Madeleine McCann asked her parents why they did not come into her room when the children were crying the night before she disappeared, leaked statements to Portuguese police have revealed.
On Friday, the McCanns denounced the leaks to a Spanish television station, saying they amounted to a smear campaign. They also called for an official investigation into how the leaks came about despite strict Portuguese secrecy laws. In her leaked statement to police, Kate McCann told detectives her daughter had asked why they didn't come and stop her and her twin brother and sister from crying.
Kate McCann and her husband Gerry had left them in the room at their holiday resort in Praia da Luz the night before the four-year-old went missing on May 3 last year. McCann, 40, revealed her daughter's plaintive question had prompted the pair to watch their children more closely.
"While we were having breakfast, Maddie said 'Mummy why didn't you come when we were crying last night,'" she told police in a statement broadcast by Telecinco TV. "Gerry and I spoke for a couple of minutes and agreed to keep a closer watch over the children."
The family's official spokesman called on Friday for an investigation into how the statements were made public. Clarence Mitchell called the leaks outrageous and illegal.
"These statements show the truth of what Kate and Gerry said on the night and for that, in one sense, we are grateful to the leaker but they didn't do it for that motive -- they did it to smear Gerry and Kate and it hasn't worked," he said.
"They feel exasperated and angry and they are upset that their good work, the coverage of which is important to keep a campaign like that alive, (is being undermined)"
"They feel this was a very cack-handed, amateurish attempt and I am afraid the timing of it is so blatantly connected to the European parliament and I hope people as disinterested observers will see the sort of ridiculous game we are up against here." On Thursday, the couple urged the European Parliament to press for the implementation of a cross-border alert system for abducted children, similar to that used in the United States.