I was sorry when the first thread on this issue was deleted. I sincerely believe that some of the issues raised deserve informed debate: the treatment by the UK press has certainly been very biased and parents in other circumstances would have been villified by the same journalists who pilloried the Portugese police and published very condemning details about the first suspect likening him to the convicted child murderer Ian Huntley.
The reporting still leaves much to be desired, the "family friend" Clarence Mitchell
much quoted is, as has been noted, a professional journalist well skilled in the art of "spin" who is in fact employed to "assist" the family and had no previous knowledge of them.
I hope that when the parents return to the UK, as now that they are "suspects" too they have said they wish to do, that the two younger children will be offered protection under the laws of this country.

I feel that I have as much "right" to comment on an obvious case of neglect as others have to express their views and would take the opportunity to second the sentiment expressed earlier that our sympathy should be for the child victim in such situations.