Madeleine McCann: sedatives, calpol or others, what is to know.

sedatives, calpol or others, what is to know.

almost as old as the case itself it the possibilities the children mccann could have been sedated. not only the media was very interested, but there is also the opinion of the former coordinator from the pj of the case that something as calpol was used to keep the children a sleep so the parents could go out to wine and dine, or that even a mysterious criminal used it to keep then quite to do criminal things.

still there is nothing that can be used as proof it happened, most who agree on substance use , will use the story of the twins, 2 years old, that slept as a rock through all the commotion that happened that night.
and that is the returning story. only in the book the mother wrote some years after it happened, she stopped searching inside unit 5a when the twins began to stir.

the mother  keeping on touching the twins bodies in a way that looked to fiona payne as if she wanted to be sure they still kept breathing.

the parents both had their moments to suggest maybe the twins been sedated, of course by the mysterious male offender that in their view must exist to abduct their older daughter from her bed. that opened windows and shutters, but left no traces behind of doing that.

others including the officers of the gnr that spoke how remarkable it was the twins kept sleeping on, even when they in the middle of the night been carried to unit 5h, through even the outdoors.

stories enough, but they have all one simple thing in common and that is evidence that it indeed happened.

months later the parents made known that they had themselves arranged for a test, so they could show the mother had not been using any substances or drugs and the twins had not been sedated.

and exactly that do it yourself does not answer much.

first the use of substances that have a sedative effect are available, many even over the counter and even in 2007. with parents in the medical sector and an uncle working in a pharmaceutical company they could if wanted or needed have many options available.
only it never been that hard to get substances in hands for anyone, so that in itself is not even needed.

and there are many different starting points that can be looked from. first if all 3 children been sedated, by an intruder, that would be very hard to do without leaving traces.
all oral forms are not easy to feed to such young children, doing it as a stranger could be much harder, only one that starts to cry and usually the others simply follow that too.

using a kind of spray or a cloth with a sedative that works through inhalation, still would be hard. no signs of a struggle was noticed by anyone who is been in that room after it must already been done.
it would ask to keep 3 under 4 years old quiet for a substance that would work very quickly and long, and there hardly are such substances. both the twins never showed any symptoms of after effects that do usually are the result of such substances, also the mother had her work experiences in anesthetics from earlier in her medical career , and fiona payne who has been near the twins when their sister was found missing and also later that night both the twins stayed in the payne family unit 5h, fiona had been working in anesthetics at that time. she noticed the sleeping twins herself, and the behavior of the mother.

as both the twins the next morning have been taken to their usual creche time, and there are nowhere comments over after effects of being under the influence of any kind or form of substance, it would very hard to think that must have been the case.

both the mother and fiona had no obvious smell notices, and both must be experts in the well known smells most inhalation sedative substances do leave behind. they been multiple times around them in the bedroom and after that, and around when their personal belongings been taken out.

it means that the use of ether, chloroform or the more recent in the list car paint remover can hardly be a feasible option, also the police and forensic officers never have sniffed the well known smell of these substances.

the twins also lacked the redness of chemical irritation these 3 often and easily leave when used on a cloth to the mouth.

the problem with oral solutions is simply that they ask for time to start working. simply using a higher dose would not make them work quicker.

for madeleine it is even more difficult to say she must have been sedated too, because no one heard her cry or shriek, and i know now i have to be a bit careful, these words can be understood as a confession these days.
but can we really say that, it is still not known when madeleine left unit 5a for the last time.
i favour at the moment the theory all happened on the evening of thursday may 3, 2007, but it cannot be proven that this did happen through that.
there is the story of a crying child on may 1, 2007 late on that evening heard by the upstairs neighbour. there is also a story through the parents and retold by some of the tapas 7 too, of crying on the evening of may 2, 2007.

and as long as their is simply no proven last moment alive, it is also hard to take that she did not made a sound on the moment she left unit 5a. or that she even still was able to make a sound when she did that.

sedation of only the twins is pretty weak too, there is not much logic in sedating them, just to keep them in their beds, most 2 year olds do simply stay in that kind of cot, they been the well known folding cots used all over the world, made to keep young children in. there is also nothing in any statement that tells about such a risk with these specific 2 children.
they reached their second birthday in february that same year, an age that makes it very hard to tell anything coherent about what happened when.
any crying heard by others would not be seen as special, children of that ages are coming with the title of the terrible 2’s and there were even two of them. they do not need a good reason to cry out. they have no real understanding in the meaning of time at that age.

