Prosecution Exhibit 1: 'madeleine' - What's in the book?

Sunday 6th May 2007

British consul Bill Henderson and Ambassador John Buck were visiting us on a fairly regular basis and we were seeing the Leicestershire FLOs every day. The flow of information, however, was slow and limited. The Portuguese police were divulging very little to the British police and vetoing many of their suggestions – bringing out specialist dogs, for example, or staging a reconstruction. What was forthcoming, particularly in terms of the quality and depth of the investigation, would become increasingly concerning to us. Grounds for elimination, for instance, often seemed very flimsy. I remember Gerry and me exchanging quizzical looks after the FLOs tried to explain how one couple had been ruled out of the inquiry. When we asked them if they were comfortable with this decision, there was an awkward pause before they replied, ‘No, not really.’
~~~~~~

On Monday 4 June, we recorded an appeal to be screened the following evening on Crimewatch, the long-running BBC programme that has a good track record in helping the police to solve crimes using information supplied by the public. Our appeal was aimed in particular at any British holidaymakers who had been in the Algarve at the time of Madeleine’s abduction.
Frustratingly, Crimewatch was not allowed to film a reconstruction of the abduction. This was something we had wanted from the beginning, in the hope that it would encourage potential witnesses to come forward. In Britain the police often broadcast reconstructions through programmes likeCrimewatch and news channels, but we were told that this was not possible in either Portugal or Britain because of the judicial secrecy law.
~~~~

In the spring of 2008 – almost a year after Madeleine was last seen – the PJ decided they wanted to conduct a re-enactment in Praia da Luz of the night of 3 May 2007. The participants required were Gerry, me, Fiona, Dave, Jane, Russ, Rachael, Matt, Dianne and Jes Wilkins, to whom Gerry chatted in the street that night just after his last glimpse of Madeleine. They weren’t interested in using actors or stand-ins. So either everyone agreed or the reconstruction wouldn’t go ahead.

Our understanding was that as arguidos, Gerry and I were obliged to attend. The other witnesses received reasonably friendly emails from the PJ, via the British police, inviting them to take part. They were a bit baffled and replied requesting more details about the purpose of this belated re-enactment. It seemed it would not be filmed, or at any rate, not for information-gathering through public broadcast. Our friends had watched, with increasing horror, what had happened to us. If they were suspicious that the PJ might be trying to use them to somehow strengthen a flimsy case against us, or even to implicate one of them, it would be understandable. There were worries, too, about the likelihood of a media furore blowing up around the whole thing, especially as the proposed dates had already been leaked to the newspapers. The biggest concern, though, for all the witnesses approached, was how a reenactment of the kind the PJ were proposing could actually help to find Madeleine. This question remained unanswered.
~~~~~~

And Emma Loach. Emma is one of the most selfless people I have ever come across and her input on so many levels has been invaluable. She played a significant role in our campaign for a child rescue alert system across Europe and in 2009 worked with us to produce a filmed reconstruction of the events surrounding Madeleine’s abduction.

madeleine by KATE MCCANN

[For research and study only]

On 2 October, the national director of the Polícia Judiciária, Alípio Ribeiro, removed from our case a detective named Gonçalo Amaral, the coordinator of the investigation into Madeleine’s disappearance. Until then I’d barely heard of Sr Amaral. In the five months he held this job I never met him. Gerry did only once, very briefly. The reason for his removal, it was said, was that he had made controversial remarks about the involvement of the British authorities in the investigation. By the following summer, we would be hearing a lot more from the mystifying Sr Amaral.

Early that month Ribeiro also made a statement commenting on the continuing headlines in the press. He said that many were speculative or contained false information, adding that the police were still considering several other scenarios, not just the theory that Madeleine had been killed.

Four months later, Ribeiro would remark in an interview that the PJ’s decision to make us arguidos had been ‘too hasty’.

Finally, we thought, someone in authority was showing common sense and decency. But it seems these sentiments were not shared by everyone in Portugal. By May 2008, Sr Ribeiro was no longer in his post.

madeleine by KATE MCCANN

[For research and study only]

Meanwhile, in Portugal, Gonçalo Amaral, removed as coordinator of the investigation in October 2007, reared his head again. On 30 June he retired from the police force altogether. His reason for doing so was, he said, to regain his ‘freedom of speech’. Nine months after his removal from the investigation, Amaral’s association with it appeared to have increased remarkably.

