'Press could force us out of Portugal'

Published on Sunday 26 August 2007 00:56

THE FATHER of missing Madeleine McCann conceded yesterday that staying in Portugal while the search for his daughter continues may now be "counterproductive".

In the clearest hint so far that he and his wife Kate and their two other children may soon return to Britain, Gerry McCann said no final decision had yet been made.

But it had become clear to the family in recent weeks that remaining in Praia da Luz, where four-year-old Madeleine disappeared in early May, was not necessarily helping the police investigation.

McCann, from Glasgow, told delegates at the Edinburgh International Television Festival that although it would be emotionally heartbreaking to return to their Leicestershire home without their daughter, moving back might help dampen the "wild speculation" that had grown up around the case.

Newspapers quoted allegations in a Portuguese magazine yesterday that Madeleine's parents may have had a hand in her disappearance after accidentally overdosing their daughter with sedatives to get her to sleep.

Dismissing the stories as "irresponsible reporting", McCann said: "We have made no final decision yet [about returning home] but from the experience of the last few weeks we have seen that staying in Portugal is counterproductive."

He said in the absence of solid facts, some journalists were under pressure to write up speculation as fact. "The problem for us is the emotional pressure to stay," he added. "Leaving as a family of four when we went out there as a family of five is the sticking point."

McCann said that the family had initially welcomed the huge media coverage given to Madeleine's disappearance but it had gone too far. "I don't think it is necessary, personally, to bombard people on a daily basis with Madeleine's image but we cannot control that.

"Initially, without a doubt we wanted lots of coverage. But we never, ever anticipated the scale of it. The coverage was 10 times greater than we ever possibly imagined.

"The way that it's been held up there as a high-profile story, we never, ever predicted."

The couple had now embarked on a scaled-down media campaign. "I have been asked 'how are you going to sustain this level of media coverage?'

"We're not. We don't expect to. We will do events intermittently, trying to raise awareness and remind everyone if Madeleine's still missing, that we're still looking.

"Kate and I have tried to withdraw in terms of the campaign, apart from events to raise Madeleine's profile."

Defending the campaign itself, however, McCann, a heart specialist, said: "Whatever the motive for taking Madeleine, raising international awareness is stopping Madeleine being used for whatever the abductor had in mind, or it makes it more difficult.

"Her abduction has also done more for missing children than anything that has gone before. It was part of the campaign to raise these issues."

McCann said he was likely to return to work in "some degraded fashion" after spending "such a long time training" to become a specialist.

McCann was speaking to BBC presenter Kirsty Wark and remained composed throughout the hour-long interview as he has throughout the four-month-long ordeal.

McCann said he and his wife, a GP, had been urged by police not to show emotion in public for operational reasons.

"We would never divulge something that might help someone cover their tracks. That's been frustrating," he said, "given how much has been written that's erroneous".

"People have lost sight of the fact that Madeleine may still be alive and we will do nothing that allows them [a perpetrator] to cover their tracks."

The investigative procedures and style of the Portuguese police made it "very hard" for the couple.

"The Portuguese police do things very, very quietly. They like to do things quietly and not for people to know. That's hard for us as well.

"The way the investigation is being handled is very different to the UK where the police like to give out information."

He added: "Early on people really wanted a happy outcome, wanted Madeleine to be found" but now information was "being published without regards to the investigation".

The couple were not giving in to their emotions as a means of "self preservation".

He said: "Of course, we both feel very emotional but nothing can be worse than that first night. You can't be an emotional wreck for 24 hours a day. You have to function.

"We have two other children [two-year-old twins Sean and Amelie] and there has to be a balance between looking back at what happened and giving love and attention to them."

He added: "I'm very, very confident that they [the twins] will grow up to have a normal and productive life."

Asked about criticism of him and his wife for leaving their three children alone while they ate with friends in a nearby restaurant on the Mark Warner resort in the Algarve, McCann said what they had done was "perfectly reasonable".

"The chances of her being abducted were hundreds of millions to one. Nothing was further from our mind. Did we let Madeleine down? I am not sure but as parents we are bound to feel guilty," he said.

McCann was asked what message he had for the parents of 11-year-old Rhys Jones, who was shot dead in Liverpool last week. He said: "We were incredibly shocked by what happened and offer our condolences to the family.

"The difference between us is that we are still in the middle of an ongoing trauma. They will at least get some closure if the perpetrator is caught."