BILTON: By dawn a major search of the whole resort is underway. These officers are from the GNR, the uniformed Portuguese police but it's the investigation branch, the Polícia Judiciária, or PJ's, who are now in charge of the hunt for Madeleine McCann.
MAY 5th
We would again like to appeal for any information, however small, that may lead to the safe return of Madeleine.
BILTON: First appeals are made, but what we didn't know at the time was that some Portuguese detectives are already telling Portuguese journalists that they don't believe the McCann story.
JOSE MANUEL OLIVEIRA
Crime reporter, 'Diario de Noticias'
Information started circulating from sources connected to the Portuguese police that the story was full of holes from the side of the McCanns and their friends. Indeed within two days of Madeleine disappearing, this crime correspondent was filing this piece in the Portuguese Daily: Diario of the Noticias: "Headline: a badly told story." We started to receive information according to which the police suspected the theory they had apprehensions, didn't believe the theory that she had been kidnapped. To conclude, the police started to suspect the parents from the word go.
BILTON: But that breakdown in trust worked both ways. The McCaans quickly grew impatient at the police response.
KATE: It seemed bloody slow at the time, you know, and I don't know, I mean again you've got to put it into perspective, you know, it's a quiet, sleepy place, certainly at that time of year, there's no local police, you know, so they had to come from the nearest town. The local police came out. You've got to remember we had the language barrier as well.
BILTON: Against the police advice the wider McCann family turned to the media. But within days Kate and Gerry McCann found themselves being judged by the media.
MAY 7th
KATE: Madeleine is a beautiful, bright, funny and caring little girl. She is so special. Please, please do not hurt her. Please don't scare her. Please tell us where to find her.
BILTON: It was reported that police suspicions were fuelled by the couple's behaviour, that in these early appearances Kate McCann seemed too cold, too controlled.
KATE: We need our Madeleine, Sean and Emily need Madeleine and Madeleine needs us.
PEDRO TADEU
Editor, 24 Horas'
They are criticised for having displayed a cold and calculating attitude throughout this process. You can see already after the kidnapping Kate McCann appeared on a veranda in front of the journalists crying purposefully.
MAY 8th
[Veranda picture]
And we interpreted this as a performance for the media, and this made us feel some sort of discomfort.
KATE: Please give our little girl back. "Por favor, devolva a nossa menina."
JOHN McCANN: They were getting advice. If you're too tearful you're gonna have the emotional impact but you're not going to get the message over. And yes what comes out of their mouths sounds measured, controlled, and.. you know, a nice tempo. They don't speak like that normally. That is a false situation, okay, and they had to work damned hard to get to that place. Because the number of tears before that were shed before they went out there, because I saw that. I was backstage there.
BILTON: But it's in this atmosphere that a former PJ detective goes on Portuguese television and without any corroboration accuses the McCaans of being swingers.
MAY 13th
JOSE BARRA da COSTA
Former Policia Judiciaria
There are people who guarantee that this is a couple who practice 'swinging' - i.e. sexual relationships between couples and then changing partners, and that this practice would allow in this type of...
BILTON: When you say: "there are people who say..." I'm assuming you are quoting....
DA COSTA: People who know obviously. I cannot reveal the source here because I would lose it.
BILTON: The Portuguese police publicly disowned the allegation, also denied by the McCanns. But such stories are damaging. Then within weeks at a press conference in Germany, this question to the McCanns?
JUNE 6th
How do you deal with the fact that more and more people seem to be pointing the figure at you saying the way you behave is not the way people would normally behave if their child was abducted and they seem to imply that you might have something to do with it.
KATE: To be honest I don't actually think that. It's a case.. I think that's a very small minority of people that are criticising us. You know, we are very responsible parents and we love our children so much, and I think it's only a very few people that are actually criticising us.
BILTON: That question seemed extreme at the time, but there was more and more focus on Kate and Gerry McCann. But one film crew was welcome. The resulting footage wasn't offered to Panorama but the McCanns agreed to release it to us when word of its existence leaked out.
How do you know the McCanns?
JON CORNER Independent Film Producer I know them through my wife, Michelle, who was Kate's longest friend. I mean they met each other back in primary school and stayed lifelong mates.
BILTON: John Corner is a film producer, he's also godfather to the McCann twins. The McCanns say, because he's a friend, he's invited to make a film for the launch of the YouTube channel for missing children and on August 1st he arrives on the Algarve.
CORNER: It was very low key, very relaxed and very quickly got used to us hanging around and...
BILTON: He filmed the McCanns for a week. The family have just moved to their new base, a villa on the outskirts of Luc.
CORNER: You can see the twins just playing and you can see it's a normal house, you've got toys and stuff on the floor. What's quite poignant about it is you see a father sitting on his own, in his bedroom, in a foreign country desperately looking for his daughter and seeing that quite upset me.