As speculation about the closure of the case mounted, he, along with several of his ex-PJ friends, began to appear in newspapers and on television. His purpose appeared to be to convince the Portuguese nation that Madeleine was dead.

He had, he said, written a book about the case that would be published very soon.

madeleine by KATE MCCANN

[For research and study only]

Amaral and his chums had evidently been poised to take full advantage of the long-awaited lifting of judicial secrecy. Now they really went to town: we had staged a kidnap, or Madeleine had died in our holiday apartment and we had hidden her body; we had influenced the British police and organized our campaign to mislead investigators into searching for a living child, and so on and so forth. No longer gagged by the law, Amaral was talking more and more openly to journalists and turning up on television chat shows. A friend in the Algarve kept us updated on his activities. It was unpleasant and distressing to hear what he was saying, but we had to know what Madeleine was up against in Portugal. And it was incessant. With the best will in the world, it is hard for anyone to absorb this stuff day in, day out and remain completely objective, especially when it is never challenged or balanced by an alternative viewpoint.

It is impossible to convey, particularly to people outside Portugal who were not aware of Amaral’s behaviour, just how difficult this smear campaign was both to withstand and to counter. And we desperately needed to counter it: we have always believed that the information that can lead us to our daughter is likely to come from Portugal. This is where the crime was committed, after all. Blackening our names was one thing, but if people there were taken in by Amaral’s theories, they were going to think there was no point in looking for Madeleine, or in passing on any information that might be relevant. We are quite sure that Amaral’s posturing has reduced our chances of finding her.

Why on earth would a former police officer want to convince the world that a missing child was dead – with no evidence whatsoever to support his claim? The only conclusion we could draw was that he was attempting to justify his actions while in charge of the investigation and at the same time promoting his forthcoming book to cash in on our misfortune. It just beggars belief.

madeleine by KATE MCCANN

[For research and study only]

I spent many days in tears, sobbing at the injustice being done to Madeleine by the very people who should have been helping her. There were times when I felt so incensed by the conduct of Amaral and his friends I thought I simply wouldn’t get through the pain and anger. It was utterly frustrating that there didn’t seem to be anybody in Portugal prepared to stand up against this man. Surely there were intelligent and knowledgeable people in positions of authority who could see through these offensive allegations. Why were they all staying quiet? Was it because it wasn’t their problem? Were they scared to speak out? Perhaps Amaral had tapped into some kind of national subconscious desire for this to all just go away. The country was already reeling from a child-abuse scandal involving Casa Pia, a state-run institution for orphans and other disadvantaged children (when this finally came to court in 2010, six men, including a TV presenter and a former UNESCO ambassador, would be convicted) – the first such case ever to be tried in Portugal. Perhaps it was more convenient and less troubling to lay Madeleine’s disappearance at the door of her foreign parents, put an end to the matter and move on. Who knows?

On 24 July 2008, three days after the inquiry was closed, Gonçalo Amaral launched his book about our daughter’s disappearance. For this to have been possible, confidential information relating to the investigation would have to have been passed to his publishers, and any number of people involved in the production of the book, well in advance of the lifting of judicial secrecy. Needless to say, it repeated his theories, dressed up with fabrication and speculation. What it failed to include was any evidence – something one would expect to be rather important to a police officer – or any detail that didn’t suit his story.

Dear God. I’m finding it really difficult to believe you’re there at the moment. The more our suffering and pain continues and the more we are tested, the more I find myself doubting your presence, which is really scary. Without you, we have nothing; certainly nothing more than a slight chance so it’s almost impossible to give up on you. Please God, if you can’t bring Madeleine back imminently, please give us a sign, something positive.

Gerry and I talked about taking legal action against Gonçalo Amaral but we had concerns about the time and effort this would involve. We did not want to be diverted from our own investigation just as we had put the restrictions of the case behind us and we feared that any resolution through the Portuguese courts would take too long. For the moment we hoped the fuss would die down and Amaral would let up.

While struggling to cope with all this, I had a task of Herculean proportions facing me: combing through the 5,000 or so pages of documentation contained in the case files that had been presented to the prosecutor and received by our lawyers on 31 July.

We were pleasantly surprised by the prosecutor’s conclusions and by how emphatic he was about the lack of any evidence to suggest either that Madeleine was dead or that we were involved in her disappearance. For several months we’d been concerned that if the case was closed, it might be closed in a way that left a dark cloud of suspicion hanging over us, so this came as a big relief. Initially, though, I was a little sceptical as to how much use the PJ’s files were likely to be to us, bearing in mind that latterly, at least, the principal focus of their inquiry seemed to have been Gerry and me.

