The McCanns release their second media statement on the evening of 05 May 2007
Reports and videos published on Saturday 05 May 2007
Police search/McCanns walking with the twins, 05 May 2007
Police Search For Missing British Girl
The parents of a three-year-old feared abducted in Portugal have made an appeal for her safe return.
It's thought that Madeleine McCann may have been snatched from her hotel room at a resort on the Algarve. Sky's Ian Woods
reports.
00:03:15
Devastated Family: Pictures From Portugal
The family of missing 3 year old Madeleine McCann have been seen with their two other children
walking around their resort in Portugal. See the latest pictures here.
00:00:54
Parents' anguish as toddler is 'abducted' at night from holiday resort in Portugal, 05 May
2007
Parents' anguish as toddler is 'abducted' at night from holiday resort in Portugal Independent
By Ian Herbert
Saturday, 5 May 2007
A search was under way last night for a British toddler who is feared abducted after disappearing from an apartment at
a holiday resort in south-west Portugal while her parents dined 200 yards away. Madeleine McCann, who will be four next week,
went missing from the Mark Warner Ocean Summer Club complex in Praia da Luz on Thursday night,prompting a hunt involving dozens
of holidaymakers.
Her parents, Gerald and Kate McCann, who left for a nearby tapas restaurant at 8pm, had looked in every half hour on
their daughter and her two-year-old twin brother and sister, Sean and Amelie, who at 9.30pm were all asleep Madeleine
in a single bed and the twins in cots on either side. But when Ms McCann, a GP, checked at 9.45pm, Madeleine known to
her family as "Maddy" had gone.
Mr McCann, a consultant cardiologist at Glenfield Hospital in Leicester, told his sister, Trish Cameron, that his wife
had found the front door to their ground-floor apartment open and that the louvred shutters had been "jemmied" open. "[Gerry
rang last night and told me] 'Madeleine's been abducted, she's been abducted'," Ms Cameron said. "Nothing had been touched
in the apartment, no valuables taken, no passports. They think someone must have come in the window and gone out the door
with her."
Although forensic officers fingerprinted the window sill of the ground floor apartmentand sealed off its private patio,
a spokesman for Mark Warner said there had been no evidence of a forced entry. However, the shutters had been slid up and
the bedroom window opened after the McCanns had left.
John Hill, the resort manager, said all apartments in the five-storey complex had "quite sophisticated shutters".
Madeleine, an energetic three-year-old who enjoys swimming and tennis lessons and is due to start school in September,
was wearing white pyjamas when she disappeared.
"The fear is she has been abducted," a police source said. " There has been absolutely no sign of her."
The child's distraught parents spent yesterday at police headquarters in nearby Faro. They issued a statement saying
they believed Madeleine was alive. "This is a particularly difficult time for the family and we are all comforting each other.
"We have received lots of support from friends, family and the public and the family are very grateful for that support.
At this time all the family's focus is in assisting the UK and, in particular, the Portuguese authorities in securing Madeleine's
safe return."
Mrs McCann and her Scottish husband, who are both 38, live in Rothley, Leicestershire, and are said to be protective
of their children. The holiday to Portugal, with a group of eight couples from Leicester's medical fraternity, was the first
of its kind they had taken. All the couples in the McCanns' group took children, and Madeleine was the eldest.
News of Madeleine's disappearance quickly spread across Praia da Luz on Thursday night and about 70 holidaymakers abandoned
their evening plans to scour the beaches, swimming pools and empty buildings for her and take vehicles in roads leading into
the surrounding hills.
The McCanns scoured the lanes above the resort, shouting for her in the dark. Police notified border police, Spanish
police and airports and deployed sniffer dogs. But with each hour that passes, hopes that Madeleine merely wandered off are
fading.
There were conflicting reports yesterday of how effective the Portuguese police operation has been. A family friend,
Jill Renwick, told GMTV that police activity ground to a halt at 3am. But Mr Hill said this was not true, and that police
had been searching with dogs overnight and continued to search today.
He said: "The police have their dogs in and have been conducting sweeps of the beach and rocky areas very close to the
village. There is a criminal investigator here in charge of the situation and about 20 officers."
The McCanns were due to return to Britain with their children today to prepare for Madeleine's fourth birthday. Instead,
her maternal grandparents,Brian and Susan Healy, left Liverpool to join them in Portugal and offer support.
