Prayers for Maddie in her village church 10 years on
Madeleine McCann’s parents last night joined villagers, family and friends to pray for their daughter on the tenth anniversary of her disappearance.
Kate McCann, 49, and her 48-year-old Glasgow-born husband Gerry held hands as they arrived at the anglican church in their home village of Rothley in leicestershire to mark the milestone.
The service was held to remember missing children and inside St Mary and St John Church photos of Madeleine and others who have disappeared were displayed with messages attached to yellow ribbons.
One, written by lily, said: ‘i pray that Madeleine is found safe wherever she is. and that one day she will return.’ another read: ‘i pray Madeleine will come back one day.’
Madeleine’s family said a church service – remembering not just Madeleine but all missing loved-ones – was the most appropriate way to mark the occasion.
The service, led by the Rev Rob Gladstone, began with Cat Stevens’ rendition of Morning Has Broken and included tea lights being lit for missing children.
an assembly was held at Rothley School to pray for Madeleine and other missing children, with new ribbons tied to the Tree of Hope, which was planted in 2007.
and in Portugal balloons were released on a beach in Praia da luz at sunset yesterday and a service for all missing people, including Madeleine, was held at the Church of nossa Senhora da luz, near where she disappeared on May 3, 2007, aged three. in a BBC Panorama interview, Mrs McCann, who has two other children, described the anniversary as ‘a horrible marker of stolen time… because we should have been a family of five for all that time’.
events to mark the anniversary came as a former Scotland Yard detective said he had ruled himself out of leading the Metropolitan Police’s Madeleine inquiry because its focus was to avoid casting suspicion on her parents.
Colin Sutton, 56, told how a highranking Met officer warned him not to lead the case when the force announced its plans to investigate the disappearance of Madeleine, who vanished from her family’s holiday apartment. Mr Sutton, a former detective chief inspector, said the remit of the Met inquiry, begun in 2011, was too narrow and did not allow officers to re-examine every piece of evidence and witness statement.
The Met has spent around £12million on the inquiry, with 30 officers sifting through 40,000 documents and investigating more than 600 individuals. The McCanns came under suspicion during the original Portuguese inquiry but were cleared when the case was formally closed in 2008.
Scotland Yard scaled back its inquiry into Madeleine’s disappearance in 2015 – but it is still pursuing a ‘significant line of inquiry’, which it does not want to disclose for operational reasons.