor:
Is there anything else you need to tell me?
Doctor 2 :
Well our daughter did tell us that she and her little brother had been crying and wanted to know why we didn’t go to attend to them?
Solicitor:
She what? She told you she had been crying?
Solicitor:
When was this?
Doctor 1:
It was the morning of 3rd May 2007. We reported her missing that night.
Solicitor:
So your daughter told you she and her brother had cried and what did you do then?
Doctor 1:
We went out to bar again with our mates…just left them in the unlocked apartment.
Doctor 2:
What did you think we would do – stay home and look after them, lorra lorra laughs like, it was safe like, bit crying, bit of upset like, she’d be fine…
Doctor 2:
In fact my mate Fifi she holidayed with us, she told cops I told her that we’d left the patio door unlocked so that our daughter if she woke up could get out of the apartment and go look for us in the bar…
Solicitor:
Did you?
Doctor 2:
It felt really safe like, safe like really safe…
Solicitor:
But did you tell your friend Fifi that you left the door unlocked for your daughter to get out of the apartment?
Doctor 2:
Felt so safe like, really safe, we wouldn’t have left our kids if we didn’t think it was really safe like, like it was so safe…
Solicitor:
Madam you’re not answering my question. Did you leave the door unlocked for your daughter to get out of the apartment, or did your friend Fifi LIE to police?
Solicitor:
Why would she lie?
And WHY exactly did you leave the patio door unlocked when clearly that was a dangerous action?
Doctor 1:
It was the noise, we didn’t want to wake them.
Solicitor:
What noise?
Doctor 1:
The noise, the noise coming in front door
Solicitor:
What noise coming in front door?
Doctor 1:
Just the noise
Solicitor:
When you checked on your kids throughout that week was there any time you found them awake, crying?
Doctor 1 & 2
NO
Solicitor:
So the noise of the front door being unlocked had never at any time disturbed your sleeping kids?
Doctor 1:
No.
Solicitor:
So why did you change routine from using front door to using patio door a door which had to be left in unlocked position for you to gain access? Doesn’t make sense. And what is this noise you keep talking about? What noise? A noise that didn’t disturb the sleeping kids, so what was the problem?
Solicitor:
So you were so concerned that your kids might wake up due to a noise that you placed them in further greater danger by leaving them in an unlocked apartment – boy that tapas must have been the tastiest there is, and your mates must have been the most interesting entertaining and engaging bunch on the planet – to place three little lives in such danger…and you two doctors…
Solicitor:
So what is it you want me to do about your appalling behaviour towards your kids?
Solicitor:
This is one story that even I can’t make disappear. You cannot honestly expect me to say that what you did was in any way moral, proper or within the law…
Solicitor:
Saying you checked on the kids every half hour doesn’t cut it, and let me tell you why:
I ask you this as you said you both NEVER did visual checks of your kids, only listened for crying, yet this guy he did a visual check, that is one of the twins not of your eldest daughter?
Why in heavens name would you let this guy check on your kids?
And you Doctor 1, you said you never told the guy before he headed off to the the apartment that you had on your check, discovered that someone had been in the apartment that you had discovered the bedroom door lying open.
Your story stinks in fact.
So what is it you two doctors want from me?
Doctor 1 :
We want you to tell us that what we did was OKAY was within the bounds of responsible parenting.
Solicitor:
You’re having a laugh I take it? No solicitor is going to tell you after hearing your tale that either of you behaved responsibly towards these kids. In fact your treatment of them quite beggars belief. Your story quite beggar’s belief.
And you Doctor 2. You’re telling me that your daughter was pale and tired that night yet you left her in an unlocked holiday apartment, and when it was your turn to go and check on her and her siblings you allowed a guy who didn’t know them to take your turn?
Well I’ll be blowed…don’t know of any mother concerned about the welfare of their kids who would
Madam – Bullshit!
Sir – Bullshit!
And no I cannot help you.
I could not tell you in all honesty that what you did was proper. It was positively negligent and probably one of the most appalling cases of child cruelty that I have come across. TWO doctors who tell us they treated their children so cruelly, yet want everyone to believe it was responsible parenting!
IT WAS NOT!
But what is MORE concerning to me IS:
That you can both sit before me and expect me to not only believe such a tale but to condone such a tale, is quite ridiculous. Your arrogance knows no bounds it would seem. Sounds to me that you both know you did wrong and want to now cover your backs. That you invented this story of unlocked patio door.
