The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann (2019) s01e04 Episode Script
Heaven and Earth
1 [dog barking loudly.]
[barking continues.]
The only two places where he picked up enough scent to give me the bark alert are in this bedroom in this corner where he was barking.
Moving on to the other room, he's decided, "That's what I'm looking for," and that's when he's given me the bark indication.
[Martin.]
What we should understand with this one is that he only barks [Robbyn.]
After Eddie's work was done, Grime brought in Keela, the blood dog.
[dog panting.]
[Martin.]
Keela was trained to see if we could train a dog that would locate human blood without responding to human decomposition or animal blood.
She, too, went around the apartment not particularly interested until she got to that sofa area.
[Martin.]
She's trained to follow my finger and conduct sniff tests.
So wherever my finger goes, her nose will follow.
Keela's response to finding something is to point.
She'll stop with her nose as close to it as she can possibly get without touching it.
[Martin.]
Okay.
[indistinct radio chatter.]
[Justine.]
If you go out there and you put yourself up, you've got to expect at some point that there will be a backlash.
I suspected the parents from the very outset because at the end of the day, statistically, it's likely to be the parents or someone who is in close proximity with the child.
[reporter 2.]
The search for Madeleine McCann has taken a frightening turn right back to the vacation home in Portugal where she was last seen.
[reporter 2.]
Some very wild questions, unattributed, are out there being discussed openly.
[news anchor.]
Forensic experts in Britain will study suspected traces of blood found in the apartment in the Algarve where Madeleine McCann was last seen more than three months ago.
[in Portuguese.]
I've always been sceptical about using dogs.
Martin knows successful cases.
They are never cases where the dogs solve the investigation or the case.
They are cases like this one, where the dogs help the police with their work.
On the third day of their work in Praia da Luz, the two specialist dogs were taken to the villa where the McCanns had been staying since Madeleine disappeared.
The police gave notice that they were going to search the villa and everybody needed to be out.
[Justine.]
I think I had mixed feelings at the time.
At least it was a step forward in terms of the investigation.
[Martin.]
Here, come.
Come! [claps loudly.]
Come! [dog panting.]
[Robbyn.]
Neither dog immediately alerted to anything, except [barking loudly.]
Eddie, the cadaver dog, alerted to Madeleine's toy, Cuddle Cat.
[in Portuguese.]
I thought that the child's doll may have come into contact with a dead body.
There was someone who was always going around with that doll and that person was the child's mother.
[camera shutters clicking.]
[Gonçalo, in Portuguese.]
As such, it can indicate that the mother gratitude and thanks to everybody may have been in contact with her daughter's corpse.
Simply that.
A police spokesman in Portugal has told the BBC there are now indications the toddler was not abducted.
the child could be dead.
[Sandra.]
When the PJ let the information come out that they were investigating the possibility of Madeleine being dead, and the McCanns being implicated in her murder, they didn't say this exactly by these words.
They said that only, "We investigate the possibility of her being dead.
" [reporter.]
In the capital, Lisbon, I spoke to the Chief Inspector, acting as an official spokesman for the inquiry.
Clues have been found that could point in a possible, uh, death of the little child And the thing is the same because the only people that they were investigating behind this possibility were the McCanns.
[male reporter.]
There is a different feel to this inquiry and to the coverage, much more speculation surrounding the McCanns and the fate of their daughter.
[Robbyn.]
Meanwhile, the Portuguese asked Grime and his team to search cars that had been used both by the McCanns and their friends and by others involved in the case.
[reporter.]
We think about ten cars were searched, two from the Robert Murat family, others from family and friends, and we know that one of them was the hire car that's being used by Gerry and Kate McCann.
[Robbyn.]
Martin Grime wrote in his report, um, that he, at the time, had no idea which car belonged to which individual.
[Robbyn.]
He first deployed the cadaver dog Eddie.
Searching car by car, Eddie gave no alert.
[dog panting.]
[Martin.]
Here, come.
[claps.]
Here.
[Martin.]
Odor lingers and it migrates and transfers.
To the dog, that item may still be present.
Come.
Here, here, here.
[Martin.]
Come! [claps loudly.]
[sniffs loudly.]
[barking.]
[Robbyn.]
But then in front of a silver Renault, he alerted to something on the driver's side door.
Keela, the blood scenting dog, too, alerted at the silver Renault.
She also alerted to something in the boot of the car on the right side.
At that moment, the country, and I would risk saying the world, was in shock.
[Sandra.]
I think that the feeling here was, they lied to us, they were lying to all the world.
That was the turning point.
[in Portuguese.]
The case became really strange when the dogs detected the blood in the room.
[Martin.]
Keela.
Here, come.
But if the blood is really from Madeleine, how can you explain it? -Well, we don't know.
-At the moment, it's all speculation.
[in Portuguese.]
Also the smell of the corpse in the car the parents used later on.
[camera shutters clicking.]
That can't be explained.
[Robbyn.]
Martin Grime had 30 years' experience working with police dogs at that point, and Grime attested at the time that they wouldn't misfire.
They wouldn't inadvertently pick up animal blood for human blood or misdetect the smell of rotting food for that of a corpse or cadaver.
[Robbyn.]
The police took away boxes upon boxes of the McCanns' belongings.
They took the boxes to another location where they then deployed the dogs again.
[Martin.]
Come.
[barking.]
[Robbyn.]
This time, the cadaver dog Eddie reacted to some clothing that was in one of the boxes.
[Gonçalo, in Portuguese.]
It was mainly clothes from the child's mother.
These were the objects where they detected corpse odours.
Some trousers, a blouse.
This led to the Portuguese doing minute, detailed investigation and producing numerous samples from the living room of apartment 5A, near the sofa where the dogs had alerted and from the boot of the McCanns' rental car.
[Robbyn.]
Fingernails, other substances that might be susceptible to DNA research, all of these were packed up and sent off to the Forensic Science Service in the UK for DNA analysis.
[reporter 1.]
The sample recovered from the McCanns' apartment will be analysed over several days by Britain's Forensic Science Service.
[reporter 2.]
If it does prove to be blood, scientists will then extract DNA to see if there's a match to Madeleine.
[Justine.]
By the time we got to the stage, the media had exploded in numbers.
It was absolutely huge.
[reporter.]
Every twist and turn in this case is followed by the Portuguese media, but the tone is different to the UK, more critical, more speculative as the weeks move on.
[Justine.]
My colleague David Hughes came out to Portugal and helped me because you can't physically even answer the phone at the rate that the phone calls were coming in.
I was sitting on a London bus and my phone went and she literally rang up and said, "How busy are you? Do you fancy coming and lending a hand?" Simply 'cause it, you know, had become a huge story.
Virtually every newspaper, all the broadcasters were covering the story on a daily basis.
just as it was on The Times there, "Maddy parents' fury at Algarve slurs.
" allegations made against the parents in The Daily Mirror.
So I quite understood there'd be a sort of huge sort of workload.
[intro music plays.]
[David.]
I remember one of the first things I was involved in was a Sunday morning religious program.
That was something which they were keen on because it, A, reflected their own personal faith and secondly, thought it would mean that they would have a chance of reaching perhaps audiences which, um, other conventional media hadn't reached.
I was like-- I mean, you've got that total feeling of helplessness and I was just praying straightaway and there's a series of people that I rang, um, who I know have got a lot of faith and I just said, "Please start praying," and this chain kind of went off and you don't I mean, I just didn't realise, really, how important my faith was.
And the helplessness that first night and even I wouldn't say I'm the most religious person in the world, but even then, I just slumped, um, and we phoned the priest that married us and this was three or four o'clock in the morning and It was ten past two.
-He's still got it on his phone.
-[chuckles.]
-And-- -[host.]
They're never off duty.
Yeah, and he said, you know, "What can I do?" And I just said, "Just pray.
" [David.]
They had, um, heard the first sort of implied suggestions regarding the sniffer dogs that morning.
