You're right it doesn't explain the open window, but if the Crimewatch reconstruction is to be believed, between the open window and where Maddy was sleeping was, a bed under the window, a gap which contained two end to end travel cots, then her bed. So anyone coming through the window would have had to climb on to the bed, straddle the cots just to get to her.

I don't suppose that would be impossible to do?

I've often wondered about that 

Cinds, I'd never thought of it that way but you're right she could have left on her own... it explains why hey took her and left the other two babies sleeping.

I think this may bring a little hope to Ben and Maddies families....

http://www.independent.ie/worl...ypsies-29672028.html

Mystery girl (4) found living with Greek Gypsies

Kind of news to make parents of Madeleine McCann skip a beat

Girl (4) found in Greece

18 OCTOBER 2013

IT IS the kind of news that might make the hearts of the parents of Madeleine McCann skip a beat.

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Kate and Gerry McCann have never given up hope of finding their daughter and today they may well have taken solace from the fact that the nightmare for some other family may have ended after another little girl was found by police.

Authorities in Greek have now launched an international appeal to help identify the mysterious four-year-old blonde girl allegedly snatched from her parents by a couple with whom she was found living in a Gypsy settlement.

Police are now desperately trying to establish why the girl was living with the couple, who are also accused of falsifying identity and family certificates – with the mother claiming to have given birth to six children within a total of less than 10 months.

The child was found this week near Farsala in central Greece during a nationwide crackdown on illegal activities by Roma, also known as Gypsies. Police say they also found drugs and unregistered firearms in other parts of the settlement, which is about 280km north of Athens.

Resemblance

But the blonde, pale-skinned and blue-eyed girl stood out. She bore no resemblance to the Greek couple – a 39-year-old man and a 40-year-old woman, who were arrested and charged with abducting a minor. Police said DNA testing confirmed that they weren't related.

”Her features suggest that she might be from an eastern or northern (European) country,” regional police chief Panayiotis Tzavaras said.

Police have notified Interpol for assistance.

The suspects allegedly offered conflicting accounts – that the girl was found in a blanket, was handed to them by strangers or had a foreign father.

The police statement said the couple claimed to have a total 14 children, and had registered different numbers with authorities in three different parts of Greece.

Verified

Officers found three minors living with them in the settlement who appear to be their children – although that hasn't yet been verified by DNA testing.

The girl is in the care of the charity A Child's Smile, which said it has sought the help of European and global groups for lost or abused children in tracking her parents.”We are shocked by how easy it is for people to register children as their own,” said charity director Costas Giannopoulos. Charity director Costas Giannopoulos said the child was undergoing medical examinations.

He told private Skai TV. “There is much more to investigate, there are other registered children that were not found in the settlement, and I believe police will unravel a thread that doesn't just have to do with the girl.”

 

Stunned at this news

Of course it's not impossible, but think about it, a person climbs through a bedroom window in the hope of abducting a child, they don't know whether the parents are in the room next door awake or asleep, would they really take the chance of climbing over the cribs of two sleeping babies to take the child at the far end of the room?  I don't think they would. 

I don't know of the exact layout Cinds.

I wonder if the room was so full there was no room for manoeuvre?

Can't help but relate the open window to her disappearance.

Isn't it also possible that someone in the complex had been observing Maddie  over a period of days - whether for his own selfish reasons or for money paid by someone else - and he'd observed that in the evenings her parents ate with their friends so took the opportunity to climb through the window to take her.

Totally agree, my opinions exactly.

I've often noticed that more anger is directed at the McCann's than whoever took her.

That night, however misguided and naieve they were to the dangers from those who have an agenda different to decent people they've suffered the consequences and so has Maddie. My anger is directed at those in this world.....and surely we've all come across some tragic stories... who only care about their own selfish needs.

Kate said this ^^^

I remember that. At the time they were living in a false sense of security that all was safe in their world. They and Maddie have paid a heavy price for someone else carrying out what was their reality

I'm with Joe and Soozy on this one.

The parents made a mistake, the outcome of that mistake has been horrendous,I think the McCanns know this, I think they regret that mistake everyday,they more than likely have nightmares about it,most errors of judgement do not result in such an awful outcome.

Are we really saying that every parent everywhere should watch over  their children all the time should never be out of sight, just in case in some converging circumstance of fate a passer by may happen upon them and steal them away?

And if the parents do not behave in this manner then they are guilty too? - will this condemnation  of such parents also be directed at the parents of April Jones?

