Madeleine McCann's disappearance – timeline

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/oct/14/madeleine-mccann-disappearance-timeline

Version 0 of 1.

2007

3 May Madeleine disappears from a holiday apartment at the Ocean Club resort in the Algarve village of Praia da Luz, while her parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, dine with friends at a nearby tapas restaurant.

4 May The McCanns make an emotional plea for Madeleine's safe return, directly appealing to their daughter's abductors and speaking of their "anguish and despair".

25 May In their first interviews, the McCanns say the guilt of not being with Madeleine will never leave them. Police release a description of the man seen carrying a child on the night of Madeleine's disappearance.

6 June Madeleine's parents deny any involvement in her abduction when questioned by a German journalist at a press conference in Berlin.

16 June A British couple report seeing a small blonde girl in the Maltese capital, Valletta. A full-scale investigation is launched in the wake of a number of other possible sightings.

17 June Portuguese police say Madeleine's friends and family may have unwittingly destroyed vital evidence in the first few hours after her presumed abduction, during their search for her.

28 June Spanish police arrest an Italian man and a Portuguese woman suspected of trying to extort money from Madeleine's parents by offering them information about the missing girl.

6 July Dutch police reveal they have arrested a man in Eindhoven suspected of attempting to defraud Gerry and Kate McCann by demanding €2m (£1.35m) for information on Madeleine's whereabouts.

6 August A Portuguese newspaper reports that British sniffer dogs have found traces of blood on a wall in the apartment where Madeleine went missing. A Portuguese paper, the Jornal de Noticias, claims detectives now believe it is most likely that Madeleine is dead, having been killed accidentally.

15 August Blood traces found in the bedroom where Madeleine was sleeping the night she was snatched were not hers, the Times reports. Forensic results show the blood came from a man, it adds.

31 August It emerges that the McCanns are to launch a libel action against a Portuguese newspaper that claimed police believed they killed their daughter. The action will be against the Tal & Qual paper, based in Oporto.

6-8 September Kate McCann arrives at a Portuguese police station to face further questioning by detectives. Both McCanns are declared official suspects (arguido) after police questioning.

9 September The McCanns return to their home in Rothley, Leicestershire, with their twins, Sean and Amelie.

10 September Portuguese police sources suggest DNA tests prove Madeleine's body was in the boot of a car hired by her parents 25 days after she disappeared. Some DNA experts doubt the claims.

11 September A dossier outlining the police case against the McCanns is passed to the local prosecutor, José Cunha de Magalhães e Meneses, who then asks a judge to assess the information.

18 September Clarence Mitchell, a former BBC reporter, confirms he has resigned as the head of the government's media monitoring unit to become the spokesman for the McCann family. His salary is paid by a Cheshire businessman, Brian Kennedy.

19 September The Evora district attorney general, Luís Bilro Verão, rules there is not enough evidence to justify further questioning of the McCanns about the disappearance of their daughter.

2 October The police officer in charge of the inquiry, Gonçalo Amaral, is removed from the case and demoted for criticising British police involvement in the investigation.

16 November Jane Tanner, one of the McCann family's closest friends and part of the so-called Tapas Seven, says she saw a man carrying a sleeping child away from the holiday apartments 45 minutes before Kate McCann discovered her daughter was missing.

2008

13 February Portuguese authorities say the search for Madeleine is winding down, more than nine months after she vanished.

19 March The Daily Express and the Daily Star carry unprecedented front-page apologies for publishing more than 100 articles on the disappearance of Madeleine, some of which suggested her parents were involved in her death. The papers pay £550,000 in damages.

7 April Portuguese police arrive in the UK to be present as Leicestershire constabulary officers begin interviewing the Tapas Seven.

3 May The first anniversary of Madeleine's disappearance is marked with a renewed appeal for information and church services in Portugal and the UK.

7 July Leicestershire police agree to share with the McCanns 81 pieces of information from their investigation. The McCanns ask to have access to Portuguese police files, too.

15 July Robert Murat, a British expat living in Praia da Luz, wins about £600,000 in damages from 11 British newspapers and Sky News for defamatory reports of his involvement in the disappearance.

24 July A book by the former head of the investigation, Amaral, is published claiming that Madeleine died in her family's holiday apartment in Praia da Luz.

4 August The Portuguese police file on the disappearance is made public. It shows that days before the McCanns were formally named as suspects, a British scientist had warned that tests on DNA recovered from the family's hire car were inconclusive. It also shows that during a subsequent interview with Portuguese police, Kate McCann refused to answer 48 questions about her daughter, apparently fearing they were intended to implicate her in the girl's disappearance.

15 October The Tapas Seven receive a reported £375,000 in damages from Express Newspapers.

2009

10 March Gerry McCann, appearing before MPs, calls for more stringent regulation of the press and labels coverage of his daughter's disappearance as some of the most "irresponsible and damaging" in press history.

1 May A digitally enhanced image of how Madeleine might look now is revealed as the second anniversary of her disappearance approaches.

17 May The McCanns announce they are to sue Amaral over claims made in his book that Madeleine died in her family's apartment and the parents were involved in hiding the body.

3 November A one-minute video message – produced in seven languages – is launched by Britain's Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, showing new images of how the girl might look more than two years after her abduction.

2010

28 April Near the third anniversary of Madeleine's disappearance, Gerry McCann says it is "incredibly frustrating" that police in Portugal and the UK have not been actively looking for Madeleine "for a very long time".

2011

12 May In an open letter in the Sun newspaper, the McCanns ask the prime minister to launch an "independent, transparent and comprehensive" review of all information relating to the disappearance of their daughter.

13 May David Cameron writes to the McCanns telling them the home secretary will set out "new action". The Metropolitan police begin a review.

23 November The McCanns appear as witnesses at the Leveson inquiry into press standards. Kate McCann says she felt "totally violated" after the publication by the News of the World of her personal diaries and Gerry McCann says he believes British newspapers declared "open season" on them a few months after Madeleine's disappearance.

2013

4 July The Metropolitan police say they have new evidence. They say they are investigating 38 "persons of interest" after launching a formal investigation.

14 October Detectives release an efit of a man they want to identify. There is a new reconstruction on Crimewatch of the events on the night of Madeleine's disappearance.