Madeleine McCann’s parents may use £750k in private search

The parents of Madeleine McCann have set aside almost £750,000 to fund a private search if police stop looking for their missing daughter.

The Find Madeleine Fund consists chiefly of donations and profits from mother Kate’s book on the child’s disappearance in Portugal. 

The 49-year-old has made £793,516 from the bestselling Madeleine: Our daughter’s disappearance and the continuing search for her.

Madeleine McCann went missing from an apartment in Portugal when she was three years old in 2007

But nearly £65,000 was set aside for expenses and an unsuccessful libel battle against the Portuguese ex-detective who accused her and father Gerry, also 49, of accidentally killing their child and hiding her body, Mirror Online reports.

The couple have seven weeks of guaranteed funding left for Scotland Yard’s Operation Grange, which is set to end after an £11.3million hunt.

Family spokesman Clarence Mitchell said the Find Madeleine Fund gives the McCanns the chance to ‘pick up their own inquiries again, if they choose, with private investigators’.

Three-year-old Madeleine vanished from a Praia da Luz apartment in May 2007 as her parent ate tapas at a nearby restaurant. She would now be nearing 15 years of age.