Kate and Gerry McCann yesterday said they have had enough of “fluffy, worthless words”, calling again for a full case review over their daughter Madeleine’s disappearance.
Exactly three and a half years since Madeleine went missing, the couple said they want “action” and for “somebody to do something”.
Yesterday they launched a petition to lobby the UK and Portuguese governments for a joint or independent review of the case.
“Essentially for the last three and a half years the authorities have not been doing anything proactive to help Madeleine,” Mr McCann said.
“That is despite our best efforts to encourage them to do so.
“I don’t think it’s right that the onus should fall on us, the authorities really should be doing more.”
His wife said: “I don’t want to be appeased and that’s what I feel we’re getting at the moment.
“We need action, I don’t need fluffy worthless words. We need somebody to do something.
“Madeleine is still missing, she’s a little girl, her abductor is still out there, so by not carrying on we are putting other children at risk. I think more needs to be done.”
The couple, from Rothley, Leicestershire, have met with former home secretaries Alan Johnson and Jacqui Smith, as well as current Home Secretary Theresa May, to discuss the issue and to ask for a review of the case.
Mrs McCann said when they met Mr Johnson, who commissioned a “scoping exercise” by Ceop to see if a review would be helpful, they felt they were making progress, but now did not even know if the report had been read.
“There has not been a formal case review and I think for such a serious case like this, and with the profile of it and international aspects, that should be carried out,” her husband said. “The onus is on the UK and Portuguese authorities to sort that out.
“I think the best thing is for this case to be solved, and at the moment the authorities are not doing anything proactive to try and do that.”
Madeleine was three when she went missing from her family’s holiday flat in Praia da Luz in the Algarve on May 3, 2007 as her parents dined with friends nearby.
Portuguese police launched a massive investigation with the support of British officers, but the inquiry was formally shelved in July 2008 without reaching any firm conclusions about her fate.
Private detectives employed by the McCanns are still investigating the case and besides the petition, the couple are appealing for continued financial support for the official Find Madeleine fund – as it stands the fund will run out in spring 2011.
Mr and Mrs McCann said they had not given up hope and spoke of their frustration at a lack of help from the authorities.
“Children do get found years down the line,” Mrs McCann said. “There’s no evidence that Madeleine is not out there alive.
“It’s just heartbreaking to think that nothing is getting done other than what we are having to do, other than our small team.
“Obviously a small team has limitations. If we had a review, if we had help from the authorities, the chances of finding Madeleine would be much greater I think.
“We deeply believe it will take us that step closer to finding Madeleine.”
Mr McCann said fundraising was a secondary objective to urging people to help put pressure on the governments “to do what they should have done all along”.
“In the interim we are carrying on, we’re interviewing witnesses, dealing with new information and continuing reviewing the information available to us,” he said. “But it’s important to emphasise we do not have all of the information, there’s information that went into the inquiry that was not made public when the file was disclosed and therefore it’s impossible for our team to review everything, we simply don’t have access to it.
“The team also doesn’t have any statutory authority, no one has to speak to them.
“That’s why we’re asking for the governments to organise an independent, thorough and hopefully transparent review.”
Mrs McCann said the lifting of a ban on a book by former Portuguese police detective Goncalo Amaral, in which he alleges the little girl died and her parents faked her abduction, was “baffling”.
Mr McCann said: “Anyone who tried to claim that Madeleine is dead without evidence, anyone who does that and essentially stops the search – their motive has to be questioned.
“We’re here trying to instigate the search in a meaningful way, it’s very clear he wants the search to stop.”
But the couple said they could not give up and spoke of how their family was coping with the situation.
Mrs McCann said: “Sean and Amelie are great, they are doing really well, they seem to have taken everything on board and coped really well. Maybe that’s one of the attractions of youth really.
“We’re doing okay, we make the best of it. Life is not normal, I guess it’s a new kind of normal.
A Home Office spokesman said: “The Home Secretary has met Kate and Gerry McCann and is deeply sympathetic to their situation.
“The government wants to ensure that everything feasible is being done to progress the search for Madeleine.
