"Is Maddie's legacy the real reason this child was taken into care" - by Tom Rawstorne of the Daily mail

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2203504/Is-Maddies-legacy-real-reason-little-girl-taken-care-Portuguese-police-say-British-parents-drunk-look-explanation-sinister.html

Is Maddie the reason this girl was taken into care? Portuguese police say her British parents were too drunk to look after her... but the explanation could be more sinister
However looking at Tom Rawstorne's previous articles he does love a good conspiracy.
By TOM RAWSTORNE
PUBLISHED: 23:59, 14 September 2012 | UPDATED: 00:24, 15 September 2012
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Not far from the Portuguese apartment where Stephen Street and Colette McPartland live, their parked grey Skoda has two stickers in its rear windscreen.
One reads: Protect My Baby — Drive With Care, the other: Baby on Board — Please Don’t Speed.
It’s a noble sentiment, but for the best part of a fortnight, there has been no child — baby or otherwise — anywhere near the vehicle.

Separated: Police released this picture of Scarlett being fed by a female officer after she was taken in to care
And if the Portuguese authorities get their way, that could remain the case for a very long time.
On September 4, the married couple’s two-year-old daughter, Scarlett, was taken into care.
On that day, local police claim, the two English teachers — who have lived in Portugal for the past five years — had been drinking so heavily that Ms McPartland could not stand.
Their child, meanwhile, had been left to run wild. At one stage, it is alleged, it was only the intervention of a passer-by that prevented Scarlett from running on to a busy road nearby.
As a result, Scarlett was taken from the couple, bundled into a police car and driven to the local police station, where she was found to be wet, hungry and thirsty.


‘The parents were also taken to the police station, but they were too drunk to speak properly,’ a police spokesman said. ‘They showed absolutely no concern for her welfare, so she was taken into care.’
Police later announced that it could take up to six months to reach a decision about the girl’s future, during which time she would remain separated from her parents.
The story inevitably made headlines in Portugal and here in Britain — a shocking tale of parental negligence.
But, according to 42-year-old Mr Street and Ms McPartland, 37, it is just that: a ‘tale’. And a tall one at that. They claim the police version of events is a ‘fabrication’ and that not only were they not drunk, but that at no stage did they abandon their child.
‘Our daughter is the centre of our lives and her welfare is what we are devoted to,’ they said in a statement. They went on to blame everything that happened on ‘needless interference from an over-zealous police officer’.

Accused: The toddler's parents Stephen Street and Colette McPartland, who have denied allegations that they abandoned their two year old daughter on a Portuguese street while they went drinking
They added: ‘All parents will understand that what was a happy family life has become a nightmare for us.’
While some might be sceptical about their claims, a Mail investigation has raised a number of serious questions about the sequence of events that led to Scarlett being taken into care. Questions that may mean an innocent child has been taken from her parents for no good reason at all.
Witnesses from that night say the child was never on her own — that she was by her parents’ side in Carcavelos, a small seaside town 15 miles west of Lisbon, when the police arrived.
Further, a number of sources have confirmed that Ms McPartland is pregnant with her second child — casting doubt on suggestions that she had been drinking heavily.
Portuguese social workers investigating the child’s background are also understood to have received glowing reports about the family from those who know them.
'The police here don't like British families with kids'
So what could explain the reaction of the police that night?
The answer is certainly surprising: the unsolved mystery of Madeleine McCann’s disappearance in Portugal’s Praia da Luz in 2007.
A leader article published in Correio Da Manha, Portugal’s largest-selling daily newspaper, days after little Scarlett was seized pulls no punches in linking the two cases.
It also highlights the sense of bitterness many Portuguese people feel at the way its police force was denigrated in the wake of three-year-old Maddie’s disappearance from the apartment in which she slept while her parents, doctors Kate and Gerry McCann, ate in a restaurant nearby with friends.
The article reads: ‘The Portuguese police, this time, didn’t “lose” a little English girl, they found one dying of hunger and thirst, in Carcavelos, while her parents, British and middle class, continued to drink merrily until they were legless — so much so that they forgot their two-year-old tied to her pushchair in the sun. The PSP (Portuguese police) rescued her from death.’
The article continues: ‘What would the legendary British “snobs” say if this had happened with a Portuguese couple in London?
‘They would refer to us again as a Third World country — and how the Portuguese authorities, through laziness or incompetence, were incapable of resolving the mystery of Madeleine’s disappearance.
‘The devastated McCann couple would once again be remembered as martyrs to this strange Portuguese attitude towards abandoning one’s children while enjoying oneself. The courage to abandon children appears to be a characteristic English mania.