You go spin whatever story you want to the public but I would advise that no responsible self respecting lawyer would put their name to that story, condone it. They could not justify doing so, legally or otherwise.
You might want to argue that 'it was safe, really safe like' that you did not think 'someone would go into an apartment and steal a child from her bed' And some of the more gullible amongst us might just believe that, but what lets your whole story down is the PASSPORTS!
Not a snowballs chance in hell that you two would walk out and leave that door unlocked as your passports were there in the drawer just lying there for the taking, so why would you make it easy for a burglar to take them in the evenings by leaving a door open/unlocked, a door a burglar would only need slide open, and make it extremely difficult for a burglar during daytime?
For certainty YOU WOULD ABSOLUTELY HAVE GIVEN THOUGHT TO BURGLARS, and burglars STEAL PASSPORTS NOT KIDS.
You did NOT think it was 'safe' to leave your apartment unlocked.
You DID CONSIDER that you may be burgled during this holiday, EVIDENCE of this in your actions during daytime when you ALWAYS locked that patio door from inside and left the apartment by the front door locking it behind you.
That demonstrates THOUGHT. That thought was given to how the apartment should be secured in daytime hours when as a family you went out for the day.
I cannot therefore believe that in the evenings you would not have given the SAME thought to an intruder, a burglar if you like, and more especially when your intentions were to leave your three children alone in the apartment.
NO, if you ask me that patio door WAS NEVER LEFT UNLOCKED!
WHY WOULD IT BE WHEN THERE WERE PRECIOUS PASSPORTS NEEDING PROTECTION?
END
I have often wondered in this case what was the conversation between the McCanns where they decided that it was a good idea to leave that patio door unlocked and ON WHICH day they decided this?
I wonder too what Kate McCann thought of her husband after he discovered someone had opened that bedroom door that he took no action to ensure their children's safety that he simply walked out on them again allowing whoever it was who had been in the apartment to do as they pleased with his kids. The kids he said he stood over and thought how lucky he was to have them.
Makes no sense. How can a father who has just discovered that someone had been in the apartment with his kids. A father who had stood over his children having a proud father moment, thinking how lucky he was to have three beautiful children WALK OUT AND LEAVE THE THREE BEAUTIFUL CHILDREN TO THE INTRUDER?
Think about it:
A father who finds someone had been in an apartment with his little kids - and finding that door wide open and establishing his kids had not been out of bed was the CLEAR INDICATOR SOMEONE HAD BEEN IN THAT APARTMENT AND OPENED THAT BEDROOM DOOR. He knew he ALSO had left the patio door open/unlocked for anyone to gain access...yet he walks out and leaves them?
It is McCanns own words that he established his kids were fast asleep just as he had left them. The twins in their cots, so they could not have opened the bedroom door, and Madeleine asleep EXACTLY as he had left her on top of the bed.
What parent what father walks out and leaves his kids after discovering this?
This story cannot possibly be true.
So who is this solicitor who told the McCanns that their actions were within the bounds of responsible parenting? The one whom they have never named?
If any solicitor told the McCanns that they acted within the bounds of responsible parenting, I would have to suggest that the solicitor in question was not made fully aware of all aspects of the story, as NO SOLICITOR, knowing the above would advise any client that they had acted in a reasonable responsible manner, in a manner which took took account of the children's safety.
I might further suggest that this 'within the bounds of responsible parenting' was one of Clarence concotions.
In fact they acted selfishly, recklessly, and placed their three children in grave danger.
What does DCI Andy Redwood make of their story?
He cannot possibly believe it!
And it IS whatever happened on that night, the movements of the McCanns and their buddies that is crucial to this case.
This is what makes a re-enactment, for their police witness statements with regards their movements on that night so very important to discovering what happened to Madeleine.
They have not been truthful in this respect, and until it is established WHAT they ALL, the McCanns and their buddies REALLY did that night, that day in fact, then there can be no justice for this child.
Gerry McCann on abduction:
"And you think about the tens of millions of tourists that come to Spain and Portugal every year - so this really was a bolt out of the blue...erm...in terms of what has happened to US, and I think also the circumstances of a child being abducted from a bedroom is pretty rare...as well
(See 'Bolt out of the Blue' blog above)
l-azzeri-lies-in-the-sun.com
14th November 2014