The Madeleine McCann Case  FULL Documentary - video Dailymotion

Full Movies 4 U

This documentary tells the story of Madeleine McCanns disappearance in 2003, and follows through the years up until the reservoir search in 2023. Featuring interviews with internationally recognised British Criminologist Dr Graham Hill, and Police Detective Peter Bleksly. It is every parents worst nightmare. Their daughter, only three years of age, taken from her bed.. with no clue left behind. Seconds turned to minutes, minutes into hours, hours into days… Long after a decade, her fate still remains... unknown.   Cast:  Dr Graham Hill, Peter Bleksly, Hans Christian Wolters, Anna Stam, Marie Oilli-Pollard   Filmmakers:  Afsheen Hussein, Jordan Hill, Brian Aabech  Entertain Me Productions Ltd 2023   #docuseries #truestories #realstories #documentary    Related Keywords:  Madeleine McCann found  Madeleine McCann update  Is Madeleine McCann dead  Madeleine McCann parents  Madeleine McCann found alive and well  Madeleine McCann now  madeleine mccann facts that don't add up  Madeleine McCann siblings  Madeleine McCann found  Madeleine McCann movie Netflix  Madeleine McCann update  Madeleine McCann found alive and well  The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann Trailer  The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann age rating  Is Madeleine McCann alive  What happened to Madeleine McCann  Madeleine McCann: the case against Christian B Where to watch  New Madeleine McCann documentary 2023 Netflix  Madeleine McCann found  Madeleine McCann update  Madeleine McCann parents  Madeleine McCann found alive and well  Madeleine McCann Reddit  Madeleine McCann found 2024  Madeleine McCann siblings  Madeleine McCann dead   Dr Graham Hill psychiatrist  Graham Hill cause of death  Graham Hill TED Talk  Peter Bleksley wikipedia  Peter Bleksley wife  Peter Bleksley net worth  Peter Bleksley age  Peter Bleksley young  Detective Peter Bleksley  Peter Bleksley Hunted  Peter Bleksley podcast  madeleine mccann ügy  wurde madeleine mccann gefunden  madeleine mccann megtalálták  gavin and stacey  paul hollywood  woman claiming to be madeleine mccann  miranda hart illness  madeleine mccann dna test results  is julia wandelt madeleine McCann  madeleine mccann facts that don't add up  maggie smith  madeleine mccann clothes found  daniel morcombe  who took madeleine mccann  madeleine mccann age now  what year did madeleine mccann go missing  madelyn cline  madeleine mccann latest news  madeline mccan  madeleine mccann latest  has madeleine mccann been found 2024  christian brueckner  has madeleine mccann been found  how old is madeleine mccann  praia da luz  brueckner madeleine McCann  was madeleine mccann ever found  was madeleine mccann found  madeleine mccann parents  is madeleine mccann dead

Transcript

00:00Words cannot describe the anguish and despair that we are feeling as the parents of our

00:09beautiful daughter Madeleine.

00:11We request that anyone who may have any information related to Madeleine's disappearance, no matter

00:20how trivial, contact the Portuguese police and help us get her back safely.

00:30It is every parent's worst nightmare.

00:35Their daughter, only three years old, taken from her bed with no clue left behind.

00:43Seconds turn to minutes, minutes into hours, hours into days, days into months, months

00:53into years.

00:55Long after a decade, her fate still remains unknown.

01:01Before Madeleine was taken, we felt we'd managed to achieve a little perfect nuclear

01:07family of five.

01:12It has been very upsetting and it's caused a lot of frustration and anger, which is a

01:17real negative emotion.

01:19I think we just need to channel that and I just have to hope that in the long run that

01:23justice will prevail and all will be well.

01:50Madeleine Beth McCann is a British missing person who, at the age of three, disappeared

01:56from her bed in a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz in Portugal on the 3rd of May 2007.

02:06She has been described as the most heavily reported missing person in modern history.

02:12Will they ever find Madeleine McCann?

02:22Born on the 12th of May 2003 in Leicester, England, Madeleine was known to be a sweet,

02:28happy young girl with an outgoing personality.

02:32Madeleine is a beautiful, bright, funny and caring little girl.

02:37She is so special.

02:42Please please do not hurt her.

02:44Please don't scare her.

02:47Please tell us where to find her or put her in a place of safety and let somebody know

02:53where she is.

02:56We beg you to let Madeleine come home.

03:00The parents hope their appeal will persuade an abductor that they can safely let Madeleine

03:06go and end this ordeal.

03:09Jerry and Kate McCann were medical professionals.

03:14My understanding is that Jerry McCann was a heart specialist and Kate McCann was a GP,

03:20a general practitioner.

03:22What I like to say is that she looks like Kate but she's got a McCann personality and

03:28if you've seen the rest of my family...

03:29She's loud.

03:30Yeah, she's loud and she's a real extrovert and for one so young, she can express herself

03:36so well and she tends to be the ringleader with the younger kids and during the holidays

03:43she was the oldest of the eight children here and she just loved every minute of it.

03:49Every waking minute she was having a ball and that is certainly the image that I keep

03:55in my head.

03:57Madeleine was last seen days away from her fourth birthday at a holiday resort called

04:08the Ocean Club in Portugal.

04:14Madeleine and her two-year-old twin siblings, Sean and Amelie, were left asleep in the apartment

04:20while their mother and father, Jerry and Kate McCann, had dinner close by with their friends

04:24at a tapas restaurant.