Tapas for two ... then parents' nightmare began, 05 May 2007
Tapas for two ... then parents' nightmare began Guardian
Police hunt three-year-old believed abducted from holiday apartment
Sandra Laville, Martin Wainwright, Dale Fuchs in Faro
The Guardian, Saturday May 5, 2007
The telephone rang at around 11pm at Trish Cameron's home near Glasgow. She picked it up to hear the voice of her younger
brother. "He was distraught, breaking his heart," Mrs Cameron said. "He said: 'Madeleine's been abducted, she's been abducted.'"
Hundreds of miles away in Portugal's western Algarve Gerald McCann, whose job as a heart surgeon demands a calm, steady
nerve, had lost any semblance of control and was crying down the telephone to his older sister. Just an hour earlier he and
his wife Kate had returned to their ground floor apartment in the Ocean Club holiday resort to find that three-year-old Madeleine,
the little girl they had left asleep in her white pyjamas, had disappeared.
Their two-year-old twins, Sean and Amelie, lay undisturbed in their cots beside the bed, making the absence of the child
they call Maddy all the more haunting. Nothing appeared to have been stolen from the room, but the shutters seemed to have
been forced, the window was open and the main door unlocked, according to the family.
It was Mrs McCann who walked in first. Minutes later she ran out screaming, according to her sister in law. In the confusion
and melee that followed, the police were called and other holidaymakers woken to carry out a search for the three-year-old,
amid hopes that she was merely sleepwalking.
But by the time Mr McCann picked up the phone to his sister in Dumbarton the thread of hope that Maddy had simply climbed
out of the window and wandered off had been eclipsed by the growing certainty that she had been snatched while he and his
wife ate tapas just 100 yards away within the holiday complex.
The luxury resort in Praia de la Luz, where Moorish-style villas sit amid sub-tropical gardens overlooking a beach of
white sand, was transformed into a crime scene yesterday.
Portuguese police used a sniffer dog to check around the complex. The five storey block where the McCanns were staying
was sealed off and forensic experts were dusting the shutters and windows of their two bedroomed apartment for fingerprints.
Those holidaymakers who were not taking part in the continuing search for any sign of the child were handing out photographs
of her in the hope that someone either within the resort or outside in the small village of Praia de la Luz would have spotted
her.
"She is an absolutely beautiful wee blonde girl with blue green eyes," said Mrs Cameron. "Her one distinguishing features
is that one of her pupils runs down into the iris of her eye, her right eye."
The Foreign Office said a liaison officer from the Serious and Organised Crime Unit was in touch with the Portuguese
chief of police. Two officials from the British Consulate in nearby Portimao were with the family to help them as they dealt
with the police, a spokesman said.
The couple were being interviewed yesterday afternoon by Portuguese detectives, who took them through their movements
on Thursday night in detail.
Mrs McCann, a GP in Leicester and her husband, who works in the world renowned cardiac unit of Glenfield Hospital, in
the city, flew out to the Algarve with eight friends last Saturday for the week-long break.
Maddy, their eldest child, was going to be four next week and was due to start school in September. Family friend Jill
Renwick said it was the first time they had been away somewhere with the children and that they had chosen the resort with
care. "This is the first time they have done this. They are very, very anxious parents and very careful and they chose [the
resort] because it is family-friendly," she said.
Throughout the week the family enjoyed the facilities in the resort, which boasts four swimming pools, the beach and
childcare from 7.30pm to 11.30pm for those parents who want it.
On Thursday night the McCanns went out after 8pm, having put their three children into their pyjamas and seen them fall
asleep in their bedroom in the apartment. "They weren't out for long, and they could see the apartment from the restaurant"
said Brian Healy, Madeleine's maternal grandfather.
Mrs Cameron said the couple checked on the children every half hour; the last check was made after 9pm by Mr McCann.
Some time between then and around 10pm when his wife walked into the room to find Madeleine missing, the family believes an
intruder broke in and snatched the girl.
Mrs Cameron said: "Nothing had been touched in the apartment, no valuables taken, no passports. They think someone must
have come in the window and gone out the door with her."
Paul Moyes, 47, from Cheshire and his wife Susan, who own a holiday apartment in the same block as the McCanns, said
they were woken at 11.30pm by a knock on the door and asked to join in a search for a missing girl.
"We went down to the beach with scores of other people to look for her," said Mr Moyes. "The police arrived at around
midnight and by that stage we were already out looking. There were uniformed police, plain clothes and even off duty local
officers who joined in.
