The mother and father of Madeleine McCann, the three-year-old who disappeared from her bed at an apartment in a resort in Portugal 18 years ago, say their “determination to leave no stone unturned” in terms of finding their daughter is “unwavering.”
The toddler, from Rothley, Leicestershire, vanished from the seaside resort of Praia de Luz while on holiday with her family on May 3rd, 2007. Nobody has ever been charged in relation to her disappearance, which made headlines around the world.
In a statement on their website findmadeleine.com on Saturday, her parents Gerry and Kate McCann said that while they had no significant news to share they would do their utmost to continue to find Madeleine whose birthday is on May 12th.
The couple thanked their “faithful supporters” for standing by them and “never forgetting about Madeleine”.
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“May is also Madeleine’s birthday – her 22nd this year. No matter how near or far she is, she continues to be right here with us, every day, but especially on her special day. We continue to ‘celebrate’ her as the very beautiful and unique person she is. We miss her.”
The couple said that they were conscious of other families of missing people and the pain they were experiencing in life.
“May is also the month which includes ‘International Missing Children’s Day’. We continue to remember all missing children and their families, both here in the UK and abroad, thinking especially of all the children displaced from their homes & families in Ukraine and Gaza at this time.
“We’re very grateful to the UK charity Missing People for their ongoing, invaluable work, and to all organisations, charities and police forces who remain committed, despite many challenges and limited resources, to finding and bringing home the many missing and abducted children.”
Last month the British government approved up to £108,000 (€125,000) in additional funding for Scotland Yard detectives investigating the disappearance of Madeleine.
Last October the main suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine, Christian Brückner, (47) was acquitted by a German court of five offences of rape and sexual abuse in an unrelated trial. The offences were alleged to have occurred in Portugal between 2000 and 2017.
The case ended after a month with all charges thrown out. The verdict was widely expected after the court revoked the original arrest warrant against Brückner over an issue around jurisdiction.
The case involved the sexual abuse of two children while one of the rape cases involved Co Westmeath woman Hazel Behan.
Ms Behan was raped in her apartment in Praia da Rocha in the Algarve in 2004. She is taking a case to the European Court of Human Rights over what she alleges is the failure of the Portuguese authorities to properly investigate the assault on her in 2004.
Brueckner is serving a seven-year sentence in Germany for rape. In 2020 German investigators in the McCann case named him as the main suspect in the disappearance of Madeline.
He lived in the Algarve between 1995 and 2007 and is serving time for the rape of a 72-year-old American woman in Portugal in 2005.
