The News of the World's editor "verbally beat into submission" missing child Madeleine McCann's parents after they gave an interview to another publication, they said today.
Gerry and Kate McCann agreed to speak to Hello! magazine around the first anniversary of their daughter's disappearance to promote a European alert system for missing children, they told the Leveson Inquiry into press standards.
But when Colin Myler, then at the helm of the now defunct Sunday tabloid, found out that his newspaper had been spurned, he was "irate", Mr McCann said.
"He was berating us for not doing an interview with the News of the World and told us how supportive the newspaper had been," he said.
"He basically beat us into submission, verbally, and we agreed to do an interview the day after."
Sitting next to her husband and appearing to rest a hand on his knee, Mrs McCann added that this had come during "an extremely stressful time" for the couple.
"To get a call like this - you actually almost feel guilty", she said.
Mr McCann explained that they had chosen to give an interview to Hello! as it is sold across Europe and it was a European Amber alert system they were campaigning for.
Describing Mr Myler's reaction, Mr McCann wrote in a statement submitted to the inquiry: "In the end we were made to feel so guilty we agreed to give an interview to the News of the World, despite not really wanting to do so."
Kate McCann said she felt like "climbing into a hole and not coming out" when the News of the World printed her intensely personal diary.
She described feeling "violated" by the paper's publication of the leaked journal, which she began after Madeleine disappeared.
Mrs McCann (43) said the diary - which was so private she did not even show it to her husband Gerry - was her only way of communicating with her missing daughter.
She had just returned from church on Sunday September 14 2008 when she received
a text message from a friend which read "Saw your diary in the newspapers, heartbreaking. I hope you're all right", the press standards inquiry heard.
Mrs McCann recalled that this came "totally out of the blue" and left her with a "horribly panicky feeling".
The newspaper had apparently obtained a translation of her diary from the Portuguese police and published it without her permission, the inquiry was told.
Mrs McCann said: "I felt totally violated. I had written these words at the most desperate time of my life, and it was my only way of communicating with Madeleine.
"There was absolutely no respect shown for me as a grieving mother or a human being or to my daughter.
"It made me feel very vulnerable and small, and I just couldn't believe it.
"It didn't stop there. It's not just a one-day thing. The whole week was incredibly traumatic and every time I thought about it, I just couldn't believe the injustice.
"I just recently read through my diary entries at that point in that week, and I talk about climbing into a hole and not coming out because I just felt so worthless that we had been treated like that."
Mr McCann said his wife felt "mentally raped" by the newspaper's publication of the journal under the headline: "Kate's diary: in her own words."
Mr McCann said the story gave the impression that his wife had authorised the publication of the diary.
"This added to our distress as it gave the impression that we were willing to capitalise financially on inherently private information, which could not have been further from the truth," he said in a statement to the inquiry.
The News of the World's then-deputy editor, Ian Edmondson, had told the couple's spokesman, Clarence Mitchell, that the paper was going to run a positive article that week but did not mention that it had a copy of Mrs McCann's diary.
Mrs McCann recalled the media circus that awaited them when they returned home from Portugal, with journalists and photographers camped out at their home, with some even going so far as to bang on their windows.
This frightened the McCanns' young twins and Mrs McCann said she would often hear them say: "Mummy, I'm scared."
Madeleine was nearly four when she vanished from her family's holiday apartment in Praia da Luz in the Algarve on May 3rd, 2007, as her parents dined with friends nearby.
Despite a massive police investigation and huge publicity worldwide, she has not been found.
PA