They definitely need to be charged. Otherwise how would they ever learn that what they did was wrong?

If the truth ever came out then we could all see what actually happened!! the McCann's were negligent in leaving their kids unattended - selfish in the extreme.

Completely agree

16 years on and her death is still constantly talked about as an establishment conspiracy. The parent of one of the victims is one of the craziest conspiracy theorists.

The children of another of the victims are two of the most powerful people in the country, who must be sick of the press bringing back their grief at every possible opportunity to sell a few papers.

Can you still not think why road safety campaigners won't go anywhere near this?

I was being sarcastic.

They were 100% in the wrong to leave her alone. They deserve a good slap for that. But what they've received is the **** kicked out of them every single day since then with the disappearance and possible death of their child.

The slap on the wrist of a child neglect charge is not really needed to make the point when they already live with the consequences of that night.

It would also be a slight mis-use of police time to be charging them with child neglect when they haven't managed to do a thing about finding the child.

Pushing a child neglect charge on to the parents would also probably lead to suggestions that the McCann's didn't just neglect her, but played an even bigger roll in her going missing.

It won't, obviously, happen now but it should have been done.

Who cares ? It's just another parasite off the payroll

No it shouldn't.

If the police show up at a house and there's a child alone in the house because the parents have gone out on the pi55 then by all means charge them with neglect. They need to know that this is unacceptable and the charge will probably do that.

But in this case the parents have already suffered massively because of the disappearance of the child. They don't need the slap on the wrist when they are dealing with the disappearance of their child.

Everyone who has read about the child's disappearance knows that her parents were in the wrong. The McCann's will know they let their child down big time. A police charge is nothing but a waste of time, and as the police have offered so little help in solving the disappearance of the child then they really don't need to be wasting their time slapping the parents wrists.

I know we're in Europe an' all, but I'm still not 100% certain that the police have jurisdiction over alleged offences in forrin countries.

Who said the British police should be the ones charging the parents?

It would obviously be the Portuguese police who would be charging them with child neglect. But then the British press would have hammered them with doing that when they never bothered too much with finding Madeline.

It's kind of like charging a cyclist for running a red light after he's been hit by a truck and paralysed.

It obviously wouldn't, as they looked into that very possibility, and didn't.