The father of Madeleine McCann has made a traumatic return visit to the holiday apartment in Portugal from which she went missing.
Gerry McCann, 40, made the harrowing journey to the holiday complex in the Algarve where Madeleine was last seen, in Praia da Luz, in preparation for a new TV documentary telling the full story of the crime.
Father-of-three Gerry is acting as an advisor on the filming of a Channel 4 reconstruction of the events of 3rd May 2007 which is expected to be screened around the second anniversary of her disappearance.
Maddy's mother, Liverpool-born Kate McCann, did not take part in the visit and it is thought she stayed at home to look after the couple's other two children
Gerry, of Rothley, Leics, spent an hour inside the apartment and visited the bedroom where Madeleine slept with twins Sean and Amelie, now four, on the night she vanished.
He then retraced the few painful steps between the flat and the tapas bar where he and wife Kate enjoyed a meal with friends on the night Madeleine vanished.
Gerry and Kate have agreed to allow Channel 4 to reconstruct that last night with their daughter in a fresh bid to find her.
It was Gerry's first visit to Praia da Luz since he left Portugal and only his second visit to the country since last July when he and Kate were officially cleared of any involvement in her disappearance.
The McCanns and their friends, the so-called “Tapas Nine", last year declined to take part in a Portuguese police reconstruction of Maddy's disappearance. Two of the Nine – Jane Tanner and Matthew Oldfield – made the trip to help Gerry.
The TV programme is being directed by Emma Loach – daughter of award-winning director Ken Loach. It is scheduled to be screened on Channel 4 on 7th Maya and will also be fed to TV stations all over the world.
Actors will play the parts of Gerry, his wife and the rest of the Tapas Nine while the daughter of a family friend will play Madeleine.
The McCann’s spokesman Clarence Mitchell said: “There are new elements in it that may generate that important piece of information that could lead to Madeleine being found.
"Gerry will stop at nothing to find Madeleine or at least discover what happened to her in that flat, no matter how difficult and painful it is.”
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