Missing Madeleine

Unless you've been living in a box for the last few weeks, you'll know all about missing four year old Madeleine McCann. If you have been living in a box - congratulations on finding one with an Internet connection.

Poor little Maddie was snatched from a room at Portuguese holiday resort Praia da Luz, which she was sharing with her twin siblings. Her parents were eating at a nearby restaurant and had left their three children totally unsupervised, with the patio doors to their apartment unlocked.

Although the Policia Judiciaria initially suspected the child had just "wandered off," further investigation quickly led them to conclude that she'd been kidnapped. To this date, almost four weeks later, nobody's quite sure what the poor girl's fate is.

Hopefully, she will be found safe and well. Hopefully the blanket news coverage and million pound reward will convince her abductors to return her, or aid somebody in finding out where she's been taken. After all, you can hardly switch on a TV or pick up a newspaper without seeing the poor girl's picture.

And once she is is returned to her parents, hopefully somebody will give them a bloody good talking to.

In England, parents have been charged with abandonment if they leave their kids unsupervised while popping across the street for a pint of milk. Dr McCann and his wife decided to leave Madeleine and her two siblings utterly alone in a holiday apartment while they ate a boozy dinner.

Praia da Luz offers childminding and babysitting services - plus a creche - and as successful General Practitioners, the McCann's could easily afford them. Yet they decided to go off to dinner and leave their children utterly alone. That gave Madeleine's abductor the opportunity to snatch her.

However understandable it was, the sad fact is that Madeleine's parents made a mistake when they left their children unsupervised. If it had been a single working mum who'd left her three kids alone, she would probably have been prosecuted for it.

The McCanns, as successful and photogenic doctors, have been taken under the wing of the forgiving British press. Little Maddie is enjoying blanket news coverage that the 69,999 other children who go missing in the UK every year don't have. The McCanns are being hailed as pragmatic heroes and are having a private visit to the Vatican to meet the Pope. The parents of Javian Matthews, a fifteen year old who's been missing from his home in Haringey since February, aren't so lucky.

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Isn't it sad and shocking how the media's reaction to this crime could have gone in a completely different direction? But for the Grace of God, the newspaper headlines could have been: "Neglectful parents leave kids to the mercy of Paedo Abductor!"

I think Madeleine's parents should be very grateful for that - and hopefully all this news coverage will bring their little girl back to them very soon.