GERRY McCANN
Speaking in August
Looking at these, both in isolation I don't think too bad, but when you see videos or the pictures that I haven't seen for a while, the calling ones I think I've become a bit desensitised to but the ones that haven't been used as much are much more difficult to look at, and particularly video.
BILTON: When Jon Corner arrives at the villa Kate tells him about Gerry taking his sister and brother-in-law to the airport.
KATE McCANN
Speaking in August
Gerry took them, yeah, he was a bit crumbly I think. I think he was alright he got up and said: "I'm gonna go now" and then he lost it. And I got a text from Trish and it said: "Nearly choked on my full English because of that Tiny Tears husband of yours" you know, (laugh) but yeah.
BILTON: Is he big brother or little brother?
KATE: Little brother. Yeah, Gerry's the youngest, yeah.
BILTON: He's the youngest isn't he? Because the media see Gerry as this kind of emotionless warrior and he's not really, is he?
KATE: No he's not. I mean it's really harsh to say that because I mean... Gerry, he's always been a very focused person, he's enthusiastic, he's focused and he's incredibly positive which is great for me to be honest, and he's obviously he's speaking in public, not dealing with media but speaking in public, so he's able to go on and do that, and throw himself into it, and I think that's what people see and you know, people say oh how can he do that? Or how can you stand there and do that when your daughter has been taken and everything. And I mean I've been like that before, you know, when there's been other cases of kids that have been taken or killed or whatever and you think to yourself how does anyone cope with that? How could you get through another day? And then you throw it back to yourself and think how did I get up this morning? How did I get a shower? How did I get my breakfast? And something obviously gets you through it - apart from the first few days which you have total physical shutdown but something gets you through it, do you know what I mean, and I think I'm fully in that situation, you just can't say. You know, he has his lows as well, you know, for sure, and in fact probably Gerry's lowest points were often on a Saturday because we had like a family day, we'd just say right we'll try and put the work on hold as much as you can, and we'll do something with it, with the twins and then he often found that the hardest because we were on family time without Madeleine, you know, it just didn't seem right.
BILTON: Because you're their friend, people might treat these pictures with some scepticism, what difference do you think it made that you were their friend? Were you for example guiding them off camera?
JON CORNER: Not at all, no I was never guiding them off camera. And then it's not that kind of relationship with Kate and Gerry. I just let the cameras run and we burnt a lot of tape, just left the cameras run.
BILTON: There'll be plenty of people who won't buy that. This was their friend filming what they wanted seen, but their supporters would say they weren't then suspects, and if they were hiding an extraordinary secret, is it likely the couple would invite a camera team, however friendly, into their lives?
CORNER: I said to them that I think there's a possibility that Madeleine may not be the story eventually, that you may be the story.
BILTON: What did they say?
CORNER: They were quite distressed by that.
BILTON: It had not occurred to them before?
CORNER: Well it's difficult for me as a friend to be negative and to impart a sense of negativity.
BILTON: He was right to sense a change. On the day filming was due to start the police arrive at the McCann villa. As they pictures show, they would return.
CORNER: They took most of their clothing, they were taking even the wet clothes out of the washing machine. I was aware that the cuddlecat was boxed up and we were asked to leave the villa.
BILTON: The crew?
CORNER: Everybody.
BILTON: So they searched the whole villa?
CORNER: Yes.
BILTON: So what, as all this is going on, what do Kate and Gerry make of this?
CORNER: Well this is the bizarre thing Richard because the police said to Kate and Gerry: "Yeah, we're going to be coming along, we want to do some forensics." And Kate and Gerry were massively optimistic about this. You've got to remember if your daughter is missing and the police phone you and say: "We want to do some forensics, that's a straw that you hang onto. That's a moment for optimism.
BILTON: That's because the McCanns say this was a time when they were pushing for more urgency in the investigation. The Portuguese had rejected their request for the FBI to come in, but they did bring in a British forensic team with sniffer dogs. Kate McCann talks to Jon Corner as all this is going on.
KATE: We're just doing absolutely everything we can do, you know, to help find Madeleine, and the last thing we're wanting to look back and think we could have done more.
BILTON: But they've taken clothing away, they've taken a diary away, they've taken cuddlecat away. Were they not thinking things have changed here?
CORNER: No, I was. I was thinking this seems really all a bit late in the day to me.
BILTON: Let me take you back to what it was like then. I was here in Praia da Luz for BBC News. Like the rest of the media I was reporting on the 100 days since Madeleine McCann had disappeared, but things were changing. Forensic teams had found what were thought to be specs of blood in the McCann apartment. Both sniffer dogs had reportedly reacted to the scent of death in the McCann hired car and on Kate McCann's clothing. People were starting to think what had previously seemed unthinkable. And faced with all of this the McCanns agreed to talk to me.
