Why did you leave Madeleine alone?: What grandmother said to Kate and Gerry McCann

Last updated at 08:37am on 30.04.08

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Madeleine McCann's grandmother yesterday criticised her daughter's fateful decision to leave the youngster and her brother and sister alone in their bedroom.

'Why did they think it was OK to do this?' asked Susan Healy, 62.

She revealed that her first words to the couple in the frantic phone call informing her of Madeleine's disappearance were: 'Where were you?'

And she said she could understand public anger at the couple for going to dinner while their children slept unattended in an unlocked apartment more than 50 yards away.

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She said she wanted to 'shake' Kate and her husband Gerry for the decision, which has now haunted them for a year and which could still be used by Portuguese police to support a charge of child negligence.

The grandmother revealed that Madeleine still appeared to Mrs McCann in 'visions'.

The family is marking the first anniversary of Madeleine's abduction, which takes place on Saturday, with a media offensive.

In a two-hour ITV documentary screened tonight Kate McCann, 40,breaks down as she tells how she has 'persecuted' herself for leaving the children alone.

The couple allowed cameras to follow them on a series of trips linked to their Find Madeleine campaign, and to film inside their house where the twins Sean and Amelie, now three, played happily.

They have also struck a year-long deal with the celebrity magazine Hello!, which has agreed to run a story every week in support of their campaign.

Mrs Healy, speaking to her local paper the Liverpool Echo, relived the moment that Mr McCann, 39, called her on May 3 and said he thought Madeleine had been abducted from her bed.

She said her first question was simply: 'Where were you?'

She said: 'I can read articles that say Kate and Gerry should never have left their children and I can accept that.

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'You find yourself over and over again in your head thinking, “Why did they think it would be all right? Why did they think �?all of them �?it was OK to do this?"'

Mrs Healy and her husband Brian, 68, of Allerton, Liverpool, flew out to Praia da Luz the day after the phone call and said they found Mrs McCann 'absolutely wailing' with distress.

A year later, the GP wept again during filming for the TV documentary in which she and her consultant cardiologist husband speak about virtually every aspect of their daughter's disappearance, their emotional ordeal and their attempts to find her.

Why didn't you come when we were crying, mummy?

Mr McCann said the couple and their friends, the so-called Tapas Nine, considered eating with their children on the night of May 3.

They had devised their own system of putting the youngsters to bed, going to dinner at the tapas bar in the apartment complex and taking turns to check on the rooms.

But on the morning of May 3 Madeleine said she and baby brother Sean had been crying the night before, and asked her mother why she had not come to comfort them.

They talked about returning instead to the restaurant where they ate on the first night of their holiday, the Millennium, with their children, but decided it was too far away.

Mr McCann said: 'The worst thing is we kind of almost thought about not going.'

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Photographs of the scene have since revealed the McCanns had a direct view from the tapas bar to the unlocked patio doors which led to their two-bedroom flat, but could not see the children's bedroom window at the rear of the apartment.

Mrs McCann said: 'We were all going to go up to the Millennium again, that was with the kids, which is what we did the first night.

'It was just because the walk was so long and we didn't have a buggy and the kids were tired by that time.'

She added: 'If there'd even been one second where someone had said “Do you think it's going to be OK?�?it wouldn't have happened. 'There's absolutely no way if I'd had the slightest inkling that there was a risk involved there, that I'd have done it.'

The couple allowed cameras to follow them on a series of trips linked to their Find Madeleine campaign, and to film inside their house where the twins Sean and Amelie, now three, played happily.

Of the decision to leave the children in the apartment, Mrs McCann said: 'It seemed a fairly natural thing to do, it was so close. You could actually see the apartment and it didn't feel that different to dining out in the back garden.'

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The McCanns initially said they believed an abductor had forced open the blinds on the rear bedroom window of their apartment, which faces the street.

But they have since said they think an intruder could have let himself in through the patio doors, which they kept unlocked in case of an emergency.

We have to live with the fact that we weren't there

The McCanns said they had tortured themselves for a year about leaving their children alone.

Mr McCann said: 'People will say that they've never done that and you know, who am I to argue? We have to live with the fact that we weren't directly there and if we were then possibly, probably it wouldn't have happened.

'The worst thing is that you can't change any of that and it doesn't help find her.'

Mrs McCann's leaked witness statement revealed Madeleine and Sean were crying in their bedroom on the night of May 2, and that Madeleine asked the next morning: 'Mummy, why didn't you come when Sean and me were crying?'

Mrs McCann said she now feared her children might have been disturbed that night by Madeleine's eventual abductor, and said she wished she had questioned her oldest daughter about what had happened.

She said: 'I've persecuted myself over and over again about that statement because you think why didn't I just hold her and say “What do you mean? Do you mean you woke up?�?/P>

'But you don't think that (at the time). I mean it's easy saying that after what's happened.'

