Madeleine McCann’s parents are ‘furious’ after a retired Portuguese detective repeated claims that they put their daughter’s life at risk.
Gerry and Kate McCann, both 51, from Rothley in Leicestershire, were said to be livid that Goncalo Amaral has again said the three-year-old’s life was endangered after the couple revealed the distinctive mark in her eye.
The abductor may have felt forced to kill the toddler after the mark was publicised, Mr Amaral, 59, suggested, due to her being easily identified.
Mr Amaral, who led the police investigation into the 2007 Praia de Luz disappearance, originally made the comments in a book he wrote in 2008.
But he has repeated them in Netflix documentary The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann, which was released on Friday.
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Goncalo Amaral has again made claims Madeleine McCann’s life was endangered by revealing her distinctive eye mark
Gerry and Kate McCann are said to be ‘furious’ after the claims were made in a Netflix documentary released on Friday
Three-year-old Madeleine McCann vanished from Praia da Luz in Portugal in May 2007
The tapas bar at the hotel the McCanns were staying at in Portugal when Madeleine went missing
‘Mr Amaral doesn’t seem to have any compassion for Kate and Gerry and is only interested in publicising himself,’ a source told the Sunday People.
‘To criticise them for doing everything they could to help find their daughter is insensitive in the extreme.
‘If there is any defamatory content in there then, of course, they will consider what next steps need to be taken.’
A friend of the McCanns added: ‘This documentary just regurgitates everything, the good and the bad, and frankly it doesn’t take it on at all.
‘That’s what Kate and Gerry expected and is largely why they thought it wasn’t going to help and didn’t get involved.’
Still from the new documentary that has promised fresh theories into the girl’s disappearance
A source close to Mr and Mrs McCann said: ‘This documentary just regurgitates everything, the good and the bad, and frankly it doesn’t take it on at all’
Apartment 5A at the Ocean Club in Praia Da Luz in Portugal was where Madeline went missing from 10 years ago on May 3
Madeleine was nearly four years old and the investigation into her disappearance is ongoing
In the eight-part documentary, Mr Amaral claimed: ‘That birthmark made her stand out from all the other children.
‘As a colleague of ours said, that mark was a “death mark” and if we make this public it can put the child at risk. It puts her survival at risk.’
Mr Amaral – who was kicked off the investigation after six months – is facing a libel fight with the McCanns after his book The Truth Of The Lie also claimed the parents made up the abduction story after Madeleine accidentally died in the flat.
The detective was not the only one to believe the McCanns were involved in their daughter’s disappearance.
Child protection expert Jim Gamble said in the documentary he suspected Mr McCann and wife Kate ‘from the very outset’ – and even tried to get the father to ‘do the right thing’ and confess.
But the former head of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre said he is now convinced the couple were innocent and devastated over their daughter.
Former head of Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre Jim Gamble (pictured in the documentary) said he is now convinced the couple were innocent and devastated over their daughter
Mr Gamble described how he helped Mr McCann write an appeal to Madeleine’s abductor, urging them to let the child go and hand themselves in.
He said he hoped his words might prompt Mr McCann to act if he had been involved.
Mr Gamble said he advised Mr McCann to write his appeal ‘along the lines that sometimes people make terrible mistakes in life they never intended, but ultimately it’s never too late to do the right thing’.
He added: ‘But in shaping that I was actually talking to Gerry. I think it was the only way of delivering that message or reflecting that thought – if something had happened, if it was a mistake, it’s never too late to come out and stop all of this.’
Mr Gamble said his initial suspicion of the McCanns was based on his experience as a police officer, adding: ‘Statistically it’s likely to be the parents or somebody who’s in close proximity with the child.’
But later knowledge of the case convinced him they were innocent, and he described Portuguese detectives’ decision to name them as formal suspects in September 2007 – a decision later lifted – as ‘clutching at straws’.
The McCanns were asked to take part in the documentary by British company Pulse Films.
But the couple refused as they believed it ‘could potentially hinder’ the British police investigation.
It is understood they have not watched any episodes but their lawyers have.
The series producers were also turned down by the ‘Tapas Seven’ – who had been holidaying with the McCann family in 2007.
How the disappearance of Maddie McCann has unfolded over 11 years
2007
May 3: Gerry and Kate McCann leave their three children, including Maddie, asleep in their hotel apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal, as they eat with friends in a nearby restaurant. When they return, they find Maddie missing from her bed
May 4: A friend of the McCanns reports of seeing a man carrying a child away in the night. Meanwhile, airports and borders are put on high alert as search gets underway
May 14: Robert Mural, a property developer who lives a few yards from the hotel, is made a suspect by Portuguese police
May 30: The McCanns meet the Pope in Rome in a bid to bring worldwide attention to the search
August 11: Police in Portugal acknowledge for the first time in the investigation that Maddie might be dead.
September 7: Spanish police make the McCanns official suspects in the disappearance. Two days later the family flies back to England
2008
July 21: Spanish police remove the McCanns and Mr Mural as official suspects as the case is shelved
2009
May 1: A computer-generated image of what Maddie could look like two years after she disappeared is released by the McCanns
2011
May 12: A review into the disappearance is launched by Scotland Yard, following a plea from then-Home Secretary Theresa May
2012
April 25: After a year of reviewing the case, Scotland Yard announce they belief that Maddie could be alive and call on police in Portugal to reopen the case, but it falls on deaf ears amid ‘a lack of new evidence’
Kate and Gerry McCann mark the fourth anniversary of the disappearance of their daughter Madeleine with the publication of the book written by her mother in 2011
2013
July 4: Scotland Yard opens new investigation and claim to have identified 38 ‘people of interest’
October 24: A review into the investigation is opened by Portuguese police and new lines of inquiry are discovered, forcing them to reopen the case
2014
January 29: British officers arrive in Portugal as a detailed investigation takes place. During the year, several locations are searched, including an area of scrubland near the resort
2015
October 28: British police announce that team investigating Maddie’s disappearance is reduced from 29 officers to just four, as it is also revealed that the investigation has cost £10million
2016
April 3: Operation Grange is handed an additional £95,000 by Theresa May to keep the investigation alive for another six months
2017
March 11: Cash is once again pumped into keeping the investigation alive, with £85,000 granted to keep it running until September, when it is extended once again until April next year
2018
March 27: The Home Office reveals it has allocated further funds to Operation Grange. The new fund is believed to be as large as £150,000
September 11: Parents fear as police hunt into daughter’s disappearance could be shelved within three weeks by the new Home Secretary amid funding cuts
September 26: Fresh hope in the search for Madeleine McCann as it emerges the Home Office is considering allocating more cash for the police to find her