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Madeleine witness breaks her silence: 'I am certain that Kate McCann is innocent'
Last updated at 18:22pm on 14.12.07Gerry McCann told a fellow tourist in the minutes before Madeleine vanished he would never have left her alone if he had not been on holiday with friends.
Bridget O'Donnell, who befriended Kate and Gerry McCann while staying at the same resort, today broke her silence to declare the couple innocent.
She described Mr McCann as "relaxed and friendly" at a time when police have claimed Madeleine was already dead in the apartment.
Ms O'Donnell, who worked as a producer on BBC1's Crimewatch, revealed that she had debated with the McCanns the childcare arrangements at the Ocean Club in Praia da Luz and recalled admiring them for leaving their children to sleep in their apartment as they ate at a tapas restaurant nearby.
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Gerry and Kate McCann: 'relaxed and friendly'
Encounter: Jeremy Wilkins spoke to Gerry McCann
"I admired them, in a way, for not being paranoid parents, but I decided that our apartment was too far off even to contemplate it," Ms O'Donnell said.
She and her partner Jeremy Wilkins saw Gerry and Kate McCann by the pool hours before Madeleine disappeared. "We watched them idly - they had a lot of time for people, they listened," Ms O'Donnell said.
"Kate was calm, still, quietly beautiful. Gerry was confident, proud, silly, strong."
Ms O'Donnell also told for the first time of a crucial encounter that night between Mr Wilkins and Mr McCann just a few minutes before Madeleine went missing.
Mr Wilkins, a television producer, was taking his baby son for a walk in a buggy to try to get him to sleep when he bumped into Mr McCann outside their holiday apartment. Though they were not part of the McCann's group of friends - whom they nicknamed "the Doctors" - Mr Wilkins had played tennis with Mr McCann.
The chance meeting on the night Madeleine vanished has been subject to endless speculation and is critical in confirming timings.
Ms O'Donnell, writing in today's Guardian, said: "Gerry was on his way back from checking on his children and the two men stopped to have a chat. They talked about daughters, fathers, families.
"Gerry was relaxed and friendly. They discussed their baby-sitting dilemmas at the resort and Gerry said that he and Kate would have stayed in too if they had not been on holiday in a group."
Ms O'Donnell told how she and her partner were in their holiday apartment when Madeleine was discovered missing at 10pm on 3 May by Mrs McCann.
"We ate, drank wine, watched a DVD and then went to bed. On the ground floor, a completely catastrophic event was taking place. On the fourth floor of the next block, we were completely oblivious."
They were woken in the night by a friend of the McCanns to help with the search, and shared in the shock and distress that overwhelmed the Mark Warner resort the next morning.
A policeman called with a translator, who turned out to be Robert Murat - soon to be the first official suspect in the case.
He "had a squint and sweated slightly," said Ms O'Donnell. "He was breathless, perhaps a little excited... He reminded me of a boy in my class who was bullied."
Ms O'Donnell criticised police for basic errors, saying that one officer did not appear to have a notebook but wrote their details instead on a scrap of paper, and that he mistook a photocopied picture of Madeleine which she had been given during the search for a photograph of her own daughter.
"My heart sank for the McCanns,” she said when reflecting on the quality of the police investigation.
Madeleine vanished on May 3, turning the McCanns' lives to horror
Ms O'Donnell said that two days after Madeleine vanished the appearance of the McCanns - later made official suspects - was in complete contrast to their relaxed manner even in the minutes before the alarm was raised.
"The physical transformation of these two human beings was sickening... Kate's back and shoulders, her hands, her mouth had reshaped themselves into the angular-manifestation of a silent scream,” she said, reinforcing claims that Mrs McCann could not be implicated in her daughter's disappearance because even an actor could not fake such anguish.
"Gerry was upright, his lips now drawn into a thin, impenetrable line."
Ms O'Donnell also dispelled conspiracy theories, declaring: "There were no drug-fuelled 'swingers' on our holiday - there was a bunch of ordinary parents worrying about sleep patterns."
Ms O'Donnell added: "Throughout all this I have believed that Gerry and Kate McCann are innocent.
"Secure in our banality, none of us imagined we were being watched. One group made a disastrous decision; Madeleine was vulnerable and was chosen. But in the face of such desperate audacity, it could have been any of us."
Reader views (22)
For a bunch of such high achieving, highly educated people they don't half know how to say some stupid things.
ADMIRED?
I admire people who have a serious illness but carry on living their life to the full.
I admire our soldiers out in Iraq and Afghanistan.
I cannot understand anyone who 'admires' parenting skills that involves leaving toddlers unattended and unsupervised for large chunks of an evening for 'me' time.
I'm also sick of the constant condemnation of the Portuguese police and justice system. The state the British justice system is in right now, I don't think we have any right to judge other countries.
They're doing the best they can under the circumstances.
Whatever happened to little Madeleine.
Merry Christmas Madeleine, wherever you are.
