-
Posts
-
Monday May 09 2011
Kate McCann has opened her heart about how she felt like committing suicide in the days after her daughter Madeleine vanished from their apartment in Portugal four years ago.
Madeleine was three years old when she was abducted, having been left alone with her brother and sister, Sean and Amelie, while their parents dined with friends nearby.
Her mother realised she had been taken as she made the latest of a series of half-hourly checks.
In a new book to mark the fourth anniversary of her daughter’s disappearance, Mrs McCann recalls running outside, screaming: “Madeleine’s gone! Someone’s taken her!”
Later, she sank into fits and anguish and depression that eventually threatened to destroy her relationship with her husband, Gerry.
She writes: “I had an overwhelming urge to swim out across the ocean, as hard and as fast as I could; to swim and swim and swim until I was so far out and so exhausted I could just allow the water to pull me under and relieve me of this torment.
“Somehow, inflicting physical pain on myself seemed to be the only possible way of escaping my internal pain. The other truly awful manifestation of what I was feeling was a macabre slide show of vivid pictures in my brain that taunted me relentlessly.
“I was crying out that I could see Madeleine lying, cold and mottled, on a big grey stone slab. Looking back, seeing me like this must have been terrible for my friends and relatives, particularly my parents, but I couldn’t help myself.”
She said that she was stuck in an “endless bad dream” and haunted by visions of her missing daughter Madeleine after her disappearance.
Visions
Mrs McCann described how she immediately feared that the youngster had fallen victim to a paedophile.
The 43-year-old said: “The pictures I saw of our Madeleine no sane human being would want in her head, but they were in mine.”
In another extract, Mrs McCann revealed that her husband was also wracked with similar harrowing visions.
Mrs McCann wrote: “I asked Gerry apprehensively if he’d had any any really horrible thoughts or visions of Madeleine.
“He nodded.”
Mrs McCann, from Rothley, Leicestershire, also lays bare how she wanted to kill and “inflict the maximum pain possible” on the person who had abducted her daughter.
The book also criticises the Portuguese authorities, who shelved the investigation into Madeleine’s disappearance in July 2008, for failing to investigate other alleged child abductions thoroughly.
The McCanns hope that the publication will prompt people holding vital information about what happened to the child to come forward at last.
– Dean Gray in London
Irish Independent
Any thoughts on this?
Or has everything been said?My heart goes out to her …. but , on saying that , there is No Way i would have left my children on their own – no matter how close by i was .
I cannot imagine the torment the McCanns are going through…. when my kids were tiny I ate in the hotel restaurant whilst they slept in the hotel bedroom… very similar. I think it has all been said… I fear this little girl is dead. I just wish there was some closure for her parents.
I have been reading snippets from the book serialised in the paper. Not sure it would be something I would have done, but I imagine it is to help fund the search for Maddie. Also the Macanns have said to prompt anyone who may hold vital information to come forward. If someone knowingly was holding information surely by now they would have come forward? I never understand that.
Still as any parents would feel the need they will probably search forever until she is found.
Although I 100% feel for them, they still left 3 children under the age of 5 on their own. I know they don’t need reminding of this, and that it wasn’t an open invitation for someone to steal their child. But I never left mine, especially in an alien environment. It doesn’t bare thinking about. When our kids were younger we went self catering, so we could cook in the evenings while the children were asleep. I would not have even contemplated going down to the hotel restaurant in the same building. I would not have felt comfortable with that. It’s one thing dealing with guilt in circumstances beyond our control, but quite another dealing with guilt when we contributed to circumstances which led to such a tragedy.
I hope they find Maddie, but deep down I feel she was too much of a liability to keep alive, be it a peadophile group or even a family. She was so distinguishable with her eye.
The book has provoked a heated debate on another forum I use. Some of the questions raised are:
– Should the McCanns have been charged with child neglect?
– Given the neglect and their subsequent travelling in the quest to find Maddie, should they have been allowed to keep their remaining children?
– If Maddie were found alive and to be with a loving caring family, should she be returned to neglectful parents?