04:26Only a mere 100 yards away.

04:31The table where the McCanns and their friends were sitting that night is about 150, 200

04:38metres away from the apartment.

04:41It takes a couple of minutes to walk that route and from that table, when you're sitting

04:46down, you have no sight of the roads that surround the apartment complex.

04:54All you can basically see are hedges, the second, third floor apartments and the restaurant.

05:02You do not have a great eye-line of all the surrounding areas, far from it.

05:15The couple had devised a rotor system to check on all their children throughout the evening.

05:20Jerry returned to the apartment at 9.05 and noticed the position of the bedroom door

05:25different to how he and his wife had left it when they initially headed out for the

05:29night.

05:30Looking in, Jerry finds all three of his children sound asleep.

05:36Heading back to the restaurant, he stopped for a conversation along the way.

05:41At 9.30 that night, a friend at the dining table, Matthew Oldfield, offered to check

05:46on the McCanns' children whilst making his way to check on his own children in the

05:50apartment next door.

05:52He returned to say all is well.

05:55At 10.00pm, Kate finishes eating and goes back to the apartment.

06:00She notices that the children's bedroom door is left quite open, but as she goes to

06:05close it slightly, a breeze slams it shut.

06:12I thought maybe I'd left the patio doors open, which I hadn't.

06:21I then decided I'd open the door just a little bit again, and that was when I looked in,

06:26and it was dark, so I was trying to make out if Madeline, you know, where is she, you know,

06:32she must be there.

06:33It sounds daft, but, you know, I didn't switch the light on, you know, and your parent knows

06:37that you try and, you don't want to disturb your children, and then suddenly I knew she

06:42wasn't there, so I thought, has she wandered through to our bedroom?

06:46So I went through to our bedroom, and when she wasn't there, that was when the panic

06:49first set in, and as I rushed back into the children's bedroom, that was the point, and

06:54I guess it was chance, there just happened to be a gust of wind, that suddenly the curtains

06:58that were closed over just blew open, and that's when I saw that the shutter had been

07:02raised, and the window was pushed right across, and that's when I knew, I didn't have any

07:08doubt really, I knew that somebody had taken our daughter.

07:14And you ran back to...

07:16Yeah, I quickly ran round the apartment, and I don't know why that was, because I knew

07:20what had happened, but for some reason I thought, oh, maybe someone's been in, and she's hidden,

07:24and she's cowering or something, I don't know, but I just flew out the back of the apartment,

07:29and then as soon as I saw Gerry and our friends, I just started screaming that Madeleine's gone.

07:43The alarm had been raised.

07:46Well, I think the first thing was it was disbelief, but obviously we jumped up from the table

07:51and ran back to the apartment, and I said, she can't be gone, she can't be gone.

07:55Kate's gone, I'm telling you, she's gone, she's been taken.

07:59She can't.

08:00And I saw the apartment and pretty much instantly knew she'd been taken, and one of the first

08:06things I did is I double-checked all the places Kate had already checked, wardrobes, kitchen

08:10cupboards, and I lowered the shutter, and I went outside, and I was aghast that the shutter

08:17could come up, and on the night, I thought that was how someone had got into the apartment.

08:23But we immediately started searching.

08:26The four men split up.

08:27We went round the immediate blocks of apartments, searching for Madeleine.

08:31We all met back at 5A, and then pretty instantly, within minutes, I asked Matt to go to a 24-hour

08:38reception and call the police.

08:42You know prior deluge, you know how quiet it is.

08:44We didn't even know which number to dial for the police.

08:48We couldn't speak Portuguese, so we acted pretty quickly, really.

08:52And Mark Warner's staff, who were off-duty, started a child search straight away, checking

08:59all the pool areas and everything.

09:01So there was an immediate search once the alert was raised.

09:15At the time that Madeleine went missing, my two youngest children were only a couple of

09:20years older than her.

09:21But never would we have left our young children out of sight and out of earshot.

09:30And regardless of the fact that one of the adults would check on the children every half

09:35an hour, that still left the possibility that for 29 minutes, a child could be crying, for

09:42example, and calling out for its parents.

09:45Or alternatively, there could be a 29-minute window of opportunity for somebody to steal

09:52one of those children away.

09:57I think the school of thought was that they were close by and that they could regularly

10:02go back and check on the children, and the children were sleeping.

10:06A missing person's report was filed.

10:08Blonde hair, blue-green eyes, a small brown spot on her left calf and a distinctive dark

10:15strip on her right iris.

10:23All child abductions normally get reported as a missing person.

10:27How you deal with those early hours of that missing person investigation, I think, is

10:33critical.

10:35If you make mistakes or you don't do the right things in the right order, then you

10:39get off on the wrong foot.

10:41When you get off on the wrong foot, then the investigation tends never to recover from

10:45it.

10:46So if you don't do the right things in a timely fashion very early in the investigation,

10:51then you'll pay the price as the investigation unfolds.

10:54So the longer you don't do those things, the less likely you are to solve the crime

10:59of finding the child.

11:04Police were called.

11:05Border and airport staff notified.

11:08Staff and guests were on high alert, and hundreds of volunteers joined efforts to find Madeleine

11:14in the following days.

11:19For the McCanns, it is now a matter of praying for a breakthrough, and the sense of dread

11:23mounts.