Links: Reports in the Portuguese press has likened the apparent neglect of Scarlett to the disappearance of Madeleine McCann
‘This couple abandoned their defenceless child — and the McCanns did the same. The difference is slight. The girl in this story was left in her pushchair: Maddie was left asleep while her parents enjoyed dinner out.’
While it is tempting to interpret these words as tabloid grandstanding, some people argue that the depth of the wounds left by the Madeleine McCann case should not be dismissed lightly.
Indeed, sources close to Mr Street and his wife are adamant the fallout from the case has influenced the way they have been treated. As one relative put it: ‘The Portuguese police do not like British families with young children.’
It is a point echoed by a Portuguese waiter who witnessed the events.
‘Seeing what I saw and reflecting on what’s happened, I do wonder if the police haven’t been a little over-zealous because of what happened with Madeleine McCann,’ he said.
‘Then they were accused of doing too little too late. Maybe now they want to be seen to be strict with parents they feel have neglected their kids and have over-reacted.
‘I’m sure that if they had been Portuguese and they were drunk, as the police say, someone would have got hold of them and taken them back home, and all this could have been avoided. It’s very unfortunate.’
From the couple’s point of view, that is something of an understatement. They moved to Portugal more than five years ago, after meeting in 2002 while working in Indonesia.
Mr Street, the son of a retired police sergeant, had travelled to Indonesia to indulge his passion for surfing, funding his trip by teaching English. By chance, he ended up at a school in Jakarta — the same one to which Colette McPartland had also applied for a job.
For her, teaching ran in the blood. Her father, John, had taught for 30 years in the family’s home town of Middlesbrough, where he is a well-respected Labour councillor.
Mr Street is from South Wales, but prior to travelling abroad had also been living in Middlesbrough.
‘I remember we were talking outside the school and I couldn’t place Colette’s accent,’ recalled Mr Street of that first meeting in the Far East. ‘I asked where she was from and was completely taken aback when she said Middlesbrough.’
Within a year, the couple were planning their wedding and they married on September 4, 2004. The plan thereafter was to move to Portugal, where Mr Street could surf and the couple could enjoy the Mediterranean climate.
'A witness says Scarlett was nearly hit by a car'
They settled in Carcavelos, a town close enough to Lisbon to find work teaching English, but which also offers world-class surfing.
They had their daughter Scarlett soon afterwards, and the couple’s relatives say they doted on her.
‘They are a lovely couple,’ said Mr Street’s father, Ray, from his home in South Wales. ‘They are wonderful parents who idolise their daughter.’
He said his son was not ‘a drinker’ and his daughter-in-law does not drink ‘for reasons I’m not prepared to say’. Those reasons are understood to be that Ms McPartland is four months pregnant — news she shared with friends on Facebook on August 27.
Yet little more than a week later, if the Portuguese police are to be believed, this mother-to-be was drinking herself to the point of collapse.
The day in question was the couple’s wedding anniversary when, according to eyewitnesses, they arrived at a cafe called the Manhas do Chocolate in a tree-lined square in the village at about 5pm.
Once there, the Mail has been told, they were served three glasses of white wine each, though in their statement the couple deny drinking at all. The police version of events is that while her parents relaxed in the cafe, Scarlett was allowed to play by herself by a busy road. A passer-by saw this, ‘rescued’ the child, then called police.
Rui Vasconcelos was one of the police officers called to the scene.
He said: ‘Before our arrival, the child was playing alone and a witness said the girl was almost hit by a car. They placed the child in a baby carrier and the girl started to cry, but the parents were in a “big discussion”.

