Kate McCann in Belgian Press

De Standaard

http://www.standaard.be/artikel/detail.aspx?artikelid=8S3BN1S9

Kate Mc Cann wrote a book about her missing daughter
"I hope someone looks for Madeleine".



"As a parent, you already feel guilty if your child falls on her knees and you can't catch her. How do you think we feel for four years now?'.

From our editor

Madeleine McCann today would be eight years old. But in the meantime she is still missing for four years without a trace en so far there are only many questions and no answers about her disappereance.

What happened to Madeleine? Was she kidnapped and she's dead? Or is she still alive and locked away somewhere? The media storm has died down, but the questions remain. Kate McCann (43) wrote a book about it. The Standard spoke with her and her husband Gerry (43), and placed a series of quotes from the book.

"I wrote this book because I wanted to tell the truth. It's always been my intention to fully report on what has happened to our family, four children, Madeleine, Sean and Amelie, so that the facts stand before them in a row when they are ready to read about it. "

"It started as a diary that I kept. But ultimately it became a book. It was not a simple decision, because I re-involve our entire family and because I have tried to put up with any difficult question'.

"I have long doubted, but it is also intended to collect money for the fund, so the search for Madeleine to continue. Thas has pulled me over".

"We were sitting in a seemingly safe, child friendly holiday complex, filled with families like ours. The children were asleep, and every half hour someone came looking for them. "

"Even if there had been a babylistening service, it would not make it any safer for our children, than with our own checkings".

"Later we heard that many parents before us in such resorts as well have addressed. I bet nobody after us will do the same".

"We felt both so desperately guilty. Whatever we had done well or wrong, we were Madeleine's parents and in our eyes, we failed because we had given her no safety. We struggled with that guilt that we will always continue to bear. "

"We were just one week with our friends on holiday. We were carefree. Way too careless. We thought we did well to keep our children to their rhythm. At the same hour in bed like at home. "

"The system we had worked out with a check every half hour, then seemed perfectly justified. In retrospect, we gave the perfect chance to the abductor. As for years we struggle with this. Some people say openly that it is our fault. But who could think such a thing?"

"If we, or rather, if I would confess Madeleine died by accident in the apartment and that we had hidden her body somewhere en then it was dumped, then I could get a much lower penalty. That's what the police said. Two years instead of the much higher punishment that I could get if they would accuse me of murder".

"It was not bad enough that we felt guilty. A cadaverdog had detected a death odor in the apartment. In the car we rented three weeks after the event, DNA of Madeleine would have been found. Subsequently all proven wrong, but the damage was done".

"The media pounced suddenly upon us like vultures. That the researchers grilled us, I can understand. After all we were potential offenders. But what the media had written down, it was terrible. And the worst thing for me was that everyone suddenly assumed Madeleine was dead. They stopped looking for her, because they think she is dead.
That was what I was thinking".

"Our relationship with the media is still in a fragile and precarious balance. We depend on them to ensure that Madeleine is not forgotten. But cooperation with them is like riding a tiger in the hope of not being swallowed up".

"I have been naive. We were both naive, even though Gerry is more realistic. I thought the media really wanted to help find our daughter. But ultimately for them it's just about the tall stories and selling. At first they stayed at a respectful distance, but gradually we were no longer safe".

"When we came back from Portugal, they have camped in front of our house in Leicestershire. Whenever I used to go to the supermarktet with the twins, they crossed their lenses into the car. Only at Christmas, they were gone".

"And then when there is really nothing more to write, they began to cook up horrible things. It was not until we have two newspapers sued. Then it stopped. "

'Madeleine would have been the first to stabbing her little finger if someone would shorten her name. "My name is not Maddie. My name is Madeleine. "

"The newspapers know her name but they are is still stubborn to name her Maddie or Maddy. I think this is a lack of respect. "

"I do not know how that suddenly came about. Suddenly newspapers began to talk about Maddie, but none of us has ever called her like that. "

"It happened in the first days after the disappearance, when we were still in Portugal. I went quietly to the people of the press that continued to hold fast to the holiday. If they please would write and talk about Madeleine and not about Maddie".

"I was worried that someone would meet her in the street and cry out "Maddie", that she would not even respond, because that is not her name. But it has not helped. "Madeleine was too long for a healine and so it was Maddie".

"People ask why we continue. Our answer is that we still hope, sincerely hope. Madeleine is alive until someone proves otherwise. "

"In Belgium you had Sabine Dardenne no one thought she would still be alive. But after eighty days she came alive out of the cage of Duroux. In Austria there was Natasha Kampush. In the USA Jaycee Lee Dugard. It could really be that she is alive. Experts tell us it is statisticlly rarely that pedophiles abduct children four years old. Maybe she's with someone wo really cares about her. A woman that can't have children or something. I fervently hope so: more then anything in the world I want Madeleine to come back to us.
But until that happens, I hope, she is with someone she at least likes very much".


Madeleine
The disappearance of our daughter and the ongoing search for her- by Kate McCann.
€ 18.95
Publishing Boekerij
ISBN 9789022560297

Mrs. McCann, I agree with you.

I urge all the Belgian people to but Mrs. McCann´s book, also to look for a living, findable sweet Madeleine McCann. Also visit the official website:

http://www.findmadeleine.com/index.html

Inside the official website, you have all the useful information. You have also holiday packs, posters, all the information. Also, please, write messages of support.

Thank you all for your support.

Have you had time to read the Portuguese edition yet, Pedro?