Kate McCann was a secret MI5 agent when her daughter Madeleine McCann went missing, it has been outrageously claimed.
A Portuguese newspaper linked anguished Kate, 51, to the UK’s counter-intelligence service in a new slur in the run-up to the 12th anniversary of the youngster’s unsolved disappearance.
A McCan family spokesperson, addressing the claims, said: ‘These are absolutely absurd and ridiculous allegations, which Madeleine’s parents are certain no one in their right mind would even consider believing.
‘It is unmitigated garble and yet more nonsense they are having to endure at a very painful and difficult time for them.’
Veteran journalist Jose Antonio Saraiva fed the wild conspiracy theories surrounding the mystery by alleging a female doctor had contacted him to insist Madeleine’s disappearance was linked to her parents’ ‘secret activity’ because of her mum’s ‘suspected’ MI5 membership.
Kate (pictured with husband Gerry McCann) has been wildly accused of being a member of the UK’s counter-intelligence service in the run-up to the 12th anniversary of their daughter’s unsolved disappearance
And he gave the hair-brained idea oxygen in Sol – the weekly national Portuguese newspaper he founded nearly 13 years ago – by claiming it might explain Gordon Brown’s decision to ‘dispatch’ then-British Ambassador John Buck to Praia da Luz after the youngster vanished from the McCanns’ Algarve holiday apartment.
Disgraced ex-Portuguese police chief Goncalo Amaral, who features heavily in the new Netflix documentary on the Madeleine McCann case, claimed last year MI5 spies helped to cover up her death and disappearance.
Amaral, the original lead investigator in the case before his October 2007 sacking for criticising the British police, said British secret agents ‘for sure had an involvement’ in an Australian documentary which aired last April.
Jose Antonio Saraiva, who wrote the piece for newspaper Sol, said a female genetics doctor he named only as H. Santos had identified Kate McCann as an MI5 agent and claimed it explained her daughter’s disappearance, but also singled out husband Gerry as a potential spy
Lisbon-born Saraiva, who trained as an architect before becoming a journalist, said a female genetics doctor he named only as H. Santos had identified Kate McCann as an MI5 agent and claimed it explained her daughter’s disappearance, although husband Gerry was also singled out as a a potential spy.
Writing in Sol, which sells to thousands of copies every week, he fuelled the hurtful claim and wrongly identified Gerry and former Prime Minister Gordon Brown as old schoolmates.
Saraiva writes: ‘This would explain the immediate dispatch to Portugal of a representative of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and future Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
Madeleine McCann disappeared on the May 3 2007 from her bed in a holiday apartment in the resort of Praia da Luz. Despite several international police investigations, the whereabouts of the missing youngster remain unknown
‘It was said that Brown did it because he was Gerry’s schoolmate. But this explanation doesn’t wash.
‘The English are very formal and there’s not the cronyism there that characterises southern Europe.
‘A minister doesn’t send an official representative to find out about the disappearance of a little girl because he went to school with her father.’
Gerry McCann and Gordon Brown never attended the same school or university, but the ex-PM is known to the McCann’s family through links to one of his sisters.
Brown went to Kirkcaldy West Primary School and High School before beginning a long academic life at Edinburgh University, whereas Gerry McCann went to a primary in Glasgow, Holyrood Secondary School and Glasgow University on the other side of the country.
Kate and Gerry McCann have spoken in the past about the hurt that speculation and conspiracy theories have caused the family.
Family spokesman Clarence Mitchell said their refusal to take part in new Netflix series ‘The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann’ was based on their belief it may encourage conspiracy theorists and would do nothing to help with the ongoing search for her.
In making reference to the theories thrown about online, he told This Morning last month ‘the worst of human nature’ was spread across social media.
Kate McCann insisted from the outset her daughter had been abducted and she and her husband took Goncalo Amaral to court over his claims in controversial 2008 book ‘The Truth of the Lie’ that they had covered up her accidental death in their holiday apartment.
Mr Mitchell revealed last year in an interview one of the ‘most ridiculous’ conspiracy theories he had ever heard was that Madeleine was ‘born as the result of a government cloning project’.
Gerry McCann said two years ago of the hurtful fake accusations: ‘I’m sure it is a very small minority of people who spend their time doing it, but it has totally inhibited what we do.’