McCann's in talks on European missing children hotline

Kate and Gerry McCann want a specialist European policy centre to help find missing children like their daughter Madeleine, an MEP in the UK said today.

The Conservative MEP Edward McMillan-Scott said he also backed the couple’s proposal for a dedicated European hotline for information on the whereabouts of children who have been abducted.

The McCanns and their team have already reserved the number – 116 000 – but it has yet to go live.

Mr McMillan-Scott and four other MEPs are meeting the couple today at the European Parliament in Brussels to launch their declaration which calls for better coordination between European countries when a child goes missing.

The McCanns were dining in a tapas restaurant in Praia da Luz, Portugal – just an hour’s drive from the Spanish border – when their daughter Madeleine, who was aged three at the time, disappeared.

They believe a similar system as to the “Amber” alert system in America could have tracked her down in the hours after she vanished on May 3 last year.

The “Amber” alert system was set up after nine-year-old Amber Hagerman went missing and was later killed by her abductor.

Mr McMillan-Scott said it had saved nearly 400 abducted children since 2003, 80% of whom were found in the first 72 hours after they went missing.

Mr McMillan-Scott said the system worked like a severe weather warning, allowing the authorities to broadcast messages on radio, television and motorway signs. In Europe, only Belgium and France have adopted a similar system, he said.

The MEP said he and the McCanns also wanted a European child resource and policy unit.

Mr McMillan-Scott said: “Gerry and Kate want a European children centre – like the one in Washington – to bring together governments, the police and the voluntary sector to work on a united front and eliminate layers of frustrating bureaucracy and duplication of work.

“The McCanns tell me that the least they can do is ask for some political will. They have got the support of the leading missing children organisations and the good will of every right-minded European.

“It is impossible to know what they are going through. We are all praying for the safe return of Madeleine. At the same time Europe must together do all it can to prevent other families suffering like the McCanns.”

Last night 40-year-old Mrs McCann and her 39-year-old husband left for Brussels on the Eurostar, accompanied by their spokesman Clarence Mitchell.

Mr Mitchell said: “For Kate and Gerry this is an important opportunity to ensure better co-ordination in Europe when a child goes missing to make sure that no other family goes through the anguish that they are continuing to endure.”

The declaration launched today is also backed by the Liberal Democrat Diana Wallace and Labour’s Glenys Kinnock as well as Italian MEP Roberta Angelilli and Evelyne Gebhardt from Germany.

The declaration will remain open for three months and a majority of the 785 MEPs is required to sign it before it can go before the European Parliament.

While the McCanns are in Brussels, officers from the UK will continue to question members of the Tapas Seven – the friends they were dining with on May 3 – as a three-man team of detectives from Portugal listen in.

It is believed that yesterday was the turn of 34-year-old Fiona and 41-year-old David Payne from Leicester.

On Tuesday, detectives questioned Jane Tanner, 37, and her partner, 36-year-old Russell O’Brien, over a 10-hour period, although sources said they were allowed a number of breaks and that the interviews had given them the chance to put their point of view across “strongly”.