Earlier on today, I posted about a child kidnap that was supposed to have occurred in Tenerife a day or so ago. At the time I felt sick to my stomach that a young child was in grave danger and I rushed to publish in the hope that, as the message says below, it would help get the news out and may save the girl from being taken off the island.
Now, thanks to the intervention of Parque and DJandDeid of Tenerife Forum, I know that the information I received was false and I am just sick to the stomach that someone would think that anything of this nature was good subject matter for a hoax.
Why would anyone think this was funny? They even went to the lengths of including the picture of a littl girl, which I have since removed from the post. I am sure I am not alone in publishing this information and feeling rather stupid right now… but what about the next time? This stupid joke will make it much harder to get the message out when a child really is taken or goes missing
I was very silly to publish the information without checking its veracity and I apologise wholeheartedly to anyone that was unintentionally mislead and upset.
Original post:
A three year old child was kidnapped from the Taimaimo area one day ago. Elise was apparently taken by two men and a woman who were in a beige or brown SEAT Panda. Please do what you can to get the picture out there. Please God, let this not be another Maddie or Yerami.
Alerta por el secuestro ayer de esta niña de 3 años y medio , Elise, en Tamaimo, Sur de Tenerife. Sus secuestradores, dos hombres y una mujer, viajan en un Seat Panda TF-7633-V (color beige o marrón).
En previsión de que puedan pasar a la península con ella, haz circular este este mensaje con la foto. Gracias…
A new BBC1 television programme is underway and it is about the scams, cons and problems experienced by tourists abroad. They want to know if you’ve been had.
Examples of scams are:
- bags/luggage stolen
- tricked into boat trips
- taken advantage of in Taxis
- locals posing as a uniformed officials.
If you experienced any of these or any other situations that conned you out of money or put you in a tricky spot then then Auntie Beeb wants to know.
Post a comment below or if you prefer to be contacted privately then send me an email and I will pass it on.
When the news broke on Friday of the death a three year old neighbourhood girl, supposedly from child abuse inflicted by her step-father, I was as quick as the next person to believe in his guilt. Like the other mothers standing around, I wondered how this atrocity could happen in our community, to a child that went to the same school as my own, and yet we noticed nothing wrong?
I didn’t stop to consider what evidence had been gathered against 25 year old, Diego Pastrana Vieco, I only knew that the safest place for him to be on Friday was in the hands of the police because there is nothing more vindictive than a mob of mothers looking for blood revenge.
As it happens, the poor man not only had to suffer the pain of the death of a loved one, he also had to defend himself against the most despicable charges that it is possible to bring. The child Aitana’s mother and natural father stood up for Diego Vieco and said he had never harmed her in any way. At a time when the shock and pain of losing their daughter had not even sunk in, they were at the police station fighting on Diego’s behalf.
How did this horrible story happen? Aitana fell from a swing and banged her head. She was taken to the children’s clinic in El Fraile but was not sent for an x-ray from there. A few days later she went into cardiac arrest and Diego took her into El Mahon where they treated her and found marks which they thought to be suspicious, possible indicating child abuse and sexual assault.
Aitana died in the early hours of Friday morning and forensic examination confirmed the report by Canadalaria that there had been no sexual assault and no child abuse. Burn marks on her back were likely caused by an allergic reaction to cream and any bruises and scratches likely attributed to the fall that killed her.
Diego Pasterna Vieco’s lawyer has indicated that there may be legal action taken. There is no doubt that the system failed somewhere and what happened to Diego Vieco is something you would not wish upon your worst enemy – but I wonder if the doctors at Mahon are totally to blame.
In cases where a doctor finds marks on a child that may be suspicious he surely has a duty to bring the matter up with the relevant authorities. God knows, we would fall upon them and rip their reputations to tatters if they were to fail in this duty and a child that had passed through their hands were to die of abuse shortly thereafter.