[reporter 1, in Portuguese.]
The parents of Madeleine McCann were at the police station this afternoon.
[reporter 2, in Portuguese.]
 5:00 p.
m.
, Kate and Gerry leave Portimão's PolÃcia Judiciária precinct.
They leave through the back entrance in a Renault Scenic, which was already inspected by the police.
There was a tense atmosphere because it was the first point at which, you know, there'd been any suggestion of a serious nature that they could have had any negative role in the whole sort of proceedings.
[reporter 1, in Portuguese.]
 They left in a car that was inspected by the police.
I think the suspicion was that the hire car had been used to, um, transport Madeleine's body.
When Kate came back that first day and realised that they were no longer believing them or that they'd started to doubt their whole story, uh, her despair was Yeah, beyond what you'd want to hear, you know, someone you know, crying and because her realisation immediately was, "They're not looking for her.
" -That's right.
-From the moment that they distrusted her, she knew they weren't looking.
[church bell tolling.]
-[Susan.]
It was an awful time.
-[Haynes.]
Yeah, that was pretty awful.
[Susan.]
The press was at its height then, too.
[camera shutters clicking.]
[reporter.]
Exactly 100 days since Madeleine McCann disappeared, her parents Kate and Gerry have been to church this morning in Praia da Luz.
The weight of media interest [bell tolling.]
I counted well over 70 photographers outside the church alone.
[Haynes.]
We closed the doors for them so that the press wouldn't come in and we actually-- I remember we gave them keys so that they could go in and hide because it was nasty, it was extraordinarily nasty.
[indistinct chatter.]
[Justine.]
Right from the beginning, the McCanns were warned by everybody involved that, you know, if you go out there and you put yourself up, you've got to expect at some point that there will be a media backlash.
You know, it's like a tsunami.
If the wave goes out [shutters clicking.]
at some point, it's gonna come back in with equal or increased ferocity.
It was the most astonishing and an absolutely unique sort of professional experience.
Okay.
[David.]
Such an enormous deluge of attention.
One wasn't having to hunt down publicity.
One was having to manage it.
[reporter.]
In the beginning, they asked journalists for help.
But nearly four months on, the relationship has soured.
You're put on a pedestal and then the pedestal is ripped out.
[reporter.]
Media speculation has been rife here since the police admitted three weeks ago that Madeleine might be dead.
That statement was based on new forensic evidence recovered from the family's holiday apartment.
The approach of everyone involved was to not criticise the Portuguese police or the authorities.
[David.]
Everyone trying to sort of button their lips about what we really thought about their performance.
[interviewer.]
Do you still have faith in the police investigation and do you still have faith that you will see Madeleine again? I think yes and yes are the two answers to that.
But then the relationship obviously changed.
[speaking Portuguese.]
A factor that constantly affected the case in Portugal was the Portuguese law of judicial secrecy.
[speaking Portuguese.]
[Anthony.]
The police are not allowed to discuss the course of a case to the press in any way.
[in Portuguese.]
It could be that this test is not conclusive, could bring us some lead.
[Anthony.]
Madeleine's parents were gagged from talking to the press about what they learned from the police.
[Gonçalo, in Portuguese.]
If they had broken judicial secrecy, they could be sentenced to up to three years in prison.
[Jim.]
But it seemed, as the investigation went on, that information was being leaked to the media that lots of people suspected were coming from the Portuguese police.
[Sandra.]
I talked with many people inside the PJ.
I felt that they were giving details about something they wanted to be public.
So the law was one thing.
What the police were actually doing was quite another.
[male reporter.]
The media spotlight on Kate and Gerry McCann made their daughter the most high profile missing child in the world.
Last week, the McCanns called their lawyers when the Tal & Qual newspaper claimed the police now believe the couple killed Madeleine.
By late summer, there was an implication that they might have over-sedated her, um, by administering a drug.
"The past 120 days have been horrific for us, our family, and friends.
We have tried to ignore some of the more ludicrous speculation, but we simply could not ignore T&Q's report.
" Another newspaper went on to suggest that in their holiday apartment that they had a syringe for injecting drugs into their children.
[Justine.]
All sorts of theories were out there, like that a sort of syringe was found in the apartment.
In that evening, did you give to your kids something like Calpol to help them sleep? We're not gonna comment on anything, but, you know, there is absolutely no way we used any sedative drugs or anything like that and Calpol is a very common remedy used by parents all over the world in one form or another to help their children with fever or pain.
After Madeleine had disappeared, for five or six hours, there was a great hubbub in apartment 5A, policemen coming and going and the friends of the McCanns coming and going and much talking and wailing and worrying.
And yet the two twins who were still there, little babies, still slept on.
Continued to doze, weren't woken.
Everybody went in and out of the apartment, screams, shouting.
I don't know.
[Gonçalo, in Portuguese.]
There were two twins asleep, about a year and a half old, sleeping close to all the commotion.
[Paulo.]
It's not normal.
Still sleeping, sleeping, sleeping, during [Gonçalo, in Portuguese.]
A lot of noise and they never woke up.
And they left to another apartment, still sleeping.
Madeleine's mother spent the whole night checking how the twins were breathing-- if they were breathing or not, if they were alright.
She was worried about them.
So this is all very strange.
[in Portuguese.]
Kate McCann's father spoke to the newspaper The Sun and admitted there is a possibility that she was given Calpol.
It's a medicine used to combat fever and pain, but it's also used to help sleeping.
Obviously the Portuguese police had a theory and other people, um, speculated on that theory.
[in Portuguese.]
It was immediately obvious that the parents could be considered suspects.
Various hypotheses were immediately put forward.
[speaking Portuguese.]
[Rui, in Portuguese.]
The police hypothesis was that it was accidental death, that the parents had hidden her body afterwards.
[in Spanish.]
When you heard that the police had found blood in the apartment, how did you react? Do you know what? -[static crackles from mic.]
-This is all investigation.
You need to speak to the police.
It's just [Gerry.]
You know, all your questions are about the investigation and we can't comment on it.
[Justine.]
Gerry, just just sit down.
We can't answer questions about the investigation.
[Justine.]
They know that.
What they want you to say is it's speculation.
[host speaks Spanish.]
[Justine.]
So that you can then say, "Stick to the official line.
" [electricity sputtering.]
[camera beeps, clicks.]
On September the 4th, the British scientist who was doing the primary forensic work in the UK on all the samples from the floor area near the sofa and from the boot of the McCanns' rental car, that Renault Scenic, sent an initial report through to Portugal.
Police in Portugal have received the initial results of forensic tests on material found in the apartment from where Madeleine disappeared.
[Robbyn.]
That report was written in English and translated into Portuguese.
The summary that the Portuguese investigator submitted to his superiors was shorn of all the caveats that had been in the original, the caution to await a final result.
It was bald and it was very incriminating.
I remember one of the journalists saying to me there was something that you wouldn't expect in a place that wasn't expected.
[in Portuguese.]
The Portuguese police has received the test results for the Madeleine McCann case.
[reporter.]
Preliminary results have now been returned to Portugal.
Detectives have said today that they are happy with the results.
The police are not allowed to discuss DNA evidence, and yet they leaked information to the press.
[Justine.]
You can't pin down exactly where that information came from.
I've got my own suspicions, but, you know, they're suspicions.
[in Portuguese.]
Another piece of information I have at this moment is the police have now clarified what happened to Madeleine And this was information the PJ uncover sources told me.
"We found 70, 90 marks that were exactly equal to the blood of Madeleine.
" It was Madeleine.
She was inside a car.
[in Portuguese.]
There was a match of 80% minimum between the DNA samples found inside the rental car which the McCanns hired 25 days after Madeleine disappeared and the child's genetic profile.
Now the scientists are making progress with final data.
It won't just be an 80 percent match, but a full match.
[in Portuguese.]
The traces found in the car closely matched Madeleine's DNA profile.
We were given the information.
We didn't dream it up.
[Robbyn.]
