Have hope’

Mr McCann, originally from Glasgow, said: “I’m sure it is a very small minority of people who spend their time doing it, but it has totally inhibited what we do.

“Personally, we don’t use social media, although we have used it in Madeleine’s campaign. But for our twins who are growing up in an era where mobile technology is used all the time, we don’t want them not to be able to use it in the same way that their peers do.”

Mrs McCann described the actions of some people online as shocking

Goncalo Amaral. INVESTIGATORS hunting for Madeleine were so convinced they had found her that a plane had its engine running in preparation to collect the missing girl.

It is one of two heartbreaking near-misses in the first 12 months after her 2007 disappearance that her parents had to endure, their media spokesman has revealed.

Former journalist Clarence Mitchell, who has helped the family deal with the media throughout the last decade, told how a blonde, Englishspeaking girl was located in Morocco, with other details leading detectives to a near-certain assumption it was Maddie.

He said: “All the information coming back to us suggested heavily that it could be Madeleine, so much so that an aircraft was put on stand-by, with its engines running, waiting to fly to pick her up.

“Kate and Gerry sat tight. They had learned by that stage to be sceptical, not to give in to natural hope only for it to be dashed.

“They preferred to wait until the Moroccan authorities had checked it out. And when they did, it became clear she was not Madeleine.”

The other incident came a few months before, when Mr Mitchell continuously received phone calls at 3am revealing that Maddie was at a farm, which matched a very distinct description, but again turned out to be a false lead. but said she preferred to focus on the support many more people had offered.

Asked h ow t h e Mc Ca n n “family unit” had managed to stay strong during the hunt for Madeleine, she added: “What people do say is that you don’t realise how strong you are until you have no option. “And I think that’s very true. Obviously, massive events like this cause a lot of reaction, a lot of trauma and upset.

“But ultimately you have to keep going – and especially when you have got other ch i ld ren involved.

“Some of that is subconscious, I think – your mind and body just take over to a certain extent. But if you can’t change something immediately, you have to go with it and do the best that you can.”

Adding that she had tried to ensure her now 12- year- old twins had a normal, happy and fulfilling life, Mrs McCann, a former GP, said her return to work in another area of medicine had helped her re- establish as normal a life as possible.

“My hope for Madeleine being out there is no less than it was almost 10 years ago,” Mrs McCann said.

Lorraine Kelly on why we must keep up hope for the McCanns – see page 29.