Kate McCann 'taking one day at a time'

By Mirror.co.uk  29/04/2008

Kate McCann is taking one day at a time as she approaches the first anniversary of her daughter Madeleine's disappearance, she said today.

But she asserted her belief that the chances of finding the young girl were "as good now, if not better" than in the days immediately after she went missing.

Mrs McCann and her husband Gerry, from Rothley, Leicestershire, also spoke, in an interview with Hello! magazine, of their horror at learning the "sickening truths" about child abduction.

The couple said they each tended to feel low on different days and encouraged each other to remain positive.

She went on: "I have my bad days but at the same time I find myself wanting to know what happened. It is the not knowing that is particularly difficult."

The McCanns also discussed their campaign for a Europe-wide alert scheme to inform the public when children are abducted.

Earlier this month they travelled to Brussels to lobby MEPs to introduce a system like the US's Amber Alert.

Mr McCann, 39, said the horrific details he has learned about child kidnappings had inspired him to pursue the campaign.

He told Hello!: "We knew the night she was taken that some children are murdered and, of course, that was our worst fear.

"But I try to focus on the positive instead of moping and wallowing in self-pity.

"What I've learned, the sickening truths about child abduction, spurs me on.

"It makes me all the more determined that something good has to come out of it, that we have to make a difference.

"When there was no evidence of any serious harm to Madeleine we became more positive."

Mr McCann acknowledged that a "large proportion" of children were abducted for "financial gain, trafficking, prostitution and child pornography".

But he said he had learned that dwelling on this just made him and his wife feel worse and did not help find their daughter.

Mrs McCann added: "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."

On Saturday it will be exactly a year since Madeleine, then three, went missing from her family's holiday apartment in the Algarve resort of Praia da Luz.