madeleine by KATE MCCANN

[Disclaimer: The wow factor]

Amaral’s appeal was heard in December in Lisbon, over five days that ended up being spread over three consecutive months. Gerry and I felt it was important, essential even, for us to attend to represent Madeleine. She needed somebody there for her. She was the victim in this, not Gonçalo Amaral.

I also needed to see the whites of Sr Amaral’s eyes. We flew out to Portugal on 10 December.

Not sure how I feel about seeing Mr Amaral – for the first time ever, I hasten to add! I know I’m not scared but that man has caused us so much upset and anger because of how he has treated my beautiful Madeleine and the search to find her. He deserves to be miserable and feel fear.

madeleine by KATE MCCANN

[For publicity research only]

There is no less than 57 mentions of 'Amaral' [sic ] in 'the book' - and every one derogatory.

In due course I will precis the reference - for reference!

It's an utter disgrace isn't it, important it's never forgotten because it shows the level of contempt harboured by the mother (and father) of Madeleine, towards the man who did his upmost to solve the mystery of Madeleine's disappearance.

People tend to forget these very early, very telling, happenings. they allow themselves to be swept away by crap, for crap it is, reported by the media and press.

Kate McCann wrote: I know I’m not scared but that man has caused us so much upset and anger because of how he has treated my beautiful Madeleine and the search to find her. He deserves to be miserable and feel fear.

Tuesday 1st May 2007

During Gerry’s tennis lesson, Madeleine and Ella came to the adjoining court with their Mini Club for a mini-tennis session.

Jane and I stayed to watch them. It chokes me remembering how my heart soared with pride in Madeleine that morning.

She was so happy and obviously enjoying herself. Standing there listening intently to Cat’s instructions, she looked so gorgeous in her little T-shirt and shorts, pink hat, ankle socks and new holiday sandals that I ran back to our apartment for my camera to record the occasion.

One of my photographs is known around the world now: a smiling Madeleine clutching armfuls of tennis balls. At the end of their session, the children had been asked to run around the court and pick up as many balls as they could. Madeleine had done really well and was very pleased with herself. Gerry loves that picture.

madeleine by KATE MCCANN

On Monday 27 August [2007] I had a call from Esther McVey, a Liverpool friend from my late teens, by then a television presenter and Conservative parliamentary candidate.

Esther was on the board of Madeleine’s Fund.

She said she was scared by our current situation and uncomfortable with what she felt was a ‘political shift’. For our own safety, and ‘to protect Madeleine’s good name’ (I wasn’t quite sure what she meant by that), she thought we ought to come home. It seemed I was being pressurized from all quarters and I didn’t like it.

madeleine by KATE MCCANN

The morning continued like the others with kids’ clubs and tennis. After my lesson, I hung around on the grassy play area, watching Gerry on the court and chatting to Russell, who I’d found there. Another guest appeared with a video camera to record his three-year-old daughter playing mini-tennis.

He looked a little embarrassed and laughingly remarked to us that filming in this way made him feel like a dirty old man. It led to a conversation between the three of us about paedophiles. I remember Russell talking about how everything had got a bit out of hand, that these days people were so untrusting you hardly dared speak to children you didn’t know. What he was effectively saying was that the world had become paranoid; that he wanted his daughters to grow up with confidence and a sense of freedom.

The other dad and I chipped in with our views – I mentioned not being allowed to take photographs of your own kids in swimming pools any longer – and we agreed that it was a shame things had come to this, especially for the children. It would be some days before Russell and I were able to acknowledge to each other the horrible irony of this conversation.

madeleine by KATE MCCANN

[For research and study only]

NOTE: The other guest referred to would appear to be Mr Foster, who submitted his holiday photographs to Hampshire Constabulary for scrutiny.

In the meantime, the search for Madeleine goes on. Sean and Amelie often talk about how their sister might escape, how we could rescue her and what they would do to the ‘naughty man’ who stole her. Once they suggested, ‘Maybe we should tell the police that Madeleine is missing and ask them to help us, too.’ Quite.