as witnesses they could not be heard to tell about insider or outsider,  or a sister walking out on her own.

in itself it is not unknown to give young children substances to keep them silent and asleep, the most simple way i heard was some teaspoons of strong liquor mixed with plain sugar. even in babies of a few months of age. it is even from all times. i have seen it done when i was an age of 6 years. i had no clue what they gave, but because of this case i asked around what they give, well the result was that the older ladies i asked made me understand that they all had their own recipe for it. no one was in any way ashamed of telling about it. some said take sherry, any fruity liquor would do.
going by my own experiences with all the younger children during family events, it can not be that great, or it just did not work for all.
but it is a substance that is easyy to obtain for all. and the parents did not abstinent of alcoholic beverages, so it was at least an option to make use of.

calpol is the most named drug that could be said used, well calpol itself would not do much, it simply has no sedative substance at all, it is just a common painkiller with the substance name paracetamol in europe, and sold over the counter as the best and safest option when a pain killer is needed and their are all kind of forms to use it, and for all ages, the mccanns made no secret they had taken calpol, or at least a kind of paracetamol with them, in forms for adults and children.

calpol in the uk has become also the household name for all over the counter painkillers, just like aspirin had before that. take a calpol, means nothing more than take a painkiller.

it is hard to die in short time through overdosing it, not even a good choice, it can take multiple days to even some weeks to die from it. and it is a very bad trip, so do not use it in that way!  the children dose is age(weight) dependent, so even if a mistake was made and both parents would have given a standard childrens dose, it would not get into an amount to die from too.

it is unclear if calpol night. that was a combination of paracetamol and a antihistamine that can be handy when a child can not sleep because of having pain or fever.
it is quite often abused to get younger children getting to sleep.
it is called abuse, because it is off label use without a medical subscription by lay people.

the trouble with antihistamines is, that the older formulations indeed can make you sleepy, they are often even by medics used off label for short term sleeping problems. but this is very dependent on the patient that takes them, and can be very different for each kind.
so it is not a given that they work, and using them on a regular schedule does wane off that feeling sleepy. it is a group of substances that is well researched, and in 2007 in europe their have been very little of the older ones that are known to ‘can make you sleepy’ still over the counter available. they are not easy to give risk from overdoses. it would not make you happy, but to die from it is not very plausible.
there are known risks, but with a father working cardiology and user of antihistamines of the old formulation for his hay fever, the risk when having a very specific heart condition and the use of specific formulations, that would be hard to get, as a regular used method to get their time of in parenting.
they also do not work in the same effect as true sleeping pills formulation do.

but it is not possible to find the original dates in between calpol night was available in the uk in the over the counter version, they been taken from the market later on, but advertisements that are still online speak of a launch campaign in septemer 2007 for the uk market for the sales of calpol night.

by that calpol night in that unique version is very unlikely to have been used in may 2007.
there been many others of the same formulation under different brand names. so use can not be excluded for those.

to be continued……….

the problem with almost all substances in oral formulations to make people, including children, sleepy is that they need time to be taken up in the body in enough of the working substance to reach that feeling sleepy or a sleep state. most do simply have not a knock off effect at all.
overdosing by just two parents who both give a dose, not knowing they already had one, is even with these very unlikely to die from it.

the parents had enough time to dose the children, it even could be put through some evening milk they had just before bedtime.

the complete episode of the sleeping twins, and so many medical doctors around, and not one of them thought it could be wise to bring the twins to a hospital to do some checks, just to be sure is unthinkable.

the twins have been carried to unit 5h, and not laid down to sleep in cots or other bedding but kept in the arms of adults. so at least they been able to keep a minimum of check in place, still even a medical specialist for their age, had not the accommodation, material and options if one or both had taken a turn to a worse condition if unknown substances were in their bodies. knowing how to handle is very different from being able to handle a situation.
unit 5h had simply no facility or tools to handle an emergency. and no hospital nearby to.

so from that behaviour you could easily start into thinking if substances been used on the twins, they knew the kind, the dose and the risks. even fiona who observed and told from that how kate was around the twins, there was not something anyone was worried about enough to seek help for the twins.

there is been also a lot of discussion why the police had not tested the twins. and again this is one of the things, the police only could ask politely, there were no signs of what had happened and not even something that said crime.

