McCanns receive €500k in Portuguese libel case

A former detective has been ordered to pay hundreds of thousands of pounds to Gerry and Kate McCann following a libel case in a Portuguese court.

Goncalo Amaral had been on trial over claims he made in a book and a documentary that the McCanns were involved in their daughter Madeleine’s disappearance in Praia da Luz on the Algarve in 2007.

In a written verdict, a Lisbon court agreed that Amaral should pay Mr and Mrs McCann €250,000 each in damages and it banned further sales of his book The Truth Of The Lie.

Madeleine was three when she went missing from her family’s holiday apartment on May 3, 2007.

Mr Amaral, who led the initial investigation into Madeleine’s disappearance but was axed from it after several blunders, released his book three days after the case was closed in 2008.

He later took part in a documentary for Portuguese television in which he claimed that Madeleine was dead, that there had been no abduction and the McCanns had hidden her body.

In a writ lodged in 2009, the McCanns described Mr Amaral as a “self-obsessed, manipulative money-grabber”.

Giving evidence last year the couple spoke of their “devastation, desperation, anxiety and pain” over the claims. The couple also said that the book and documentary had hampered support from the Portuguese people as the McCanns looked for their daughter.

Mrs McCann told the court her youngson Sean had asked about Mr Amaral’s allegations after hearing about them on the radio while travelling on the school bus.

Last year Amaral threatened to countersue the McCanns. On Facebook he wrote he would launch “a lawsuit against the McCann couple and others to be compensated for enormous damage they caused me — moral, professional and financial”

.