The panic, the praying. . .and the total devastation

In the minutes after Madeleine went missing, Mrs McCann and her friends instantly thought that the little girl would be smuggled across the Portuguese border.

'I can remember our friends shouting, “We need to close the borders�?and they were shouting “Morocco, Algiers�?' recalled Kate.

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'I can remember all this going on �?and roadblocks, “we need roadblocks�?'

Mr McCann said he insisted his wife stay at the apartment in the hope that Madeleine would be found.

'I was mainly in the bedroom and I was just praying actually,' she said.

Her husband added: 'I was just ringing people and getting everyone to pray, and just felt so helpless.

It was absolute devastation and total, just total emotion really.'

His wife said: 'I knew what pyjamas she had on and I just thought she's going to be freezing.

'And it was just dark �?every minute seemed like an hour and obviously we were up all night and just waited for that first bit of light about six o'clock.'

When they accused us, it was like being in a horror movie

Madeleine's parents told of their shock and anger at being named as official suspects by the Portuguese police, and their fear that they would be separated from their twins.

Mr McCann said: 'You're in the middle of a horror movie really, a nightmare. Pressure such as I've never felt before. You're under attack in one way or another. The speculation takes you to the worst places and the worst place would have been being charged, potentially being put in jail, certainly being detained to face charges that could have taken years to materialise, being separated from Sean and Amelie.'

Mrs McCann said: 'As soon as I realised the story or theory was that Madeleine was dead and that we'd been involved somehow, it just hit home. They haven't been looking for Madeleine.'

Social services did visit the McCanns' home in Rothley, Leicestershire, and said they were satisfied with the couple's childcare arrangements.

Suddenly I became invincible, like a lioness for her cubs

Police told Mrs McCann she would serve a lighter jail sentence if she confessed to her involvement in Madeleine's disappearance.

She told of her furious reaction, saying: 'I'd have fought to the death at that point. There was no way I was going to be railroaded into something.

'I felt almost invincible at that point. I just don't know what kicked in. I just thought my children deserve that, Madeleine deserves that. Someone has to be fighting for Madeleine.'

She said she felt like a 'lioness and her cubs' in her determination that she would not be separated from the twins.

But she revealed how she dreaded the prospect of having to search for Madeleine for another 40 years.

She said: 'We're never going to get to a day where you think, “OK, we've tried everything now. We're exhausted and we need to start living�?'

Mr McCann said: 'Your life is carrying on to an extent, in a quasi-real existence, a purgatory-type existence.'

Mrs McCann lashed out at the Portuguese police's smear campaign against the family.

She said she was furious that detectives had apparently leaked their witness statements on the day the couple made a high-profile campaign visit to the European Parliament.

The statements �?including the revelation that Madeleine had been crying the night before �?overshadowed the visit.

Mrs McCann said: 'The whole thing is to detract from what we're doing and I feel absolutely gutted. I think it's an absolute disgrace.'

Support, offers of help . . . and poisonous hate mail

Conspiracy theorists, psychics and supporters have inundated the McCanns with letters since Madeleine vanished.

The couple said the vast majority were supportive but that they have had to refer some hate mail to the police, including one death threat.

In the documentary they are shown opening letters and filing them into boxes, including files marked Nasty, Nutty, Psychic Visions and Dreams, Ideas and Well-wishers.

Mr McCann read one spiteful Christmas card to the camera, saying: 'Your brat is dead because of your drunken arrogance. Shame on you. I curse you and your family to suffer forever. Cursed Christmas.'

Is she tall? Is her hair long? And can she write her name?

Kate McCann broke down several times as she spoke about her missing daughter, saying: 'She's like a little buddy to me.'

She said: 'It doesn't feel like a year since I saw Madeleine. She's just so much, very much still there and she doesn't seem that far away.

'I see Madeleine's best friend from time to time. Can't help but wonder what would Madeleine be like, would she be that much taller, you know, is her hair as long as that? You know, and would she be writing her name too?

'You know she's there waiting for us. She deserves us to keep going.'

Madeleine's grandmother Mrs Healy said Mrs McCann is so traumatised by her daughter's disappearance that she sees the little girl in 'visions'.

She told Closer magazine: 'When Kate told me she was unable to sleep on a few occasions, I asked her if her twins had woken her as they sometimes get into her bed. But she told me: “Madeleine came�?

'She imagines Madeleine is there with her. My heart goes out to her. There are times when she's absolutely devastated and bereft.'

The McCanns are spearheading a campaign for a Europe-wide alert system for missing children. Mr McCann said: 'We feel a moral obligation that some sort of good has to come of this.'

The couple revealed they believe Madeleine is still alive because of what they've learned from world experts on missing children during their campaigning.

Mrs McCann said: 'I don't feel as if Madeleine is dead. I really feel she is out there and we will find her. The chances of her being alive are as good now, if not better, than they were after the first three days of her going missing.'