and so would i have been, so much so i'd have not left her unattended to go to a bar.
not if your random paedo in this scenario has seen the same group habitually leave their kids unattended while they have a bite to eat or something to drink.
whatever else may have gone on the mccanns are indirectly at fault for what happened. not the other members of their party, not the hotel, them. she was their child and their main priority (along with the rest of their children) them suffering guilt for their actions isn't a good enough reason for them to avoid punishment for what they did (or rather did not do)
I remember when this happened my mother couldn't believe they'd left the very young kids on their own, let alone in a foreign country.
The 'rents used to foster a lot (there were the four of us, and usually 2 foster kids, sometimes 3 if say a brother/sister who was placed elsewhere needed looked after for a week), and we would go camping and to holiday camps, and whilst the older kids (8+) had lighter supervision the younger ones were pretty much constantly supervised. Whilst us older ones were left alone in the chalet or tent on our "own" at times there was always an older child (13+) present, the younger ones, especially the really young ones were never far from an adult or a 16+ year old.
The comment about camp grounds reminded me that there was a hierarchy of who slept where, for example all of the us under about 14 were in the main tent* (or caravan) and it was a big thing to be considered old enough to sleep in one of the smaller tents as it meant you were responsible enough to be "out of sight" (not really given you were 2 meters and about 4 bits of thin material away at most, and I swear my mum and dad didn't sleep and had the hearing of a barn owl
) over night.
I can't remember a single time the under 5's were left alone without an adult in at most the same chalet/an adjoining room when sleeping or at night, and it was rare for them to not be under the supervision of an adult at all times during the day even if that adult wasn't paying full attention (the fact there was a flock of kids playing tended mean they didn't wander).
Basically even when my parents were managing 6 or 7 kids, they didn't take the sort of stupid risks that the McCann's seem to have done, given there were several sets of parents I honestly can't see how they couldn't manage to have arranged between them to have one person there and swap out every ~hour.
I suspect the stupid decisions they made that night will haunt them for the rest of their lives, but I tend to reserve my sympathy for Maddie, who almost certainly wouldn't have been lost if there had been a responsible adult in that group.
*Our main tent was big, very complicated to put up, and had "bedrooms" and a large common area.