- Emma, London, England, 15/12/2007 05:42
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Admired them for not being paranoid? Are you kidding me? I hate to restate the obvious but they DID leave their children alone! Why do so many down play this fact, attack those who say this was unacceptable and say it could have happened to any of us? As parents, we all make mistakes but consciously deciding to leave your 3 young children alone asleep in an unfamiliar/vacation room and periodically check on them is ridiculous. This was not a case of "eating in your garden while they sleep upstairs".
- Eh, United States, 14/12/2007 23:28
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At this point in the events I am not in the slightest bit interested in who is to blame or even who 'done it' but the wellbeing and safe return of Maddie. I went to Pria de Luz in 2006 with my grandchildren not 50 yards away from where this happened and the thought that someone may have been watching my family makes my flesh creep. Let's give the recriminations a rest, get Maddie back home and see some joy on mum and dad's faces - then start throwing the mud and see where it sticks!
- Peter Oldham, Rochdale, England, 14/12/2007 22:53
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Ms.O'Donnell's comments of admiration for the McCanns is a little strange I think, in that it sounds almost like a PR exercise admiring them for leaving their children alone, but she would not practice the same herself.
- Joseph Mahon, Ireland, 14/12/2007 19:07
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Some sense, by someone who was actually there and witnessed this sad, sad story unfold.
- Teresa, London, UK, 14/12/2007 18:00
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So, Robert Murat was 'perhaps' a little excited. On the other hand, 'perhaps' he wasn't.
A pointless and snide comment which was completely unnecessary.
- Pearl, London, 14/12/2007 17:53
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Paranoid?
It's paranoid to stay home with your young children?
- Trunk, US, 14/12/2007 16:49
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Nice to see somebody saying something positive about the Mrs McCann.
- Henry Eddebba, England, 14/12/2007 16:16
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Her comments don't provide anything new or particularly helpful, what a load of self indulgent tosh.
- Nick, London, 14/12/2007 16:02
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I wish this story had been published earlier. It might have countered some of the outrageous slurs against Mr and Mrs McCann.
- Nomad, Smallville. England, 14/12/2007 15:54
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Sarah wrote "At last, someone with sensible comments".
Is it sensible for a producer of a Crimewatch to say she admired the McCanns for leaving their children three children, all of them under the age of three years old, alone in an unlocked and unguarded apartment while they go out with their friends? She should be instead be ashamed of herself!
- Sam, Dublin, Ireland, 14/12/2007 15:20
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This woman is not a witness to the crime, if there is any crime.
In legal terms O'Donnel has given hearsay impression to which at trial no weight may be ascribed and a jury would be directed to disregard these public statements as being prejudicial.
- Jon, London, 14/12/2007 14:57
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What have the parents 'fine physical attributes, or their engaging personalities' to do with anything?
Ms O'Donnell's comments are a complete joke. If she had anything of substance to add to the investigation I presume, given her occupation, she would have proffered it by now to the competent authorities?
- Catherine Murphy, Dublin, Ireland., 14/12/2007 14:31
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At last, someone with sensible comments. The issue at this present time, and since 3 May, is not that the children were left but that Madeleine was targeted and taken and is STILL missing.
The last paragraph from Ms O'Donnell is spot on. And we should ALL be doing everything in our power, as decent human beings, to find this little girl and stop blaming!
- Sarah, Shropshire, 14/12/2007 14:19
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You say she couldn't know - but she knows a lot more than YOU do.
And what's more, most people will believe her.
- Maz, UK, 14/12/2007 14:01
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"It could have been any of us"?
Well, it wouldn't have been you, Ms O'Donnell, as you didn't leave your children alone every night.
- Stephen Moore, London, UK, 14/12/2007 13:56
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Interesting, isn't it, that Ms. O'Donnell and Mr. Wilkins took their children to the evening creche or stayed in with them? Guess the McCanns were wrong about everybody thinking it was acceptable to leave very small children alone in a holiday apartment.
- D'Aieta, UK, 14/12/2007 13:55
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Ms O'Donnell, a 'Crimewatch' producer, admires the McCanns for leaving three children, all of them under the age of three years old, alone in an unlocked and unguarded apartment while they go out with their friends?
There goes the credibility of yet another BBC television programme!
- Richard Walmsley, Bedford, 14/12/2007 13:37
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It is deeply alarming that this woman, a producer of Crimewatch to boot, says she ADMIRED the McCanns for leaving their children in such a vulnerable situation. She should be profoundly ashamed of herself. I had to read the story twice as I thought I'd mis-read. Just astounding. God help us all if that kind of thinking is prevalent among us Brits.
- Betty Foremile, Northants., 14/12/2007 13:21
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The relentless speculation about whether or not the McCanns are innocent, including the views expressed by friends of the family, is unhelpful. So is the assertion of a private detective that Madeleine will soon be reunited with her parents. In the case of the private detective, he should be paid only if he gets Madeleine back.
- Simon, London, 14/12/2007 13:12
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Am I reading correctly?
Ms O'Donnell admired Mrs McCann for leaving her children to sleep in the apartment unattended.
- Gina, Brighton, East Sussex, 14/12/2007 12:12
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Nice of this lady to come forward but how does she really know what transpired that night. She could not possibly.
- Veronica Russell, Canada, 14/12/2007 10:51
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