Since the autumn of 2007 our connection with Leicestershire police has dwindled and that makes me sad. Their officers worked so hard on Madeleine’s behalf and we know they’ll rejoice if and when we find her. The Leicestershire force still takes the line that they’ll pass on any relevant information to the Portuguese authorities. While this is all that is legally expected of them, we’d hoped for much more. They have been placed in a difficult position, we acknowledge that, but we have not been prepared to accept the platitude that work in Portimão continues when we know this is not the case. Of course, every police force in the UK, and many beyond, have assisted in the search for Madeleine and for this we are extremely thankful.

We are particularly grateful to Jim Gamble and the team at CEOP for the initiatives they have developed with us to help keep Madeleine’s abduction in the forefront of the public consciousness.

But a harsh fact remains. Since July 2008, there has been no police force anywhere actively investigating what has happened to Madeleine. We are the only people looking for her.

madeleine by KATE MCCANN

[For re-research only]

Snipped from ^^^^

We are the only people looking for her.




I beg to differ Kate, there are hundreds looking for her, but they won't be told where they can and can't look.

Gerry was meeting Dave, Matt and Russell at 6pm for the men’s social tennis night. We decided we’d bath the children early, especially as they were all tired, and then I might take them down to the play area in their pyjamas for a little while, if they weren’t quite ready for their beds.

Gerry left just before six, as I was drying the kids and putting on the twins’ nappies. When they were all in their PJs, we went through to the sitting room and I brought them some milk and a biscuit. (Actually, as a very special treat, tonight they had a few crisps as well.) While they were looking at their books and playing with their games,

I took a quick shower. Every other evening I’d waited until the children were asleep before showering, but as we were ahead of schedule, and I wanted to freshen up after my run, I thought I’d take advantage of these quiet few minutes.

At around six-forty, as I was drying myself off, there was a knock on the patio doors and I heard David’s voice calling me. Swiftly wrapping my towel around me, I stepped into the sitting room.

David had popped his head round the patio door, looking for me. The others had met up with Gerry at the tennis courts and he’d mentioned we were thinking of bringing the kids to the play area. Dave had nipped up to see if he could give me a hand taking them down. As they were all ready for bed and seemed content with their books, I decided they were probably past the stage of needing any more activity. So he went back to the tennis while I quickly dressed and sat down on the couch with the children.

madeleine by KATE MCCANN

[For research project only]

Why would you bath the kids, put on their pyjamas, then take them to a filthy play area to get dirty again?

 A small brown stain worried Kate so much it had to be washed right away, but thinking of putting the kids to bed in filthy pyjamas didn't bother her.

The Mccanns chose to make a reconstruction media fest of their own without the presence of Kate Mccann and presenting confliction between Gerry Mccann, a female member of the Tapas 9, a hired private investigator paid from the money pouring into the Madeleine Fund which proved to be a limited liability company run by friends and family. This was fast-tracked despite the remarkable efforts to establish charity status.

Just an observation.

Admittedly I'm not a progressive 30 something, I carry outdated values - especially privacy.

Is it accepted practice for a woman to appear wrapped only in a towel when a male friend calls at the door?

I know they were 'so into each other' but ....

To say nothing of the same male friend bathing your very young children - but I digress.

Wednesday 23 May was Clarence’s first full day in Portugal as our media liaison and spokesperson, and it was going to be one on which his assistance would be essential. He’ll kill me for mentioning this, but he managed to oversleep. To be fair, it was a particularly early start as we had the 250-mile journey to Fátima ahead of us. When our car and driver arrived, a knock on the door summoned a somewhat dishevelled and bleary-eyed Clarence. ‘Oh, right, oops!’ he said. ‘I’ll be with you in a minute.’ And he was as good as his word. In no time at all he was on parade and in firefighting mode, which, I have to say, he does impressively well. Clarence is a force of nature. He is always organizing something, always on the phone to somebody. When he disembarked from a plane after the shortest of flights and switched on his phones he’d find fifty texts and fifty missed calls or voicemails.

My desire to go to Fátima had been increasing steadily over the preceding few days. As we neared our destination, I was filled with nervous anticipation and a peculiar excitement. Seconds before we arrived Gerry received a phone call from Gordon Brown. After their conversation Gerry relayed his message of support and encouragement to me, commenting on the marked empathy and sincerity in Mr Brown’s voice.

At the shrine the media presence was as heavy and intense as we had known it so far. Yet somehow, on this day and in this place, I was able to ignore the huge camera lenses barely a couple of centimetres from my face as if they were not there at all. I was equally oblivious to the swarms of other pilgrims. I only remember feeling ‘drawn in’ and captivated by the beauty of the shrine.