AUGUST 9th
BILTON: Part of this inquiry is now shifting from a possible abduction to an investigation that might involve a death or murder. Were you aware of those sorts of issues?
GERRY: We're not naïve but on numerous occasions the Portuguese police have assured us that they were looking for Madeleine alive and not Madeleine being murdered, and I don't know of any information that's changed that. Kate and I strongly believe that Madeleine was alive when she was taken from the apartment. Obviously what we don't know is what happened to her afterwards, who has taken her and what the motive is, and we're best not to think that out.
KATE: And as Gerry's just said, even last week when we met with the police they said: "We are looking for a living child" and they've said that a lot so...
BILTON: What I know now but didn't know then that that was precisely the time when the McCanns first experienced a more aggressive attitude from the Portuguese police. At an informal briefing two detectives turned on Kate McCann. She was on her own. Gerry McCann wasn't with her, but her version of events was openly questioned.
JUSTINE McGUINNESS
Former McCann spokesperson
I do know afterwards she was incredibly upset and that was the start of a very difficult period and.. you know, I really felt for them actually because they went through a very tough time.
BILTON: And by now the forensic work is shaping the case. The police doubts are more serious. On Thursday 6th September Kate McCann is dropped off in Portimão, she's been called in for questioning, her sister-in-law Trish goes to support her. Justine McGuinness, the McCann publicity manager at the time is also there.
JUSTINE McGUINNESS: I have to say I was incredibly impressed because she just held her head high and walked into the police station and just kept on going, and a lot of people wouldn't have been able to have coped going through a media mob.
BILTON: As Kate McCann sits down in the interview room she recognises one of the detectives.
SUSAN HEALY
Kate McCann's mother
They'd had a meal with this guy, with his family, and the children have played together, and she talked to me about this particular police officer as being as if he was a friend, and she felt quite comforted by having this guy who spoke English as well, and he was in the interview and he didn't make eye contact with Kate at all.
BILTON: Kate McCann is at the station for 13 hours, but from inside she and Trish text out updates. Even at this point the message is being controlled.
McGUINNESS: We were a bit naughty because we did have messages coming out of the police station which we weren't supposed to...
BILTON: How did that work.. what, the text messages?
McGUINNESS: Yeah.
BILTON: And were the texts saying? Talk us through.
McGUINNESS: Sort of updates from things that were happening.
[Video: public statement to press]
I'd like to read a statement on Kate's arrival at the police station....
Knowing everybody had copy to write, had the 10 o'clock news like you did, or whatever, various different deadlines that they had. I felt that it was important just to manage people's expectations.
BILTON: She finally gets out at 1 o'clock in the morning. A lawyer tells family and friends what has been put to her by the police.
[Video: lawyer's public statement]
Kate has been listened to as a witness. The investigation will continue. Like everybody knows, because of the system of justice we can't say anymore.
McGUINNESS: I mean there was an allegation put to Kate that she'd been involved in harming her daughter, I mean a dreadful allegation to be put to any mother.
BILTON: At 3 in the morning after Kate McCann has returned to her villa, her lawyer arrives with what seems to be a deal. Plead guilty to manslaughter and escape with only 2 years in gaol. As he explains the offer, Philomena McCann is on the phone to her sister Trish.
PHILOMENA McCANN
Gerry McCann's sister
Trisha hangs out with a mobile and there I am listening to Kate screaming at the lawyer: "No! No!" and just the emotion and the disgust, her tone, everything that was being conveyed, I mean what she was saying and the anger, you could feel it.
SEPTEMBER 7th
BILTON: This was a turning point, a dramatic 48 hours. First they're named as official suspects.
[Video: Official statement to press and public]
Kate and Gerry McCann have both been today declared arguidos with no bail conditions..
BILTON: Then they decide the time has come to leave Praia da Luz to go home without Madeleine. Few are putting up yellow ribbons now. It's a case that divides people. Those who think that somehow the McCanns are involved and those who don't, including a small number of wealthy supporters who appoint a legal coordinator.
EDWARD SMETHURST
McCann legal co-ordinator
It was quite clear when Kate and Gerry came back to the UK that they were subject to an open season of abuse from the media. They'd obviously gone through the tragedy of having their daughter taken in very unfortunate circumstances, and to make matters infinitely worse, were now subject to a trial by media.
BILTON: So what exactly is the case against the McCanns? Well some of it tenuous to put it mildly and hard to disentangle from wild press speculation. It was widely reported, for example, that the body was shifted in the back of this vehicle, the Renault Scenic the McCanns hired 25 days after Madeleine disappeared. The story goes that they drove the car to Huelva in Spain on the 3rd August where they disposed of the body. According to the McCanns, these pictures show the only trip they made to Huelva.
See Message #3 cont....