"The search went on all night, people were using torches, and in the morning police sniffer dogs arrived."
By 4.30am exhausted holidaymakers began drifting away, having found no sign of Madeleine. Back home in Dumbarton, Mrs
Cameron spoke to her brother again at 10am yesterday.
"It was frustrating for him then because between 5am and 7am the police seemed to do nothing, they were standing about,"
she said.
But the manager of the resort, John Hill, said everything was being done to try to trace Madeleine. "It was a very emotional
and very frantic night and everyone did a fantastic job of getting involved and trying to search the area," he said.
Throughout yesterday the search continued for Madeleine. Mrs McCann's parents, Brian and Sandra, flew out in the afternoon
from Liverpool to join their daughter and son-in-law, who met as young doctors in Glasgow and married nine years ago in Liverpool.
Mrs Cameron also packed a bag to fly out to help her younger brother.
At the McCanns' family home in the village of Rothley, Leicestershire, neighbours and friends were praying that Madeleine
would be found alive and well. "We are absolutely devastated," said Penny Noble. "They are a really nice family and good neighbours.
They are delightful. We see them take their bikes up and down and going for walks. Madeleine is a very happy-go-lucky little
girl".
Another neighbour, Tracey Horsefield, said that the family "idolised" Maddy and the twins. She said: "They were really
protective of the children. I'm just praying that she's not been abducted. Let's hope that for some reason she just wandered
off."
At the cardiac unit in Glenfield Hospital, staff were at work yesterday with one eye on the phone - hoping to receive
the call which would tell them their colleague's child had been found safe and well.
Doug Skehan, a consultant cardiologist who works with Mr McCann, said: "The mood in the hospital is one of great concern
and we hope that Kate and Gerry will have their daughter back very soon."
Grandfather: evidence that three-year old was snatched, 05 May 2007
Grandfather: evidence that three-year old was snatched Guardian
Sandra Laville and Dale Fuchs in Faro
The Guardian, Saturday May 5 2007
The grandfather of a three-year-old snatched from her parents' holiday apartment in the Algarve said yesterday that there
was clear evidence she had been abducted.
Police helicopters flew over Praia de la Luz yesterday as the hunt intensified for Madeleine McCann, who went missing
from her bedroom in the apartment on Thursday night.
Teams of officers used sniffer dogs to scour the resort, in the south-west of Portugal, where Gerald McCann, a cardiac
surgeon, and his wife Kate, had taken their three young children - Madeleine and her younger brother and sister, who are twins
- for a week-long holiday.
Mark Warner, the holiday firm which runs the luxury resort, claimed last night there was no sign of a break in at the
ground floor apartment overlooking the sea. But Brian Healy, Madeleine's maternal grandfather, told the Guardian his son-in-law
had phoned him shortly after returning to the apartment from a nearby restaurant to find Madeleine had disappeared.
"Gerry told me when they went back the shutters to the room were broken, they were jemmied up and she was gone," said
Mr Healy. "She'd been taken from the chalet. The door was open."
Mr Healy flew to Portugal yesterday to lend support to his daughter Kate, 39, who is a Leicester GP, and son-in-law Gerry,
38, a consultant cardiologist at the city's Glenfield Hospital. He denied suggestions that the couple had simply left their
three children alone while they ate in a restaurant.
"It is not right to say that they just left them," said Mr Healy. "They could see the chalet from where they were sitting
in the restaurant, they were a hundred yards away. They went back every half hour to check on the children. When they returned
at the end of their meal she was gone. My daughter can hardly speak. She is distraught, she is crying and in shock."
Search goes on for girl feared snatched on holiday, 05 May 2007
A LIVERPOOL mother and her husband were last night still searching for their three-year-old daughter who it is feared
was snatched from a holiday resort in Portugal.
Madeleine McCann disappeared from a rented apartment on Thursday evening as her parents dined at a tapas restaurant nearby.
Kate McCann, 38, a GP originally from Allerton, and father Gerry, a consultant heart specialist from Glasgow, fear she
has been snatched from the Ocean Club resort.
The couple last night made a heartfelt plea, urging her abductors to return her to her family.
She was last seen sleeping soundly by her father at around 9pm on Thursday night at the resort, run by holiday firm Mark
Warner, in the seaside village of Praia Da Luz in the south-western Algarve.
But at 10pm when her mother Kate went to check on her, she found the shutter slid up, the bedroom window open and her
daughter gone.