– Whilst it was obviously cathartic for Kate McCann to write about the experience, was she right to then have it published? What about the impact on the remaining children?The thing that strikes me is the judgementalism and sheer hatred that the McCanns seem to be subjected to. They made a simple mistake – a big one, but a simple one – and they will be punished for the rest of their lives by the loss of their daughter and worse, not knowing what happened to her. The vilification that they face seems way out of proportion to the situation…even the mother of Shannon Matthews didn’t face this much hatred and vilification. Is it simply because of their class – subconsciously we all expect the middle classes to somehow be more intelligent and responsible than the working classes despite all evidence to the contrary – or the media circus that they have created to keep Maddie in the public eye?
I dont think for one minute they are neglectful parents, I think when you are on holiday you relax….and maybe they did things there they would not consider at home. I know when we did it it was in a small hotel in this country there was a baby listening service and we were only yards away from the room. We considered it safe… just as the McCanns did… I think if people are truthful many will have done the same thing… had I considered there was the slightest risk obviously we would not have done it… I’m sure the McCanns felt the same.
They weren’t in the hotel, they didn’t use a baby listening service, and apparently in one of the excerpts of the book that has appeared in the newspapers Kate McCann says that the tapas bar that they were dining in was half a mile away. Maddie was 4, the twins were 2.
If you left kids that age alone at home in this country and went to the pub, you in all likelihood would be charged with child neglect.
Sounds bad doesn’t it Jen… things do get exaggerated though … for instance I just checked and the Tapas bar was 130 yards from where the children were sleeping… have to say though I wasn’t aware they had left the door unlocked… wonder why they did that?
Anyway whatever the reason I’m sure they felt it was safe, my sister has stayed at the same resort and told me it is quite insular with gates, they were obviously over confident and in holiday mood
It doesn’t sound so bad when you say 130 yards away – which was what had been said previously – then you read an excerpt from this new book written by Kate McCann which apparently says it was half a mile away…then it starts to look a little different. If it was 130 yards away then it was slightly risky but unduly so and so probably calling it child neglect would be a bit strong (although kids can get into terrible scrapes in just a few minutes even when you’re standing right by their side!). If, however, it was half a mile way, then in my book that is high risk even for older children; for children as young as the McCanns’ then I think it probably could be classed as neglect and would attract the attention of social services even if no charges were brought.
I’ve not had children so I can never say what I would have done on a family holiday, but I do know that my parents never went out for dinner without us when we had a family holiday. On the continent they are so welcoming of children that there really is little excuse for not strapping them into a buggy, tucking a cover around them and taking them with you, but then hindsight is a wonderful thing.
I am still much more intrigued re why they are so judged and vilified for everything they do and everything they say by so many people though. In the early days they were vilified for not coming home at the end of the planned holiday and for travelling to keep up the profile of the case and the search. People were berating them and saying they were “dining out and enjoying themselves” whilst Maddie was who knows where – so what were they supposed to do, hide away and only appear crying and looking distraught? Or focus on the task in hand, which was getting their daughter back? Then when they came home they were vilified for trying to carry on a normal semblance of life, for getting back to work. Yes they have courted the media, and the media is a fickle beast, but the vehemence that many people have for them seems so out of proportion.
Incidentally did you know that Ben Needham, if he is still alive, was 21 last year? It’s almost 20 years this year since he disappeared. It’s interesting to see how the changes in the media and the use of technology have changed how such the story of a child’s disappearance is covered and how our opinions are shaped.
I would not call what the Macanns did a mistake! They deliberately left all their children alone, how is that a mistake? It was neglect. The bar was across the road off the resort wasn’t it? So what if they could slightly see the corner of it? Someone could have gone in killed the children and they wouldn’t have been able to see inside. That is fact. Wether I am for or against or not. I am however sympathetic to the parents and feel for their loss and do not think they had anything to do with it, apart from making it easier for an abduction.
I remember during my last pregnancy I suffered from depression, which also continued after he was born. There were a few times when I needed to nip out and do things, and was tempted to leave him whilst he slept as I knew I would be only a few minutes. But I never did. Even in my unstable mental state I knew it was wrong. There is never an excuse. It is also illegal. It may not be in Spain, but does that mean we compromise out children?
If Kate had been a single mother on benefits and this had happened. She would probably have been hung drawn and quartered by the press and police here and lost any other children in her care.
Get involved in this discussion! Log in or register now to have your say!