Maddie's new outfit may have tempted kidnapper to snatch her, says Kate McCann

By Daily Mail Reporter



-Resort where McCanns were staying was an easy target, British police said
-Mrs McCann says her husband never made her feel guilty
-Parents called in social services themselves to 'pre-empt' any interest

New outfit: Kate McCann writes that she admired Madeleine in her new pink outfit - but fears someone else did too

Kate McCann has said she fears the 'lovely' sight of her daughter Madeleine in a new outfit may have tempted someone to kidnap her.

Mrs McCann said the new clothes were bought specially for the family holiday in Portugal four years ago when the young girl was snatched.

The doctor said certain images of Madeleine were forever etched in her mind, including a memory of the three-year-old in a pink smock top and shorts.

Her final photo of her daughter before she disappeared shows her wearing the new outfit and sitting with father Gerry and younger sister Amelie by the pool just hours before she vanished.

Mrs McCann, from Rothley, Leicestershire, had been dining with her husband and seven friends at a tapas restaurant 100 metres from the youngster's room in the resort of Praia du Luz when she disappeared sparking a huge international search.

In an extract from her new book, serialised in the Sun, she said her daughter looked lovely in her new outfit.

Mrs McCann described the clothes as: 'A small extravagance, perhaps, but I'd pictured how lovely she would look in them and I was right.'

She added: 'I was following her with my eyes admiring her. I wonder now, the nausea rising in my throat, if someone else was doing the same.'

The mother said it was only after the kidnapping that they realised their ground floor apartment was an easy target for anyone wanting to break in.

There were access roads and a shady entrance which would have made it easy for someone to approach in secrecy.

Mrs McCann's book, called Madeleine, is published tomorrow, the day of Madeleine's eighth birthday.

Proceeds from the 384-page book, which Mrs McCann has written herself without the aid of a ghost writer, will boost the dwindling fund to search for her daughter.

She also tells in the book how she battled to save her marriage in the wake of the disappearance of her daughter.

Mrs McCann felt too guilty to take any pleasure in life, including making love to her husband Gerry.

She was also plagued by fears that a paedophile may have taken Madeleine and the thought of having sex 'repulsed' her.

Battle: Kate McCann has told of how she struggled to save her marriage to Gerry in the wake of the disappearance of their daughter Madeleine in 2007


In her account, Mrs McCann says her husband was supportive throughout her worst years, never making her feel guilty. She said he would put his arm around her to reassure her and would tell her he loved her.

Her approach to getting her marriage back on track – which ‘seems to have worked’ – was to concentrate on what her husband meant to her and their love for each other, and tell herself the ‘evil person’ who took Madeleine must not be allowed to destroy anything else in her life.

For years, Mrs McCann says she was ‘weighed down by guilt’, and could not even bear to sit down unless it was for a purpose such as eating or using the computer.

After four months of searching for Madeleine in Portugal, the couple were forced to make the unbearable journey home without her, breaking down in tears when they landed back in Britain.

Mrs McCann said her 42-year-old husband, who was carrying their two-year-old son Sean against his chest as they descended the aircraft steps, was being ‘so strong but I knew he was dying inside’.

Distraught: Kate McCann has told of the couples return home to Leicestershire and how she imagined seeing her daughter in her bedroom

Back at their house in Rothley, later that day, she returned to Madeleine’s bedroom for the first time – and imagined her daughter was still there.

She writes that she stood at the open door and stared inside and could almost see Madeleine lying on her side, her head resting gently on the pillow with her blonde hair spread out behind.

When they returned from Portugal, the McCanns had been declared arguidos – suspects – in Madeleine’s disappearance, and former GP Mrs McCann says she and her hospital consultant husband recognised there would be pressure on the authorities to assess the welfare of their twins, Sean and Amelie.

They called in social services themselves to ‘pre-empt’ any interest, and were ‘resigned’ to being interviewed at their home by social workers about their parenting skills.

As they tried to get back into the routine of life in the UK, there were constant painful reminders of their previous happiness.

Back at Sean and Amelie’s nursery – which Madeleine also attended – Mrs McCann says she recalled how the twins would spy their older sister from the window and say, ‘There’s Magalin’, in their toddler babble. Mrs McCann says: ‘Their doting big sister would wave at them, bringing beaming smiles to their little faces. God, it hurt.’


source:dailymail