Essentially, the Portuguese police's case against the McCanns involved the following: that she had died by accident on the night of May the 3rd, that the supposed checks on the children had been concocted, that they had hidden their daughter's body, perhaps in a refrigerator until a later time, and that her body had thus subsequently been transported in the rental car they had rented some weeks later.
[reporter 1.]
Kate McCann will arrive at the police station in Portugal in an hour's time with her solicitor.
Her husband has also been told he will be formally interviewed tomorrow.
[reporter 2.]
Those close to the McCanns are very concerned by the increasing number of reports in the Portuguese press that seem to come from leaks in the police.
It was a really lovely summer's day.
[Justine.]
They have a very close relationship so obviously before she went in to be interviewed, um, they had their own time together.
[reporter, in Portuguese.]
Many people, many tourists, and, of course, many journalists followed Kate McCann to Portimão Police Station.
[male reporter.]
This is it.
This is it.
[Justine.]
Kate was obviously nervous.
You know that the journalists are gonna follow you.
-[reporters yelling.]
-[reporter.]
At just before two o'clock, Kate McCann arrived, brought here by her husband Gerry, and accompanied through the wall of media by her sister-in-law.
Can you clear a path? [Justine.]
It was clear to me that information had been given to different media outlets, you know, in advance of things happening.
The Portuguese police wanted to make sure that the journalists were in place.
[camera shutters clicking.]
[reporter.]
Those close to the McCanns are very concerned by the increasing number of reports in the Portuguese press that seem to come from leaks in the Portuguese police and place them at the centre of this investigation.
[Justine.]
The tsunami was coming back.
I'd like to read a statement, um, on Kate's arrival at the police station in Portimão today.
"Kate and Gerry are happy to help the police in their investigations to find their daughter Madeleine.
" [Gonçalo, in Portuguese.]
She came in with a media spokesman and her lawyer.
I don't think the interrogation took more than two hours.
More would have been too much.
[male reporter.]
Huw, it's eight hours since Kate McCann arrived here at the investigation headquarters and she is still in there being questioned.
There was actually just a short break, but the interview, I'm told, has resumed.
[Justine.]
The questioning went on for probably about 11 hours.
She was very clear with me that they'd been incredibly aggressive with her.
[reporter.]
The interview is detailed, but yet they haven't reached the main substance and they expect that there is still a long way to go.
Kate was more often more visibly distressed in the media than Gerry so they might have thought she was a sort of weaker target, in some way.
[Anthony.]
After that first session, she was advised by her lawyer that the police were offering a plea bargain.
[indistinct chatter.]
[Gonçalo, in Portuguese.]
What was said is that it's a different thing to admit to concealing a body than to be later confronted with another much stronger accusation than merely concealing a body or fabricating a crime scene and that the sentences were completely different.
Her reaction was very violent.
Kate phoned me in the early hours this morning and during our conversation, she did tell me that the Portuguese police had offered to, uh, cut her a deal and if she was lucky, she would only get two years.
[reporter.]
Friends of the family have told the BBC they are unsettled by what is happening.
And we know now that in those interviews, it was put to Kate McCann that she was responsible for the death of her daughter Madeleine, something that she strenuously denies [in Portuguese.]
The investigation is obviously still underway and, as you well know, we can't reveal anything.
Now, I can assure you [David.]
When Kate emerged from her interview, Kate had really been sort of put through the wringer and had faced a lot of very distressing and ridiculous allegations.
[overlapping chatter from reporters.]
[Justine.]
On the journey home, I remember just thinking she was utterly exhausted.
[indistinct yelling.]
[Susan.]
She just cried and cried.
And she wasn't speaking.
We didn't know what was going on.
She just kept saying words, she wouldn't And finally we realised that she had gone through something where the police no longer believed her.
[seagulls squawking.]
[female reporter.]
Friends of Kate McCann say they expect her to be charged in connection with the disappearance of her daughter Madeleine.
[male reporter.]
She'd only been back at her villa for a few short hours.
[indistinct chatter.]
Questioned into the early hours by detectives, Kate McCann was required again this morning.
[camera shutters clicking.]
And as she left, she already knew that she was to be declared arguida, a named suspect.
[Justine.]
In the journey, we tried to make sure that the conversation was light.
You're in a different legal system, so you don't necessarily know how everything's going to work.
[Justine.]
You're not in control of the situation.
[police siren chirping.]
[male reporter.]
At investigation headquarters in Portimão, the police cleared a path.
[in Portuguese.]
Back off.
[reporter, continued.]
And alongside an enormous media presence, hundreds of onlookers.
[Justine.]
There was a media frenzy going on outside the police station, a clear signal that there was information going out to different media sources, and that we were facing something quite large.
[crowd cheering.]
[camera shutters clicking.]
We're just beside ourselves with worry now because, you know, where has this evidence come from? How come things have changed so drastically? How can Kate possibly be being accused of this? It's shocking.
[whistling from crowd.]
[camera shutters clicking.]
[David.]
It was a horrid little gloomy building.
Um You know, darkened corridors.
It was a very sort of forbidding atmosphere.
[Anthony.]
She sat there and had to listen to all the same sort of questions all over again, including the suggestion that the dogs had seen some kind of sinister evidence during their searches.
And more than 40 questions leading up to the notion that she had in some way had known about a fatal accident to her daughter and concealed the facts about her death.
As Kate sat listening to this, she declined to answer every single question.
She comforted herself by muttering under her breath, "Bloody tosser, bloody tosser," just swearing quietly under her breath.
[in Portuguese.]
What was in question was whether or not they had concealed a body and simulated a crime.
She was made arguida and questions were asked and she refused to answer those questions.
I was in this anteroom with the British Consul and some ordinary, you know, police officers.
The news was on inside the police station.
Outside, there was now a vast crowd in the square, lots of media, and at this point, Justine gave an interview highly critical of the Portuguese police in very unflattering terms.
They made a series of ridiculous allegations.
I mean, Kate [David.]
I heard her saying this and thought, "Oh, my goodness! What's their reaction going to be?" And they were all going absolutely bananas.
[Gonçalo, in Portuguese.]
They always had to have someone with them to serve as a spokesperson.
They were always very concerned about their image, which is something that shocks me.
Well, they believe they have evidence to show that in some way that she's involved in the death of her daughter, which of course is completely ludicrous.
[reporter.]
But it's quite specific.
What is it? They-- They have suggested that blood has been found in a hire car that they hired 25 days after Madeleine was taken.
[Justine.]
A lot of people involved in the investigation, English wasn't their first language.
It's not just about language.
There's cultural interpretations as well.
The Portuguese police would have found it rather difficult to have understood why on Earth, you know, you'd leave your children at home if you were going out for supper with friends.
[Sandra.]
There was a very, very nasty criticism against Kate.
Comparisons between the British and the Portuguese behaviour, about being a mum in Portugal and being a mum in UK, saying that the English people usually leave the kids alone and this is normal.
[camera shutters clicking.]
[Sandra.]
It generated the image, the picture that Kate was the cold mum, the mum that didn't cry, that didn't have any emotions.
[Susan.]
Kate came back to us broken.
Kate could be put in jail.
She could be in prison and without any control over any of this situation anymore.
[reporter.]
Can you be clear with us? Are they suggesting from what was heard last night in the interviews that Kate is primarily responsible and that Gerry is some sort of secondary figure? Is that was put to Kate? That was the suggestion, I believe, that was made.
[female reporter.]
Kate McCann was today made a formal suspect in the disappearance of her daughter Madeleine.
Friends of the McCanns confirm that she is an arguida after police called her in again for questioning today.
[reporter.]
It is is harder for the police to comment here because of the secrecy laws.
A spokesman, though, told me that they were just doing their work, that they were looking forward to putting the truth on the table.
He confirmed that Kate McCann has arguida status, a position that in this country has a clear meaning.
It means that you are a formal suspect in this investigation.
[in Portuguese.]
