Madeleine McCann’s father calls for greater scrutiny of the press

Madeleine McCann’s father is calling for greater scrutiny of the UK media, complaining his family were the subject of “monstrosity” by sections of the press.

He said the media “repeatedly interfered with the investigation” into his daughter’s disappearance in 2007 and believes this has made the search for her difficult.

Gerry McCann told BBC Radio 4’s Today program that, more than a year after Labor came to power, “press regulation is no longer a priority.”

He wants the canceled second phase of the Lord Leveson inquiry, which would have examined illegal actions by the media, as well as journalists’ relationships with politicians and the police, to be resumed. It was scrapped by the Conservatives in 2018.

Madeleine disappeared at the age of three during a family holiday in Portugal and has never been found.

In a rare interview, McCann said that for months after her disappearance her family had “journalists coming to the house, photographers literally banging their cameras against our car window when we had two-year-old twins who were terrified.”

“We’re lucky to have survived. We had tremendous support, but I can promise you there were times when I felt like I was drowning. And it was the media, mainly,” he told the BBC.

“It was what was happening and the way things were portrayed, where you were suffocated and buried, and it seemed like there was no way out.”

McCann and his wife, Kate McCann, are among more than 30 people who signed a letter sent to Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer asking him to reverse the decision not to hold the second phase of the Leveson Inquiry.

Other signatories include the families of the Hillsborough victims and the mother of television presenter Caroline Flack.

The letter, seen by the BBC, requests a meeting with the Prime Minister and says: “We understand that you recently had time to meet with the chairman of News Corp, Lachlan Murdoch.

“We hope that you will now meet some of the British citizens whose lives have been turned upside down by the illegal practices and abuses associated with your company.”

McCann told the Today programme: “It’s quite obvious that media barons can meet the prime minister, but people who have suffered at their hands can’t.”

News UK, the British subsidiary of News Corp, declined to comment.

The first part of the Leveson inquiry took place between 2011 and 2012, in the wake of the phone hacking scandal.

Their findings were published in 2012 and led to the creation of the industry-funded press regulator Ipso.

McCann told the BBC that the second phase of the investigation had “almost certainly” not been carried out because he believes UK politicians fear the press.

He said that in the run-up to last year’s general election, Labor politicians had committed to implementing the recommendations made in the first part of the Leveson Inquiry, and that he was “extremely disappointed” that they had not done so.

“We have been in government for more than a year and there has been no change,” he said.

“It is not acceptable to me now, more than a year later, that Leveson and press regulation are no longer a priority.”

A DCMS spokesperson told the BBC that it “recognises that for victims and their families, incidents of media harassment and intrusion cause significant distress.”

“The Culture Secretary has met with people and families who have experienced this intrusion in the past and the government is committed to ensuring these failings are never repeated,” they said.

McCann added that he and his wife had “dined with the devil” working with the Sun in 2011 to get the investigation into Madeleine’s disappearance reviewed, illustrating the newspaper’s influence.

“There was a front-page letter published in The Sun, and [then-prime minister] “David Cameron ordered the review,” he said.

“That was the power they had. So we put our morals aside to work with them and achieve what we wanted.”

Criticizing media coverage of the investigation, he said: “Published material that should have been confidential should be passed on to the police, witness statements and many other things that have come to light,” he said.

“So if you were the perpetrator, you knew a lot more than you should have, and as a victim, as a parent, it’s absolutely disheartening.”

McCann gave witness evidence at the Leveson inquiry on behalf of himself and his wife in November 2011.

In it, he described the media “making up stories” about them, as well as a “sustained, inaccurate and malicious series of headlines in various newspapers that gave the impression that we were somehow responsible for or involved in Madeleine’s disappearance.”

She also said that when her daughter disappeared, the now-closed News of the World newspaper had published full transcripts of Kate McCann’s personal diary.

That diary had been confiscated by police in Portugal as part of their investigation into Madeleine’s disappearance, and the couple “were not sure how.” [News of the World] obtained a copy,” the inquest heard.

In her interview with the Today programme, McCann said: “Madeleine has been missing for 18 years and the bottom line is we still don’t know what happened to her.”

He added that “there is no evidence.”

“I’m not even talking about ‘compelling’ evidence: there’s no evidence to say she’s dead,” he said.

“We now fully understand that she may be dead, it may even be probable, but we don’t know.”

A spokesperson for press regulator Ipso told the BBC it can intervene directly in cases of press harassment.

“We encourage anyone with concerns about the behavior of the press to contact us for assistance,” he said.