Anger over Madeleine leak
Madeleine McCann asked her mother just hours before her disappearance: “Why didn’t you come when we were crying last night?”, it has emerged.
The three-year-old’s stark question was revealed amid leaked passages from police interviews given by Kate and Gerry McCann directly after their daughter’s disappearance in Praia da Luz, Portugal last May.
The couple, who were in Brussels yesterday to launch a bid for a Europe-wide missing child alert system, were angered by the timing of the leak and were convinced it was a “blatant” attempt to smear them.
They called for the Portuguese Justice Ministry to launch an internal investigation into the revelations which would be a serious breach of the country’s strict judicial secrecy laws.
Madeleine disappeared on May 3 last year, just days before her fourth birthday, from the McCanns’ holiday apartment.
In her first interview with Portuguese detectives, Mrs McCann spoke about a conversation she had with Madeleine just that morning.
“While we were having breakfast, Madeleine said: ’Mum, why didn’t you come when we were crying last night?’,” she told police.
She added: “Gerry and I talked about it for several minutes and decided to watch over the children more carefully at night.”
Friends of the McCanns said the couple had been “puzzled” by Madeleine’s remark as she had not apparently been crying when they called in for regular 20-minute checks from the restaurant across the pool where they dined each night during their holiday.
They said that one of the McCanns’ friends, Rachael Oldfield, had been in the adjoining flat – on the other side of Madeleine’s wall – all evening and heard no crying.
The couple also insist Madeleine was not speaking angrily and they did not take it as a reproach. Her reference to “we” is understood to have referred to Madeleine and her younger brother Sean.
Friends said they now believe the comment could even be a clue that an intruder was in the flat on the night of May 2 and briefly disturbed Madeleine and Sean before fleeing.
The McCanns’ spokesman Clarence Mitchell said: “Kate and Gerry have been utterly honest and utterly open with the police and all of their statements from the moment that Madeleine was taken.
“The very fact that the comment from Madeleine is now in the public domain is entirely because they themselves told the police about it at the time.
“It is more than curious that this comment, taken in isolation and out of context, that has been in the police file for some 11 months, should now emerge on the very day that they are in Brussels trying to improve children’s welfare and child safety.”
The Policia Judiciaria interviews were leaked through journalist Nacho Abad, of Spanish television programme Ana Rosa Quintana.
Mr Abad said he believed the interview transcripts confirmed the McCanns’ innocence, adding: “It is their opportunity to tell the real truth, I hope it’s good for them.”
The excerpts reveal that two days before Madeleine’s disappearance two workers repaired the Persian blinds of the room where the children slept.
In his statement about the night his daughter went missing, Mr McCann told police: “We did not check the security of the window assuming that everything was fine.”
Mrs McCann described the moment she realised Madeleine had disappeared.
She told police: “I looked through the whole flat, I returned to the children’s room and at that moment I saw the curtains move towards me, letting me see that the Persian blind was open at the top.
“I went towards the window and opened the curtains to see if she had climbed up there, but I could see no trace of her. I don’t know if I closed the window at that moment or not.
“In shock, I ran to the Tapas Bar and yelled to Gerry: ’Maddie isn’t there, someone has taken her’.”
Mr McCann is quoted as telling the police: “I thought it could not be and ran to the apartment by the same route as usual.
“I looked everywhere, I returned to the children’s room and started to think about what could have happened.
“To my surprise, I realised that I could lift up the Persian blind without effort and almost without any noise.”
The McCanns were in Brussels to meet Euro-MPs and to urge support for a Europe-wide missing child alert network to spread information on abductions via television and radio and on motorway electronic signs.
Under the US “Amber Alert” scheme nearly 400 children have been recovered since 2003 – 80% in the crucial first 72 hours.
Mrs McCann said she had not given up hope of finding Madeleine alive: “There is a very good chance that Madeleine is still out there. There have been many cases of children being recovered after a long period of time.
“None of us know what’s happened to Madeleine – apart from the person who took her. And we have absolutely no evidence whatsoever that Madeleine has come to any harm.”
Asked if he thought the alert would have applied to Madeleine, who was not immediately considered by Portuguese police to have been abducted, Mr McCann replied: “We have clearly stated that the alert should be used for the most dangerous cases and there is no doubt that a very young child missing late at night from an apartment, particularly in a foreign country, would meet the criteria.”
The McCanns said they have not decided whether to return to Portugal to take part in a reconstruction of the night Madeleine disappeared – and described their plans for marking the first anniversary of her abduction on May 3 as “a private matter”.
