Parents Successfully Sue Papers Over Their Implied Role In World Famous Missing Child Case
Posted March 19, 2008 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
It is a rare admission and the only real welcome news the parents of a missing girl have heard in months. Two British newspapers have issued formal front page apologies to Kate and Gerry McCann, after implying that they killed their daughter and then tried to cover up the crime.
If the names of the distraught mother and father are familiar, it’s because their images and their pleas have been splashed over the media for almost a year. They’re the parents of little Madeleine McCann, the 4-year-old who disappeared from her Portugal resort hotel room as the couple ate dinner in a nearby restaurant last May 3rd.
There’s been no sign of the child since, despite extensive investigations and allegations by Portuguese police that the girl’s blood was found in the trunk of her parent’s rented car.
The newspapers involved have all agreed to pay substantial damages to the pair, who only recently returned to Britain to resume their lives, after waiting so long for word that never came.
The Daily Express and the Daily Star both admitted there was no proof of the allegations they published, and that the stories weren’t true. “We accept that a number of articles in the newspaper have suggested that the couple caused the death of their missing daughter Madeleine and then covered it up,” the Daily Express reads.
“We acknowledge that there is no evidence whatsoever to support this theory and that Kate and Gerry are completely innocent of any involvement in their daughter’s disappearance.”
The couple is believed to have received about $1 million in damages from the tabloids, which have been carrying the tale of Madeleine’s fate non-stop for almost a year. One legal expert calls the admissions ‘unprecedented.’
As the case nears its one year anniversary, the McCanns have yet to give up hope that some trace of their daughter will one day be found and that she’s possibly still alive and being raised by whoever took her.
There have been a string of reported sightings from Morocco to Spain and France to Malta in the ensuing months, but no credible evidence has ever turned up a single trace of her.
Photo credit: Alessandro Abbonizio/AFP/Getty Images
Previous stories:
‘We didn’t killer her’ parents plead
Don’t stop looking parents ask
David Beckham and JK Rowling issue pleas for info