Mr McGann last night read out a brief statement, with his wife at his side, pleading with the abductors to release the
three-year-old back to her family.
His voice cracking with emotion, he said: "We cannot describe the anguish and despair we are feeling as parents of our
beautiful daughter Madeleine.
"We request that anyone with any information relating to Madeleine's disappearance, no matter how trivial, contact the
Portuguese police and help us get her back safely."
He then directly addressed anyone who might be holding his daughter, saying: "Please, if you have Madeleine, let her
come home to her mummy, daddy, brother and sister."
He also asked that the family's privacy be respected so that they can do as much as possible to help the police investigation
into their daughter's disappearance.
"Everyone can understand how distressing the current situation is. We ask that our privacy is respected to allow us to
continue assisting the police in their investigation," he said. The McCanns, who now live in Leicester, were holidaying with
Madeleine and twins Sean and Amelie, two.
Last night, the toddler's anxious grandparents spoke of their distress before catching a flight from Manchester Airport
to Faro to join their daughter in Portugal.
Grandparents Brian and Susan, of Wembley Road, Mossley Hill, decided to fly to Portugal to support their daughter and
help with the search for Madeleine after becoming increasingly frustrated with the lack of news in the UK.
Speaking at the door of the family home, before setting off, Madeleine's grandfather Brian Healy said: "It's a very distressing
time."
Madeleine's aunt, Trish Cameron, who lives in Dumbarton near Glasgow, described how her brother, Gerry, had called her
"breaking his heart".
She said his wife had gone to check on the children and "came out screaming".
"The door was lying open, the window in the bedroom and the shutters had been jemmied open.
"Nothing had been touched in the apartment, no valuables taken, no passports.
"They think someone must have come in the window and then gone out the door with her."
She revealed the couple were on holiday with other doctors from the medical fraternity in Leicester.
Pat Perkins added: "Kate and Gerry often visited Liverpool with the children. They are such good parents."
The manager at the Mark Warner resort, John Hill, said around 60 staff and guests at the complex had searched until 4.30am
yesterday.
A HUGE hunt was going on last night for three-year-old Maddy McCann, feared snatched from her holiday flat.
Maddy is believed to have been taken as she slept in the complex on Portugal's Algarve as her doctor parents ate at a
bar 120ft away. Her scent was picked up by a police sniffer dog. But it petered out after 400 yards.
Yesterday, 24 hours after the young child vanished in quiet Praia da Luz, anguished parents Gerry and Kate, both 38,
of Rothley, Leics, begged for her return.
A friend said: "Kate rang us totally hysterical, saying Maddy was abducted. They're devastated."
The appalling news that three-year-old Maddy McCann was feared kidnapped from her holiday flat came in a distraught phone
call early yesterday from her dad.
Heart specialist Gerry McCann rang his sister Trish in Scotland after Maddy vanished from her cot placed between two-year-old
twins Sean and Amelie.
Trish revealed yesterday: "He was breaking his heart, saying 'Madeleine's been abducted, she's been abducted'."
Gerry and wife Kate, both 38, had been checking their three children in the family's ground-floor flat every 30 minutes
as they dined with friends 120ft away.
Trish said: "When Kate checked, she came out screaming. Maddy had gone. The door was open and the window in the bedroom
and shutters were jemmied open. Nothing had been touched and no valuables taken.
"They think someone must have come in the window and gone out the door with her."
Close family friend Gill Renwick, of Liverpool, who also spoke to GP Kate yesterday, said: "Poor Kate and Gerry don't
know where to turn.
"Madeleine has obviously been taken. She couldn't have gone out on her own and the shutters were forced."
Maddy went missing at the Mark Warner Ocean club resort in the coastal village of Praia da Luz on Portugal's Algarve.
A trail of her scent picked up by police dogs at the flat was followed to a supermarket just 400 yards away where it disappeared.
A 24-hour search by police, hundreds of villagers and British holidaymakers failed to find any trace of the child.
Last night Gerry and Kate, of Rothley, Leics, issued a statement saying they were hopeful Maddy would be found safe and
well. It read: "This is a particularly difficult time for the family and we are all comforting each other. We have received
lots of support from friends, family and the public and are very grateful.
"All the family's focus is in assisting the authorities in securing Madeleine's return."
A woman friend of the McCanns - one of their holiday party of nine adults and eight children - said: "We went for dinner
at 8.45pm in a restaurant near the apartments as we've done every night.
"A parent from each family went back to check on the children every half hour.