11:25They felt from the beginning this was a case of abduction, of someone snatching their

11:30little girl as she was sleeping in their holiday apartment.

11:33And a short time ago, they made this appeal.

11:36Words cannot describe the anguish and despair that we are feeling as the parents of our

11:43beautiful daughter, Madeleine.

11:46We request that anyone who may have any information related to Madeleine's disappearance, no

11:54matter how trivial, contact the Portuguese police and help us get her back safely.

12:02Please, if you have Madeleine, let her come home to her mummy, daddy, brother and sister.

12:12Kate, since day one, has always been seen holding Madeleine's favourite toy, Cuddle

12:18Cat.

12:19She knew that Madeleine would never be without the fluffy toy when tired, and later recalled

12:25how she knew a crime had been committed for this reason, when it appeared that Cuddle

12:29Cat had been taken from her daughter's arms.

12:32While police initially believed Madeleine could have wandered off and been killed, a

12:37former Scotland Yard detective highly suggests otherwise, stating that had she walked out

12:42of the apartment, she would have walked out with her toy.

12:46It's that lack of sense of urgency.

12:50When you're full of fear for your child, that was really hard to comprehend.

12:55And I guess we tried as well as we could to convey to the police that we know our daughter,

13:01we know she's been taken, and this is an emergency.

13:05And I think them being left till the next morning was just, you can probably imagine

13:11really, in every minute, it was crucifying.

13:16The first 48, 72 hours in particular were, as you can imagine, very difficult, quite

13:23dark, and it was quite difficult to function.

13:28Since that time, through people's help, we have got a lot stronger.

13:33We're very lucky in that we've got a fantastic family, really good friends, and even people

13:38that don't know us at all have been amazing.

13:41I mean, the support we've had has been overwhelming.

13:43And it's that, really, which has kept us strong and kept us positive and hopeful that

13:48we will see Madeleine back again with us.

13:53Over the following weeks, sniffer dogs were released to help with the search and found

13:57traces of blood on a wall in the McCann's holiday apartment.

14:01They acknowledged for the first time that Madeleine could be dead.

14:06Only four months after the initial search, Mr. and Mrs. McCann were made arguidos, meaning

14:13they were suspects in their daughter's disappearance.

14:20That just gave the conspiracy theorists more to bang on about.

14:26I am entirely confident that 15 years after Madeleine went missing, the McCanns have been

14:33witnesses of truth.

14:35They've been thrust in front of the world's media, which must have been extremely challenging.

14:41They, of course, suffered the worst thing imaginable in the fact that one of their much

14:48loved children has gone missing.

14:51They have my sympathy.

14:53And with the amount of attention and police attention that they have garnered in 15 years,

15:01I have no qualms in saying I am entirely convinced they are absolutely not connected

15:10in any criminal way to the disappearance of Madeleine.

15:15They may have been negligent, but they certainly were not criminal.

15:20There's absolutely no evidence that Madeleine is dead.

15:24So let me finish, please.

15:25There's absolutely no evidence that Madeleine is dead, and there's absolutely no evidence

15:29that we were involved in her disappearance.

15:31One of the unusual things about the investigation into Madeleine McCann is that you would expect

15:36the parents to be suspects very early on and to be eliminated from the investigation.

15:42For some unknown reason, it took the police in Portugal four months to make Jerry and

15:48Kate McCann officially or guidos or suspects.

15:52And then it took them nearly a year to then decide that they weren't suspects.

15:57So again, that's a quite strange tactic on the part of the Portuguese police.

16:04Normally, if that investigation was being run in the UK,

16:07then we would look to eliminate the parents from the investigation within the first couple of days.

16:15The Portuguese investigation, I believe, was pretty slow to get up to full speed.

16:23It was, of course, carried out in the glare of worldwide publicity,

16:28which brings pressures of its own upon an investigating team.

16:34I think they dragged their heels to start with.

16:38I think perhaps the Portuguese were hoping that Madeleine would return,

16:43that maybe she had clambered out of the apartment,

16:47gone of her own free will and would be found wandering fairly soon.

16:51Tragically, of course, we all know that's not been the case.

16:56These pictures of police on the Spanish border are deeply worrying.

17:00The officers are supposed to be checking vehicles leaving Portugal.

17:03Instead, for 40 minutes, they sit in their own cars out of the rain.

17:08A van with blacked out windows drives by.

17:11This was filmed by ITV News just 48 hours after Madeleine went missing.

17:19Even after the rain stops, the officers stood by the side of the road chatting

17:24before finally resuming their checks.

17:30The dogs were the turning point where suddenly they felt this was a way to make it go away.

17:37The sniffer dogs, the police dogs, who they said could smell a cadaver, a dead body?

17:42Supposedly.

17:42Supposedly. And you think that they just wanted to brush it under the carpet

17:47to make you go away, to make that crime disappear?

17:50That's certainly what it looked like and how it felt to us, really, because,

17:55you know, you have to assume people that are leading these investigations,

17:59senior detectives, are intelligent people.

18:01And if you sat down for 10 minutes and even thought about the logistics

18:05of what they were suggesting, it just isn't possible.

18:11I suspect the Portuguese didn't appreciate the potential seriousness of this situation.

18:18Hence, so many people were allowed to trample through and around the crime scene.

18:25That may have dealt a fatal blow to there ever being any chance of solving this crime.

18:41Although not wanting to leave without their daughter,

18:44the couple eventually returned to the UK with their two-year-old twins, Sean and Amelie.

