"Please continue to pray for Madeleine. She's lovely."
Kate McCann choked as she made her public appeal. Every parent who heard it must have felt their own eyes fill with tears. Every one will have held their own children a little closer. The McCanns are living through a waking nightmare. Such a short time ago they embarked on their holiday, their first abroad with their three children. Just imagine their excitement as they packed for the Mark Warner Ocean Club. It is situated in a traditional Portuguese fishing village and has six children's clubs as well as swimming pools, tennis courts and two restaurants. They were with a group of colleagues and friends. What could be more relaxing?
The children would have attention all day. The evenings would be grown-up time, when Kate and Gerry McCann could eat in peace and enjoy some proper, uninterrupted conversation. It would recharge their batteries and would reaffirm the foundations of the little family asleep so close by. Madeleine and the twins were as close as if their parents had hired a large villa and eaten in the garden.
Was it negligent to go out to a restaurant? I don't think so. I am not advocating that parents of under-fives should have nights out, leaving their children untended. That isn't what happened here. The McCanns were within a family- friendly complex, in a country that makes children welcome. Their apartment was within sight. Its window shutters were latched and the door was locked. One of their parents checked on the children every half-hour. These were reasonable precautions, which is all any parent can take - and all they should take.
We have all behaved in similar fashion on holiday. I can remember having dinner in a hotel dining room while our baby daughter slept upstairs. The people on reception had a baby monitor. At one point - slightly tipsy, I'm ashamed to say - I went up to check on her. I didn't turn on the light, just tucked her in tight, for the night was cold. As I straightened to leave I patted her head. What I encountered were the plastic soles of her sleep suit. I had buried her head at the bottom of the cot.
Three years later, during a holiday on Mull, we left our two-year- old son with a friend while we climbed a hill at the back of the house. An hour later, on our way back down, we met him on his way up to us, beside a stream, wearing his father's shoes. The friend was inside enjoying a glass of wine, oblivious.
Despite their best efforts, all families have near-misses. All parents take calculated risks. As long as they are loving parents - as are the McCanns - it is not only natural but good to do so. It is just real life.
In our case, the freedoms we afforded our children became unnaturally curtailed, courtesy of the child killer Robert Black. He killed 11-year-old Susan Maxwell one summer and five-year-old Caroline Hogg the next. When Susan went missing on Coldstream Bridge, my brother-in-law's garden was one of the many properties searched. When Caroline went missing from Portobello beach, the park where I took my children to play was searched. It was all very close to home and Black went undetected for some years. It was like living with a lion on the loose.
We know now that throughout that time Black was travelling throughout Britain and across to France. We, meanwhile, were forbidding our children to play outside unsupervised, to visit the shops alone. We were standing between them and the independence they deserved. Instead of supervising their development, we were hindering it in an over-zealous effort to protect them.
It was a natural instinct but, in hindsight, quite wrong. Children need freedom. They need to play out of doors with their friends, to develop their own understanding of the world. It is estimated that in any year seven children out of the UK's 12 million will be killed by a stranger. Cancer is the biggest child killer, yet few of us lie awake at night fretting about it.
Meanwhile, following Madeleine's abduction, I wonder how many parents today will be rethinking their family holiday. How many others will be vowing to spend it glued to their offspring day and night? But if they do spend all of their precious time hovering over their children, will any of them really enjoy the break? Will they return refreshed or scratchy?
Madeleine's abduction immediately brought back to mind the taking of baby Ben Needham, who was on holiday with his parents on the Greek island of Kos. Like Madeleine, he was an exceptionally attractive child. He was just 21 months old when he disappeared without trace. It is salutary to remind ourselves that if he is still alive, Ben will now be almost 18. Black has been in prison for 15. These incidents are rare, though inevitably they remain fresh in every parent's memory.
It is their very infrequency that attracts huge publicity. We remember them because they tap into our deepest fears. Child abduction is the stuff of folk lore and fairy tale. When Kate and Gerry McCann went to check on their children it was not the threat of kidnap that concerned them, it was to make certain they hadn't fallen out of bed or woken in need of a drink or the bathroom. To live with the fear of kidnap is no more rational than to go about on a daily basis in the expectation and fear that a plane will crash on you. We need to bear in mind that most abused children are abused at home.
Our reaction to these extraordinary events should mirror Margaret Thatcher's response to the Brighton bombing. We take the hit. Then life goes on as normal. It has to be that way. Otherwise we confer power on the mad and the bad, to the detriment of our children.
The McCanns are a particularly good-looking family. You could say eye-catchingly so. When I first saw their family photograph, I thought it was an advertisement. Kate is pretty, Gerry is handsome and the children are beautiful. They have nice clothes, nice things. Their choice of holiday destination demonstrates that they are comfortably off. By the time this is published we may know who took Madeleine and why. We may know if she was kidnapped for a ransom, whether a childless couple took her for themselves or whether the intent was altogether darker.
What looks certain is her abduction was planned. Someone prised open her shutters and took her from between her brother and sister. If that opportunity had not arisen, she could have been taken at another moment when her parents' backs were turned. Jamie Bulger was led away to his death when his mother let go of his hand in a shop. Though she will have blamed herself, she did nothing wrong. The McCanns did nothing wrong. The wrong is done by the abductor. The kidnapper has damaged the life of one child and one family. That's already one too many. We must make sure our fear of it happening again doesn't damage more.
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