Kate McCann: I believe kidnapper drugged my twins night Madeleine was taken.

[ShiningInLuz]

It wasn't a theory - I was giving an opinion on why a mother, on holiday on the continent on finding one child missing and the others seemingly in an unnaturally deep sleep, might jump to the conclusion that her kids had been sedated.  That reason being - media stories in the press (of which there have been dozens over the years) of holidaymakers being gassed and robbed.  If you re-read my post you will see that that is exactly what I wrote and there has been no change of view or "volte face".  Thank you.

Not that I consider it an important point, but were there really numerous stories of gassings predating May 2007?

I believe the two links you provided are more recent, and personally, I am not aware of a history of these incidents.

I have to say I am dismissive of such gassing being used in burglaries.  In the French example, there were young children and adults present.  My knowledge of anaesthetics is limited, but I would have thought the dose required to sedate adults would cause damage to the young children.

Apart from a case of blistering, these occasions seem to have no after-effects.  No one is woozy or sick or has a headache.  No one notices a residual smell.

I seems to be magic gas, which is why I place no trust in these reports.

Now, I understand that you are saying that IF Kate had read of such reports before Madeleine disappeared THEN she might have thought of this.  But were such reports common or common enough before May 2007?

[Alfie]

Not that I consider it an important point, but were there really numerous stories of gassings predating May 2007?

I believe the two links you provided are more recent, and personally, I am not aware of a history of these incidents.

I have to say I am dismissive of such gassing being used in burglaries.  In the French example, there were young children and adults present.  My knowledge of anaesthetics is limited, but I would have thought the dose required to sedate adults would cause damage to the young children.

Apart from a case of blistering, these occasions seem to have no after-effects.  No one is woozy or sick or has a headache.  No one notices a residual smell.

I seems to be magic gas, which is why I place no trust in these reports.

Now, I understand that you are saying that IF Kate had read of such reports before Madeleine disappeared THEN she might have thought of this.  But were such reports common or common enough before May 2007?

Well here is a post from a forum dated 2006, I found it in less than a minute's googling, I expect there's other evidence to support it

08-08-2006, 17:23  Thread Starter .



whistlinggypsy

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gas attacks

 
i have just heard that there will be a piece on the Richard & Judy show at 17.00hrs tonight about gas attacks and robberies in Europe on holiday makers, it may be worth a look if you have the time.


 Bob
http://forums.motorhomefacts.com/20-motorhome-chitchat/15379-gas-attacks.html

[Alfie]

Kate McCann said (long after the event) that she feared her children may have been sedated on 3rd May. She said she kept checking them for signs of life. There's a very simple method of checking if someone is sedated; you wake them up and check their responsiveness. Pointing out that a doctor neglected to carry out that simple test isn't 'McCann bashing'. Someone with first aid training would have known to do that. The measures she took were completely inadequate. Some people have made excuses for her, but it was actually inexcusable if she was really checking for signs of life, because she is suggesting that there may have been no signs of life. That's an urgent and serious matter needing urgent and thorough investigations.

Are you actually suggesting that Kate McCann feared that her children might have been dead and didn't check to verify one way or the other?  OMG.

[ShiningInLuz]

In your opinion.    IMO the fact they brought it up with the FLO's on the 5th was because  the concerns they mentioned on the 3rd had not resulted in any feedback from the PJ.   I also believe the language barrier really worked against them in those first few hours.

I don't believe Kate thought they had been sedated with a potentially lethal drug - neither did any of the other doctors - otherwise they would have taken more drastic action.    The fact that the twins were sleeping soundly was normal for them anyway - IOW they were not light sleepers -  which could explain why they didn't wake up.  That would influence the level of her concern IMO.

Add to that the terrible state of abject terror and anxiety both parents were in - worsening by the minute, then any idea that they should have been thinking calmly and logically - believing as they did that their daughter had just been abducted, is so unrealistic it's off the scale.    They would be consumed with fear for their missing daughter.  No parent could think straight in those horrendous circumstances.  Their heads would be all over the place.

On the other hand there were policemen there who did find it strange that the twins didn't wake up.   Those officers were not in a state of shock and anxiety and IMO should have reported their observations to their superiors asap -  who may have suggested to the parents that immediate testing was appropriate.