also the twins are not automatically victims of the same hands who could have been the offender in a crime against their sister.
so by that it means you need upfront permission from the parents, that are the legal guardians of the twins.
but there is hardly much that could tell the police there was a worrisome situation around the twins, certainly not the first period of time.

suspicions on both side, from the parents or the police only came later on.

and simply test them is easy to say, for a lot of substances you can indeed test, but only in blood. in urine is less possible, and testing hairs can usually only after some weeks gone by, still it could only be done with upfront permission of the parents.

still testing for substances is still difficult, there are no testing methods around that test all in once. and many substances can often not even have a test with references to guide use or no use at all, most can be tested for in very specific settings, as is done in research settings, but not by an available standardized test at all.

much later the family decided to test on their own accord, only there is never shown results. and it is by that unknown where the testing was done, what test been uses, or what exactly was tested for, most substances not even have commercial tests in the market.
and you can only state we tested for substance x, y and z, and the results said not found, or within the reference. but that tells nothing about substance a, b, and the rest.

it is not as simple as cut some hairs guided by the instructions send them to a institution that can do a test and say just tell all.

so from not published test results telling see nothing to see here, is not a good way to exclude yourself and others as being a user of abuser of substances at all.
and in this it counts that kate mccann is a medical doctor, and by that she must have basic knowledge, that testing biological stuff only says something about what it was tested on.
she is not just an average jo public. her studies and profession work with the same principles in testing and looking at the results.
all she did look at my big too, see i am bald as a bowling ball. and that is just rubbish.

so besides odd , or better some unexpected reactions from the group around the twins, there is nothing that can really tell sedatives are used or by how. it is easier to tell what can almost impossibly been used, but that is not the same as prove it.

and if we look at the results the first investigation put out in the interim report, they found indications of what could happened in this case. they came with an accidental death in unit 5a, the body concealed, and a scene of abduction staged.

if we go from an accidental death, and take in that the dog alerts, even when the dna results never been fully fitted, and yes, there was a sample in unit 5a, that in the first communication was noticed as complying to the dna as known from the samples they used as most likely that of madeleine, and that deserves a story on its own merits.

and we look at the situation where that sample was found, that was behind the blue sofa under the window in the east wall of unit 5a, that part of 5a has all you need to fit with an accident by the own actions of a child of that age, that is not saying the victim has to take the blame, based on age that is not even possible, but there is a piece of furniture, there is even a windowsill of a hard material and a hard tiled floor under it.
her body height is given as 90 cm. the back of that sofa would make that when she stood on it double her size, it is very rare to die from a fall of that height and die from it, but not so rare it can be excluded as a possibility. hitting the windowsill with the energy of a falling body would make it even a stronger possibility. and the dog alerts do agree with a place the body could have ended up.

is this proof no, but it is a situation that cannot be excluded lightly. and it would be an accepted situation to be called a true accidental event that was fatal.
and that is what accidents usually have all in common, just too many factors that in itself hardly end badly, but together can and often simply do.

there is no need in such an event to be under the influence of a sedative, nor could you prevent it always. even when you are almost standing or sitting near the child, your mind needs 2 seconds, and in most accidents the outcome is already too far in progress to prevent anything in that.

in stories of children that are already grown in using to stand, walk and climb on their own, usually all above baby ages, and certainly the group under 5 years old, when a victim is presented as a victim of a accidental fall in a home and seriously wounded, it is obligate to look into possible crimes. many fatalities in the home, with a criminal element in it, are presented as the result of an accidental fall.

the scene in unit 5a, based on that sofa, and the location of the dog alerts, and they do need their own post, does not look as a staged setting.

it is not prove of what happened, the blood spatter is overrated and even on only basic experience of looking to working experts in that matter, i would say, do not try that work at home, it is very delicate and difficult stuff and all but easy to interpret from the quality of copied pictures as in the pj files available.
but it has enough to qualify as the scene, and by that it is not even a crime scene in itself, of a true fatal accident.
that does not state that is what happened, but it is a possibility that belongs on the list with all others. this investigation is never finalized. there is no consensus reached even on what happened , if something happened inside unit 5a. not even when it happened , nor all around it.

the consensus in the first portuguese investigation startet not with a crime with a body from being alive to end up dead of a child inside 5a. accident tells no direct actions of others to let that come together as an event.
the criminal events in that consensus start after that event, and was hiding a body, and staging a crime scene of abduction. only these two are crimes.