18:53Before Madeleine was taken, we felt we'd managed to achieve a little perfect nuclear family of five.

19:01We had that for a short period and I suppose it's almost the same way as if your child

19:09becomes ill or seriously ill or has died, like many other families have suffered,

19:15then your vision is altered and you have to adapt.

19:20And I think that's a theme that, speaking to other people who have gone through

19:26terribly traumatic processes with children and other loved ones, that is something that

19:31gradually happens and you adapt and you have a new normality.

19:36And unfortunately for us, our new normality at the minute is a family of four.

19:43At some point you've got to realise that, you know, time is not frozen and

19:51I think both of us realise that we owe it to the twins to make sure that their life is as

19:58fulfilling as they deserve and we've certainly tried our best to achieve that.

20:09I think there's a general fallacy around people that don't understand people that abduct children.

20:16They think that children are taken to order, they're shipped across the world and clearly

20:21that does happen in some parts of the world. In my experience, and I've interviewed

20:26hundreds of men that have sexually abused children and lots of them men have abducted

20:31them and murdered some of those children and I don't know anyone that has abducted a child

20:36for the purpose of trafficking them to a particular organisation or particular part of the world.

20:42This is a very unique kind of crime, it's really rare and that's why very few police

20:47officers have experience of dealing with it. What happens is, is most of the time if a child

20:54is abducted for the purpose of some kind of sexual gratification then in most cases that

21:01child is dead within six hours. If they're going to be killed they're dead very quickly

21:08and the reason for that is, is the logistics of keeping the child alive, keeping them quiet,

21:13keeping them fed, keeping them healthy and then transporting them without anyone seeing them

21:18are huge and offenders don't normally think that far in advance and if they did,

21:24to be able to do it takes a lot of planning and that's why it's a really unusual event.

21:35In 2008, Kate and Gerry made headlines on the front of every newspaper with an official apology

21:41from the Daily Express for allegations that they were responsible for their daughter's

21:45disappearance. Over the course of this year, the friends the McCann's travelled with,

21:51known as Tapas 7, were interviewed and re-interviewed. Nearly all of the friends

21:57received serious defamatory articles connecting them with Madeleine's disappearance,

22:01but only shortly after received libel damages. In July of 2008, Portugal's Attorney General

22:09archived the case for lack of evidence. We welcome the news today although it is no cause

22:16for celebration. It's hard to describe how utterly disturbing it was to be named our guido

22:25and subsequently portrayed in the media as suspects in our own daughter's abduction and worse.

22:33Equally, it has been devastating to witness the detrimental effect this status has had

22:39on the search for Madeleine. We look forward to scrutinising the police files to see what has

22:47actually been done and more importantly what can still be done as we leave no stone unturned

22:55in the search for our little girl.

22:57Missing person inquiries are often very challenging because in the overwhelming majority of cases

23:06people reported missing turn up not long afterwards. It's always a kind of juggling act

23:13for the officer in charge as to what resources do they deploy. Will this person turn up again?

23:20But in the case of a three-year-old going missing in these circumstances, it should be blatantly

23:26obvious to everyone that there is sufficient cause to treat this crime with the utmost seriousness

23:35and deploy every resource possible to it. It didn't happen. There was delay. I think there

23:43was some pondering and procrastination and wondering about what they should do and that

23:50may have damaged the inquiry, particularly in evidential terms, that it may simply never be solved.

24:01I'm pretty certain that the local Portuguese police were not equipped to deal with a child

24:06I'm pretty certain that the local Portuguese police were not equipped to deal with a child

24:11abduction of any size, let alone one of this magnitude and scale. Very quickly the local

24:20police would have called in more experienced detectives and they would have called in more

24:27experienced people from Lisbon. They would have formed the investigation team for them to

24:32investigate this crime. But if you're asking me were they equipped to deal with

24:38a child abduction of this type, then the answer would be no.

24:43People can say whatever they want about us. We've always been totally honest about what we did and

24:48we gave every single piece of information that we knew at that time in the book to the police.

24:54The key thing though is Madeleine's done nothing wrong. She's an innocent child and whoever's

24:59responsible for the abduction is still out there. So the children are at risk and people need to

25:05remember that Madeleine's missing and those responsible have not been brought to justice

25:10and that's why the investigation should continue as much as anything.

25:16This case was only at the beginning and the McCanns felt an extreme lack of effort by the

25:21Portuguese police to actually prioritise finding their missing daughter. Not giving up in 2009

25:29an appeal was launched in Algarve when Gerry first returned to Portugal after coming back to the UK.

25:35Later this year they joined Oprah Winfrey to mark two years since their daughter's disappearance.

25:42At the end of what is the ever more sorry story of the investigation into the disappearance of

25:49Madeleine McCann, there is one fact on which everyone can be agreed. She is still missing.

25:56Madeleine was three years old when she vanished. If she is still alive she's now spent two birthdays

26:03away from the people who love her. As soon as I realised the story or theory or whatever you want to call it

26:14was that Madeleine was dead and that we'd been involved somehow. It just hit home

26:26they haven't been looking for Madeleine.

26:31The couple turned to the UK government for help. They also released a book

26:36Madeleine to keep her in the public eye for as long as possible.

