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One year on ... Kate McCann talks to
The Sun |
MISSING Madeleine McCann’s
mum told yesterday how the astonishing rescue of
Austrian dungeon girl Elisabeth Fritzl has given
her fresh hope that her daughter is still alive.
Kate, 40, said that hearing how Elisabeth was
saved after 24 years imprisonment renewed her
belief that little Maddie may also be held
captive somewhere.
Speaking ahead of tomorrow’s first anniversary
of the night her blonde girl disappeared, Kate
told The Sun: “It proves that people can go off
the radar, doesn’t it? But they are still there
– and you owe it to that person to keep looking.
It gives you hope. It’s horrible to think of the
length of time, but Elisabeth being found gives
you hope.
“It could be today, it could be tomorrow, it
could be next week. You just have to
hold on to
that hope.”
GP Kate, 40, firmly believes Maddie, who
vanished days before her fourth birthday while
on holiday in
Portugal last May, is still alive.
She said: “It’s a sense, really. Madeleine just
feels very close.
“It’s more of a kind of sensation that she’s
there. You try to be objective and think, ‘Is
that just because I’m her mum and I want to
believe it?’ But it hasn’t changed.”
Kate, of Rothley, Leics, said she often “sees”
Maddie in her head.
She said: “I don’t really picture her as she’d
be now – I picture her as we remember her. And
that’s being happy, because that was Madeleine.
I don’t actually think she could have been
happier.
“It’s memories, really. Seeing her there, seeing
her in the garden. She can’t find us, we have to
find her.”
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Hoping ...
Gerry and Kate McCann speak about
Maddie yesterday |
Ordeal
But Kate knows that, even if she
IS found, Maddie’s ordeal may have had a terrible
effect on the tot.
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Interview ...
couple discuss heartache on Sky TV |
Her voice trailing off, she said: “I’ve talked
of this sense that she’s there and I’m going to
see her again – but I guess the hardest thing is
knowing that if we do find her she’ll be there,
but . . . ”
Speaking as she and husband Gerry launched their
own appeal to find Maddie, Kate told how a visit
to the American Centre for Missing and Exploited
Children also sparked new optimism.
She said: “I came out of there thinking, ‘She is
out there’. This isn’t just my parental longing
for Madeleine. This is experts saying we have X,
Y and Z cases.”
Heart specialist Gerry, 39, said: “Ernie Allen,
the head of the American Centre, said to us
there is a really good chance Madeleine is out
there. And that is 25 years’ experience of
someone involved in missing and abducted
children.”
He added: “Data from
America shows that, of the children
abducted every year, 40 to 50 per cent are
killed. That means the majority are not killed.
“The evidence from the
States again is that, the younger the child, the
less likely it is that they will be seriously
harmed or killed. And Madeleine is at the right
lower age limit.
"We’re not saying it’s impossible and we’ve
never said that. And you do start to wonder how
many children who are never found, and are
assumed to be dead, are actually being brought
up somewhere else.
“It’s frightening to think
of Natascha Kampusch and Shawn Hornbeck – eight
years and 4½ years.”
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New appeal ... latest Maddie poster |
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Undaunted ... tourists at McCann hol
flat yesterday |
Natascha was found eight years after she had
been abducted by a paedophile in Austria, and
Shawn nearly five years after he was taken by a
sex fiend in
America.
And it was revealed at the
weekend how Elisabeth Fritzl was held captive
for more than two decades by her father in a
cellar beneath his house in
Amstetten,
Austria.
Holding hands tightly with Kate, Gerry said:
“The last thing we would ever want is for
Madeleine to become a statistic – a missing
child who, because of her young age, may grow up
in another environment and never be recovered.”
Maddie went missing from the family’s apartment
as Kate and Gerry shared a tapas bar meal with
friends at their holiday complex in Praia da
Luz,
Portugal.
The toll of the year which
has followed is most obvious in Kate, who looked
thin and frail yesterday during a round of
interviews to heighten awareness of their case.
But Gerry revealed that
the couple’s three-year-old twins Sean and
Amelie keep them going.
He said: “They talk about
Madeleine constantly. They include her in
everything. They ask about her.
“They essentially still
play with her – and that’s really heartening for
us a year down the line.
“If Madeleine walked in
tomorrow, they’d shout, ‘Madeleine’s home, lets
play!’ She’s still a huge part of their life and
ours.” Yet Gerry added: “We’ll face difficult
decisions down the line and we are not forcing
information on them.”
Kate said: “We don’t have to do anything to keep
Madeleine there – she’s just there. I sense her
and that’s hard because I just want to be closer
to her again.” |
