THE PARENTS of British girl Madeleine McCann, who went missing at the age of four during a Portuguese holiday in 2007, yesterday spoke of the years of “disgusting” tabloid press harassment they subsequently endured, which had left them feeling “violated”.
During a powerful written statement to the Leveson Inquiry into British Press standards, her father Gerry McCann said: “Over the last 4½ years my family has been through some of the worst ordeals anyone could ever have the misfortune to experience.”
Describing days when they were falsely accused of killing their daughter and were virtually imprisoned in their home, Dr McCann said: “Knowing what it is like to experience such treatment at the hands of an unregulated press, I no longer believe that self-regulation of the media is appropriate.”
He and Madeleine's mother Kate had been accused of killing their daughter and of keeping her body in a freezer, while his wife's private diaries – which had been taken for a time by Portuguese police before being returned – were leaked and inaccurately reported by the News of the World.
Judge Brian Leveson has made clear he now intends to seek information from News International – owners of the defunct tabloid – on where it got the diaries, which, under Portuguese law, should not have been shared with the media.
Dr McCann said he and his wife, also a doctor, were still suffering from the conduct of tabloids, noting a Dutch taxi-driver had asked them recently whether they were “the couple who had been accused of killing” their daughter.
Express Newspapers – owners of the Daily Expressand Sunday Expressand, in the UK, the Daily Star and Star on Sunday – were eventually forced to publish a front- page apology for 100 reports suggesting the couple had been involved in Madeleine's death.
The group had paid £550,000 as damages to the fund set up to find their daughter. Judge Leveson read out the apology in full.
Saying he favoured freedom of speech, Dr McCann said nevertheless that strong regulation was needed because the British press “has repeatedly failed to take into account the responsibilities that come with that freedom, and have very little regard for the public’s legitimate right to privacy”.
Emphasising that the unacceptable treatment was not confined to 2007, he said the Daily Mailhad potentially endangered their daughter's safety by publishing a story this year alleging she was in India, even though it had been told beforehand the photograph in question was not of Madeleine.
If it had been “a genuine sighting”, the report would have alerted her kidnappers, who may have had time to move her.
No journalist had ever been disciplined or punished for the "thousands" of inaccurate stories about them, he said, pointing out the editor of the Daily Expressat the time had said he had "reprimanded himself".
Dr McCann did acknowledge that the press, particularly the Sun under Rebekah Brooks, had been helpful in pushing the British government to open a full review of the investigation.
Meanwhile, James Murdoch has stepped down from the board of News Group Newspapers, the subsidiary of News International which publishes Murdoch-controlled titles the London Times, Sunday Timesand the Sun. Next week, he faces calls to quit the board of BSkyB.