So it's not that they were left alone is the issue but that they were left alone after feeling unwell the day before?

Had the children not felt unwell the day before and were then left alone, wouldn't the outcome have been the same?

I don't get why people don't understand that when you are in a strange country you should be extra vigilant with your children not less..

surely if they were in the UK and decided to nip down the road to a neighbours for a night out and left their kids in their house and with the door unlocked too and no one watching them they'd be picked up by social services for being bad parents.. and rightly so...

I know kids can disappear over here even in a tight knit community like poor April Jones did  but in most cases that doesn't happen because people know their community... and most abduction cases are from strangers who would be noticed but, in strange country you don't know any one at all so the risk is even more.. and the mother has specifically said they cannot take the blame for Maddy going missing, it is 100% the fault of the abductor. .well sorry no it isn't. . they left the door open for it to happen literally as well as metaphorically so they must shoulder some of the blame.. until they agree fully that it is partly their fault I won't have any sympathy for them, only for Maddy and her siblings who lost their sister

Let's keep it simple.

They should never have left them alone.

Madeline woke the previous night and wandered around looking for them - yet that didn't stop them leaving the children again.

What happened if one of them needed the loo, started crying etc . . .

And they left the patio door unlocked!!

They were negligent.

what I doin't understand either is why the window was forced. . if it was a child abductor who had been watching the family and picked Maddy as a target and saw the parents go out surely they'd have tried the door first, once the parents were out of sight

Most crimes are oppertunist.

i guess no one would believe parents would leave kids with the door unlocked.

i still find this hard to believe!!

This wasn't a case of parents losing sight of their children for a few minutes, as in the case of James Bulger. Nor of a child playing with friends outside their home, as in the case of April Jones.

This was two intelligent, well-educated parents, choosing to leave three very young children alone in an apartment in a foreign country, while they went out socialising with friends. They did this not once, but night after night, and even after Madeleine made them aware that she and Sean had wakened and been crying and noticed her parents absence. Imo, they put the safety of their children second to their desire to go out socialising. 

They have paid a very heavy price for their negligence and stupidity but nobody has paid a higher price than Madeleine, and my sympathy lies with her.

I  withdraw my original comment.

Moonie your comment was perfectly valid IMO

As does my sympathy, because I also have some sympathy for the parents doesn't mean I don't have more for  Madeleine.

And as made clear by your post, it really doesn't matter if you weren't  with your child for a minute in a shopping center, or not with your child for 10 minutes in your own village, the convergence of fate on all three occasions had much the result.A child was taken.

The fact that it was in a foreign country is really quite irrelevant,the two cases you highlight, would seem to logically conclude that 2 thirds of children were more at risk in their own country.

Sorry Jackson, I don't see that the three cases are the same at all.

There is a huge difference in a child being abducted, despite a parent's best efforts to protect that child, and a child who is abducted because her parents made a conscious decision to leave her and her younger siblings alone in an apartment while they went out socialising.

My reference to a foreign country was simply stating where the abduction took place, I wasn't suggesting it was any safer to leave children alone in an apartment in the UK. 

Not quite sure what your statistics are meant to prove. As I only mentioned three cases of child abduction in my post, you conclude that two thirds of children are more at risk of abduction at home. So, if I had also mentioned the case of Ben Needham who was abducted abroad, by your statistical analysis, would that have meant there was an equal chance of a child being abducted at home or abroad?

I agree with both Olly and Yogi. This was not a one off occurrence . My understanding is that the McCanns , both supposedly intelligent people, left Madeline ( and the baby twins) * home alone* on several occasions to go off and enjoy themselves with their friends ....despite , as has been stated , Madeline telling them the night before that the babies had been crying ....and ( again, if I remember correctly ) Mrs McCann stating on that programme, that on the day of her disappearance,  she had brought Madeline back from the pool/beach cos she was a bit off colour. But still they went out and left her In my book this adds up to pure selfishness on the part of the McCanns . Of course the person who abducted her is the primary culprit in all this , but their failures made that abduction possible , and all my sympathies are with that poor little girl  

that sentence alone is the reason why I do hold her parents partly responsible.  There is a world of difference in letting your child play outside and have them snatched or have them toddle off with someone they don't know as opposed to making a conscious decision to leave your children alone in an unlocked apartment.

I do have other opinions but as I only raised my ex-bf's children from 18 months until they were 14 but didn't actually give birth to them, I guess I'm not a real parent so am not entitled to have an opinion 

Needless to say I agree with both Olly and Yogi 

Well I understand that my opinion is not a popular one.