26:42Even as Kate and Gerry McCann began a news conference today to ask for the government's

26:47help, ministers were working to provide them with an answer. What is needed in the search

26:53for their daughter, the couple said, is a review of all the evidence. We want a review, you know,

26:59absolutely that is our number one thing. We think it should be done, it's the right thing.

27:04Us asking Portugal for it is perceived very differently. We shouldn't have to be parents

27:10doing this. So we're asking our government to engage with the Portuguese authorities directly.

27:15We're both part of the European Union. Reviews are standard practice in this country

27:20and it's a major unsolved crime and other children are at risk. We do not think the

27:25barriers are insurmountable and what we're asking for is entirely reasonable.

27:29So we want our government to do it. If governments say children are important then we'd like them

27:34to show that really. So you want action? Absolutely, I mean words aren't enough really. We

27:40really need the government to demonstrate that children matter and Madeleine matters. And of

27:44course we want the public to tell the Prime Minister that they think it's important.

27:51They continued using private detectives until Scotland Yard

27:55opened their own investigation, Operation Grange, in 2011.

28:02Okay, so you have to look at the events that happened. Madeleine went missing in 2007.

28:08In 2009, the then Home Secretary was a man called Alan Johnson and he asked for a review

28:16of the Portuguese investigation to be conducted by SEOP. I was head of behavioural analysis at

28:22the time and I was the person that did that review and I wrote a review that was then

28:28submitted to the Home Secretary. That report sort of became known as the Gamble Report because the

28:34man in charge of SEOP was a man called Jim Gamble but actually I did the review and I wrote the

28:40review and that review went to the Home Secretary. The Home Office decided that the Metropolitan

28:47Police would open up their own investigation into Madeleine's disappearance. They called

28:52it Operation Grange and that's still running right up to this day. Operation Grange was set

29:01up to review all of the investigations that had been previously conducted into the circumstances

29:06of Madeleine McCann's disappearance. However, the work done to try to collaborate with the

29:12Portuguese authorities isn't something talked about fondly. If you look at the relationship

29:19between the Portuguese police and the British police, that's the Leicestershire Police, that's

29:26the National Crime Agency, National Police Improvement Agency then and then you've got

29:31SEOP. All of those organisations were trying to help the Portuguese police and that didn't work

29:41very well because the Portuguese police didn't want any help. They found it quite insulting that

29:47people would come to their country and try and offer them advice how to investigate a crime that

29:53happened in their country so from the get-go it was really evident that the relationships between

30:01police forces internationally were quite fraught and I think that that was an issue

30:05and has remained an issue for the last 17 years. I'm going to hypothesise now but let's imagine

30:15that these circumstances were identical and had happened in the UK. Say for example

30:23at a holiday resort like Centre Parcs. I firmly believe that if parents had left their children

30:31in the UK like the McCann's did in Portugal that the police would have gathered a file of evidence

30:38which would have been sent to the Crown Prosecution Service to consider a charge of neglect.

30:45I'm no expert on the Portuguese judicial system or whether in fact they have crimes such as that

30:53on their statute book but if it had been in the UK I'm pretty confident that is what would have happened.

31:03How did things go so wrong do you think? Why didn't the Portuguese police

31:12understand your point of view? Why did they take the attitude that they did do you think?

31:18I was going to say we can't be certain. We have to speak to those involved. We don't believe for

31:25one minute that they thought we were involved in Madeline's disappearance.

31:28I think there was tremendous pressure to make the crime go away.

31:34In 2012 Scotland Yard released an artist's impression of what she had done.

31:39Yard released an artist's impression of what she may look like as a nine-year-old to help with

31:44possible sightings from the public. The senior investigating officer said that he was treating

31:49the case as a burglary gone wrong or as a criminal act by a stranger, most likely a planned abduction.

32:03With regards to the age progression, if you have seen a little girl who looks like this

32:08or if you see a little girl who looks like this please contact the police immediately.

32:13Please don't hesitate just contact them straight away. I'd like to appeal to the general public as

32:20well. First of all I'd like to say thank you because I know how much you've helped us in the

32:23last five years but we'd like to reach out to you for your help again. Can we encourage you to have

32:30a long look at the new age progression image and if you could help us by circulating it and

32:36distributing it to all your contacts far and wide that would really help the search.

32:46One of the important things about when you investigate child abduction is that you have

32:50to look at every piece of information that comes in and you have to assess it and grade it and

32:54decide whether or not it's worth you developing that piece of information. The situation was

33:01is that very quickly there was an artist impression released that generated lots more

33:06information people supplying names and who it may or may not be and all of that is going to create

33:13a lot of new information to go into the investigation to add to the vast amounts of

33:19information they've already got. So whilst it's important for the media to be used positively

33:25it can have a negative effect on investigations and slow them down. For 15 years Madeleine's face

33:32has been beamed around the world together with appeals for information so it's not surprising

33:39that there have been quite a number of reported sightings none of which appear to have been

33:45confirmed at any point. Ari and Ray Pollard didn't even know that Madeleine was missing

33:51but recognised her photo as soon as they saw it on television back home in Spain.

