We’ll do whatever it takes

McCANNS’ PLEDGE 10 YEARS AFTER MADELEINE VANISHED

Reporter THE parents of Madeleine McCann have vowed to do “whatever it takes for as long as it takes” to find her as they prepare to mark the tenth anniversary of her disappearance.

In a wide-ranging interview ahead of next week’s anniversary, Kate and Gerry McCann also said they intended to challenge a court ruling clearing a Portuguese former police officer of breaching libel laws.

Speaking to the BBC’s Fiona Bruce on Friday, the couple, from Rothley, Leicestershire, said they took heart from the “real Madeleine McCann progress” that had been made by the Metropolitan Police during the past five years.

Mrs McCann, who has described the impending anniversary of her daughter’s disappearance as a “horrible marker of time, stolen time”, said she was no less hopeful of finding Madeleine than she had been in 2007.

Scotland Yard said last week that officers are still pursuing “critical” leads to trace Madeleine, who was three when she vanished from a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz in Portugal on May 3, 2007.

Answering questions five days before Wednesday’s anniversary, Mrs McCann said of the active inquiry: “It might not be as quick as we want, but there’s real progress being made and I think we need to take heart from that. We just have to go with the process and follow it through – whatever it takes for as long as it takes. There is still hope that we can find Madeleine.”

Mr McCann, 48, acknowledged it was “devastating” not to have found Madeleine but said the most important thing was holding on to hope of tracing her.

Kate and Gerry McCann during their interview with the BBC’s Fiona Bruce