People are constituted as arguidos because they are suspected of committing a crime and not for having committed a crime.
[Justine.]
You're dealing with an environment where the police probably think that a woman would be easier to break.
Gerry presents as quite tough.
[camera shutters clicking.]
[whistling in crowd.]
[male reporter.]
Gerry arrived to be interviewed as a witness.
[reporter.]
How do you feel, Gerry? No words as he walked in, but on his blog today, he has said that anyone who knows about May the 3rd, when Madeleine disappeared, knows that Kate is innocent.
[Justine.]
The front of that police station, there's nothing welcoming about it.
It's a door in a wall, really.
Once you stepped inside, going from a very light, sunny environment into quite a cold and dark room.
[David.]
We knew that serious allegations were gonna be put to them.
[Gonçalo, in Portuguese.]
He was shown the video of the dogs, that it was irrelevant, and at the end, he said something like, "I don't see anything here that will help me find my daughter.
" Something like that.
[in Portuguese.]
Right now, the interrogation of Gerry McCann continues after six hours here in Portimão.
[reporters yelling.]
Some of the evidence is quite shocking.
[Kelvin.]
You're beginning to doubt the veracity of what you appear to have been told by the McCann side.
[Sandra.]
Everybody giving money, everybody crying and feeling sympathy.
Three months later, they are criminals.
[reporter.]
Gerry, what is your status? Kate and Gerry McCann they have both been today declared arguido.
With no [reporter.]
And today's developments have left the family angry.
Because anybody who knows Gerry and Kate knows that to implicate them in any way is ridiculous.
[Kelvin.]
As they start talking about blood on the carpet and why was the window left open and was somebody rolled up in a carpet in the back of the car and all the rest of it, so you were beginning to be asked to believe that the McCanns themselves were in some way responsible for their own child's disappearance, that the whole thing was a complete act, and that in some way, they were laughing at you.
They were responsible and at the same time, they were seeking your money to help the investigation or to find the killer.
You know, you could understand why the Portuguese police might feel that the McCanns are people that we have to simply talk to.
[Sandra.]
Mr.
McCann, hello.
Good evening.
Could you just give us some words, please? -I can't say anything, I'm afraid.
-All right.
How do you feel? -How do you feel, Mr.
McCann? -[Gerry.]
Tired.
[Sandra.]
Did you expect, um, this decision today? Could you let the car in, please? That's all I've got to say at the minute.
[church bell tolling.]
Exactly a month ago, Kate and Gerry McCann, in front of the world's media, joined worshipers here to mark 100 days in the search for their daughter.
Their plan to attend a service here tonight has been cancelled.
[male reporter.]
The vicar, who's become a close friend of the McCanns, says he's worried about Kate.
She seemed as in any mother who's just been told that she's a suspect in her own daughter's death.
Uh, she seems like a mother who has spent has had an hour's sleep, is in a foreign country, and is worried about where her daughter is.
[Susan.]
It was an awful time.
Mm-hmm.
I remember thinking how stupid this is, how stupidly misguided this is because this is taking away from looking.
[Susan.]
And the press was so crazy.
The local people who were in Praia da Luz silently, quietly continued to support them.
The population of Portugal not so much, no.
[Jim.]
People who were once standing alongside them were abandoning them.
Uh, they were very much isolated and alienated, and you began to hear people saying things about them with regard to, "Well, it's because of their status they weren't properly investigated," and there were those undertones that actually, "If they're not guilty of the murder, they're guilty of absolute neglect because they left their child by themselves.
" I'm absolutely horrified by-- You know, on a basic level, I just think I would never do that and people say to me, "You haven't got kids.
How can you say that?" I can say that 'cause I know I would never do it [Gonçalo, in Portuguese.]
Leaving the child alone in a foreign place for hours on end-- it was multiple evenings throughout the week-- is negligence.
[in Portuguese.]
I wouldn't feel safe leaving my daughter every night from 8 p.
m.
until I am alone in a hotel room with her baby siblings.
[Felicia.]
Therefore this guilt, whether the parents want it or not, they will have to bear.
Because we don't know exactly what happened to Maddie.
But one thing we know, she was abandoned on many evenings and on that night, she was alone.
And that is the point.
[male reporter.]
The BBC has been told by friends of the McCanns the latest developments mean they will now remain in Portugal.
They say, as well as finding their daughter, their aim is to clear their names.
It was that weekend immediately after they had been made arguidos.
[reporter.]
With the media camped outside, Kate and Gerry have no plans to leave their house this weekend, not even to go to church.
[David.]
And so in the briefing, we said Gerry, Kate, and the family are just going to keep themselves to themselves, nothing is going to happen.
[reporter speaking French.]
[David.]
We saw in advance that some people had alleged that it was a sort of cut and run following the events of the previous few days.
And, yes, there had been implications that they would stay and stay and stay.
[camera shutters clicking.]
I know Justine had had a bit of an argument with Gerry about it.
[David.]
He said, "Thank you for your opinion, but that's what we're doing," basically.
[Sandra.]
There was the conviction that they were guilty.
It become growing up inside of us.
"Why are they escaping? Why, if they are sure that Madeleine is vanished, and she can be, whether in Portugal or in Spain or around, why don't they stay?" [reporter yells.]
Why do you leave now? [indistinct chatter.]
[Sandra.]
They don't want to be there because otherwise they can be arrested and they can't face that.
[reporter.]
Gerry! [Sandra.]
Because if they were really looking for Madeleine and if they believed that she is there, if it was with me, I would prefer to stay in Portugal and to look after her, despite everything that the police and the judges could do to me.
[in Portuguese.]
And they realised the investigation was going towards establishing or investigating their involvement in their daughter's disappearance.
[Gonçalo.]
With them here in Portugal [reporters yelling.]
it was possible for us to reach this goal.
They were very afraid here in Portugal.
[horn honking.]
[indistinct chatter.]
[Susan.]
Kate, she couldn't imagine leaving Luz where she'd last been with Madeleine.
But Gerry was very determined to protect his family and they were feeling unsafe.
They were trying to split them and one's confessing against the other and it felt really scary.
They felt how do they stay? "We need to go for Sean and Amelie so that I'm free to look for Madeleine, to fight for Madeleine.
I can't do that if they're gonna put me in prison here.
" [David.]
Now, it had been agreed between myself and Justine that I would accompany them on the plane back to the UK and she would stay for dealing with the media interest from those who hadn't realised what was going on.
Sorry, sorry, sorry! [reporter.]
No, sorry back.
[overlapping reporters' voices.]
Okay, all right, just calm down.
"Kate and Gerry McCann will be returning to the UK today with their twins Sean and Amelie, as originally planned.
They are returning to Britain after careful thought.
They wish to reintroduce the twins as much as possible to an ordinary life in their home country.
" [David.]
By the time we were taken onto the waiting plane, about a third of it was full of camera crews who had bought tickets at the last moment, having heard what was going on.
There was one particular, uh, camera crew who became particularly difficult and the captain emerged from the cabin and informed them that if this carried on, he would have them arrested.
[Haynes.]
There was this tremendous sense of-- of sadness that they were going home without their daughter.
[Sandra.]
That moment made me feel they were escaping from the nightmare, that Portugal had been for them because everybody was shouting in Portugal, saying, "You're liars, you shouldn't be here.
" [reporter.]
Good afternoon.
The parents of Madeleine McCann are due to land at East Midlands Airport very shortly [Sandra.]
And at the same time, I saw Kate and Gerry with the twins descending the stairs from the plane, devastated by what was happening, what was being told about them, arriving in their home and trying to have some peace.
"Whilst it's heartbreaking to return to the UK without Madeleine, it does not mean we're giving up our search for her.
We cannot give up on our daughter until we know what has happened.
We have to keep doing everything that we can to find her.
Portuguese law prohibits us from commenting further on the police investigation.
Despite there being so much we wish to say, we are unable to do so, except to say this.
We have played no part in the disappearance of our lovely daughter Madeleine.
