The diary of Kate McCann has laid bare for the first time her inner despair at Madeleine going missing in Portugal
 

The entries reveal frustration at the Portuguese police from the very start of their investigation, her darkest thoughts and fears, and her daily, desperate pleas to God for her prayers to be answered.

At the height of the smear campaign against the McCanns, Portuguese investigators made extracts from the diary public, deliberately selected in a bid to portray the couple as cold and dispassionate.

The full context of the journal, however, written in an A4 pad, have been revealed in a tabloid newspaper after being leaked by a Portuguese reporter.

On the night of May 3 when Madeleine went missing from their apartment in Praia da Luz, and early the following morning, Kate suggests that no police were helping in the search.

The diary says: "No sleep, Gerry and I started looking through the streets at 6am as it was starting to get light. Nobody around. Why not? Desperate."

She said that when she finally talked to detectives they were unsympathetic and "far from inspiring".

Kate signs every entry off with a personal message of her love for Madeleine, but admits that with each night it became harder to go to bed without her.

On June 1 she writes: "Can't stop thinking about Madeleine, about her fear and pain.

"How can I go on knowing that her life could have ended like this? This week I have been quite overtaken by black thoughts. Please God, bring her back."

 

The next day she writes: "Cried in bed - I can't avoid it. I need her close to me. Thinking about her fear of pain breaks my heart.

"Thinking about paedophiles makes me want to tear at my own skin."

The diary also reveals how she wrote to JK Rowling for help in keeping Madeleine's plight in the public eye and that Gordon Brown, Tony Blair, his wife Cherie and David Miliband phoned the couple to offer their support.

It was written between April and July 2007, before police seized it as their investigation turned on the couple.