The astonishing claim came as a letter to Portuguese cop Paulo Rebelo was also released in the files, in which Kate begs for the police to join forces with her and Gerry in the hunt for Maddie.

On the night before Maddie disappeared Kate slipped off and slept in the children's room with Maddie, then three, and twins Sean and Amelie, then two.

The witness statement reads: 'When asked if she ever slept in Madeleine's room, she said that happened on Wednesday because she had fallen out with Gerry after he ignored her after dinner when they went to the tapas bar.

'This only happened on that day. She decided to retaliate by sleeping in another room in the bed near the window.

'She does not know whether Gerry was aware that she slept in the other room as he was already asleep when she left.

'If in fact her husband was aware of this situation, he did not comment on it.'

Mrs McCann also told police that Madeleine slept in the room she and her husband occupied on May 1 last year.

Clarence Mitchell, the McCanns' spokesman, refused to comment on the contents of the witness statement.

Letter

 

During the interview Kate also vigorously denied she had left Madeleine crying alone for an hour the night before she vanished.

The GP insisted it was Amelie who had been crying, and only for a short time.

The couple brought Amelie into bed with them after being alerted to her tears by Maddie.

In the newly released letter written by a frantic Kate, she begs Portuguese police to join forces with them in the hunt for missing Maddie and end the "war" raging between them.

 

Kate, 40, wrote to chief investigator Paulo Rebelo shortly after he replaced disgraced former head Goncalo Amaral telling him 'Madeleine is the most beautiful thing in our lives.'

The letter is dated December 4 last year and is included in the 17 volumes of case files made public earlier this week.

She described the 'difficult, sad and unbearable times' she and husband Gerry were going through since being made formal suspects.

She told him she was suffering a pain that was 'impossible to describe' and felt 'impotent' in the face of accusations and 'libels' in the press.

Kate pleaded to be told of the investigation's progress, while recognising the restrictions imposed on Mr Rebelo by Portugal's strict secrecy laws.

She was desperate to end the 'war' between the Portuguese Judicial Police on one side, and the McCanns and the British police on the other.

The important thing was to be reunited in the hunt for Madeleine's abductor, she said.

But no response from Mr Rebelo is recorded, reports claim.

Mr Rebelo replaced Goncalo Amaral, 48, as the chief investigator in October last year.

Amaral was thrown off the case for criticising British police, claiming they were working too closely with Gerry and Kate McCann.

In another revelation from the case files, prosecutors said the McCanns had lost the chance to prove their innocence when they and their holiday friends refused to take part in a reconstruction of the night of May 3 last year.

They said the investigation 'was undermined' by the failure to carry out a reconstruction 'which could have removed any doubts about the parents' innocence,' according to a document revealed in newspaper Jornal de Noticias.

Paulo Rebelo wanted to carry out the reconstruction in March.

But the McCanns and their holiday friends, known as the Tapas Nine, gave 'conditions' on which they would take part.

Meanwhile the McCanns' lawyers are considering asking for the case to be re-opened after gaining access to the case files last week.

Rogerio Alves said they must apply for the case to be re-opened by September 20.

Madeleine disappeared from the family's rented holiday apartment in Praia da Luz on May 3 last year.

 

Her parents were named suspects last September.

Last month the country's attorney general removed their 'arguido' status - along with Robert Murat - and said there was no evidence they had committed any crime.