" [theme music playing.]
[barking continues.]
The only two places where he picked up enough scent to give me the bark alert are in this bedroom in this corner where he was barking.
Moving on to the other room, he's decided, "That's what I'm looking for," and that's when he's given me the bark indication.
[Martin.]
What we should understand with this one is that he only barks [Robbyn.]
After Eddie's work was done, Grime brought in Keela, the blood dog.
[dog panting.]
[Martin.]
Keela was trained to see if we could train a dog that would locate human blood without responding to human decomposition or animal blood.
She, too, went around the apartment not particularly interested until she got to that sofa area.
[Martin.]
She's trained to follow my finger and conduct sniff tests.
So wherever my finger goes, her nose will follow.
Keela's response to finding something is to point.
She'll stop with her nose as close to it as she can possibly get without touching it.
[Martin.]
Okay.
[indistinct radio chatter.]
[Justine.]
If you go out there and you put yourself up, you've got to expect at some point that there will be a backlash.
I suspected the parents from the very outset because at the end of the day, statistically, it's likely to be the parents or someone who is in close proximity with the child.
[reporter 2.]
The search for Madeleine McCann has taken a frightening turn right back to the vacation home in Portugal where she was last seen.
[reporter 2.]
Some very wild questions, unattributed, are out there being discussed openly.
[news anchor.]
Forensic experts in Britain will study suspected traces of blood found in the apartment in the Algarve where Madeleine McCann was last seen more than three months ago.
[in Portuguese.]
I've always been sceptical about using dogs.
Martin knows successful cases.
They are never cases where the dogs solve the investigation or the case.
They are cases like this one, where the dogs help the police with their work.
On the third day of their work in Praia da Luz, the two specialist dogs were taken to the villa where the McCanns had been staying since Madeleine disappeared.
The police gave notice that they were going to search the villa and everybody needed to be out.
[Justine.]
I think I had mixed feelings at the time.
At least it was a step forward in terms of the investigation.
[Martin.]
Here, come.
Come! [claps loudly.]
Come! [dog panting.]
[Robbyn.]
Neither dog immediately alerted to anything, except [barking loudly.]
Eddie, the cadaver dog, alerted to Madeleine's toy, Cuddle Cat.
[in Portuguese.]
I thought that the child's doll may have come into contact with a dead body.
There was someone who was always going around with that doll and that person was the child's mother.
[camera shutters clicking.]
[Gonçalo, in Portuguese.]
As such, it can indicate that the mother gratitude and thanks to everybody may have been in contact with her daughter's corpse.
Simply that.
A police spokesman in Portugal has told the BBC there are now indications the toddler was not abducted.
the child could be dead.
[Sandra.]
When the PJ let the information come out that they were investigating the possibility of Madeleine being dead, and the McCanns being implicated in her murder, they didn't say this exactly by these words.
They said that only, "We investigate the possibility of her being dead.
" [reporter.]
In the capital, Lisbon, I spoke to the Chief Inspector, acting as an official spokesman for the inquiry.
Clues have been found that could point in a possible, uh, death of the little child And the thing is the same because the only people that they were investigating behind this possibility were the McCanns.
[male reporter.]
There is a different feel to this inquiry and to the coverage, much more speculation surrounding the McCanns and the fate of their daughter.
[Robbyn.]
Meanwhile, the Portuguese asked Grime and his team to search cars that had been used both by the McCanns and their friends and by others involved in the case.
[reporter.]
We think about ten cars were searched, two from the Robert Murat family, others from family and friends, and we know that one of them was the hire car that's being used by Gerry and Kate McCann.
[Robbyn.]
Martin Grime wrote in his report, um, that he, at the time, had no idea which car belonged to which individual.
[Robbyn.]
He first deployed the cadaver dog Eddie.
Searching car by car, Eddie gave no alert.
[dog panting.]
[Martin.]
Here, come.
[claps.]
Here.
[Martin.]
Odor lingers and it migrates and transfers.
To the dog, that item may still be present.
Come.
Here, here, here.
[Martin.]
Come! [claps loudly.]
[sniffs loudly.]
[barking.]
[Robbyn.]
But then in front of a silver Renault, he alerted to something on the driver's side door.
Keela, the blood scenting dog, too, alerted at the silver Renault.
She also alerted to something in the boot of the car on the right side.
At that moment, the country, and I would risk saying the world, was in shock.
[Sandra.]
I think that the feeling here was, they lied to us, they were lying to all the world.
That was the turning point.
[in Portuguese.]
The case became really strange when the dogs detected the blood in the room.
[Martin.]
Keela.
Here, come.
But if the blood is really from Madeleine, how can you explain it? -Well, we don't know.
-At the moment, it's all speculation.
[in Portuguese.]
Also the smell of the corpse in the car the parents used later on.
[camera shutters clicking.]
That can't be explained.
[Robbyn.]
Martin Grime had 30 years' experience working with police dogs at that point, and Grime attested at the time that they wouldn't misfire.
They wouldn't inadvertently pick up animal blood for human blood or misdetect the smell of rotting food for that of a corpse or cadaver.
[Robbyn.]
The police took away boxes upon boxes of the McCanns' belongings.
They took the boxes to another location where they then deployed the dogs again.
[Martin.]
Come.
[barking.]
[Robbyn.]
This time, the cadaver dog Eddie reacted to some clothing that was in one of the boxes.
[Gonçalo, in Portuguese.]
It was mainly clothes from the child's mother.
These were the objects where they detected corpse odours.
Some trousers, a blouse.
This led to the Portuguese doing minute, detailed investigation and producing numerous samples from the living room of apartment 5A, near the sofa where the dogs had alerted and from the boot of the McCanns' rental car.
[Robbyn.]
Fingernails, other substances that might be susceptible to DNA research, all of these were packed up and sent off to the Forensic Science Service in the UK for DNA analysis.
[reporter 1.]
The sample recovered from the McCanns' apartment will be analysed over several days by Britain's Forensic Science Service.
[reporter 2.]
If it does prove to be blood, scientists will then extract DNA to see if there's a match to Madeleine.
[Justine.]
By the time we got to the stage, the media had exploded in numbers.
It was absolutely huge.
[reporter.]
Every twist and turn in this case is followed by the Portuguese media, but the tone is different to the UK, more critical, more speculative as the weeks move on.
[Justine.]
My colleague David Hughes came out to Portugal and helped me because you can't physically even answer the phone at the rate that the phone calls were coming in.
I was sitting on a London bus and my phone went and she literally rang up and said, "How busy are you? Do you fancy coming and lending a hand?" Simply 'cause it, you know, had become a huge story.
Virtually every newspaper, all the broadcasters were covering the story on a daily basis.
just as it was on The Times there, "Maddy parents' fury at Algarve slurs.
" allegations made against the parents in The Daily Mirror.
So I quite understood there'd be a sort of huge sort of workload.
[intro music plays.]
[David.]
I remember one of the first things I was involved in was a Sunday morning religious program.
That was something which they were keen on because it, A, reflected their own personal faith and secondly, thought it would mean that they would have a chance of reaching perhaps audiences which, um, other conventional media hadn't reached.
I was like-- I mean, you've got that total feeling of helplessness and I was just praying straightaway and there's a series of people that I rang, um, who I know have got a lot of faith and I just said, "Please start praying," and this chain kind of went off and you don't I mean, I just didn't realise, really, how important my faith was.
And the helplessness that first night and even I wouldn't say I'm the most religious person in the world, but even then, I just slumped, um, and we phoned the priest that married us and this was three or four o'clock in the morning and It was ten past two.
-He's still got it on his phone.
-[chuckles.]
-And-- -[host.]
They're never off duty.
Yeah, and he said, you know, "What can I do?" And I just said, "Just pray.
" [David.]
They had, um, heard the first sort of implied suggestions regarding the sniffer dogs that morning.
[reporter 1, in Portuguese.]