Critical: The Portuguese came under attack following their investigations into the disappearance of Gerry and Kate McCann's daughter
‘I spoke to them. The lady could not get up from the chair. She tried several times, but always fell.
‘The gentleman apologised and said that everything was OK. Then they shouted expletives.’
While the couple’s condition is open to dispute — neither of them was blood-tested or breathalysed — those in the vicinity that evening have insisted the child was at no point abandoned by her parents.
Francisco Fonseca, a waiter at a seafood restaurant 50 metres from the cafe, said: ‘I saw the dad shortly before police arrived and he was with his daughter trying to calm her down.
‘I had heard her crying at the cafe and I believe he came across to where I was working because the crying was upsetting customers there.
‘It was a bit of a strange situation, but the dad didn’t look drunk.
‘He sat on the pavement outside the restaurant and stayed there, trying to calm the little girl down while she remained in the pushchair. He didn’t take her out of the pushchair, but he put his face close to her and was caressing her face and hair as if he was trying to get her to stop crying.
‘He must have sat there with her for about 30 minutes, and it was shortly after he went back to the cafe that the police arrived — probably about 8.15pm.’
Having been removed from her parents by the police, Scarlett was photographed being spoon-fed some soup by a female officer.
This image, with the child’s face obscured, was subsequently released on the police website with a report about what had happened.

New home: Stephen Street and Colette McPartland moved to Carcavelos, 15 minutes from Lisbon (pictured) more than five years ago
She was then taken to a nearby emergency care home, where she has been ever since. The youngster’s future now rests with a child protection unit, of which Esmeralda Ferreira is in charge.
‘We’re working as quickly as possible to decide whether she’s to remain at the home,’ she said last night.
To this end, social workers have conducted interviews with the creche where she is cared for when her parents are working, and with the family doctor and others who know the family.
According to sources close to the case, the feedback on Scarlett’s parents has so far been favourable.
Indeed, they are said to be optimistic that the case will not drag on for the six months that was initially suggested, and that the family could be reunited in a matter of days.
In the meantime, the couple have been paying daily visits to their daughter, all of them supervised and observed. On one occasion they were seen on the way there carrying a giant teddy bear.
‘The trauma of the past few days has been unbearable,’ the couple said. ‘We are praying that it will soon be over, and that normality will return.’
And so, no doubt, is their young daughter.

‘This couple abandoned their defenceless child — and the McCanns did the same. The difference is slight. The girl in this story was left in her pushchair: Maddie was left asleep while her parents enjoyed dinner out.’
While it is tempting to interpret these words as tabloid grandstanding, some people argue that the depth of the wounds left by the Madeleine McCann case should not be dismissed lightly.

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The article reads: ‘The Portuguese police, this time, didn’t “lose” a little English girl, they found one dying of hunger and thirst, in Carcavelos, while her parents, British and middle class, continued to drink merrily until they were legless — so much so that they forgot their two-year-old tied to her pushchair in the sun. The PSP (Portuguese police) rescued her from death.’
The article continues: ‘What would the legendary British “snobs” say if this had happened with a Portuguese couple in London?
‘They would refer to us again as a Third World country — and how the Portuguese authorities, through laziness or incompetence, were incapable of resolving the mystery of Madeleine’s disappearance.
‘The devastated McCann couple would once again be remembered as martyrs to this strange Portuguese attitude towards abandoning one’s children while enjoying oneself. The courage to abandon children appears to be a characteristic English mania.
‘This couple abandoned their defenceless child — and the McCanns did the same. The difference is slight. The girl in this story was left in her pushchair: Maddie was left asleep while her parents enjoyed dinner out.’

The End Is Nigh wrote:The Mail is a rag for the terminally outraged, not for balanced people.

The End Is Nigh wrote:All from readers in Tunbridge Wells, I'll warrant!

James wrote:

The End Is Nigh wrote:All from readers in Tunbridge Wells, I'll warrant!

Actually the comments are from Spain, Thailand, Canberra and Wimbledon! Truly international!

Justiceforallkids wrote:you could even say this sounds hurtful and unhelpful to the mcanns..............

