‘Madeleine McCann’s parents were right’ as case to be cracked by ‘next year’

Police have said the “McCanns were right all along” after apologising to the family for accusing them of covering up their daughter’s death.

When Madeleine McCann vanished from an apartment in Praia da Luz in May 2007 while on holiday with her parents, Portugese police began focusing on Kate and Gerry McCann as potential suspects.

The couple had left their then three-year-old daughter alone in the apartment, along with her younger twin siblings, while they went out to dinner with friends.

According to BBC Panorama, a delegation of senior Portuguese police officers travelled from Lisbon to London earlier this year, where they met and apologised to Mr McCann.

German police suspect Christian Brueckner was responsible for the murder of Madeleine McCann, however, the girl’s disappearance remains unsolved.

At the time of their daughter’s disappearance, the McCanns offered the theory that someone had been “watching” them and waited for “a window of opportunity” to take the three-year-old.

But Portugese police dismissed this, claiming there was no evidence of a break-in to the apartment, despite the parents saying a window had been left open.

However, they have since apologised and are said to “agree” with German investigators that suspect Christian Brueckner had in fact been watching the family.

On the BBC‘s Prime Suspect: Who Took Madeleine McCann, investigators said they expect the case to be deemed “solved” by next year.

During questioning of Madeleine’s parents in September 2007, detectives made them both “arguidos” – or suspects – in their daughter’s disappearance.

Detectives suggested the pair had staged Madeleine’s abduction and hidden her body. Mrs McCann claims she was even offered a deal – a shorter sentence if she admitted guilt.

Their “arguidos” status was lifted in 2008 but they remained under suspicion for a number of years, especially by the original lead detective Goncalo Amaral.

Later, in a case thrown out by the Portuguese supreme court, the McCanns would try to sue Amaral over “libelous” claims he made in his book about them. They also tried to take their case to the European Court of Human Rights.

Now, the prime suspect in the case is Christian Brueckner. The 46-year-old German and convicted paedophile is accused of Madeleine’s murder but is yet to be charged.

Brueckner’s camper van was reportedly spotted near the area of Madeleine’s disappearance in 2007, and back in 2017 he reportedly told a friend that he knew all about what had happened to her. German authorities made him the official prime suspect in 2022.

The reservoir currently being searched is around 30 miles from where the young girl was taken from her room in Praia de Luz and is believed to be a favourite place for Brueckner to visit, with the convicted sex offender calling it his “little paradise”.

Speaking to the BBC about the current search into the reservoir, which was previously searched in 2008, former police officer Jim Gamble said that the German authorities have “gone further to state that they believe Madeleine has died, and that she was killed in Portugal”.