The parents of Madeleine McCann were at the police station this afternoon.
[reporter 2, in Portuguese.]
 5:00 p.
m.
, Kate and Gerry leave Portimão's PolÃcia Judiciária precinct.
They leave through the back entrance in a Renault Scenic, which was already inspected by the police.
There was a tense atmosphere because it was the first point at which, you know, there'd been any suggestion of a serious nature that they could have had any negative role in the whole sort of proceedings.
[reporter 1, in Portuguese.]
 They left in a car that was inspected by the police.
I think the suspicion was that the hire car had been used to, um, transport Madeleine's body.
When Kate came back that first day and realised that they were no longer believing them or that they'd started to doubt their whole story, uh, her despair was Yeah, beyond what you'd want to hear, you know, someone you know, crying and because her realisation immediately was, "They're not looking for her.
" -That's right.
-From the moment that they distrusted her, she knew they weren't looking.
[church bell tolling.]
-[Susan.]
It was an awful time.
-[Haynes.]
Yeah, that was pretty awful.
[Susan.]
The press was at its height then, too.
[camera shutters clicking.]
[reporter.]
Exactly 100 days since Madeleine McCann disappeared, her parents Kate and Gerry have been to church this morning in Praia da Luz.
The weight of media interest [bell tolling.]
I counted well over 70 photographers outside the church alone.
[Haynes.]
We closed the doors for them so that the press wouldn't come in and we actually-- I remember we gave them keys so that they could go in and hide because it was nasty, it was extraordinarily nasty.
[indistinct chatter.]
[Justine.]
Right from the beginning, the McCanns were warned by everybody involved that, you know, if you go out there and you put yourself up, you've got to expect at some point that there will be a media backlash.
You know, it's like a tsunami.
If the wave goes out [shutters clicking.]
at some point, it's gonna come back in with equal or increased ferocity.
It was the most astonishing and an absolutely unique sort of professional experience.
Okay.
[David.]
Such an enormous deluge of attention.
One wasn't having to hunt down publicity.
One was having to manage it.
[reporter.]
In the beginning, they asked journalists for help.
But nearly four months on, the relationship has soured.
You're put on a pedestal and then the pedestal is ripped out.
[reporter.]
Media speculation has been rife here since the police admitted three weeks ago that Madeleine might be dead.
That statement was based on new forensic evidence recovered from the family's holiday apartment.
The approach of everyone involved was to not criticise the Portuguese police or the authorities.
[David.]
Everyone trying to sort of button their lips about what we really thought about their performance.
[interviewer.]
Do you still have faith in the police investigation and do you still have faith that you will see Madeleine again? I think yes and yes are the two answers to that.
But then the relationship obviously changed.
[speaking Portuguese.]
A factor that constantly affected the case in Portugal was the Portuguese law of judicial secrecy.
[speaking Portuguese.]
[Anthony.]
The police are not allowed to discuss the course of a case to the press in any way.
[in Portuguese.]
It could be that this test is not conclusive, could bring us some lead.
[Anthony.]
Madeleine's parents were gagged from talking to the press about what they learned from the police.
[Gonçalo, in Portuguese.]
If they had broken judicial secrecy, they could be sentenced to up to three years in prison.
[Jim.]
But it seemed, as the investigation went on, that information was being leaked to the media that lots of people suspected were coming from the Portuguese police.
[Sandra.]
I talked with many people inside the PJ.
I felt that they were giving details about something they wanted to be public.
So the law was one thing.
What the police were actually doing was quite another.
[male reporter.]
The media spotlight on Kate and Gerry McCann made their daughter the most high profile missing child in the world.
Last week, the McCanns called their lawyers when the Tal & Qual newspaper claimed the police now believe the couple killed Madeleine.
By late summer, there was an implication that they might have over-sedated her, um, by administering a drug.
"The past 120 days have been horrific for us, our family, and friends.
We have tried to ignore some of the more ludicrous speculation, but we simply could not ignore T&Q's report.
" Another newspaper went on to suggest that in their holiday apartment that they had a syringe for injecting drugs into their children.
[Justine.]
All sorts of theories were out there, like that a sort of syringe was found in the apartment.
In that evening, did you give to your kids something like Calpol to help them sleep? We're not gonna comment on anything, but, you know, there is absolutely no way we used any sedative drugs or anything like that and Calpol is a very common remedy used by parents all over the world in one form or another to help their children with fever or pain.
After Madeleine had disappeared, for five or six hours, there was a great hubbub in apartment 5A, policemen coming and going and the friends of the McCanns coming and going and much talking and wailing and worrying.
And yet the two twins who were still there, little babies, still slept on.
Continued to doze, weren't woken.
Everybody went in and out of the apartment, screams, shouting.
I don't know.
[Gonçalo, in Portuguese.]
There were two twins asleep, about a year and a half old, sleeping close to all the commotion.
[Paulo.]
It's not normal.
Still sleeping, sleeping, sleeping, during [Gonçalo, in Portuguese.]
A lot of noise and they never woke up.
And they left to another apartment, still sleeping.
Madeleine's mother spent the whole night checking how the twins were breathing-- if they were breathing or not, if they were alright.
She was worried about them.
So this is all very strange.
[in Portuguese.]
Kate McCann's father spoke to the newspaper The Sun and admitted there is a possibility that she was given Calpol.
It's a medicine used to combat fever and pain, but it's also used to help sleeping.
Obviously the Portuguese police had a theory and other people, um, speculated on that theory.
[in Portuguese.]
It was immediately obvious that the parents could be considered suspects.
Various hypotheses were immediately put forward.
[speaking Portuguese.]
[Rui, in Portuguese.]
The police hypothesis was that it was accidental death, that the parents had hidden her body afterwards.
[in Spanish.]
When you heard that the police had found blood in the apartment, how did you react? Do you know what? -[static crackles from mic.]
-This is all investigation.
You need to speak to the police.
It's just [Gerry.]
You know, all your questions are about the investigation and we can't comment on it.
[Justine.]
Gerry, just just sit down.
We can't answer questions about the investigation.
[Justine.]
They know that.
What they want you to say is it's speculation.
[host speaks Spanish.]
[Justine.]
So that you can then say, "Stick to the official line.
" [electricity sputtering.]
[camera beeps, clicks.]
On September the 4th, the British scientist who was doing the primary forensic work in the UK on all the samples from the floor area near the sofa and from the boot of the McCanns' rental car, that Renault Scenic, sent an initial report through to Portugal.
Police in Portugal have received the initial results of forensic tests on material found in the apartment from where Madeleine disappeared.
[Robbyn.]
That report was written in English and translated into Portuguese.
The summary that the Portuguese investigator submitted to his superiors was shorn of all the caveats that had been in the original, the caution to await a final result.
It was bald and it was very incriminating.
I remember one of the journalists saying to me there was something that you wouldn't expect in a place that wasn't expected.
[in Portuguese.]
The Portuguese police has received the test results for the Madeleine McCann case.
[reporter.]
Preliminary results have now been returned to Portugal.
Detectives have said today that they are happy with the results.
The police are not allowed to discuss DNA evidence, and yet they leaked information to the press.
[Justine.]
You can't pin down exactly where that information came from.
I've got my own suspicions, but, you know, they're suspicions.
[in Portuguese.]
Another piece of information I have at this moment is the police have now clarified what happened to Madeleine And this was information the PJ uncover sources told me.
"We found 70, 90 marks that were exactly equal to the blood of Madeleine.
" It was Madeleine.
She was inside a car.
[in Portuguese.]
There was a match of 80% minimum between the DNA samples found inside the rental car which the McCanns hired 25 days after Madeleine disappeared and the child's genetic profile.
Now the scientists are making progress with final data.
It won't just be an 80 percent match, but a full match.
[in Portuguese.]
The traces found in the car closely matched Madeleine's DNA profile.
We were given the information.
We didn't dream it up.
[Robbyn.]
