The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Mccanns voice kidnap fears
THE McCANNS fear their daughter Madeleine’s kidnapper may “strike again” and believe that he or she will have been “laughing” at claims they hid the girl’s body.
Gerry and Kate McCann spoke to reporters after delivering personal statements at Lisbon’s Palace of Justice in the libel case brought by them against Goncalo Amaral over claims he made in a book about their role in the disappearance of their daughter from the family’s holiday apartment in Praia da Luz in the Algarve in 2007.
Mr McCann said that whoever was involved must have been laughing during these last six years at what Mr Amaral has claimed — that there was no abduction and there is no predator out there.
“There is — he or she or they may strike again,” he said.
“There’s an unsolved serious crime and there’s a series of other crimes against children which have come to light who have been on holiday so at the very least these people need to be brought to justice.
“We don’t know if Madeleine is alive or dead but there is no evidence that she is dead and she is a missing child and she is completely innocent.”
The couple earlier told the court that there was no doubt that Mr Amaral’s claims had done “severe damage” to their struggle to find Madeleine.
Answering questions from judge Maria Emilia Castro during the hearing, Mrs McCann said that her young son Sean had asked her about the allegations that she was involved in her daughter Madeleine’s disappearance.
“Sean asked me in October ‘Mr Amaral said you hid Madeleine’. I just said that he said a lot of silly things,” she said.
Sean and his twin sister Amelie were aged two when Madeleine, who was nearly four, went missing.
Mrs McCann said that the couple make efforts to keep information about the abduction away from their children.
The couple both told the court that former detective Mr Amaral’s claims” enhanced” their “vilification” at the hands of those who questioned whether Madeleine had been abducted.
Mrs McCann, 46, said it had “added fuel to the fire” and those that questioned their integrity “may well have died out had it not been for that”.
Mr Amaral, who led the initial investigation into Madeleine’s disappearance, released his book The Truth Of The Lie three days after the case was closed in 2008.
He later took part in a documentary for Portuguese television.
At the end of her statement, Mrs McCann said that she wanted to add that she did believe in free speech.
However, she said: “I don’t think that freedom of speech is the same as the freedom to libel or slander.”