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In June, prosecutors in Germany announced that the youngster – who vanished in 2007 – is “assumed to be dead” and they have opened a murder investigation into a 43-year-old German man, named as Christian B. The tragic update came following an appeal for information from police in Britain, Germany and Portugal, after a child sex offender, who is currently serving a long sentence in prison, was named as a new prime suspect. Scotland Yard continues to treat their investigation as a “missing persons” case and said that German authorities have not revealed evidence that Maddie is dead, leading to relationships between officials investigating the case to be strained.

Kate and Gerry have always supported the theory that Maddie was snatched by a opportunist criminal working in the local area and some reports have indicated that the new prime suspect may have been tipped off by a hotel employee about British tourists leaving valuables in their apartments while going out for long dinners.

In her book, ‘Madeleine: Our Daughter’s Disappearance and the Continuing Search for Her,’ Kate recalled the heartbreaking details of the night that her daughter vanished and her “bitter regrets” over the way events played out in the Portugese holiday resort of Praia da Luz.

Mrs McCann explained how the family, on holiday with their seven friends and their children, “collectively decided to do our own child-checking service” when they were at the resort’s nearby tapas restaurant for dinner.

She added: “We now bitterly regret it and will do so until the end of our days.”

She explained that the group decided on this system of checking in on their children from the second night of their holiday, as the bigger resort restaurant that they visited on their first night was a considerable walk away from their accommodation.

Mrs McCann adds: “Hand on heart, it never once crossed my mind that this might not be a safe option.

“If I’d had any doubts whatsoever, I would simply never have entertained it.

“The children were fast asleep and being checked every 30 minutes. 

“We were going into the apartments and looking as well as listening.”

At the nearby tapas restaurant, just metres from their apartments, the group of families “were sitting outside and could just as easily have been eating on a fine spring evening in a friend’s garden, with the kids asleep upstairs in the house”.

Although the practice of bringing young children to late dinner engagements is normal in Portugal, the family felt it was important to make sure their children were well-rested after their busy days and also maintain a sense of routine.

Mrs McCann said the children had a routine of going to bed at 7.30pm, which is why the group decided not to use the hotel nursery service, explaining: “our children needed to be in bed by the time it opened at 7.30pm”.

She added: “We both felt it would be too unsettling for them and would disrupt their sleep.”

Mrs McCann also discusses how the “baby-listening” service, offered by other resorts in the hotel chain to check on young children in the evenings, was not available at that particular resort and also that the family had not considered a babysitter.

She said: “I could argue that leaving my children alone with someone neither we nor they knew would have been unwise and it’s certainly not something we’d do at home. 

“In fact, we didn’t even consider it. We felt so secure we simply didn’t think it was necessary.”

Maddie vanished from Apartment 5A of the Ocean Club complex, in Algarve, Portugal, on Wednesday, May 3, 2007 – just days before her fourth birthday.

Scotland Yard is offering a £20,000 reward for information that leads to a conviction regarding two vehicles owned by their new suspect and also want to speak to an individual who called the suspect an hour before Madeleine’s disappearance.

The Met said the male was driving the vehicle in the Praia da Luz area in the days before Maddie’s disappearance and is believed to have been living in it for days or weeks before and after May 3.

The suspect has also been linked to a 1993 Jaguar XJR6 with a German number plate seen in Praia da Luz and surrounding areas in 2006 and 2007.

Madeleine: Our daughter’s disappearance and the continuing search for her’ was published by Transworld Publishers Ltd and is available here.

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