The fact that there were no formal instructions or guidance available to the police on what to do in these circumstances was unfortunate from all points of view IMO.    I sincerely hope that state of affairs has since been addressed.

AIMHO

I know I get lost trying to read across multiple threads, but has it ever been established or asserted that the McCanns brought it up with PJ on the 3rd?  I presume you mean the early hours of the 4th, since the PJ did not arrive until then? Or are you talking about a conversation with the GNR?

As to your implication that the GNR officers should have known more about the sleeping patterns of the twins than the parents, sorry, that does not fly.  If it did, the GNR officers should have arrested the McCanns that night on nothing more than thinking the parents' behaviour was odd.

[ShiningInLuz]

Well here is a post from a forum dated 2006, I found it in less than a minute's googling, I expect there's other evidence to support it

08-08-2006, 17:23  Thread Starter .

whistlinggypsy

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gas attacks

i have just heard that there will be a piece on the Richard & Judy show at 17.00hrs tonight about gas attacks and robberies in Europe on holiday makers, it may be worth a look if you have the time.

 Bob
http://forums.motorhomefacts.com/20-motorhome-chitchat/15379-gas-attacks.html

Thanks for this.  Now we have some evidence that the concept predated May 2007.

Not being a Richard & Judy fan, I personally would not have seen the show.  I wonder if it related specifically to motor-homes or went beyond that?

Don't bother answering that.  My life is too short to worry about gas being used in 5A with no smell by the time Kate arrived and seemingly no after effects in two very young children.  We would need to get into safe-on-children, non-smelling, readily available gases, which I think is stretching things too far.

[stephen25000]

Caps lock on :

THIS THREAD TITLE SHOULD BE CHANGED. IT IS NOT KNOWN IF MADELEINE WAS REMOVED FROM THE APARTMENT.

IT SHOULD SAY THE NIGHT SHE DISAPPEARED.

[G-Unit]

Are you actually suggesting that Kate McCann feared that her children might have been dead and didn't check to verify one way or the other?  OMG.

Why does someone check for signs of life?

[ferryman]

Why does someone check for signs of life?

To establish whether they are merely in a deep sleep or in mortal danger.

[ShiningInLuz]

Caps lock on :

THIS THREAD TITLE SHOULD BE CHANGED. IT IS NOT KNOWN IF MADELEINE WAS REMOVED FROM THE APARTMENT.

IT SHOULD SAY THE NIGHT SHE DISAPPEARED.

Check the OP.  It is a headline from an article linked to in the Daily Mail, so it is as accurate or inaccurate as that headline.

Changing the thread title would not change the headline in the 46 pages that have gone on so far.

[stephen25000]

Check the OP.  It is a headline from an article linked to in the Daily Mail, so it is accurate or inaccurate as that headline.

Changing the thread title would not change the headline in the 46 pages that have gone on so far.

I have.

However, the case remains that it has not been determined how Madeleine disappeared from the apartment.

As to the headline, the Daily Mail is hardly the paragon of truth.

[Alice Purjorick]

I think one of the rules of any debate is not to falsely and repeatedly accuse your opponent of something they haven't done, in this case"volte face". It would be nice to think that one's opponent in any debate would have the good grace to admit when they were wrong and to apologise but I realise this is out of the question with the likes of you and Faithlilly, so time to move on I guess.

You lost the debate pages ago Alfie.

[Alfie]

Why does someone check for signs of life?

To see if they are alive?  Are you suggesting that Kate McCann did not check that her twins were still alive? 

[Alfie]

You lost the debate pages ago Alfie.

If it makes you happy to think that, then by all means you think that. 

Anyone who can read and understand and process information logically will I'm sure draw a different conclusion. 