Essentially, the Portuguese police's case against the McCanns involved the following: that she had died by accident on the night of May the 3rd, that the supposed checks on the children had been concocted, that they had hidden their daughter's body, perhaps in a refrigerator until a later time, and that her body had thus subsequently been transported in the rental car they had rented some weeks later.
[reporter 1.]
Kate McCann will arrive at the police station in Portugal in an hour's time with her solicitor.
Her husband has also been told he will be formally interviewed tomorrow.
[reporter 2.]
Those close to the McCanns are very concerned by the increasing number of reports in the Portuguese press that seem to come from leaks in the police.
It was a really lovely summer's day.
[Justine.]
They have a very close relationship so obviously before she went in to be interviewed, um, they had their own time together.
[reporter, in Portuguese.]
Many people, many tourists, and, of course, many journalists followed Kate McCann to Portimão Police Station.
[male reporter.]
This is it.
This is it.
[Justine.]
Kate was obviously nervous.
You know that the journalists are gonna follow you.
-[reporters yelling.]
-[reporter.]
At just before two o'clock, Kate McCann arrived, brought here by her husband Gerry, and accompanied through the wall of media by her sister-in-law.
Can you clear a path? [Justine.]
It was clear to me that information had been given to different media outlets, you know, in advance of things happening.
The Portuguese police wanted to make sure that the journalists were in place.
[camera shutters clicking.]
[reporter.]
Those close to the McCanns are very concerned by the increasing number of reports in the Portuguese press that seem to come from leaks in the Portuguese police and place them at the centre of this investigation.
[Justine.]
The tsunami was coming back.
I'd like to read a statement, um, on Kate's arrival at the police station in Portimão today.
"Kate and Gerry are happy to help the police in their investigations to find their daughter Madeleine.
" [Gonçalo, in Portuguese.]
She came in with a media spokesman and her lawyer.
I don't think the interrogation took more than two hours.
More would have been too much.
[male reporter.]
Huw, it's eight hours since Kate McCann arrived here at the investigation headquarters and she is still in there being questioned.
There was actually just a short break, but the interview, I'm told, has resumed.
[Justine.]
The questioning went on for probably about 11 hours.
She was very clear with me that they'd been incredibly aggressive with her.
[reporter.]
The interview is detailed, but yet they haven't reached the main substance and they expect that there is still a long way to go.
Kate was more often more visibly distressed in the media than Gerry so they might have thought she was a sort of weaker target, in some way.
[Anthony.]
After that first session, she was advised by her lawyer that the police were offering a plea bargain.
[indistinct chatter.]
[Gonçalo, in Portuguese.]
What was said is that it's a different thing to admit to concealing a body than to be later confronted with another much stronger accusation than merely concealing a body or fabricating a crime scene and that the sentences were completely different.
Her reaction was very violent.
Kate phoned me in the early hours this morning and during our conversation, she did tell me that the Portuguese police had offered to, uh, cut her a deal and if she was lucky, she would only get two years.
[reporter.]
Friends of the family have told the BBC they are unsettled by what is happening.
And we know now that in those interviews, it was put to Kate McCann that she was responsible for the death of her daughter Madeleine, something that she strenuously denies [in Portuguese.]
The investigation is obviously still underway and, as you well know, we can't reveal anything.
Now, I can assure you [David.]
When Kate emerged from her interview, Kate had really been sort of put through the wringer and had faced a lot of very distressing and ridiculous allegations.
[overlapping chatter from reporters.]
[Justine.]
On the journey home, I remember just thinking she was utterly exhausted.
[indistinct yelling.]
[Susan.]
She just cried and cried.
And she wasn't speaking.
We didn't know what was going on.
She just kept saying words, she wouldn't And finally we realised that she had gone through something where the police no longer believed her.
[seagulls squawking.]
[female reporter.]
Friends of Kate McCann say they expect her to be charged in connection with the disappearance of her daughter Madeleine.
[male reporter.]
She'd only been back at her villa for a few short hours.
[indistinct chatter.]
Questioned into the early hours by detectives, Kate McCann was required again this morning.
[camera shutters clicking.]
And as she left, she already knew that she was to be declared arguida, a named suspect.
[Justine.]
In the journey, we tried to make sure that the conversation was light.
You're in a different legal system, so you don't necessarily know how everything's going to work.
[Justine.]
You're not in control of the situation.
[police siren chirping.]
[male reporter.]
At investigation headquarters in Portimão, the police cleared a path.
[in Portuguese.]
Back off.
[reporter, continued.]
And alongside an enormous media presence, hundreds of onlookers.
[Justine.]
There was a media frenzy going on outside the police station, a clear signal that there was information going out to different media sources, and that we were facing something quite large.
[crowd cheering.]
[camera shutters clicking.]
We're just beside ourselves with worry now because, you know, where has this evidence come from? How come things have changed so drastically? How can Kate possibly be being accused of this? It's shocking.
[whistling from crowd.]
[camera shutters clicking.]
[David.]
It was a horrid little gloomy building.
Um You know, darkened corridors.
It was a very sort of forbidding atmosphere.
[Anthony.]
She sat there and had to listen to all the same sort of questions all over again, including the suggestion that the dogs had seen some kind of sinister evidence during their searches.
And more than 40 questions leading up to the notion that she had in some way had known about a fatal accident to her daughter and concealed the facts about her death.
As Kate sat listening to this, she declined to answer every single question.
She comforted herself by muttering under her breath, "Bloody tosser, bloody tosser," just swearing quietly under her breath.
[in Portuguese.]
What was in question was whether or not they had concealed a body and simulated a crime.
She was made arguida and questions were asked and she refused to answer those questions.
I was in this anteroom with the British Consul and some ordinary, you know, police officers.
The news was on inside the police station.
Outside, there was now a vast crowd in the square, lots of media, and at this point, Justine gave an interview highly critical of the Portuguese police in very unflattering terms.
They made a series of ridiculous allegations.
I mean, Kate [David.]
I heard her saying this and thought, "Oh, my goodness! What's their reaction going to be?" And they were all going absolutely bananas.
[Gonçalo, in Portuguese.]
They always had to have someone with them to serve as a spokesperson.
They were always very concerned about their image, which is something that shocks me.
Well, they believe they have evidence to show that in some way that she's involved in the death of her daughter, which of course is completely ludicrous.
[reporter.]
But it's quite specific.
What is it? They-- They have suggested that blood has been found in a hire car that they hired 25 days after Madeleine was taken.
[Justine.]
A lot of people involved in the investigation, English wasn't their first language.
It's not just about language.
There's cultural interpretations as well.
The Portuguese police would have found it rather difficult to have understood why on Earth, you know, you'd leave your children at home if you were going out for supper with friends.
[Sandra.]
There was a very, very nasty criticism against Kate.
Comparisons between the British and the Portuguese behaviour, about being a mum in Portugal and being a mum in UK, saying that the English people usually leave the kids alone and this is normal.
[camera shutters clicking.]
[Sandra.]
It generated the image, the picture that Kate was the cold mum, the mum that didn't cry, that didn't have any emotions.
[Susan.]
Kate came back to us broken.
Kate could be put in jail.
She could be in prison and without any control over any of this situation anymore.
[reporter.]
Can you be clear with us? Are they suggesting from what was heard last night in the interviews that Kate is primarily responsible and that Gerry is some sort of secondary figure? Is that was put to Kate? That was the suggestion, I believe, that was made.
[female reporter.]
Kate McCann was today made a formal suspect in the disappearance of her daughter Madeleine.
Friends of the McCanns confirm that she is an arguida after police called her in again for questioning today.
[reporter.]
It is is harder for the police to comment here because of the secrecy laws.
A spokesman, though, told me that they were just doing their work, that they were looking forward to putting the truth on the table.
He confirmed that Kate McCann has arguida status, a position that in this country has a clear meaning.
It means that you are a formal suspect in this investigation.
[in Portuguese.]
People are constituted as arguidos because they are suspected of committing a crime and not for having committed a crime.
