hit me once shame on you..hit me twice shame on me...

[Giulietta]

I don't know if it ever was spoken in the US, but a year and a few months ago, in Portugal, the daughter of an English couple the McCanns, that went out for dinner in the Algarve, (south of Portugal), and left the children un-accompained at the home they rented, disappeared, and never to be found..

Speculation that the parents (to me guilty of leaving the kids alone to go have a drinking party with their friends), had killed her, and more speculation that she was kiddnaped (in one of the quietest peacfull country in the world), was and is still in the air..nothing was proven, and of the many things the parents did, one was to buy a house with the money they received to search for the girl (yes it's true)...anyway...criminal investigation is still going so I leave it at that.

Well looks like in my Country things seem to be working now...and the "piss on my shoe, but you will only do it once" thing seems to be working...

last night another English couple saw their kids (6yo, 2yo and 1 yo) taken from them by the Portuguese authorities, after they were found in alcholic coma in a Hotel bar in Vilamoura, also in the Algarve, not far from the McCAnn case location..

I am happy to see that the State is getting to be more active in this..Portugal is a popular destination for the Northern Europeans, namely German and English, that seek our shores for good weather, sun and extremely good and cheap beer and wine...without alchool laws (you can drink at work if you chose to), I feel that these inccidents will one day castrate our freedom in as far as drinking is concerned.

Drinking responsively is a subject we try to teach educate and pass onto our kids, since they are young... achieveing now, a state of balance and success in that domain..shame that other countries don't understand that and see drinking as a never stop thing, with no moderation and education...

Shame that other countries don't see that our liberties stop at the edge of conflicting with the liberties of the next person.. to me...I would ban these idiots from the country one day one...and not return the kids until later..much later...some people don't deserve to have kids...drunken idiot bastrards, that's what they are....

In case you can read Portuguese see the news article here in English

[bwalker42]

That is so sad... Yeah I read a little about it. sweet little girl. Deserved better than that.

[Giulietta]

Originally Posted by bwalker42

That is so sad... Yeah I read a little about it. sweet little girl. Deserved better than that.

You just can't imagine the things we see, mostly from the British, in Portugal when they mix boose with vacation...it's not once or twice, it's every day..every...it's annoying....what's going to happen is one day, bveacuse of them, we can't get alchool where and when we want....

[Faster]

There has been considerable media attention to this alleged kidnapping (in Canada, anyhow..) along with the attendant suspicion of the parents themselves, and all the issues you raise re: leaving small children alone to go and "party"....

Lots of unanswered questions - including why was only one of three children "grabbed"? -

It's a terrible shame that in our modern world such things can happen (whatever happened in this case) - and that we are forced to worry about every second of every day about basic safety - who wants to be that paranoid?

Bad judgement aside, it would be equally awful to be accused/suspected of harming your own children if in fact you hadn't.

Buying a house with funds raised in this fashion is purely scandalous - if true the funds should be taken back or the property confiscated somehow.

Good on the authorities for intervening in another case of abandonment and mistreatment.

[T34C]

Bad judgement aside, it would be equally awful to be accused/suspected of harming your own children if in fact you hadn't

If they hadn't behaved as though the had their heads up their collective arse it couldn't have happened in the first place.

I don't even let me kids play out in front of my house with my wife or I sitting out there to watch them.

[nonsailor]

The suspicion in britain is that the portuguese police are not interested in solving this case because it was not a portuguese couple, the police took the easy option and framed the parents and another british national as the only suspects, they leaked information to the news media to blacken the couples' reputation and cast them as the main suspects.
The police investigation is carried out in secret so we cannot see what investigative work has actually been done.
I hope the child is still alive, but I don't believe the portuguese police have any intention of looking for her.
Justice must be SEEN to be done.

[Giulietta]

Originally Posted by nonsailor

The suspicion in britain is that the portuguese police are not interested in solving this case because it was not a portuguese couple, the police took the easy option and framed the parents and another british national as the only suspects, they leaked information to the news media to blacken the couples' reputation and cast them as the main suspects.
The police investigation is carried out in secret so we cannot see what investigative work has actually been done.
I hope the child is still alive, but I don't believe the portuguese police have any intention of looking for her.
Justice must be SEEN to be done.

Nonsailor, I don't really want to discuss that, I know the Police are being very competent and are presentely beeing painted as being bad, and that seems to be serving a purpose.

This whole case is a show case for media whores...things have been manipulated, by entities outside the Portuguese Police..and there is International issues at stake here, namely relationship between the 2 Countries..

Let them work, I know soon the case will have an end, and I hope so. Things will turn around in a way you can't even imagine.



That

[Faster]

Originally Posted by T34C

Bad judgement aside, it would be equally awful to be accused/suspected of harming your own children if in fact you hadn't

If they hadn't behaved as though the had their heads up their collective arse it couldn't have happened in the first place.

I don't even let me kids play out in front of my house with my wife or I sitting out there to watch them.

I was certainly not condoning their leaving those children unattended in a hotel room.. but you also comfirmed my point about how things have changed.... It's a damn shame that your kids can't even play unsupervised in their own yard (or on their own block, for that matter).

[Johnrb]

Originally Posted by Giulietta

You just can't imagine the things we see, mostly from the British, in Portugal when they mix boose with vacation...it's not once or twice, it's every day..every...it's annoying....what's going to happen is one day, bveacuse of them, we can't get alchool where and when we want....

From what I've read, the British are getting a nasty reputation around Europe for the excessive boozing and accompanying loutish behaviour. A year or two ago, CBC Radio ran a story on this - in this case the country having to put up with the A-holes was one of the Baltic countries (I forget which one - hell, maybe all of them). One facilitating factor was the incredibly cheap air fares.

[Valiente]

I didn't see anyone drunk the entire time I was in Portugal. I guess I must have stayed away from the tourist areas.

The way to raise responsible drinkers is to drink responsibly in front of your kids. I will allow my kid a half-glass of wine (probably cut with water) starting when he is 12 at family meals. This way he will associate wine with meals, with family and I hope with positive, peaceful feelings. He will also learn *how* to drink and what good limits to drinking should be.

By the time he is 21 (legal age here is 19, but one should wait 20 years), he will be ready to receive the bottle of vintage port I bought for him declared in the year of his birth.