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Portuguese news weekly
Tal & Qual. |
The mother of Madeleine McCann marked a
heartbreaking milestone last night with the vow: “We will
never give up.”
The 39-year-old GP revealed her torment four months after
her daughter’s disappearance in Portugal on May 3.
Kate and heart specialist husband Gerry, also 39, struggle
to keep their spirits up by constantly reassuring each
other: “Today could be the day Madeleine comes home.”
But she confessed that the shock of losing the four-year-old
had ripped the heart out of her family.
As they wait for news and suffer unimaginable heartache,
they also know that fears are growing that Madeleine is
dead. Kate said: “It is four months since Madeleine was
cruelly taken from her family.
“Four months since Gerry and I have heard our daughter
laugh, seen her smile, read her a story, given her a cuddle.
“Four months of not knowing what our beautiful daughter has
had to endure.
“Four months since that cold night when our world fell
apart.”
Commenting on the rumours that Madeleine has been killed,
Kate went on: “I know many people think our daughter can’t
be alive. But nothing has changed our thoughts.
“We believe Madeleine was taken from her bed and was alive
when she was taken.
“We don’t know who took her, why she was taken or where she
is. As parents we cannot give up on our daughter until we
know what has happened.
“We have to keep doing everything we can to find her.”
Kate revealed how she and Gerry help each other to remain
positive despite their desperate 123-day wait for a
breakthrough in the search.
She said: “Each day Gerry and I get up and say, ‘Today could
be the day Madeleine comes home’. We have to keep hoping.
“We will leave no stone unturned to find our lovely little
girl Madeleine.”
Portuguese detectives hunting for Madeleine are still
waiting for the results of tests on DNA samples taken from
the McCanns’ holiday apartment at Praia da Luz, in the
Algarve. The DNA, including at least two samples from
microscopic traces of blood found in Madeleine’s room and
her parents’ bedroom, was sent to experts at Britain’s
Forensic Science Service laboratory in Birmingham nearly
four weeks ago.
Police are hoping that the results can provide a decisive
breakthrough in the investigation, which appears to be
relying on the new forensic information to kick-start the
stalled search.
Expatriate Briton Robert Murat, a former estate agent from
Hockering in Norfolk whose home in Praia da Luz is a short
walk from the McCanns’ holiday apartment, remains the only
official suspect in the case.
His friends are confident that the scientific evidence will
prove his alibi that he was never in the McCanns’ apartment.
He joined the search for their daughter the day after she
was snatched.
In a sign that the Portuguese police are setting great store
by the results of the tests, the McCanns were reported to
have been asked to remain in Praia da Luz until the new
information has been studied.
Despite the request, speculation is growing that the family
is making preparations to return to their home in Rothley in
Leicestershire.
The McCanns refuse to say when they are likely to leave
Portugal but friends and neighbours back in Britain believe
the couple will return with their two-year-old twins Sean
and Amelie within weeks. Family friends said that Kate and
Gerry have been persuaded to move back to their £600,000
home for the sake of the twins and to avoid the hostile
media reports that have dogged them recently in Portugal.
The vicious campaign of slurs and lies
culminated in the McCanns being forced to issue a writ for
defamation last week against the sensationalist Portuguese
news weekly Tal & Qual.
They instructed lawyer Carlos Pinto de Abreu to launch the
libel action after the newspaper ran an article, citing an
anonymous police source, claiming that Madeleine died after
being given an overdose of sedatives by her parents. |