But I am of the same opinion  as the mother, when she said the person responsible for  Madeleine's disappearance is/are the people/person who took her.The fact that they found an opportunity to do so,is the error,other children have been taken, by opportunists, which would indicate that opportunists intent on evil will find a way to do it.

What is your opinion?

Were the parent's right in saying that it is ok to leave 3 children under the age of 4 alone on holiday?

doesn't make yours or GJ or Soozy's opinions any less relevant and I partly agree with what you are saying - yes the main people to blame are the people who took Madeleine however  that opportunity wouldn't have arisen imo, if her parents hadn't made that conscious decision to do what they did   and leave her.

I do have some sympathy for her parents as I'm sure if they could, they'd go back and change the decisions that they made but unfortunately they can't and they're going to be paying for that mistake for the rest of their lives.  I really hope she was snatched for illegal adoption as the alternative doesn't bear thinking about 

My opinion is quite clearly stated in my post.

I understand that whoever took Maddie was/is the one in the wrong, but, that does not mean I should be afraid to comment on her parent's parenting.

Which for some strange reason seems to be the case.

I don't know why you would be afraid either.

I've been a bit wary of stepping into this, but here we go...

I've noticed that this discussion has concentrated on the moral issues, but it should be remembered that what the McCanns did by leaving the children alone (leaving aside the issue of the door being unlocked) was illegal. From a legal perspective at least, it really is black and white.

I read a while back that the couple had previously used baby listening services at other resorts (which is interesting in the context of Soozy's comments), but that wasn't available at that particular resort. there were creche and baby-sitting services available, but they chose not to use them...

True Eugene ....at least in this country I believe ....plus they can hardly be hard up, surely ...... so why the heck didn't they use the services available 

It's also illegal in Portugal, which is the important point here...

Oh , I didn't know that ....

I totally understand your first sentence because I thought long and hard about saying what I said

and yes I agree if there were creche/baby-sitting services available, why did they choose not to use them????  As Baz has said, it's not as if they couldn't afford them

And another one..

http://www.independent.ie/iris...dublin-29686005.html

A SEVEN-year-old girl has been taken by gardai from a Roma family in Dublin, who claimed to be her parents..

The blonde haired and blue eyed girl is now being looked after by the HSE.

Gardai called to a house in Tallaght in south county Dublin yesterday afternoon after they received a report that the girl was living there with a Roma family.

The couple claimed that the girl was their daughter and said she had been born in 2006.

But garda checks at Dublin city hospitals failed to produce any evidence to back up the claim and the girl's birth certificate could not be found.

Senior sources said that “serious issues around the birth certificate of the child which suggests that the Roma couple may not be her parents”.

Gardai also consulted experts to establish if it was physically possible for a Roma couple to give birth to a girl with blonde hair and blue eyes.

Using powers available under section 12 of the Child Care Act, a garda sergeant took the girl from the couple and handed her over to the HSE.

An application for an emergency child care order was made this morning in the district court.

The girl can be kept in the care of the HSE for another month and the authorities must then either hand the girl back to the family or seek a more permanent care order.

In the meantime, gardai hope to take DNA samples from the parents and from the girl to establish if they are related.

Gardai said this afternoon that inquiries were continuing to establish the identity of the girl.

The Tallaght case is similar to the current controversy in Greece where police have taken a little girl, known as Maria, into care and arrested a couple, who claimed to be her parents.

Gardai said there have no arrests in the Tallaght case.

The Roma couple, who have other children, have been living in the area for some time.

A spokeswoman for the HSE told The Herald she had received a large number of media queries about the matter but “no information” will be disclosed in childcare cases.

The case is remarkably similar to that of Maria – the young girl who has made international headlines after it was discovered that she was not the child of  of Christos Salis (39) and Eleftheria Dimopoulou (40

The four-year-old, known only as Maria, is the subject of an international police inquiry after Greek police released her photograph at the weekend, appealing for her parents to come forward.

A Roma couple from the village of Farsala in central Greece are due in court today accused of abducting her from her natural parents, whom police believe are either from northern or eastern Europe – in a case that has invited comparisons with the missing British girl Madeleine McCann.

I have a feeling we're going to hear a lot more about stories like this

I do too Pengy because after the Greek case people will be looking closer at children with "unusual" hair and eye colours compared to their parents. Especially in the Roma community.