Key events since Madeleine disappeared
2007
May 3: Kate and Gerry McCann, from Rothley, Leicestershire, leave their three children asleep in their holiday apartment in Praia da Luz in southern Portugal while they dine with friends at a nearby tapas restaurant.
Nothing is amiss when Mr McCann checks on the youngsters at just after 9 p.m., but when his wife goes back at about 10 p.m. she finds three-year-old Madeleine missing.
Jane Tanner, one of the friends eating with the McCanns, later reports seeing a man carrying a child away earlier that night.
May 5: Portuguese police reveal they believe Madeleine was abducted but is still alive and in Portugal, and say they have a sketch of a suspect.
May 14: Detectives take Anglo-Portuguese property developer Robert Murat in for questioning and make him an “arguido”, or official suspect.
Officers also search the home he shares with his mother in Praia Da Luz, just 100 metres from where the youngster was snatched.
May 25: Portuguese detectives finally release the description of the man reported by Ms Tanner three weeks earlier following pressure from the McCanns, their legal team and the British government.
May 30: Mr and Mrs McCann meet the Pope in Rome in the first of a series of trips around Europe and beyond to highlight the search for their daughter.
August 6: A Portuguese newspaper reports that British sniffer dogs have found traces of blood on a wall in the McCanns’ holiday apartment.
August 11: Exactly 100 days after Madeleine disappeared, investigating officers publicly acknowledge for the first time that she could be dead.
September 7: During further questioning of Mr and Mrs McCann, detectives make them both “arguidos” in their daughter’s disappearance.
September 9: The McCanns fly back to England with their two-year-old twins Sean and Amelie.
October 2: Goncalo Amaral, the detective in charge of the inquiry, is removed from the case after criticising the British police in a Portuguese newspaper interview.
October 25: The McCanns release a new artist’s impression drawn by an FBI-trained expert showing the man described by Ms Tanner.
2008
May 3: A tearful Mrs McCann urges people to “pray like mad” for Madeleine as she and her family mark the first anniversary of the little girl’s disappearance.
July 21: The Portuguese authorities shelve their investigation and lift the “arguido” status of the McCanns and Mr Murat.
July 24: Mr Amaral publishes a book about the case, entitled The Truth Of The Lie, in which he alleges that the young girl died in her family’s holiday flat on the day she went missing.
August 4: Thousands of pages of evidence from the Portuguese police files in the exhaustive investigation into Madeleine’s disappearance are made public. They reveal details of the lines of inquiry pursued by detectives, witness statements and scores of previously unknown sightings of the little girl.
2009
January 29: Nearly £2 million was raised for the official fund to find Madeleine in the first 10 months after she went missing, Companies House accounts show.
April 4: Mr McCann goes back to Portugal to help film a reconstruction of the events on the night his daughter vanished for a Channel 4 documentary.
August 6: The McCanns’ investigators launch a worldwide hunt for an Australian lookalike of Victoria Beckham seen at a marina in Barcelona three days after the little girl disappeared.
September 9: A Portuguese judge bans further sale or publication of Mr Amaral’s book following legal action by Mr and Mrs McCann.
November 3: The London-based Child Exploitation and Online Protection centre releases an internet video aimed at pricking the conscience of a friend or relative of the person responsible for Madeleine’s disappearance.
December 11: Mrs McCann returns to Praia da Luz for the first time since being made a suspect.
2010
January 12: A civil court in Lisbon hears that Portuguese detectives believed Madeleine’s parents covered up her death by faking her abduction as Mr Amaral tries to overturn the injunction on his book.
Mr and Mrs McCann strongly deny the allegations and defend their decision to take legal action against the former policeman.
January 27: The McCanns mark the 1,000th day since their daughter went missing with a fundraising event in London and the release of 1,000 lanterns in Britain, Portugal and the US.
February 18: A Portuguese judge upholds the McCanns’ ban on Mr Amaral’s book.
The ex-detective says he will appeal against the ruling and take his case all the way to the European Court of Human Rights if necessary.
March 3: Another 2,000 pages of case documents held by Portuguese police are made public, revealing dozens of reported sightings of Madeleine for the first time.
November 3: The McCanns launch a petition to lobby the UK and Portuguese governments for a joint or independent review of the case.