Child protection experts visit McCann's home

Social workers visited missing Madeleine McCann’s parents at their home in England today to discuss the welfare of the couple’s other two children.

Kate and Gerry McCann invited the officials for talks about two-year-old twins Sean and Amelie in the light of their being named as suspects in their eldest daughter’s disappearance 133 days ago.

Child protection experts met the couple at their house in Rothley, Leicestershire, as journalists waited at the entrance to the cul-de-sac.

It is standard practice for a mother or father named as a suspect overseas to have their case considered by British authorities.

In these cases social services can in theory decide to take children into care or place them on the “in need” or “at risk” registers.

It is not known what was discussed at today’s meeting or what, if anything, was decided from it.

Speaking from Rothley, Mr McCann’s brother John McCann said: “They will co-operate with anyone who has the family’s best interests at heart.”

Meanwhile, it was reported today that Kate McCann’s private diary documents her struggles to look after her “hysterical” children and reveals details about the night Madeleine went missing.

The diary is among a number of personal items prosecutors want from the young girl’s parents, sources close to the investigation said.

Mrs McCann was frequently seen writing her journal in private moments after Madeleine went missing from the family’s holiday apartment in the Algarve resort of Praia da Luz on May 3.

Unconfirmed reports in Portuguese newspapers suggested that her journal portrays Mrs McCann as being worn out by Madeleine’s “excess of activity”.

She also complains that her husband does not help with family chores, meaning that the burden of looking after their twins falls on her, according to the Correio da Manha.

Although she does not confess to any crimes in the diary, it is considered “fundamental” to the investigation, the paper said.

Other unconfirmed reports said Portuguese police wanted to reinterview both Mrs McCann and some of the friends on holiday with the couple when Madeleine went missing.

A McCann family spokeswoman said: “We don’t comment on speculation – we’ve been consistent on that. We want to hear things through official channels.”

On Tuesday the Policia Judiciaria – Portugal’s CID – formally passed their 4,000-page dossier of evidence against the McCanns to Algarve-based public prosecutor Jose Cunha de Magalhaes e Meneses.

He immediately ordered that the 10 lever-arch files should go before a criminal instructional judge, understood to be Pedro Daniel dos Anjos Frias.

The prosecutor has made a number of requests of the judge, among them that he approve the seizure of Mrs McCann’s personal diary, sources said.

Reports have suggested the diary is already in the hands of the authorities but they need retrospective approval from the judge because of privacy laws.

Philomena McCann, Mr McCann’s sister, questioned why the Portuguese authorities wanted the diary now.

She told The Sun: “God knows what they are expecting to find.

“And why didn’t they ask for it before? It’s just another way to stick the knife in.”

Ms McCann said she had advised her sister-in-law to keep the diary to show Madeleine how much they loved her.

She said: “She’s been writing down everything that we’ve been doing so we can prove to Madeleine that we have worked so hard to try and find her, that we’ve put our lives on hold to search for her and show our love for her is unending.”

Detectives also want to seize Gerry McCann’s white Apple laptop computer, which he used to write his internet blog on the findmadeleine.com website, sources told Portuguese journalists.

The McCanns announced yesterday that they would not use money raised for the fund to find Madeleine – which totals more than £1m – to pay for their legal defence.

Two millionaires who backed the McCanns’ campaign to find their daughter said today they were refusing to help pay for their legal teams, the Evening Standard reported.

The pair were not named, but one told the paper: “I am not going to contribute any more.

“It is a difficult issue and it is not something I propose to get engaged in.”

The McCanns’ campaign manager, Justine McGuinness, visited a number of national newspaper editors in London this week.

She said: “It was really to explain that Kate and Gerry can’t talk to people at the moment because of their status, and they are trying to observe Portuguese law ...

“We felt quite strongly because they have been so open in the past we wanted to make people realise it’s not that they don’t want to speak, it’s just that they can’t.”

Mrs McCann left the family home briefly today to collect the twins after a friend took them for a walk.

The McCanns are facing the prospect of being charged over their daughter’s disappearance after Portuguese police named them as “arguidos”, or formal suspects, during questioning last Friday.

Intense attention has focused on what police found in the hire car rented by Madeleine’s parents 25 days after she went missing.

Senior sources linked to the investigation told Portuguese journalists that they discovered “bodily fluids” – not blood – with an 88% match to Madeleine’s genetic profile in the boot.

Police also found so much of the girl’s hair in the car that it could not have been transferred from a blanket or clothes, and must have come directly from her body, one source said.

Detectives appear to be working on a theory that Mrs McCann killed her daughter by accident and covered up the death by claiming she was abducted.

Portuguese newspapers have suggested she could face charges of homicide by negligence and concealing Madeleine’s corpse.

Mr McCann’s alleged role is not clear, but sources said police believe he might have been an accessory to the killing.

Meanwhile, the hire car, a silver Renault Scenic, is being kept in a “safe place” in Portugal while they look into having their own forensic tests carried out on it, a family friend said.

Alec Jeffreys, the inventor of DNA fingerprinting, said yesterday that he was prepared to act as an expert witness for the McCanns.

He also stressed that DNA matches on their own did not establish a person’s innocence or guilt.

And Portugal’s ambassador to the UK said today he hoped relations between the countries would not be damaged by the Madeleine McCann investigation.

Antonio Carlos said the two countries formed “the oldest alliance”.

Meanwhile, toxicological tests on liquid found in the boot of the McCanns’ hire car show that Madeleine had consumed a “significant” dose of sleeping tablets, the French newspaper France Soir reported today.

The tests revealed that the young girl had ingested enough pills to overdose, the paper said, quoting unnamed sources in Portugal.

Portuguese police could not be reached for comment.