Walking through the central plaza, a potent sense of calm and hope descended on me. The vast, open space triggered a feeling of freedom and a strange but pleasant temporary weightlessness. The bells in the basilica began to ring out ‘Immaculate Mary’. Almost instantly a tight knot developed in my stomach, my heart began to race and I started to cry. I could see Michelle and me standing in our classroom, aged six or seven, singing all the verses of ‘Immaculate Mary’. I thought of Michelle and of the long and nourishing friendship we shared. I ached for Madeleine to have a best friend like Michelle. I ached for her to be given that opportunity. Please God, let it be so.

During the couple of hours we spent at the shrine, we were able to attend one of the Masses being celebrated and were also allowed some time to pray privately in one of the small chapels. Before leaving, we lit five candles outside the Chapel of Apparitions, one for each member of our family. I kissed Madeleine’s candle and prayed with all my heart that Our Lady of Fátima would keep her arms safely around our daughter.

As we made our way back to our car, many well-wishers, most of them Portuguese, embraced us and squeezed our hands tightly. The sincerity of their desire for us to be reunited with Madeleine was unquestionable. We received various gifts we still treasure, including a child’s set of wooden rosary beads, which remains around Cuddle Cat’s neck to this day. The strength and encouragement we drew from this incredible demonstration of solidarity and compassion was immense.

That night I wrote a few words in my journal summing up our visit to Fátima. Not a bad place to begin. From this point on I began to make regular entries at night, or in odd moments during the day.

madeleine by KATE MCCANN

[For research only]

Forget about the content - you just have to say that Kate McCann is a very stylish writer -- not. So bland. So many adjectives. So many "I's". So much sickly sweet text. You have to say that the editor did a good job in making sure the commas were in the right places (which is no mean feat). But my body's response to reading this bit of garbage for the nth time is gastric reflux (I am serious) caused by the emotion of pure rage. So glad that Clarence's sleeping in gave her a mechanism for impressing on us how far they had to travel that day.. while her other two children were left at home again. How dare she think that people don't see through her self-serving prose. Her sense of self is incredible.

Kate often refers to pedophiles (sometimes with Gamble thrown in). I believe this is to push us into visualising a certain type of "abduction", and thus take our minds away from visualising more "ordinary" things that involve the parents. 

If my scenario about Kate and her redirection tactics is plausible, then one has to ask what sort of mother could force herself to put into words - spoken or written - the notion of a pedophile taking her daughter when she knew that was not the case. 

The William Tyrrell case in Australia has also had a dreadful police-force-distraction. The detectives/police looked for pedophiles up and down the NSW coast (and everywhere else), even digging up the sewerage tank in at the residence of a "suspect" (plumber) who had an alibi (attending a school concert would you believe). Another man who lived across the road [from William's foster grandmother], a powerless silly old bugger who talked to himself, was illegally taped by a cop on his mobile phone - the case went to Court and Jubelin was removed from the police force (or whatever the action was to get rid of him). He has since written a book. He was very empathetic (sigh) towards William's foster parents. Too much has happened since then - you might want to follow the drip dripping from the [new] detectives on the case. It must be torture for the foster parents.

Gerry might be interested in the way the cadaver dogs were used in the Tyrrell case - evidence of a dead body not found in places explored, and the reliability of the dogs was accepted 100% by detectives and public alike. (Well I have not heard or read anything to the contrary.) There were pictures in the media of the dogs exploring under the house and in the water tank of the foster grandmother's home as well as in the bush behind it. I think that was the first clue that the police were exploring a particular theory about William's disappearance.

About mentioning her apparel... Another diversionary tactic. What we visualised from that description of only a towel that took our minds off the real timing.

I wonder if Nigel, the man mentioned by Russell O'Brien in his statement and kate in her book, had his video camera examined by the police.

Kate and Russ were watching the children play tennis and Nigel was filming his daughter who was with them, this happened on the morning of the 3rd may.

On Monday 21 July, the Portuguese attorney general’s office announced that the investigation of Madeleine’s disappearance was to be archived, pending further evidence. The case files were to be released and the arguido status of Gerry, myself and Robert Murat was to be lifted. There was no evidence to suggest that Madeleine had come to serious harm and no evidence to implicate Gerry, me or Robert Murat in what had happened to her.
