I do rather wish Hogan-Howe's apology to the girls' truculent family hadn't been quite so grovelling. While accepting, with the benefit of hindsight, that it would probably have been smarter to have sent the letter to the parents by post rather than via the girls themselves, he and the police were in no way responsible for the girls' disappearance. It had obviously been planned for some time and their family should have been aware of what their daughters were doing, particularly as one of their schoolmates had done exactly the same thing a few months ago. Did the families never speak to their daughters? Did they never make contact with the school? After Hogan-Howe's acceptance of the burden of responsibility, I wouldn't be at all surprised if the families' lawyers, ever ready to blame everybody else, will be demanding compensation in the not too distant future. |