Yahoo News Madeleine McCann: where are the key players now?
From the moment Madeleine McCann disappeared into the night in the Algarve resort of Praia da Luz, the face of the little girl from Leicestershire became famous throughout the world.
Her disappearance – which remains a mystery and an unsolved crime – also thrust many others into the limelight.
From Madeleine’s parents and their friends to policemen and residents of the Portuguese village, all became well-known.
Who are they, and what are they doing now?
Kate and Gerry McCann
Before 3 May, 2007, the only people who knew Gerry and Kate McCann were their friends and family – and their patients. Mr McCann was a cardiologist and Mrs McCann was a GP.
In the intervening decade, their appeals for information about their daughter have appeared on television and in newspapers around the world.
They also had to endure intense press scrutiny when the Portuguese police named them “arguidos” – or official suspects – in their daughter’s disappearance. That cloud of suspicion lifted quickly and the policemen in charge of the current investigations in Portugal and Britain have repeatedly confirmed that the McCanns are not suspects.
In Madeleine, the book Mrs McCann wrote about her daughter, she movingly describes her concerns about the impact of the ordeal on the couple’s other children, Sean and Amelie. “They have already been through too much, and there will be further challenges ahead,” she writes.
Search for Madeleine McCann in pictures
Ahead of the 10th anniversary – which they called “a horrible marker of time, stolen time” – Mr and Mrs McCann posted an update on their Facebook page, Official Find Madeleine Campaign.
“The two themes that seem most appropriate to me as we reach this ten year mark are perseverance and gratitude,” they wrote. “We will go on, try our hardest, never give up and make the best of the life we have.”
Mr McCann is now a professor of cardiac imaging at the University of Leicester.
Goncalo Amaral
Goncalo Amaral, then 47, was the first detective to take charge of the investigation into Madeleine’s disappearance.
He had worked for the Policia Judiciara, Portugal’s serious crime agency, for a quarter of a century and was a chief inspector.
But he was forced off the case within six months and took early retirement soon afterwards. In 2008, he published a book, Maddie: The Truth of The Lie, his attempt to justify his handling of the case.
The McCanns sued him for libel, but Portugal’s highest court sided with Mr Amaral earlier this year.
Contrary to reports, Mr Amaral, who intends to write another book, has no plans to sue the couple.
Clarence Mitchell
A former BBC reporter who had covered stories as diverse as the death of Princess Diana and the Iraq War, Clarence Mitchell was initially seconded by the British Government to advise the McCanns on communications after their daughter went missing.
He quit the government in September 2007 to work for them as a full-time spokesman.
Mr Mitchell now works for JBP, a public affairs agency. He continues to speak for the couple “as and when needed”.
‘Tapas Seven’
The so-called “Tapas Seven” were the friends who dined with Mr and Mrs McCann on the night the couple’s daughter went missing.
They gained their nickname because they were eating at the tapas restaurant of the Ocean Club resort where they were staying when Madeleine disappeared.
Madeleine McCann: Are the police any closer to knowing the truth?
Matthew Oldfield, Russell O’Brien and David and Fiona Payne all studied medicine at Leicester University in the 1990s. They became friends with the McCanns when the doctors moved to Leicestershire in 2000.
The remaining members of the group were Mr Oldfield’s wife, Rachael; Mr O’Brien’s partner, Jane Tanner; and Mrs Payne’s mother, Diane Webster.
In 2008, the seven received a £375,000 libel payout from Express Newspapers over untrue allegations about their conduct.
Robert Murat
Within days of Madeleine’s disappearance, Robert Murat was named as a formal suspect.
Then a 33-year-old British expatriate, he lived with his mother 100 yards from the flat where the toddler disappeared.
He was cleared of involvement in 2008, when he won £600,000 in damages over nearly 100 “seriously defamatory” articles in British newspapers.
In 2014, the IT consultant said: “Unfortunately, I’m always going to be linked to it. It’s always going to have an effect on me because people’s opinions of what happened are so varied.
“I was cleared of everything right back in 2008 but the fact is that in some people’s minds there’s still going to be a link. Finding out the truth of what happened will conclusively take me out of that, so it’s really important that something does happen and they do find out what happened.”
Disappearance of Madeleine McCann