"Someone checked at 9.15. But when Kate went later Madeleine had gone.
"The window shutters, which had been closed since we arrived on Saturday, were open along with the window. They can be
opened from the outside.
"The window opens on to a car park. The door to the room was shut. It looks as if someone has come through the window
and possibly left through the door."
Close family friend Jon Corner, of Liverpool, told how tearful Kate sobbed down the phone early yesterday: "Someone has
taken my little girl."
Jon, godparent to the McCanns' twins, said: "She was in an absolutely hysterical state - very, very distressed. She blurted
out Madeleine had been abducted.
"Kate said the shutters of the room were smashed. Madeleine was missing It looks as though someone had gone straight
past the twins to get to her. Kate was incredibly upset. I've spoken to her since, and she's still completely devastated.
"She's also very upset that the police don't seem to be doing more to find Madeleine. She thinks there's too little happening."
Mr Corner described the McCanns as a "superb mother and father". He said: "They are a very loving family."
The McCanns' apartment is set in a self-contained complex which boasts villas and apartments together with supermarkets,
restaurants, cafes, boutiques and bars.
Mark Warner management denied there were signs of forced entry at the flat claiming instead that roller shutters had
been slid up and the bedroom window opened.
The firm added that police were keeping an open mind over whether Maddy had managed to leave the apartment on her own.
The McCanns were said to have chosen the complex as a "family-friendly resort."
But they declined to take advantage of a baby-sitting service which would have left their children supervised while they
dined.
Resort manager John Hill said around 60 staff and guests had searched until 4.30am yesterday as police contacted border
authorities, neighbouring Spanish officers and airports.
Mr Hill said: "It was a very emotional and very frantic night and everyone did a fantastic job of getting involved and
trying to search the area.
"There are a criminal investigator and around 20 officers here but unfortunately there's still no information. If I was
in the McCanns' situation, I'd be frustrated as hell. If there were 100 police here I'd want more."
The British Embassy said it had been informed about Maddy's disappearance.
Portuguese police said: "It's a sensitive case. It involves a child and we cannot give more information for now."
Officers sealed off the five-storey holiday block with crime scene tape and fingerprinted the shutters and window sill
outside Maddy's room. A patio to the rear of the block, believed to be attached to the family's two-bedroom apartment, was
also sealed off.
By late afternoon the hunt for Maddy had intensified with helicopter crews, firemen and maritime search teams involved.
A special criminal investigation team from the Policia Judiciria was travelling down from Lisbon.
Sky News weather presenter Jo Wheeler said local police had been giving out maps and telling people where to look. She
said: "It's very well organised."
Wheeler said Maddy could not have wandered on her own back to the beach.
She said: "She'd have to have taken a long and tortuous journey, crossed several roads and walked three quarters of a
mile."
Back in the UK police stood guard outside the McCanns' five-bedroom home in a quiet cul-de-sac. Neighbour Tracey Horsfield,
32, a nurse, said: "They're delightful people - a normal, caring family. They idolise their children. They'd never let them
out of their sight." Another neighbour Penny Noble said: "We're absolutely devastated. They're a really nice family. We see
them going for walks. Madeleine is a happy-go-lucky little girl."
Last night Kate's father, Brian Healy, of Mossley Hill, Liverpool, was preparing to fly out to Portugal. He said: "We're
worried sick. It's a very distressing time."
Gerry McCann is said to be one of Europe's top heart specialists and a consultant cardiologist at Glenfield Hospital
in Leicester. The hospital is a centre of excellence for heart surgery in the UK.
Doug Skehan, also a consultant cardiologist at the hospital, said: "He is a popular, hard-working colleague for whom
we have great affection.
"The mood here is one of great concern and we hope that Kate and Gerry will have their daughter back very soon."
'Maddy was abducted and we have a suspect in mind', 05 May 2007
'Maddy was abducted and we have a suspect in mind' Daily Mail
By Michael Seamark
Last updated at 20:19 05 May 2007
Portugese police believe three-year-old Madeleine McCann has been abducted and have a suspect in mind, a police chief
said today. The toddler vanished from her bed at a holiday resort when her parents were in a restaurant only 40 yards away.
Guilhermino Encarnacao, director of the judicial police in the Faro region, said they were hopeful she is still alive
and believe she is still in Portugal.
But he refused to reveal any more details for fear of endangering Madeleine's life.
The three-year-old's great uncle, Brian Kennedy said t
