Madeleine McCann’s dad to reveal his ‘painful’ mental health struggle 11 years after she vanished
MADELEINE McCann's father will speak about his battle with depression and grief in a candid interview on BBC Radio 4.
Gerry McCann, 50, granted the interview in order to raise awareness about mental health, and said he hoped it might lessen the taboo of males talking frankly about their emotions.
He said: “I decided it was a good opportunity to say something about the special bond between fathers and daughters, thinking that speaking openly might help other men in similar positions.
"It feels like the right time," Gerry added, according to to .
In May both parents joined friends and well-wishers to remember their daughter on the painful 11th anniversary of her disappearance.
Kate read a poem called The Contradiction, with haunting words: “I trace your steps, I map your face. You’re all I know and so unknown. I cannot hold you, yet I do.”
Kate and Gerry vowed to never give up seeking their daughter on their eleventh Christmas without Maddie.
McCann's disappeared from her family's Portuguese holiday apartment more than a decade ago - triggering a worldwide search which has failed to find the child.
Three-year-old Maddie's whereabouts - or whether she's dead or alive - remains a mystery, despite a £12million police investigation.
Madeleine vanished on May 3, 2007, when her family, from Leicestershire, were holidaying in the Algarve, Portugal.
Parents Gerry and Kate left their three children – including toddler twins Sean and Amelie – sleeping in their apartment while they dined at a tapas bar - 120 metres away.
When Kate returned to check on the kids at around 10pm that evening, she discovered that Maddie was not in her bed and was missing.
In September of that year, Gerry and Kate, both doctors, were sensationally named as ‘arguidos’ by Portuguese police.
The following summer the McCanns were cleared by investigators in Portugal who declared they had exhausted all avenues in the case.
Maddie would have turned 15 on on May 12, 2018.
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In April 2012, UK cops released a computer generated image of Maddie showing what she would look like aged nine.
A number of potential leads have emerged since the little girl vanished, but none amounted to anything and no arrests have ever been made.
In May 2018, witness Jane Tanner said Gerry had played tennis with a man wrongly identified as her abductor on the day she went missing.
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