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Original Source:
TELEGRAPH: 06 MAY 2010 |
By
agencies, Fiona Govan and Andrew Alderson, Sunday Telegraph
06/05/2007 |
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The parents of Madeleine McCann, the British toddler abducted while on holiday
in Portugal, have attended a church service to pray for her safe return.
Kate and Gerry McCann were joined by family members from the UK at a
Portuguese mass in the resort of Praia da Luz three days after the youngster
disappeared.
At least 150 worshippers packed the small 16th century church for Sunday mass.
During the service priest, Father Jose Manuel Pacheco told the family that the
entire community was with them.
"We are here like all Sundays and today we have a very big intention, we
want to be with this family, the family of Madeleine," he said. "We
are with the family, the parish, since the first moment of the event."
After the service, Mrs Mcann said: "I would like to offer my sincere
gratitude to everybody, particularly the local community here who have offered
so much support.
"I couldn't have asked for more. I just want to say thank you. Please
continue to pray for Madeleine. She's lovely."
Gerry McCann added: "From today's service, the thing we're going to take
from this is strength and courage and hope, and we continue to hope for the
best possible outcome from this for us and for Madeleine."
Police searching for Madeleine fear she has been seized by a paedophile.
Officers have a prime suspect but were last night refusing to release any
details, including a sketch, for fear of endangering Madeleine's life.
They believe the girl, whose fourth birthday falls this week, is alive and may
be being held no more than three miles from where she was abducted. They fear
they are now in a race against time to find Madeleine, known as Maddy, before
she is murdered.
She vanished between 9pm and 10pm on Thursday night from her room at a holiday
complex in Praia da Luz, a fishing village on the Algarve, as she slept between her
twin brother and sister, aged two.
Their parents, Gerry, a consultant cardiologist, and Kate, a part-time GP, both
39, were eating with friends at a tapas bar a minute's walk away.
More than 150 people were involved yesterday in the hunt for Madeleine, as
tensions grew between the family, from Rothley in Leicestershire, and
Portuguese police over the way the investigation has been handled.
Speaking from Glasgow,
Philomena McCann, Madeleine's aunt, accused police of being uncommunicative and
said: "My brother is at his wits' end. They have just played [the
disappearance] down from the minute he approached them."
She said that Madeleine "is the centre of her parents' universe, she is an
integral part of the family, a big sister. She is the Pied Piper, the little
princess, the focus of every day for the parents. I cannot understand why anyone
would do such a wicked thing to this family."
Senior officers have indicated privately that they suspect the motive for the
abduction is sexual. Portugal's
Judicial Police, the equivalent of Britain's CID, held a press
conference yesterday at which they denied being slow to react.
Guilhermino Encarnacao, the director of the Judicial Police in the Faro region,
said there were "many elements" which pointed to an abduction but he
refused to give even the sex of the suspect. He also declined to indicate
whether his men were looking for a named individual, or simply someone fitting
a description.
Mr Encarnacao said police believed Madeleine was still alive and that airports
in Portugal and neighbouring
Spain
had been alerted. Police had received more than 30 calls with possible new
lines of inquiry, all of which were being followed up.
Asked about claims that a British man had reported seeing a child with two
people, Mr Encarnacao said this was one of the many pieces of information being
investigated.
There was confusion yesterday over early reports that there had been a break-in
at the McCanns' two-bedroom, ground-floor apartment at Ocean Club, a resort run
by the Mark Warner travel company.
Trish Cameron, Mr McCann's sister, said on Friday that she received a telephone
call from her brother, who was "hysterical and crying his eyes out".
She said: "They had put the kids to bed at 7pm and checked on them every
half-hour as they had dinner nearby with the rest of the party. Gerry said the
window was open, the shutters broken and the door, which had been locked, was
hanging open."
But Robin Crossland, the administrator of the resort said he had been present
when the McCanns were first interviewed by police soon after Maddy vanished.
"They clearly said that they had left the French windows unlocked as they
were using them to access the apartment to check on the children throughout
their meal," he said
On Friday night, Mr McCann appealed to his daughter's abductor: "Please
let her come home to her mummy and daddy, her brother and sister."
Mark Warner operates a drop-in creche during the evening, but it is understood
the McCanns opted to leave their children - all conceived through IVF - in
their apartment so they would get a proper night's sleep, and then check on
them regularly throughout the evening.
Brian Kennedy, who is Maddy's great-uncle, and his wife, Janet, attended a
prayer meeting at Rothley
Parish Church,
close to the McCanns' home. "We fear the worst but we are hoping for the
best," he said.
Portuguese police have a mixed clear-up rate with missing person cases, while
sex crimes are on the increase. Currently, 75 people remain unaccounted for,
seven of whom went missing as children, according to the police website.
A two-year-old girl, Sofia Andrade de Oliveira, was snatched from home in Madeira three years ago and still has not been located. |
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