Walsingham

My view precisely. EDIT: well, not precisely. He left out the beer. okay how about this one then.. if you punish every bad decision harshly, pretty soon people won't even make good beer anymore! I hope you're proud of yourself, you big bully. You made me cry!

In my crystal ball I foresee two alternatives... 1) You hire a local childminder who, thanks to there being no screening of such people locally, turns out to be a child abuser anyway. 2) You spend years shackled to your children, and wind up resenting them so much that by the time they are 8 you are leaving to fend for themselves armed with hammers. Deprived of affection, and marshalled by an increasingly angry and jaded parent they begin to commit crime in a pathetic attempt to get attention from others. They also eat hotdogs. From those guys in the street.

Actually the lesson it taught me was how to shuck oysters. Go figure.

All I'm saying is, you're both doctors, you have three kids. You are on holiday. You find a nice restaurant within a stone's throw of your flat. You go out for a BIT of quiet, and still go back regularly to check on your babbies. I' not saying that the children mightn't get upset at being left alone for 30 minutes but jeez, it's not the end of the world. If you wanted to guard them against threats, predatory abduction is probably a lower probability than choking on their own feet. Which is not to say that predatory paedophiles aren't a serious thing. only that an individual parent should be forgiven for not seeing it coming.

Do you three gentlemen have kids?

I remember demanding a pair of trainers back when I was a kid. I was absolutely adamant that they were a great idea. About six hours after I'd spent the best art of a year's pocket money on them I understood I'd made a dreadful mistake. Still, it taught me an important lesson.

My view precisely. EDIT: well, not precisely. He left out the beer.

The behaviour AFTER the arrest is silly. I don't find anything odd about cops thinking they could be being lured into a trap.

Sergeant, arrest that kitten!

There's usually an excuse for it. When I was offerred the house I thought I'd be out of the country within a year. It didn't make any sense.

I'd rather they got a straightforward dressing down, followed by them apologising and getting on with their jobs. Talk about over-reacting. Sheesh.

Option to buy three bedroom house in County Durham for 20k in 1999. Recently sold in 2006 for 135k. GodDAMMIT!

You used to steal kindergarteners from the pockets of fellow elementary school kids? Lift many elephants? You seem to have a rather exaggerated sense of what people take notice of. Cheating at cards, picking pockets, and kidnapping children rely on one very important and common factor about humanity. Humans don't notice jack ****. Never having tried I shall bow graciously before your superior experience. I shan't distress the forum with details of what happens to persons taken for sexual slavery, but it has been my habit in the past to do so whenever some fethwit tries to tell me that the death penalty is never appropriate. I'd rather they took the money spent on keeping such people in high security jails and spend it on any surviving victims.

You used to steal kindergarteners from the pockets of fellow elementary school kids? Lift many elephants? Gorth, you have an interesting point about the possibility of it being a different crime. Particularly kidnapping. This might explain why the father is reportedly sure his daughter is still safe. On the other hand that could just be the wishful thinking of a devoted parent. What I do find unlikely is that anyone other than a moron would try to snatch any living organism for sale without having the capability to care for them in an opportunistic fashion. In any event such a cretin would surely have been found by now.

Sorry to be so soft, but Norah Jones, 'Humble Me'

Interesting. Although the thought that this is a concerted effort makes me want to be sick. I was discussing with a colleague the other day how much more use of the internet paedophiles seem to be making now. It seems as if they are swapping skills, tips, and even targets online. My feelings really go out to the police who are responsible for trying to tackle this problem.

When is it ever humorous to traumatize a child? You're not an uncle, are you?

can't really add to what has been said already by way of advice. But it sounds to me as if your head is screwed on straight, and you know how to plan ahead soberly. That's good for you, but also good for whoever employs you. So keep your spirits up!

Are you sure you used the right animals?

I concur. One major reason for an out of court settlement is that it does not set a precedent. Viz the way the UK banks have been avoiding going to court over overdraft payments.

Thanks, LC. I've made a note of the technical specs rather than the actual phones, in case I can't find any locally.

The teachers. And on re-reading it seems to me they were just trying to spark some thought in their kids. The problem is they pulled a stunt better suited to 18 year olds on little kids.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/leicester/content/art...p_feature.shtml Basically this kid has been snatched in Portugal from a hotel room while her parents were close by. I find this conceptually a difficult crime, and thought we might usefully explore it a bit. 1. Targetting: who knew the child was there? Someone had to pick her from the hundreds of others available. 2. Physically getting access to the child. How did someone get into the flat? 3. Egress. How did anyone make off with this kid? Surely an individual would have been noted taking a child wearing pyjamas. Unless the criminal brought clothing with them of some sort. 4. The parents appera to have been going back to the apartment regularly to check on their kids. The attacker obviously knew when to go in. I guess on the whole we are talking about someone who had really laid the groundwork. But we also have this question of why pick on such a tough target? Predatory paedophiles are just that - predators. Surely they should have gone for easier pickings. Combine the above with the difficulty of abducting the child without notice and it ocurs to me that this could have been an individual familiar witha nd to the child. Perhaps someone who came over from the UK for the express purpose of taking her. This may sound odd, but it is less so when one considers that the vast majority of abuse is perpetrated on children by those who know them, not strangers. The immediate problem with THAT is where would our hypothetical paedophile take the child when they had them? We face the problem that neither the child nor any trace of her has been found since. So we are not dealing with an immediate local attack. She must have been taken somewhere else and taken there fast. Any thoughts?

Don't you think it might be more likely that they had a quirky sense of humour that wound up being taken way too seriously by everybody? Rather than them being mental?

Some of the guys in the stores are good. But equally they can be total fools. I recall letting one guy who was clearly a wannabe something believe I was a total novice and lump me with some inferior units in a skirmish with Epic. A handful of leman Russ and infantry versus a baneblade and shadowsword. As it happened I hadn't played a game since the old Adeptus Titanicus but frankly if you understand the concept of concentration of force, and have a rough idea of basic tactics you could have beat him. He got very embarassed and accused me of cheating! Read the books if you want a feel for it.