there is of course a complication in this case, leaving such young children without the overview of a responsible adult could be used in some countries into a culpable homicide case, dead by guilt. in portugal they have not only to leaving children of such ages without the overview of a responsible adult, they have to other element in their articles of law about this, the first is with intent, and that part could a prosecution get easily in to it, but the third element is the child must have come to harm as a result. and with a missing body alive or dead, that is not something that can be proven lightly.

there is nothing that does tell sedation has to be part in this case at all, it could make culpability easier to the culprits, but there is no need for it. true accidents from a fall do happen, and do not ask for sedation as a part of it.
i think things like the sedation discussion takeaway the attention of more important parts.

I've never been convinced by the sedation angle, to me it's nothing but an idea circulated by the group and/or the press and media to add spice to the trail.  Just the same as the paedophile suggestion introduced at the very beginning.

If the parents sedated their children to induce sleep whilst they were out it's unlikely they would use an aggressive substance, more probably a mild sedative.  After all, they don't want to see their children comatose surely?    

Looking at it logically, it's not unheard of for children to get their hands on medication laying about the house, every parents nightmare.  It would be far simpler to make accidental ingestion, even if fatal, the explanation rather than an elaborate cover-up death, dispose of a body and lie to the world from thence forward.  Hands-up, we were irresponsible, it was a tragic accident, a mistake;  I doubt either one of the parents would have been forever ruined professionally.

Had they sedated their children, why would they put so much emphasis on the subject matter?  Wouldn't it be more sensible to divert attention rather than draw attention?

That aside, too many conflicting variations on a theme for my liking, mostly by way of the press and media.  I don't have much time for either.

Plus this issue of course adds more damage to the Portuguese investigation, from the beginning to this day the British press and media have cast shadows of doubt over the competence of the Portuguese police, almost as thought they're looking for someone else to blame.  The investigators witnessed the crime scene and knew first hand what was said by the key witnesses, even if only by way of officer notes.  That's to say they know better than the outside observer who can only be guided by available official information in the public domain (there is a lot missing) without access to informal interviews.

There is of course a possibility that a drug was administered for other reasons but that is pure speculation in the absence of any supporting evidence.  It would however explain much of the behaviour after the event, like the need for 'the perfect crime', for a missing person to disappear without trace for eternity.  So far that seems to be the case.  I'm not prepared to try and build castles on shifting sands, everything must be supported by evidence or sound hypothesis.

In my view the sedation theory is just that, theory.  The proverbial needle in a haystack!

indeed, it is not an element that is needed when you look into a starting point from an accident in a home.
other cases of fatal falls in children without sedatives as an extra are plenty available, so it is not needed to play an important role in it all.

there is no more possible to keep a scene as it was, by 3d video, but before even with 1000 pictures it is always hard to understand a scene completely by just that. so the first responders will even when that is used still the most important source of information, it is always more than the eye can take on, or a picture can show.

and because we miss all the informal gathered information, we can miss out a lot. facts even because they had already been known and accepted, so that means there is no need to ask witnesses about it. and the result is we can not use that same information when looking into this case to understand it. if the information is simply not made public, we can not chose to give it
a specific meaning by choice. it just will to be marked with a question mark to it.
thinking, or from my way of thinking believing something that is not there still must exist does not make it a reality or true.
and i am okay when you use it in still open theoretical line of thinking, even when it reaches full ahead in speculation, but you must always be aware that you have to turn around and look where the case is gone. that is the risk of loose thinking without keeping track of the facts and circumstances, you end up in full fantasy mode.

and something as sedation becomes only important when crimes related to neglect of the duty of care comes in.
and that would only be of use to to find a criminal element in the resulting accident. something that only could work, when a body was found early enough. the accident itself is not a crime in the consensus of the first portuguese investigation.

i can understand why it was given a lot of attention, not because it was important in itself. but it gave a surge of difficult questions directly asked from the parents, and people that you suspect are hiding large parts of their story, it does often work to irritate them and start talking and people can forget to hide it doing that.
so as a bit of cat and mouse play it could work.

and 17 years on in this case, the chances to prove sedation had a role is almost nil.
and in the older stuff there is nothing that can answer a yes, or no. there is simply nothing that can be used to say,;so the maybe they used it, it never was presented as a; yes, they done that, will just be standing against; no, we did not.
and both can not prove their words too.