Kate McCann breaks down in tears in a dramatic television documentary as she speaks of her regret over the disappearance of daughter Madeleine.

Mrs McCann reveals how she and her husband Gerry instigated a regime to check on their children - three-year-old Madeleine and two-year-old twins Sean and Amelie - every half hour.

However Madeleine vanished while her parents were dining at a nearby tapas bar.

 

According to a television insider, Mrs McCann, 40, is understood to say: "We wanted to use a baby-listening service but there wasn't one at the Ocean Club."

The source close to the documentary makers added: "She is very emotional. She breaks down on camera at different points during the filming.

"It clearly shows her as a caring mother who misses her daughter very much. This is a woman grieving and is clearly more emotional than she has ever been."

The source added : "The McCanns said they would have used a listening service but they also felt their checks every 30 minutes were as effective."

A spokesman for Mark Warner said today that the McCanns had known there was no baby-listening service at the resort when they booked their holiday.

They were informed that the Ocean Club - unlike its other resorts - did not offer the service because accommodation is too spread out across the village of Praia da Luz. But the spokesman pointed out that there was a dropin creche available for parents in the evening.

The McCanns chose not to use the service but to make checks themselves on their children in their apartment.

The Mark Warner spokesman suggested that any criticism of the company over the lack of a listening service was incorrect.

The spokesman said it had been contacted by the film-makers over the claim there was no listening service.

Today, the couple's spokesman Clarence Mitchell denied Mrs McCann had criticised the holiday company.

He said: "I wish to make it clear that Kate McCann does not attack Mark Warner for the absence of a baby listening service at the Ocean Club in the forthcoming ITV documentary.

"For the record, she makes a brief factual reference to the absence of such a service in passing.

"In no way does she criticise Mark Warner or any of the company's services."

Mr and Mrs McCann, both doctors from Rothley in Leicestershire, are convinced their daughter was abducted, although Portuguese detectives have made them official suspects in the investigation.

The two-hour fly-on-the-wall documentary is to be screened on ITV next Wednesday at 8pm, days before the first anniversary of Madeleine's disappearance on 3 May last year.

An ITV film crew followed the McCanns for almost two months as they campaigned for a Europewide alert system which would be put into practice when a child goes missing.

It also shows them travelling to the US, where they meet Ed Smart, whose daughter Elizabeth, 14, was kidnapped in 2002 from her bedroom in Salt Lake City and found nine months later.

Mr Smart tells the couple not to give up the search. The source said: "The film shows a family going through an awful ordeal, trying to find their daughter and doing their best to get her back."

Emma Loach, director of the documentary and daughter of film-maker Ken Loach, is understood to be convinced of the couple's innocence.

We would like to make it clear that Kate McCann has not criticised Mark Warner in a forthcoming documentary to be broadcast on the disappearance of her daughter Madeleine. We would like to apologise to Mark Warner for any confusion caused.

• The former chief investigator Goncalo Amaral is to quit the Portuguese police. Mr Amaral, 48, will retire less than a year after being removed from the McCann case. Amaral was moved off the Madeleine inquiry after criticising British police officers for being too close to the McCanns.