33:55Despite their constant calls to police in Portugal, Spain and the UK

33:59it was more than 10 days before there was any response. She had this pretty face and long

34:06blonde hair and on the side of the shoulders green eyes and she had little like sad look

34:14in her face. She responded to this man and said

34:21on me the accent and can we see mommy now. Was Madeleine here seen momentarily by this shop

34:29assistant in Amsterdam and how fully did police investigate? And then she came in like this

34:37down the aisle there. Yeah. Amsterdam says a little girl appeared in her party shop

34:43with an unknown couple she didn't know Madeleine had disappeared. I wanted to give her a balloon

34:50but she didn't want that she only wants her mommy she said and she said that these people took her

34:58from her mommy. Did she say anything else to you? Yeah I thought she said at that time that she took

35:05me from my holiday. I asked her her name and I thought at first she said her name was Maggie

35:12so I said oh Maggie that's a nice name and then she said no it's not Maggie it's Maddie.

35:17I understand why people make these reported sightings because they are very well-intentioned

35:24people. They want to do the right thing. She's a very recognizable young girl. They report it when

35:30they think they've seen a child that may have been her or now of course a young woman but sadly

35:37none of these sightings have ever been confirmed. So here you are again talking to the press

35:44talking to the media trying to get some action trying to get your little girl back but meanwhile

35:49life has to go on. Your home life has to continue. How does that happen? What happens with Sean and

35:55Amelie? Well you know a lot of the work that we do we do during the time that they're in school.

36:02The last eight months I have to be honest have been incredibly busy and so as soon as they go

36:06to bed I'm in the garage and working away at my computer so you know it has been very intense.

36:126 a.m starts and yeah I went through a phase of I'll work till two in the morning and then I get

36:16tired and go okay well I'll get up and start work at six in the morning so you know most of my work

36:21is done when Sean and Amelie sort of otherwise engaged whether that be at school or asleep

36:27and you know we've you know I've said all along our family's been incredible we have such support

36:32from our family and friends and you know Sean and Amelie are always in a loving environment so even

36:36if there's a meeting we have to go to for example we know that they're with people who they're very

36:41familiar with and love them very much so. And do they understand what happened to Madeleine? Yeah

36:46no they they know everything they you know we've answered any question they've asked we've

36:51we've answered as openly and honestly as we can and that's certainly been the advice we've had as

36:55well they know that a man's taken Madeleine and they call him the naughty man because they

37:00they know it's wrong they know that burglary of any kind which is obviously what they understand

37:05and even if you really want something you shouldn't take it if it doesn't belong to you

37:09they know Madeleine's our daughter she's their big sister and she belongs with our family.

37:14And you still believe that she's alive and she's out there somewhere?

37:18Oh we know there's a very good chance that she is yes. There's absolutely nothing to suggest

37:23otherwise Mary and as parents we've just got to keep going and I don't think any parent could

37:28accept that their child was dead without concrete proof of that so from our point of view we've got

37:34to keep going. In 2013 Scotland Yard released e-fit images of men they wanted to trace including one

37:43of a man who was seen carrying a child toward the beach on the night Madeleine vanished. And this

37:49drawing was obtained by talking to a witness in fact I believe a friend of the McCann's.

37:58Before Matt went into check for the McCann's at 9 30 that night Jane Tanner at 9 15 walks past

38:05the apartment as she goes to check in on her own children and sees a man carrying a child in his

38:11arms. He then became the primary suspect from that night. Six years later the Metropolitan Police

38:19concluded that this man seen was an innocent British holidaymaker carrying his daughter home

38:25from a crash. This case has got a long way to go it's going to run and run and run.

38:36And I just hope that sooner rather than later we get the answers that so many millions of people

38:44around the world pray for. Everyone is so curious about you two what are they really like you've

38:53met them you know what do you think happened there is an enormous appetite still curiosity

38:59appetite still curiosity about Madeleine and and the thing I always say is that you just

39:06work and work and work and the tragic thing about it is I get the sense very much with you both

39:12and in a sense perhaps almost more with you Jerry that everything you've achieved in life

39:17you've done through hard work and if Madeleine doesn't come back it will be because you feel

39:22you haven't worked hard enough. I don't know if I'd be quite as hard on myself as that but

39:28I think what we want to be able to look back both of us if we don't find Madeleine is to say that

39:34we we did everything humanly possible and we did consider everything so we will keep doing that

39:44and we've got a lot of tremendously good people helping us and and coming up with new ways of

39:49continuing the search. Kate McCann soon reveals that she has had thoughts

39:57about being wiped out in a motorway crash to end the pain of losing Madeleine but vows never to

40:03give up. At the request of the Metropolitan Police the Portuguese police reopened their inquiry.

40:10Over the next few years several investigations into new leads were followed by both the UK

40:17and Portuguese authorities in the Algarve area where Madeleine disappeared. But despite huge

40:23efforts being made including an e-fit of a potential suspect and searches of several areas

40:29no clue had been found.

40:35This is a very difficult time of year and it's the 10-year anniversary obviously an anniversary

40:40you hoped you would never see.

40:44Yeah I mean I never thought we'd still be in this situation so so far along the the line

40:51and it's a huge amount of time in some ways it feels like it was only a few weeks ago and

40:57other times it's felt really long um but it's a hard marker of time I think. And you've referred

41:04to it on your website as stolen time. Well yeah I mean it's time that we should have had with

41:08Madeleine we should have been a family of five for all that time and yeah it does feel stolen.

41:15And you could never have imagined 10 years ago that you would you would still be in this situation.

41:21I think the situation is that we tried everything in our power to not have a long protracted

41:29missing person case like this. It's devastating and you know early on I threw myself into trying

41:35to do everything we could to help find her. Obviously that hasn't worked yet but you know

41:43we are still looking forward I think that's the most important thing and there's still hope.

