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TEARFUL Kate McCann branded Portuguese police “inhumane”
yesterday for continuing to block the search for her missing daughter
Madeleine.
Her voice cracked with emotion as she poured out her anger and
frustration alongside husband Gerry.
Kate, 41, said: “We’ve worked incredibly hard, day in day out, over
the last two years. It’s just hard when somebody is doing their utmost
to stop your efforts, to stop the search. To me it’s inhumane.”
And she said of the Portuguese attitude to finding Maddie — who
would now be six: “There is a little girl still missing. You can’t just
write her off and say, ‘Well, we’ve tried and that’s just too bad’.
That’s not good enough.”
Gerry, also 41, said he and Kate were horrified to find that
hundreds of new leads and reported sightings of Maddie had been passed
to Portuguese police but were never followed up.
He said angrily: “We’re gutted. It’s absolutely shocking. If you
don’t investigate information, you won’t solve it.”
Heartbreaking
The couple, of Rothley, Leics, were speaking in London following
ex-police chief Goncalo Amaral’s failure to lift a ban on his book
Maddie: The Truth of the Lie. In it, he claims Maddie is dead and her
parents faked her abduction.
During the court case in Lisbon, it was revealed police put
hundreds of pieces of new information about Maddie, who vanished from a
holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal, on May 3, 2007, into a file
stamped “Not relevant”.
Kate said: “The information handed in was very credible. It’s
heartbreaking.”
She claimed that the way information was dealt with depended on who
it was passed to. And she added: “Amaral has his supporters still in the
force.”
Baffled Portuguese police closed the case in July 2008.
Gerry, a cardiac specialist, went on: “We know there is a lot of
information just filed away — and that is not acceptable. Once the file
has been closed, what has actually been done? Next to nothing.
“This is probably the highest profile missing child case in Europe,
so goodness knows what happens in other cases.
“There is not even a single database of information which could be
reviewed.
“You would hope the parents of a missing child wouldn’t have to be
here begging for assistance.”
The couple called yesterday for a complete review of the case by a
joint team of British and Portuguese police.
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Gerry said: “It is an international case and it always has been. We
have to put Madeleine first, there has to be dialogue, we have to get
them working together.”
A source close to the couple revealed they have had several
meetings with Home Secretary Alan Johnson and other officials to discuss
a case review.
Gerry said: “A large portion of Portuguese police believe Madeleine
is dead.”
But he appealed for fresh information, saying: “People around Praia
da Luz are the most likely to have noticed something suspicious.”
a.lazzeri@the-sun.co.uk |