[ferryman]

British families visiting the Continent are being warned to fit gas detectors to their caravans after a new spate of attacks by gangs piping sleeping gas into their motorhomes.
Hayley Kearns, 28, was heading to the Mediterranean with her parents, her brother and his girlfriend when they were attacked at an overnight rest stop on a motorway.
Miss Kearns, brother Byron, 20, and his girlfriend Nic James, 31, awoke groggily in their trailer tent to find the window ripped open and valuables gone.
They said raiders took £2,000 in cash, their mobile phones, iPads, a Kindle and bank cards.
The robbers had also taken their keys and ransacked their car while they slept, littering the service station with their possessions.
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Miss Kearns said French police told her East European gangs were preying on holidaymakers.
Other British families have reported similar raids this summer, and the Camping and Caravanning Club urged tourists not to sleep at French service stations and to use secure designated campsites for stopovers.
Miss Kearns and her family were attacked on August 2 at the Aire de la Bouble on the A71 from Bourges to Clermont-Ferrand. They were travelling in two cars towing a caravan and the trailer tent. The thieves even stole Mr Kearns’ trousers as they searched for his car keys.
Miss Kearns’ parents Gill, 55, and Tony, 53, had slept in the caravan and were not robbed. But Miss Kearns believes they were gassed too, because their dog was with them but did not wake up.
The customer services agent from Yate, Gloucestershire, added: “Even my parent’s dog didn’t make a noise, and he usually barks at anything. It makes me think they did something to him too.”
She said she woke up in the early hours and saw a shadowy figure, but was unable to rouse her brother before she was overcome with sleep. The next morning the family were ‘completely out of it’, she said, adding: “It was a really busy service station with people everywhere. I tried to wake my brother up but I couldn’t and then I don’t remember anything until the morning.
“We have to have been knocked out. There was a tiny slit in the trailer tent, just big enough to put a pipe through. The police said we were the second or third group to have been done at that service station and the group were moving slowly south from Paris.”
Just weeks earlier on the same motorway, the Chadwick family lost possessions worth £2,000 in a similar raid near Bourges, while Debbie Keeney and Bob John, of Matson, Kent, were targeted at Lancon de Provence, losing cash, jewellery, passports and credit cards.
Matthew Collins, manager at Johns Cross Motorcaravan and Camping Centre in East Sussex, said customers were now fitting their caravans with £99 narcotic gas detector and asking about safety measures.
“There are definitely more people asking about buying them as a result of the publicity. These detectors sound an alarm if thieves try to pipe ether gas into a caravan. It’s obviously a big concern for families.
“We’ve had customers telling us it happened to them in France and Spain. They should avoid overnight stays at motorway service stops and make sure their caravans look well-secured. Robbers tend to go for a caravan which looks like an easy target.”
Richard Grimsdale, The Camping and Caravanning Club’s Travel Services Director, said: “Thousands of Club members travel to France every year and we have never had to deal with a gas related criminal issue. France is a motorhome and camping-friendly country that has a network of stopover locations specifically designed for camping units. In most cases they're run by local town councils offering a range of facilities, and are much different to those that line the Autoroute. As a Club, we’d advise that the safest option is to stay at official campsites en route to or returning from camping holidays abroad.The Club offers a network of selected campsites across Europe that can be pre-booked to make travelling safe and easy.
“Like in any country, we’d advise people to use their common sense and be observant, take sensible security precautions and not leave valuables on display.”
The Royal College of Anaesthetists said in a statement that despite the increasing numbers of reports of people being gassed in motor-homes or commercial trucks in France, and the warning put out by the Foreign Office for travellers to be aware of the danger, the College considered it a myth.
"It is the view of the College that it would not be possible to render someone unconscious by blowing ether, chloroform or any of the currently used volatile anaesthetic agents, through the window of a motor-home without their knowledge, even if they were sleeping at the time. Ether is an extremely pungent agent and a relatively weak anaesthetic by modern standards and has a very irritant affect on the air passages, causing coughing and sometimes vomiting. It takes some time to reach unconsciousness, even if given by direct application to the face on a cloth, and the concentration needed by some sort of spray administered directly into a room would be enormous.
"The smell hangs around for days and would be obvious to anyone the next day. Even the more powerful modern volatile agents would need to be delivered in tankerloads of carrier gas by a large compressor. Potential agents, such as the one used by the Russians in the Moscow siege are few in number and difficult to obtain. Moreover, these drugs would be too expensive for the average thief to use."

(Telegraph).

[G-Unit]

To see if they are alive?  Are you suggesting that Kate McCann did not check that her twins were still alive?

No. She said she checked for some sign of life 'several times' when she 'wandered' into the bedroom. She didn't check for signs of sedation, despite her fears.