41:48And how are you doing as a family the pair of you? I think we're in a new normality really

41:57particularly over probably the last seems like a long time saying it but over the last five years

42:02since the Metropolitan Police actually started their investigation it's taken a huge pressure

42:09off us individually and as a family. Because before that you were trying to fight the case

42:15yourselves trying to encourage the police to look for Madeleine get the Portuguese police involved.

42:20Yeah the I think the key thing was and I suppose the injustice of it was that after the initial

42:26Portuguese investigation closed essentially no one other than us was actually doing anything

42:32proactively to try and find Madeleine. And I think every parent could understand that

42:38what you want and what we have aspired to is to have all the reasonable lines of inquiry

42:44followed to a logical conclusion as far as you can do that and that was incredibly frustrating.

42:50And you talked at the time about what a blow that was. It was terrible I mean it's horrible and you

42:56know as much as we tried and fortunate to have had so many donations into Madeleine's fund and

43:03use that money to try and investigate your hands are tied you don't have the powers that law

43:10enforcement have so. So how much of a difference has it made so for the last five years the police

43:15have been actively investigating? Huge. Absolutely huge and I can't emphasize enough just what a

43:23massive burden that's lifted from us and those around us.

43:31In October 2016 the Met Police's team investigating the Madeleine McCann case

43:37was cut from 29 full-time officers to just four. This was made to prioritize smaller lines of

43:44inquiries until new evidence had been found. Each year hundreds of thousands of pounds are spent on

43:51attempts to find Madeleine with a total of 13 million pounds being spent since 2011.

43:59During a BBC interview in 2017 the couple vowed to do whatever it takes for as long as it takes

44:06to find their daughter. We don't dwell too much on things unnecessarily so I think there's probably

44:12a self-protective thing there as well but we do have a very full life and as normal as we can make

44:19it. And how much do you do you make Madeleine a part of it and do you talk about Madeleine is she

44:26is she a name that crops up every day? Yeah I mean she's always still part of our life

44:33there's photographs all around the house. Obviously at this time of year then we can't

44:40even have conversations that doesn't involve the kids know that we're doing our interview today

44:46you know the anniversary's coming up so she is still part of it but obviously. Yeah I mean I

44:54think every kind of event that we do whether it be a birthday or a family occasion or even

45:02an achievement or something I mean that's kind of when you really feel her absence.

45:09It's slightly different to how it was in the early days when everything we were doing was

45:13was to find Madeleine whereas now we are having to get on and live a life as well but

45:19it's not that any day she's not there if you know what I mean. And last time we talked you told me

45:27how you were still buying birthday presents and Christmas presents for Madeleine are you

45:32with 10 years now are you still doing that? I still do that yeah. So you go around the shops

45:38and you think Madeleine would be this age now what would she want? That's it so I mean I obviously

45:44have to think about what age she is and something that you know whenever we find her still be

45:52appropriate so there's a lot of thought goes into it but I couldn't not you know she's still

45:58our daughter she'll always be our daughter. It's because Kate does all the present buying. I always

46:02do the present buying you know and yeah there'll be another one coming up in you know next few weeks.

46:09Then a new suspect 13 years after her disappearance.

46:23In 2020 a lead having been the most significant development in 13 years was made. Police in the

46:31German city of Braunschweig brought a German convicted sex offender to light. He has allegedly

46:38confessed to his part in Madeleine's disappearance to a man in a bar Christian Bruchner.

46:51He has a history of sexual offending against children. He has a history of adult rape and

46:59burglary and in fact my understanding is that that actual rape took place when he actually broke into

47:06the victim's home. He has a history of theft and drug dealing so he is a risk taker by nature.

47:17If you get someone who is a burglar someone who has a sexual interest in children and someone who

47:22is an habitual risk taker then you have the criteria for someone that is capable of breaking

47:30into an apartment and taking a child like Madeleine McCann. So in terms of the offender profile

47:38then he fits quite nicely into what we would be looking for for someone that has the the attitude

47:46the character and the capability because like I said before there are millions and millions of men

47:53and women across the world that have a sexual interest in children. There are very very few

47:59that would break into an apartment and take a child to feed that need of sexual gratification

48:05with a child. So whoever took Madeleine McCann is in a very very unique club and so what you're

48:13looking for is someone that not only has a sexual interest in children you're looking for someone

48:18that has the capabilities of committing that type of crime and if you look at Christian Bruchner

48:24he fits into that quite nicely. He's a risk taker, he's an habitual criminal, he breaks

48:30into houses and he's a sexual offender. He's sexually and morally indiscriminate and he'll

48:36offend against adult women, elderly women and he'll offend against children. So that puts him into a

48:42very rare club. The suspect is linked to an early 1980s VW camper van in 2007. This van was initially

48:54registered in his own name. Scotland Yard says he was driving the vehicle in the prior deluge area

49:01in the days before Madeleine's disappearance. Amongst other things he is known to have sent

49:07sick messages including swapping child abuse images with an undertaker as well as sharing

49:12thoughts of imprisoning a child. Only a day after Madeleine's disappearance it appears that he also

49:19re-registered the car into someone else's name. Bruchner is currently serving a prison sentence

49:27for an unrelated sex crime and has two previous convictions for sexual contact with girls.