But kids attract scratches, cut and bruises like honey attracts bees. I imagine there must be many more suspicious marks on kids than there are actual cases of child abuse. Surely, there must be regulations in place to protect the anonymity of families or individuals who are under investigation at least until such times as charges are to be brought?
That’s where the system failed this young man and the family of Aitana. Instead of the community pulling together to support a family in its bereavement, it turned instead into an angry mob fuelled by ugly whispers that blew like wildfire through the school, passed from child to child, child to parent, parent to parent.
As one of the parents that stood there in shock last Friday, I have learned a lesson that I will never forget. No matter how vicious the rumour, or ugly the accusation, it is important to hold tight to the maxim of ‘innocent until proven guilty’.
The death of a three year old girl in the Costa Del Silencio, of suspected child abuse, has left the community in shock. Admitted to Mahon on Wednesday in cardiac arrest, the child’s body was found to have marks of a suspicious nature and the police were called in.
The 25 year old boyfriend of the child’s mother is being detained and questioned by police. He denies any wrong-doing, claiming that burns on the child’s body were due to overheated bath water and the bruises because she fell down so much.
Aitana died in the early hours of Friday morning. Her school held a minute’s silence for her on Friday, as did several government offices.
So there we were, obviously a shifty looking crew, me, two kids, a grandmother and a big daft dog with a halter-type face mask on. We were plodding along the street at snail’s pace, the dog, huge as he is was neither pulling nor showing any interest in anything other than his ‘weans’ as he likes to keep an eye on them when they are gadding about.
On the other side of the street, a wee hairy mop of a dog was yapping its head off and slinging bribes in our direction, but Tito, to his credit, didn’t blink an eye at it.
That didn’t stop a police car from coming to a stop a couple of feet ahead of us and the coppers inside it, giving me a stern talking to about the fact the dog didn’t have a muzzle on. Actually the face mask he was wearing gives me more control than a muzzle would and also effectively pulls his mouth shut if there were to be any trouble. The pc on the other side of the car got our and bobbed about shouting that this was a dangerous dog. “No, he’s not!” my mother scoffed while Tito threw himself to the ground with a huge sigh of boredom.
Only a couple of days before an elderly lady had been mugged in the area by three local boys on a scooter. One got her round the neck, while a second grabbed her bag. In total they got away with about €150 in booty but they left the woman feeling very shaky and upset. Worst of all is that the locals say even the police know who the wee thugs are but can’t touch them because they are under 16.
Meanwhile, Tito’s eyes had glazed over and he rolled on his side totally disgusted with this interruption to our pleasant family walk. We were finally let off the hook after being threatened with a steep fine and assorted dire penalties if the dog was not wearing a muzzle the next time they saw me with him.
Do you think it would have made a difference if I told the police that Tito was under 16?
A 47 year old foreigner was arrested at Reina Sofia last Thursday under suspicion of drug trafficking.
Entering Tenerife on a domestic flight, the man’s nervousness attracted the attention of the officers there who searched him and found two bags hidden about his person that after analysis were found to be full of cocaine with a gross weight of 1 kilo of narcotic.
Busted in Candelaria
In another drug related bust, a 28 year old had his collar felt in Candelaria after a period of surveillance led the police to suspect him of drug trafficking. After searching the individual’s home the officers recovered 12.5 grams of cocaine, two grams of hashish and two grams of marijuana and assorted drug-traficking paraphernalia.
Busted in Güimar
The Guardia Civil successfully brought to justice the nineteen year old high roller who kicked in the door of a local casino, forced open the till and made off with €70 in change. As a resident of the town in which he committed his dastardly act, the youth was quickly aprehended after he was identified by witnesses.
You have to admit the Santa Cruz car thief who stole his neighbour’s Ford Fiesta, swapped the license plate and then parked it in full view of the neighbour’s house had some set of huevos. The thief in a feeble nod at the victim’s ability to recognise his own car did at least make some minor alterations like installing a tinted rear view mirror but not enough to foil P.C. Plod and Co. who identified the missing car via the chassis number.
As reported in Typically Spanish.
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