Parents: If Maddie is dead we have to know

Aug 13 2007 by Alan Weston, Liverpool Daily Post

THE mother of Madeleine McCann has said she would rather know her daughter was dead than live in limbo forever.

It has been 102 days since the four-year-old girl disappeared from her family’s holiday apartment in the Portuguese seaside village of Praia da Luz.

Liverpool-born Kate McCann said she and husband Gerry needed to know what had happened to her, even if that meant learning the worst.

The couple have always said they will cling to the hope Madeleine is still alive until they see concrete evidence to the contrary.

But Portuguese police acknowledged for the first time on Saturday that she could be dead in the light of newly-discovered clues.

Mrs McCann said: “I’ve never liked uncertainty. And this is the worst kind of limbo.

“Gerry and I have spoken about this and, in our heart of hearts, we’d both rather know, even if knowing means we have to face the terrible truth that Madeleine might be dead. We both need to know.”

She also responded to criticism of her and her husband for leaving their three children alone in their flat while they dined in a nearby restaurant on the night Madeleine disappeared.

Mrs McCann said: “I ask myself, ‘Why did I think it was safe?’ But it felt safe. You don’t expect a predator to break in and take your daughter.”

The McCanns are now awaiting DNA test results that could support police theories that their daughter was killed.

Relations between Portuguese police and the McCanns are under strain after a senior officer went on TV to reveal Madeleine could be dead, without telling her family first.

It is understood Kate and Gerry McCann were particularly distressed that Chief Inspector Olegario Sousa chose to make his comments on the 100th day since Madeleine went missing.

But a family spokeswoman said it was “heartening” that he officially confirmed they were not considered as suspects after a painful week of “hurtful” allegations in Portuguese papers suggesting they were now under suspicion.

Mr McCann appeared to be considering the possibility that she was dead when he told the BBC’s Heaven and Earth programme yesterday that if “the worst possible thing happens”, he would be comforted by his faith that Madeleine was “in a better place”. The McCanns also appealed for new European laws to speed up the response to a child abduction.

THE full interview with Kate McCann appears in the new issue of Woman’s Own.

THE grandparents of Madeleine McCann were mobbed by well-wishers when they manned a stall in Liverpool city centre on Saturday to mark 100 days since the four-year-old disappeared.

Mrs McCann’s parents, Susan and Brian Healy, from Mossley Hill, distributed T-shirts, posters, car stickers, wristbands and balloons to members of the public in Church Street.

And they hit back at critics of their daughter, describing the past seven days as the worst week since their granddaughter vanished.

alanweston@dailypost.co.uk