McCanns hope good news will come from interview leak

Madeleine McCann’s parents are hoping some good will come from the leaking of interviews suggesting the young girl was left alone and crying the night before she disappeared, their spokesman said today.

Kate McCann told detectives her daughter asked her just hours before she went missing: “Why didn’t you come when we were crying last night?”

The revelation came in leaked passages from police interviews with Mrs McCann and her husband Gerry directly after Madeleine vanished from Praia da Luz in Portugal on May 3 last year.

Clarence Mitchell, the couple’s spokesman, said today that Portuguese police needed to “get a grip” and called on Lisbon to launch an investigation into the leak.

But he said the interviews showed that the McCanns had been “utterly honest” with detectives and could “nail lies” about their behaviour after Madeleine went missing.

The couple, who were in Brussels yesterday to launch a bid for a Europe-wide missing child alert system, were angered by the timing of the leak and are convinced it was a “blatant” attempt to smear them.

Mr Mitchell told GMTV: “If you quote parts of it selectively and out of context, as has been done, then of course it’s potentially damaging to Kate and Gerry.

“It is not. What it shows is that they were utterly honest about everything that occurred on May 3 in their early statements to the police...

“Actually some good could come out of this because some lies will be nailed.”

He added: “The whole thing is curious in the timing and we now want the Portuguese government to mount an investigation into how elements within their own police force can apparently do this with impunity...

“The police need to get a grip on this and they need to do it rapidly.”

Madeleine was three when she disappeared from her family’s holiday apartment as her parents dined with friends at a nearby tapas restaurant.

In her first interview with Portuguese detectives, Mrs McCann spoke about a conversation she had with her daughter on the morning of May 3.

“While we were having breakfast, Madeleine said: ’Mum, why didn’t you come when we were crying last night?’,” she told police.

She added: “Gerry and I talked about it for several minutes and decided to watch over the children more carefully at night.”

Friends of the McCanns said the couple had been “puzzled” by Madeleine’s remark as she had not apparently been crying when they called in for regular 20-minute checks from the restaurant across the pool where they dined each night during their holiday.

They said that one of the McCanns’ friends, Rachael Oldfield, had been in the adjoining flat – on the other side of Madeleine’s wall – all evening and heard no crying.

The couple also insist Madeleine was not speaking angrily and they did not take it as a reproach.

Her reference to “we” is understood to have referred to Madeleine and her younger brother Sean.

Friends said they now believe the comment could even be a clue that an intruder was in the flat on the night of May 2 and briefly disturbed Madeleine and Sean before fleeing.

The interviews with Portugal’s Policia Judiciaria were leaked through journalist Nacho Abad, of Spanish television programme Ana Rosa Quintana.

Mr Abad said he believed the interview transcripts confirmed the McCanns’ innocence, adding: “It is their opportunity to tell the real truth, I hope it’s good for them.”

The excerpts reveal that two days before Madeleine’s disappearance two workers repaired the Persian blinds of the room where the children slept.

Mrs McCann also described the moment she realised Madeleine had disappeared.

She told police: “I looked through the whole flat, I returned to the children’s room and at that moment I saw the curtains move towards me, letting me see that the Persian blind was open at the top.

“I went towards the window and opened the curtains to see if she had climbed up there, but I could see no trace of her. I don’t know if I closed the window at that moment or not.

“In shock, I ran to the tapas bar and yelled to Gerry: ’Maddie isn’t there, someone has taken her’.”

The McCanns said yesterday they had not decided whether to return to Portugal to take part in a reconstruction of the night Madeleine disappeared.

The couple described their plans for marking the upcoming first anniversary of their daughter’s abduction on May 3 as “a private matter”.