It doesn't really add up that they weren't drunk and the authorities snatched her to somehow prove some point over the Madeleine case! If I was perfectly a perfectly sober parent of a 2 year old and out of nowhere a police officer snuck up on me and tried to take her away I would snatch her up and hold on tight, I wouldn't allow myself to be separated and go straight to the British embassy for help,not let the police take her then stubble along later to try and reclaim her!
- Im a pineapple, Shes a palm tree, United Kingdom, 15/9/2012 1:07
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So exactly HOW did the police get hold of the child, if it was with the parents?
- bob, China, China, 15/9/2012 1:23
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The Portuguese, like all Latin countries, come down very heavily on any kind of child abuse. When this couple get their daughter back they should make tracks back to the UK as their dream of an idyllic life in the sun has come to an end.
- wjajh, Nottingham, 15/9/2012 1:16
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I hope this teaches other parents to be vigilant while taking their children out to where they are having fun and maybe enjoying a drink or too............ The fact is that children get taken away and the authorities are rightly concerned that no other child should face the terrible plight of never returning home again because the parents were too concerned with enjoying themselves........... If the parents did start to swear or answer back aggressively then what the hell do they expect.........? And yes women still drink while pregnant and being teachers does not mean they are good parents.......... We have seen far too many parents in the papers leaving their young children alone or in need of care.................. Get over yourselves and grow up and look after that child!!!
- strangerthanfiction, London, 15/9/2012 1:14
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Having worked as a child protection worker I can guarantee you that we as well as police do not have time to sit down each morning and go through the phonebook and pick a person to persecute. I am sure it is a similar situation in Portugal. Yes the parents may think that they are "devoted to" their child and in their minds they are but plonking a kid in front of the Wiggles with a bowl of fruitloops or leaving her outside on her own is not devotion...
- Mrs Wright, Australia, 15/9/2012 1:17
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The moral of the story is avoid Portugal. If they want to be a tourist destination they will have to do better than this to attract people. I certainly wouldn't feel safe there.
- Monkeymagic, Yokohama, 15/9/2012 1:22
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"Further, a number of sources have confirmed that Ms McPartland is pregnant with her second child ¿ casting doubt on suggestions that she had been drinking heavily."------------Well that's a bit like saying a woman can't have been smoking because she is pregnant. No, pregnant women shouldn't drink heavily (or smoke) but some do.
- Julie, Leicester, United Kingdom, 15/9/2012 1:53
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Your comments:I do not for ONE moment beleive this as so many years have elapsed....If this had happened in the 2 years after Maddies loss i may have agreed ...but....PLUS the statement that Police do not like British with kids is rubbish... having spent time in Portugal I know they very family orintated, and my family have never had a problem
- beth1946, cambridge, United Kingdom, 15/9/2012 1:44
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It`s very hard to know what to believe, but once I witnessed two people off their faces with a toddler who they had no sense of, no control of and who they then proceeded to put into a car and drive with, quite clearly over the limit. I did not want to be an interfering old biddy, but at the same time, i did not want any harm to come to that little girl, so I called the police and the parents were arrested, and found to be several times over the limit. I have always felt guilty because it was their child and they could have had her taken off them, but if you are both out with your child, then at least one of you should be perfectly sober and in control at all times. If you can`t be, do not have kids. We all need a bit of "me" time, but that`s when you pay for a babysitter.
- Mom, West Mids, 15/9/2012 0:42
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Police playing with peoples lives again - disgusted.
- Les, Thailand, 15/9/2012 3:11
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Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2203504/Is-Madeleine-McCann-reason-teacher-couples-girl-taken-care-Portugal.html#ixzz26XvMqQpX

Keela wrote:the moral of the story is avoid Portugal. If they want to be a tourist destination they will have to do better than this to attract people. I certainly wouldn't feel safe there.
- Monkeymagic, Yokohama, 15/9/2012 1:22

oh boy!!!

Keela wrote:the moral of the story is avoid Portugal. If they want to be a tourist destination they will have to do better than this to attract people. I certainly wouldn't feel safe there.
- Monkeymagic, Yokohama, 15/9/2012 1:22

oh boy!!!

fred wrote:Update.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2206007/British-couple-arrested-abandoning-child-drunk-exonerated-Portuguese-social-workers.html