THE parents of Madeleine McCann won £550,000 ($1.2 million) in libel damages today from newspapers that repeatedly alleged they killed their missing daughter and covered up her death.

Kate and Gerry McCann received an apology at the High Court in London from the publishers of the Daily Express and the Daily Star over more than 100 defamatory stories.
"It is difficult to conceive a more serious allegation than to be falsely accused of being responsible for the death of one's daughter," their lawyer Adam Tudor told the court.

The McCanns said the money would be donated to the fund set up to find their daughter. The family has not yet decided whether to take action against other newspapers.

Tudor told the court that the articles included a variety of false claims, including that the McCanns killed their daughter, sold her to pay off debts or were involved in "wife-swapping".

"The general theme of the articles was to suggest that Mr and Mrs McCann were responsible for the death of Madeleine," he said.

The Daily Express and Daily Star published rare front-page apologies and said there was no evidence to support the claims.

The papers' lawyer Stephen Bacon told the court: "Express Newspapers regrets publishing these extremely serious, yet baseless, allegations."

In a statement read by their spokesman outside court, the McCanns said: "We are pleased that Express Newspapers have admitted the utter falsity of the numerous grotesque and grossly defamatory allegations that their titles published about us on a sustained basis."

Madeleine McCann disappeared shortly before her fourth birthday while on holiday in Praia da Luz, prompting a huge police investigation and blanket media coverage.

Media commentator and former Daily Mirror editor Roy Greenslade said "wild claims" about the McCanns had undermined British journalism.

"This was no journalistic accident, but a sustained campaign of vitriol against a grief-stricken family," he wrote in his blog.

"The stories were not merely speculative, but laced with innuendo."

The McCanns believe their daughter was abducted from their flat while they had dinner with friends at a nearby restaurant.

They hired private investigators to help find their daughter after police named them as suspects in September.

The investigation dominated newspaper front pages and TV bulletins for months, with many stories questioning the role of the girl's parents in her disappearance.

Despite a string of possible sightings, her whereabouts remains a mystery.
Reuters