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Kate McCann
said she felt she was being bullied by Portuguese police |
Kate McCann has laid bare her shock and outrage after Portuguese police
officials made her and husband Gerry suspects in the abduction of her
daughter Madeleine.
The former doctor, 43, also reveals how she smashed a bed in frustration
over their handling of the investigation and how detectives attempted to
bully her into a murder confession.
In a personal account of the three-year-old's 2007 disappearance, Mrs
McCann said she and her husband were appalled by the treatment they
received from the Policia Judiciaria, especially in the early stages of
the hunt.
Describing one police interrogation in an extract from the book
Madeleine, released on Thursday, she said: "I felt I was being bullied,
and I suppose I was.
"I assumed the tactics were deliberate - knock her off balance by
telling her that her daughter is dead and get her to confess.
"On and on it went. They tried to convince me I'd had a blackout - 'a
loss of memory episode', I think they called it. My denials, answers and
pleas fell on deaf ears. This was their theory and they wanted to shoe
horn me into it, end of story."
In another stinging criticism of the Portuguese authorities in the
immediate aftermath of the abduction, she added: "I was appalled by the
treatment we received. Officers walked past us as if we weren't there.
Nobody asked how we were doing, whether we were okay. Our child had been
stolen and I felt as if I didn't exist."
Mrs McCann also describes how she and her husband felt "completely
alone" while searching for their daughter the day after her
disappearance.
In another extract, serialised by The Sun, she said: "Nobody else, it
seemed, was looking for Madeleine.
"The frustration and anger were reaching boiling point. I felt like a
caged, demented animal. This was torture of the cruellest kind, Finally,
I erupted. I began to scream, swear and lash out. I kicked an extra bed
that had been brought into the apartment and smashed the end right off." |