Gerry and I received no official notification of this from the Portuguese authorities. I heard the news at about 4.30pm from a French news agency via Sky News and BBC News 24. It did not come as a great surprise as both the day of the announcement and its content had been pre-empted by the newspapers on Friday and we had been tripping over photographers and news crews at the end of our road all day.

It may sound odd, but in some ways we were glad the investigation had been closed. As I’ve said, we were far from convinced that there was any real investigation taking place anyway, so to have it officially brought to an end didn’t feel like as big a loss as might have been expected. While the PJ had continued to supply the usual response – ‘The official investigation continues. All credible lines of inquiry will be pursued’ – we had been receiving messages from concerned people who had tried to pass on information to the police, only to be told, ‘The child is dead.’ Now that this ‘investigation’ had concluded, reports could be channelled directly to our own team, which would give them, we hoped, more to go on. It was certainly better than nothing.

As for the dropping of our arguido status, it was hardly a cause for celebration. All it meant was that, after eleven months of being pilloried, we were back where we started. Madeleine was still missing and we still had to find her. All the same, it was a relief, of course. In spite of my disgust with the whole business, I could appreciate that not being an arguida was preferable to being an arguida and that Gerry and I were in a better position than we had been the day before. It was also a public acknowledgement that the Portuguese authorities had nothing to implicate us in Madeleine’s disappearance, just as we’d always insisted. And we hoped that some of the doors that had been closed to us since September 2007 would now reopen.

With the inquiry closed, our Portuguese lawyers, Carlos Pinto de Abreu and Rogério Alves, were allowed to consult the case files, and wasted no time in doing so – although the DVD containing the files took ten days to reach them. Given that leaks had become such an epidemic by this time, it will astonish nobody to learn that the prosecutor’s fifty-seven-page summary of the PJ’s final report had been on a Portuguese website since the day after the news broke.

madeleine by KATE MCCANN

[For research only]

Why on earth would a former police officer want to convince the world that a missing child was dead – with no evidence whatsoever to support his claim? The only conclusion we could draw was that he was attempting to justify his actions while in charge of the investigation and at the same time promoting his forthcoming book to cash in on our misfortune. It just beggars belief.

madeleine by KATE MCCANN



Pot kettle black?

I spent many days in tears, sobbing at the injustice being done to Madeleine by the very people who should have been helping her. There were times when I felt so incensed by the conduct of Amaral and his friends I thought I simply wouldn’t get through the pain and anger. It was utterly frustrating that there didn’t seem to be anybody in Portugal prepared to stand up against this man. Surely there were intelligent and knowledgeable people in positions of authority who could see through these offensive allegations. Why were they all staying quiet? Was it because it wasn’t their problem? Were they scared to speak out? Perhaps Amaral had tapped into some kind of national subconscious desire for this to all just go away. The country was already reeling from a child-abuse scandal involving Casa Pia, a state-run institution for orphans and other disadvantaged children (when this finally came to court in 2010, six men, including a TV presenter and a former UNESCO ambassador, would be convicted) – the first such case ever to be tried in Portugal. Perhaps it was more convenient and less troubling to lay Madeleine’s disappearance at the door of her foreign parents, put an end to the matter and move on. Who knows?

On 24 July 2008, three days after the inquiry was closed, Gonçalo Amaral launched his book about our daughter’s disappearance. For this to have been possible, confidential information relating to the investigation would have to have been passed to his publishers, and any number of people involved in the production of the book, well in advance of the lifting of judicial secrecy. Needless to say, it repeated his theories, dressed up with fabrication and speculation. What it failed to include was any evidence – something one would expect to be rather important to a police officer – or any detail that didn’t suit his story.

Dear God. I’m finding it really difficult to believe you’re there at the moment. The more our suffering and pain continues and the more we are tested, the more I find myself doubting your presence, which is really scary. Without you, we have nothing; certainly nothing more than a slight chance so it’s almost impossible to give up on you. Please God, if you can’t bring Madeleine back imminently, please give us a sign, something positive.

Gerry and I talked about taking legal action against Gonçalo Amaral but we had concerns about the time and effort this would involve. We did not want to be diverted from our own investigation just as we had put the restrictions of the case behind us and we feared that any resolution through the Portuguese courts would take too long. For the moment we hoped the fuss would die down and Amaral would let up.

While struggling to cope with all this, I had a task of Herculean proportions facing me: combing through the 5,000 or so pages of documentation contained in the case files that had been presented to the prosecutor and received by our lawyers on 31 July.

madeleine by KATE MCCANN

[For research only]