McCanns' anger over transcript leak

McCanns furious over publication of leaked interview transcripts

Kate and Gerry McCann are furious about the publication of leaked transcripts of last year's interviews with Portuguese police.

The transcripts show that on the morning of the day Madeleine disappeared, she asked her mother why she did not come when the children were crying the night before.

The McCanns spokeperson, Clarence Mitchell, immediately responded to the leak saying it was a 'deliberate smear'.

Gerry and Kate McCann have recently visited Brussels to support a new EU monitoring system for missing children.

Mr Mitchell commented: 'For a document covered by Portugal's judicial secrecy laws, to be leaked to the Spanish media on the very day they went to the European Parliament, is stretching all sense of belief to believe it's anything other than a deliberate smear.'

He explained that details from the transcripts have been on police files for almost a year and believed the story was deliberately disclosed on the day they went to Europe.

Mr Mitchell explained Madeleine's words were a 'short aside'. He said: 'Madeleine came out and said, 'Why didn't you come to me and Sean [Madeleine's younger brother] when we were crying last night?'

'Now, Kate and Gerry were puzzled by that because they'd been checking her every half an hour and they had seen no evidence and heard no evidence that she was crying.'

Madeleine went missing from the Algarve resort of Praia da Luz on 3 May last year.