49:36It appears that there is some circumstantial evidence that might link the man who's currently

49:42in a German prison. For example he lived on the Algarve in Portugal at the time. He has

49:51some criminal convictions. He lived a fairly transient sort of lifestyle and drove a sort of

50:00camper van type vehicle. But that's just circumstantial evidence. It's not direct

50:09evidence that would link him to the crime, the crime scene and the disappearance of Madeleine.

50:16I make no apology for reinforcing the fact that as a former detective I'm interested only in

50:25evidence in a case like this. And at the moment it appears to me that sufficient evidence to charge

50:34anyone simply doesn't exist. German prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters said he has written to

50:43Madeleine's parents telling them he has concrete evidence she is dead but refused to tell them why.

50:55It's not the case that charges are imminent because the evidence isn't strong enough at

50:59the moment. But we feel that we can go public with this now because the suspicion is based on facts.

51:08If somebody in the UK said that under our criminal justice system in all likelihood

51:14that would have jeopardized any chance of a person getting a fair trial. So I remain shocked

51:21that he speaks in this way and continues to do so. If you've got the evidence

51:29charge someone. If you haven't then be very very cautious about what you say

51:37because any experienced and pragmatic detective will tell you

51:43it's one thing knowing something but it's a very very different thing proving something.

51:51So the real question here is not who is Christian Bruckner. The real question is did the Portuguese

52:02police know about Christian Bruckner in 2007? Was he on their list of potential suspects and did they

52:09eliminate him from their investigation then because they didn't think he did it? Or was he not on their

52:14list? And if so why wasn't he on their list? Because he was a known sex offender who broke

52:19into houses and he lived in the area. So he would have been a natural suspect for this investigation.

52:31In 2023 a reservoir in Portugal was searched, a Raj Dam. This search came more than 16 years

52:39after McCann went missing and was made to help with the investigation into Christian Bruckner.

52:45It was the first McCann active search in almost 10 years. Bruckner allegedly frequented regularly

52:53with his drug dealer, describing it as his paradise. It lasted an extensive three days

52:59and resulted in the collection of some material. But upsettingly it hasn't done anything yet to

53:05aid in the mystery of Madeleine's disappearance. The reservoir was previously scoured by private

53:12investigators in 2008. A Portuguese lawyer claimed to have been tipped off by criminal contacts

53:18that her body was in the reservoir but nothing had been found.

53:23Clearly the investigation took some time to crank into action. It took some time to be regarded

53:32as a kidnap rather than perhaps just a missing person inquiry. And it may be that

53:40opportunities to gather evidence were lost and lost forever. Quite simply we might never know.

53:54Investigators combing through 8,000 photographs belonging to Christian Bruckner

53:59said they have found some potential lines of inquiry

54:02but Bruckner denies any connection to Madeleine. Their 16 year ordeal continues.

54:10There's a lot about this case which is unusual. The leaving of the children, the fact she's never

54:19been found, the fact that nobody's ever been charged in connection with this case, the fact

54:26that it's received global media attention for 15 years. It is probably the most famous crime

54:34of the 21st century on the entire planet and yes no one has yet been charged.

54:46In those first couple of days you seem to be wasting away really in front of our eyes and

54:52then there seemed to be a transformation and you seem to gather strength from somewhere.

54:57How did that happen? Again as I say I think the support that we had through people,

55:04through prayer has made a huge difference and it's true to say that the first two days we didn't

55:10sleep much, we didn't eat much but that was a few days and certainly since then things have

55:16picked up and we have been able to be stronger. But you still don't seem to be any closer to

55:22finding Madeleine. I think what you have to remember are there is a huge amount of work

55:28going on in the background and we know that there's a absolutely huge amount of

55:33information coming through and leads are being followed.

55:43The disappearance of Madeleine McCann has lasted a heart-wrenching number of 16 years.

55:49As each year passes the couple can only hang on to the very little hope they have

55:54of their daughter still being found today.

55:59I think we're seeing the worst and the best of human nature and experiencing

56:03in our personal experience rather than on the internet has been overwhelmingly

56:08seeing the better side of human nature and I think we need to remember that actually.

56:13The main thing that we've experienced is the goodness of people and the support that we've

56:16had over 10 years which hasn't wavered in all that time. In May of 2023 Madeleine turned 20

56:26and has spent a total of 17 years without her family.

56:33You must have imagined over the years

56:40if you saw her and what you'd say to her how your lives would change.

56:46Yeah I think I try not to go there too often to be honest it's one of those real

56:52bittersweet kind of thoughts.

56:57Yeah I mean I can't imagine I'd say 10 years is a long time but ultimately

57:03we're a mum and dad and she's our daughter and she's got brother and sister,

57:07grandparents and lots of family and friends you know.

57:13So it'd be absolutely fine you know it'd be well

57:17it's beyond words really, we'll cope with anything yeah.

57:23To have the strength and power to get through these years

57:26is something every parent should never have to face.

57:30Observing another milestone date without their daughter

57:34Geri and Kate McCann posted a poem on their Find Madeleine website

57:38reminding readers that she is still missing, still very much missed.

57:44Together with the police and the public the search for Madeleine continues.

57:51Whatever it takes for as long as it takes you know but there's still hope that we can find Madeleine.

57:56And if you do find Madeleine you will be able to show her everything you did to try and find her?

58:02Absolutely and I guess for her just knowing how many people have been there will and are home,

58:08really important.

The Madeleine McCann Case FULL Documentary

Category

Transcript

Recommended