[Justine.]
You're dealing with an environment where the police probably think that a woman would be easier to break.
Gerry presents as quite tough.
[camera shutters clicking.]
[whistling in crowd.]
[male reporter.]
Gerry arrived to be interviewed as a witness.
[reporter.]
How do you feel, Gerry? No words as he walked in, but on his blog today, he has said that anyone who knows about May the 3rd, when Madeleine disappeared, knows that Kate is innocent.
[Justine.]
The front of that police station, there's nothing welcoming about it.
It's a door in a wall, really.
Once you stepped inside, going from a very light, sunny environment into quite a cold and dark room.
[David.]
We knew that serious allegations were gonna be put to them.
[Gonçalo, in Portuguese.]
He was shown the video of the dogs, that it was irrelevant, and at the end, he said something like, "I don't see anything here that will help me find my daughter.
" Something like that.
[in Portuguese.]
Right now, the interrogation of Gerry McCann continues after six hours here in Portimão.
[reporters yelling.]
Some of the evidence is quite shocking.
[Kelvin.]
You're beginning to doubt the veracity of what you appear to have been told by the McCann side.
[Sandra.]
Everybody giving money, everybody crying and feeling sympathy.
Three months later, they are criminals.
[reporter.]
Gerry, what is your status? Kate and Gerry McCann they have both been today declared arguido.
With no [reporter.]
And today's developments have left the family angry.
Because anybody who knows Gerry and Kate knows that to implicate them in any way is ridiculous.
[Kelvin.]
As they start talking about blood on the carpet and why was the window left open and was somebody rolled up in a carpet in the back of the car and all the rest of it, so you were beginning to be asked to believe that the McCanns themselves were in some way responsible for their own child's disappearance, that the whole thing was a complete act, and that in some way, they were laughing at you.
They were responsible and at the same time, they were seeking your money to help the investigation or to find the killer.
You know, you could understand why the Portuguese police might feel that the McCanns are people that we have to simply talk to.
[Sandra.]
Mr.
McCann, hello.
Good evening.
Could you just give us some words, please? -I can't say anything, I'm afraid.
-All right.
How do you feel? -How do you feel, Mr.
McCann? -[Gerry.]
Tired.
[Sandra.]
Did you expect, um, this decision today? Could you let the car in, please? That's all I've got to say at the minute.
[church bell tolling.]
Exactly a month ago, Kate and Gerry McCann, in front of the world's media, joined worshipers here to mark 100 days in the search for their daughter.
Their plan to attend a service here tonight has been cancelled.
[male reporter.]
The vicar, who's become a close friend of the McCanns, says he's worried about Kate.
She seemed as in any mother who's just been told that she's a suspect in her own daughter's death.
Uh, she seems like a mother who has spent has had an hour's sleep, is in a foreign country, and is worried about where her daughter is.
[Susan.]
It was an awful time.
Mm-hmm.
I remember thinking how stupid this is, how stupidly misguided this is because this is taking away from looking.
[Susan.]
And the press was so crazy.
The local people who were in Praia da Luz silently, quietly continued to support them.
The population of Portugal not so much, no.
[Jim.]
People who were once standing alongside them were abandoning them.
Uh, they were very much isolated and alienated, and you began to hear people saying things about them with regard to, "Well, it's because of their status they weren't properly investigated," and there were those undertones that actually, "If they're not guilty of the murder, they're guilty of absolute neglect because they left their child by themselves.
" I'm absolutely horrified by-- You know, on a basic level, I just think I would never do that and people say to me, "You haven't got kids.
How can you say that?" I can say that 'cause I know I would never do it [Gonçalo, in Portuguese.]
Leaving the child alone in a foreign place for hours on end-- it was multiple evenings throughout the week-- is negligence.
[in Portuguese.]
I wouldn't feel safe leaving my daughter every night from 8 p.
m.
until I am alone in a hotel room with her baby siblings.
[Felicia.]
Therefore this guilt, whether the parents want it or not, they will have to bear.
Because we don't know exactly what happened to Maddie.
But one thing we know, she was abandoned on many evenings and on that night, she was alone.
And that is the point.
[male reporter.]
The BBC has been told by friends of the McCanns the latest developments mean they will now remain in Portugal.
They say, as well as finding their daughter, their aim is to clear their names.
It was that weekend immediately after they had been made arguidos.
[reporter.]
With the media camped outside, Kate and Gerry have no plans to leave their house this weekend, not even to go to church.
[David.]
And so in the briefing, we said Gerry, Kate, and the family are just going to keep themselves to themselves, nothing is going to happen.
[reporter speaking French.]
[David.]
We saw in advance that some people had alleged that it was a sort of cut and run following the events of the previous few days.
And, yes, there had been implications that they would stay and stay and stay.
[camera shutters clicking.]
I know Justine had had a bit of an argument with Gerry about it.
[David.]
He said, "Thank you for your opinion, but that's what we're doing," basically.
[Sandra.]
There was the conviction that they were guilty.
It become growing up inside of us.
"Why are they escaping? Why, if they are sure that Madeleine is vanished, and she can be, whether in Portugal or in Spain or around, why don't they stay?" [reporter yells.]
Why do you leave now? [indistinct chatter.]
[Sandra.]
They don't want to be there because otherwise they can be arrested and they can't face that.
[reporter.]
Gerry! [Sandra.]
Because if they were really looking for Madeleine and if they believed that she is there, if it was with me, I would prefer to stay in Portugal and to look after her, despite everything that the police and the judges could do to me.
[in Portuguese.]
And they realised the investigation was going towards establishing or investigating their involvement in their daughter's disappearance.
[Gonçalo.]
With them here in Portugal [reporters yelling.]
it was possible for us to reach this goal.
They were very afraid here in Portugal.
[horn honking.]
[indistinct chatter.]
[Susan.]
Kate, she couldn't imagine leaving Luz where she'd last been with Madeleine.
But Gerry was very determined to protect his family and they were feeling unsafe.
They were trying to split them and one's confessing against the other and it felt really scary.
They felt how do they stay? "We need to go for Sean and Amelie so that I'm free to look for Madeleine, to fight for Madeleine.
I can't do that if they're gonna put me in prison here.
" [David.]
Now, it had been agreed between myself and Justine that I would accompany them on the plane back to the UK and she would stay for dealing with the media interest from those who hadn't realised what was going on.
Sorry, sorry, sorry! [reporter.]
No, sorry back.
[overlapping reporters' voices.]
Okay, all right, just calm down.
"Kate and Gerry McCann will be returning to the UK today with their twins Sean and Amelie, as originally planned.
They are returning to Britain after careful thought.
They wish to reintroduce the twins as much as possible to an ordinary life in their home country.
" [David.]
By the time we were taken onto the waiting plane, about a third of it was full of camera crews who had bought tickets at the last moment, having heard what was going on.
There was one particular, uh, camera crew who became particularly difficult and the captain emerged from the cabin and informed them that if this carried on, he would have them arrested.
[Haynes.]
There was this tremendous sense of-- of sadness that they were going home without their daughter.
[Sandra.]
That moment made me feel they were escaping from the nightmare, that Portugal had been for them because everybody was shouting in Portugal, saying, "You're liars, you shouldn't be here.
" [reporter.]
Good afternoon.
The parents of Madeleine McCann are due to land at East Midlands Airport very shortly [Sandra.]
And at the same time, I saw Kate and Gerry with the twins descending the stairs from the plane, devastated by what was happening, what was being told about them, arriving in their home and trying to have some peace.
"Whilst it's heartbreaking to return to the UK without Madeleine, it does not mean we're giving up our search for her.
We cannot give up on our daughter until we know what has happened.
We have to keep doing everything that we can to find her.
Portuguese law prohibits us from commenting further on the police investigation.
Despite there being so much we wish to say, we are unable to do so, except to say this.
We have played no part in the disappearance of our lovely daughter Madeleine.
" [theme music playing.]