MUM'S BIRTHDAY PLEA FOR MADELINE

THE SEARCH FOR MADELEINE: DAY 11

By Lori Campbell And Simon Wright In Praia Da Luz and Susie Boniface In London 13/05/2007

Kate Mccann (pic:Albanpix)

IT was the cruellest day any mother could face. She should have been celebrating her little girl's fourth birthday at a party packed with friends, family and laughter.

Instead Kate McCann, sleepless with anxiety, greeted dawn with a growing despair as the hunt for missing Madeleine today enters another unbearable week.

In a statement read on her behalf she pleaded" "On Madeleine's birthday, please keep looking, please keep praying, please help bring Madeleine home."

For the first time Kate has begun to fear that Portuguese police could wind up their search with her daughter still not returned to her and no clear leads.

It has now been 11 days since Madeleine was snatched from her hotel bed during a family holiday and Kate's worried family fear that the stricken mum, a 38-year-old GP, is near collapse.

Her uncle Brian Kennedy said that she was becoming dangerously frail, trapped in a living nightmare. He said: "We don't know how long she can go on like this. She's going through unimaginable misery. Madeleine is the centre of her world and she feels an unbearable void to be without her on her birthday. We're all deeply worried about Kate. She's lost a lot of weight and looks so weak.

"She is normally a very fit, sporty and healthy woman. She has always been very lean and slim, but now she looks gaunt, almost skeletal."

Kate has been urged by her family to rest and stop forcing herself through the ordeal of appearing in front of the cameras which are broadcasting round-the-clock appeals for her daughter's return. Yesterday Kate and her husband Gerry arrived at the tiny 16th Century Our Lady Luz church for evening mass. Green and yellow ribbons were tied to the door - green as a symbol of hope for their daughter's safe return, yellow in remembrance of missing Madeleine.

The McCanns walked silently side-by-side into church, Kate clutching the Cuddle Cat toy that has not left her side since Madeleine's disappearance.

She had earlier carefully prepared a statement, well aware that a mother's words can sometimes reach deeper than a father's.

But as the sun rose after another sleepless night, she was simply too broken to face the TV crews.

It was the first time Kate's astonishing strength, which had held up through countless public appeals in which the pain was clearly written on her face, had deserted her. Her Uncle Brian, 68, a retired headteacher said: "She just couldn't put herself through it. We have all urged her to stay inside, to regain her strength."

Instead Alex Woolfall, a spokesman for holiday firm Mark Warner, made the statement on the McCanns' behalf for people to keep searching for their little girl.

The rest of statement read: "Today is our daughter Madeleine's fourth birthday. We would like to mark today by asking people to redouble their efforts to help find Madeleine. We know that there is already a huge amount of effort and resource being put into the search for our daughter.

"We also know that offers of support are being made daily. It is this that keeps us strong and gives us hope."

Kate spent most of yesterday privately in the villa she and Gerry and their two-year-old twins Sean and Amelie have now moved to.

They appeared briefly when they went to the Mark Warner complex where they stayed when Madeleine was abducted. The twins each clutched balloons, signs the family had held their own subdued birthday celebration.

Portuguese detectives now believe nine British holidaymakers hold the key to finding her kidnapper. Police sniffer dogs have tracked Madeleine's scent to a local supermarket and two apartments where the group were staying, only yards from where she was snatched.

The nine Brits have been helping police with their inquiries over the last three days.

Police believe they may have unwittingly come into contact with a "middle man" of Madeleine's abductor or abductors at the Ocean Club in Prai da Luz, Portugal.

Although there is no suggestion the nine are being treated as suspects, they are seen as important witnesses.

And the news fuelled speculation that a fellow holidaymaker who the McCanns may have met during their break was involve in the abduction.

A police source said: "We are hoping we can reach the kidnapper or kidnappers' middle man through these nine.

"They have all been questioned as potential witnesses. They were staying at two apartments that the sniffer dogs have tracked Madeleine's scent to."

Madeleine was snatched from the family's apartment at 10pm on May 3 while her parents were having a meal with other guests just 50 yards away.

Two men and a blonde woman seen at a petrol station driving a car with UK registration plates last week have emerged as prime suspects.

WITNESSES say all three seemed to be English and were driving a car with yellow and black registration plates like UK cars.

Local shopkeepers have also been shown CCTV printouts of three people, including a man aged about 40 with dark hair down to his shoulders, a blonde woman of about 40 with her hair in a ponytail and an older woman with collar-length hair.

The three were clearly not Portuguese and "looked English".

There was also a flurry of unconfirmed reports yesterday, including the hunt for a man in a white van who matched the description of a man in a police e-fit. Locals had reported seeing the van parked opposite the family's apartment a week before Madeleine went missing.

There are now just 30 police officers assigned to the investigation, scaled down from the original 150 that scoured the surrounding area for clues.

Senior detectives - who have come under attack for a series of blunders during the probe - are working late into the night at the area's police headquarters in the town of Portimao.

Some have even been sleeping at the office.

Meanwhile, the Sunday Mirror can reveal that Madeleine was snatched through patio doors which had been left unlocked by the family.

It was originally thought shutters at the front of the villa had been broken and jammed open by the kidnappers. But Chief Inspector Olegario Sousa confided in former British Chief Inspector Albert Kirby that neither the windows or their metal shutters had been tampered with. Mr Kirby, who led the Jamie Bulger inquiry and is currently in Portugal, revealed it was the sliding patio doors of the ground floor apartment that allowed Madeleine to be quietly and quickly kidnapped.

The McCanns would have used the patio doors as they checked on their daughter and her siblings during their meal. They had a direct line of sight to the apartment from their table at the tapas restaurant opposite, but their view of the doors was obscured by a hedge.

Mr Kirby told the Sunday Mirror: "I had a very interesting chat with the officer in charge. The window shutters are not at all involved. The door was left unlocked.

"The window's shutters are almost impossible to open from the outside."

The McCanns have vowed to remain in Portugal until their daughter can come home with them.

Madeleine's grandparents Susan and Brian Healey last night described the little girl as "a special gift from God".

Susan said: "It would take a lifetime for us to thank all the people who have offered support. Now we just want our Madeleine brought home.

"We don't know how long Kate and Gerry are going to stay out there for.

"At the moment it is just a frightening thought that life could ever go on again without Madeleine."