By: Victoria Davies
6.22PM Tue May 3 2011
The parents of Madeleine McCann have marked the
fourth anniversary of her disappearance in
private with family and friends. Madeleine
vanished from a Portuguese holiday apartment
back in 2007.
Transcript
By Nigel Moore
Sameena Ali-Khan: The parents of Madeleine
McCann have marked the fourth anniversary of her
disappearance in private with their family and
friends.
Bob Warman: Madeleine vanished from a Portuguese
holiday apartment back in 2007. Well, Victoria
Davies is live in the McCanns home village of
Rothley, in Leicestershire. Errr... Victoria,
this must be a distressing day for the family.
Victoria Davies: It certainly is. It may be four
years ago since Madeleine disappeared but for
her parents it's still just as painful, which is
why they wanted today to be a private occasion
but they have turned up to this community prayer
service, being held here in the centre of
Rothley, this evening. Now, although they didn't
want to talk publicly, we did speak to their
spokesperson Clarence Mitchell earlier today and
he explained how hard this anniversary is for
them.
Clarence Mitchell: The family, of course, are...
they find it very difficult whenever there's
a... a... a reminder such as the anniversary, or
birthdays, anything like that, that comes up,
it's very difficult and that's why they... they
like to keep it as private as possible.
Victoria Davies: Now, it was four years ago to
this day when Madeleine went... disappeared from
the family's holiday apartment in Portugal. Now,
since then there have literally been dozens of
sightings all around the world, from Morocco to
Belgium, even as far as New Zealand and
Venezuela, and to give you an idea of... about
how big this search still is, the Find Madeleine
investigation team say, at any one moment,
they're dealing with 1900 different pieces of
information but here in Rothley, as you can see,
there's a lot of support for the family and
they're really living in hope that one day she
will be found.
Vox Pop 1: I'm sure the community still feels
very strongly about Madeleine and the parents
and, errr... we're all living in hope, aren't
we? Same as the parents are.
Vox Pop 2: You don't know when, or hopefully
they will find her but where she is nobody
knows, do they?
Vox Pop 3: We're still worried, still thinking
of her, thinking of the family; we see the
family quite a lot. So, you know, just hope
she'll be found one day.
Sameena Ali-Khan: Victoria, you mentioned a
figure of 1900 pieces of information. What is
the latest with the search for Madeleine and,
indeed, the dwindling funds for the Save
Madeleine Fund.
Victoria Davies: Well, as far as Madeleine's
parents are concerned, as you can tell them
being here this evening, they're still thinking
about Madeleine, the search is still very much
continuing, they're still paying for detectives,
which is, of course, incredibly costly but on
May the 12th, Madeleine's eighth birthday, a
book written by her mother will be released
which details Madeleine's disappearance and that
is expected to be an international best-seller,
which, of course, will help their dwindling
funds but more importantly the family are hoping
that with the book launch a fresh piece of
information may come to light and they may
finally be able to find their missing daughter |