The 48 questions Kate McCann refused to answer about Madeleine’s disappearance

Just following Madeleine McCann’s birthday, and as we soon approach the 20th anniversary of her disappearance, Channel 5 is revisiting the case in a drama titled Under Suspicion: Kate McCann. The drama sees Kate McCann played by an actress, and focuses around her in the aftermath of the disappearance. This has caused the police interrogation with Kate McCann, in which she refused to answer 48 questions, to resurface.

Madeleine McCann went missing from Praia da Luz, Portugal on May 3rd, 2007. She was three at the time. The 90-minute Channel 5 drama film focuses on Madeleine’s mother Kate McCann, as Portuguese police began to treat her with suspicion, and brought her in for questioning.

In real life, a transcript of the interview, that took place three months after Madeleine disappeared, was included in extensive police files released to the public in 2008. Kate McCann was told she was a suspect by Portuguese police, and questioned in detail over an 11-hour period, about the night Madeleine went missing.

Kate McCann was asked a total of 49 questions, and only answered one. She invoked her right to remain silent, in protest to being treated as a suspect. She later said that she had refused to co-operate because she thought the police treating her as a suspect was distracting them from the work they should have been doing to find Madeleine.

via Mario Cruz/EPA/Shutterstock

The 48 questions Kate McCann refused to answer:

1. On May 3, 2007, around 22:00, when you entered the apartment, what did you see? What did you do? Where did you look? What did you touch?

2. Did you search inside the master bedroom wardrobe?

3. (Shown two photographs of her bedroom wardrobe) Can you describe its contents?

4. Why was the curtain by the sofa near the side window tampered with? Did someone go behind the sofa?

5. How long did your search of the apartment take after you detected Madeleine’s disappearance?

6. Why did you say Madeleine had been abducted?

7. Assuming Madeleine was abducted, why did you leave the twins to go to the ‘Tapas’ and raise the alarm? The supposed abductor could still be in the apartment.

8. Why didn’t you ask the twins then what happened to their sister or why didn’t you ask them later on?

9. When you raised the alarm at the ‘Tapas’ what exactly did you say – what were your exact words?

10. What happened after you raised the alarm there?

11. Why did you go and warn your friends instead of shouting from the verandah?

12. Who contacted the authorities?

13. Who took place in the searches?

14. Did anyone outside the group learn of her disappearance in those following minutes?

via Operation Grange

15. Did any neighbour offer you help?

16. What does “we let her down” mean?

17. Did Jane Tanner tell you that night she’d seen a man with a child?

18. How were the authorities contacted and which police force was alerted?

19. During the searches, with the police there, where did you search for Maddie, how and in what way?

20. Why did the twins not wake up during that search or when they were taken upstairs?

21. Who did you phone after the occurrence?

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22. Did you call Sky News?

23. Did you know the danger of calling the media, because it could influence the abductor?

24. Did you ask for a priest?

25. By what means did you divulge Madeleine’s features, by photographs or by any other means?

26. Is it true that during the searches you remained seated on Maddie’s bed without moving?

27. What was your behaviour that night?

28. Did you manage to sleep?

29. Before travelling to Portugal, did you make any comment about a foreboding or a bad feeling?

30. What was Madeleine’s behaviour like?

31. Did Maddie suffer from any illness or take any medication?

32. What was Madeleine’s relationship like with her brother and sister?

33. What was Madeleine’s relationship like with her brother and sister, friends and school mates?

34. As for your professional life, in how many and which hospitals have you worked?

35. What is your medical speciality?

36. Have you ever done shift work in any emergency services or other services?

37. Did you work every day?

38. At a certain point you stopped working. Why?

39. Are the twins difficult to get to sleep? Are they restless and does that cause you uneasiness?

40. Is it true sometimes you despaired at your children’s behaviour and it left you feeling very uneasy?

41. Is it true that in England you even considered handing over Madeleine’s custody to a relative?

42. In England, did you medicate your children? What type of medication?

43. In the case files, you were shown canine forensic testing films. After watching them, did you say you couldn’t explain any more than you already had?

44. When the sniffer dog also marked human blood behind the sofa, did you say you couldn’t explain any more than you already had?

45. When the sniffer dog marked the scent of corpse coming from the vehicle you hired a month after the disappearance, did you say you couldn’t explain any more than you already had?

46. When human blood was marked in the boot of the vehicle, did you say you couldn’t explain any more than you already had?

47. When confronted with the results of Maddie’s DNA, carried out in a British lab, collected from behind the sofa and the boot of the vehicle, did you say you couldn’t explain any more than you already had?

48. Did you have any responsibility or intervention in your daughter’s disappearance?

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