The police were saying that it is quite OK to send a 5 year old up town to do shopping on her own.
That is not as bad as leaving your children alone asleep even with regular checking!
I find that a bit odd actually.
"Maddie and Mari Luz
Mari Luz disappeared from a public area. Maddie and her siblings were abandoned by their parents [...] they were exposed to chance
"Every time that a sequence of violent acts occurs, whether homicides, abductions, or terrorist acts, the first exercise that our common sense memory does, is to search for communions and to make analogies that tend to generalistic judgements that puff up one or another solution. When these facts have a strong impact within the media, the level of certainty that is formulated increases even more. It is therefore hardly surprising, that the disappearance of Mari Luz prompted the search for identifications with the Maddie case, leading to the comfortable and opportunistic theory that there are connections between both cases, both being the victims of a sexual predator.
There do not exist. Although close in time, they are absolutely different cases. Beginning with the space where the facts took place. Maddie disappeared from the room where she was sleeping, alongside her siblings, inside the apartment that belonged to her parents, even if only for the duration of their holidays. Mari Luz disappeared from a public space. The time coordinate is also different. The English girl disappeared during the night, the Spanish girl disappeared during the day. The location is also different. Mari Luz disappears in a street of her neighbourhood - and those who know this area in Huelva, know that we are talking about a poor community, of degraded housing or modest construction, which is inhabited by persons with financial difficulties, where the street is used by its inhabitants as a playground. To play on the streets in Torrejon is a socially normal action, there are neighbourhood relationships, the bonds of social mutual recognition are evident. It is normal for a mother to send her child shopping. According to the daily behaviour patterns, it cannot be said that the parents abandoned Mari Luz. That space is the community's territory. Maddie and her siblings were abandoned by their parents, in a foreign country, in a quality resort but, due to their short stay, that was strange to them and to their children. They went out to drink while the children were delivered to chance. But within a safe, controlled unit, without space for an abductor to act naturally. The public space is where abductions take place, by excellence. On streets, in shopping areas, on beaches, or when large crowds meet in open air. The private space, the home, is the territory of love, of violence, of tenderness and of death. But this is not where differences end. Mari Luz's parents immediately communicated the case to authorities. The police heard about Maddie long after the English diplomacy and Sky News did. The parents of Mari Luz expose themselves, in their suffering and distress, to the police and to the media. Maddie's parents chose to make emotional appeals but without a coherent explanation about what happened. They brought in a spokesperson to tell the press what it wanted to hear, but themselves, when it was time, refused to talk and left. The organised web never wanted to discuss the case's details. They chose to insult the PJ and the country that gave them shelter.
The truth, the sad truth, is that two children went missing. One, almost certainly, is dead. The other, the authorities still hope to find her alive. I hope they will. Unfortunately, these are not the first cases, and they will not be the last ones. They are cases from our common life. Unfortunately."
https://joana-morais.blogspot.com/2008/03/mccanns-now-want-to-question-mari-luz.htmlInterview with "former PJ Chief-Inspector and Criminologist Moita Flores".