Gerry McCann's brother in pilgrimage to Portugal

Apr 27 2008 By Grace Macaskill

Exclusive Madeleine: Our Year Of Tears Family Send Uncle On Portugal Vigil

GERRY McCANN has asked his brother John to go on a pilgrimage to Portugal to mark the first anniversary of Madeleine's disappearance.

In contrast, Gerry and Kate will spend the day behind closed doors at their home in Leicestershire.

John, 48, will be in Praia da Luz on Saturday to attend a special service in the white-washed church where Gerry and Kate prayed in the anguished days following their daughter's abduction. He will make the journey with his sister Patricia Cameron on behalf of his brother and sister-in-law, who have not returned to Portugal since police made them official suspects.

Every week expats and locals attend a service at the tiny Our Lady of the Light Church to remember Madeleine in a service for missing children.

Kate and Gerry have asked John to pass on their thanks to them. John, of Glasgow, said: "I amsure returning will be very emotional but I am going there to meet the people who have kept a regular vigil for Madeleine and thank them personally.

"Their commitment to prayer shows she has far from disappeared from their minds." Worshippers say a special prayer "for those who have acted in evil or practised acts of kidnapping".

A picture of Madeleine, now bleached by the sun, remains pinned on the church noticeboard.

John said: "Kate and Gerry are touched that people should continue to pray for Madeleine."

John, a pharmaceutical sales rep, flew to Portugal two days after the frantic call from Gerry telling him Madeleine was missing.

He said: "I spent five or six days with Gerry and Kate before returning home."

His trip to Praia da Luz will be the first time he has been back to Portugal since then.

Kate and Gerry will mark the anniversary privately with their three-year-old twins.

They are unlikely to attend a special evening church service in their home village of Rothley. Gerry's mum Eileen said: "They are going to spend the day with Sean and Amelie and I think they will have a little prayer for Madeleine's safe return.

"They want it to be a private time and I don't know if they will be able to face the evening service."

Madeleine will be remembered in a service at St Mary Immaculate on Shawhill Road, Glasgow, on Saturday at 12pm.

MAILFILE

It has been a year of emotional turmoil for the McCanns, full of false hopes, suspicion and despair. We look back at the last 12 months in quotes from the key people in the case.

"Someone has taken my little girl." - Kate screams in anguish as she flees from the holiday apartment from where Madeleine vanished, May 3, 2007.

"Words cannot describe the anguish and despair we are feeling as parents of our beautiful daughter Madeleine." - Gerry McCann in an appeal for Maddie's return, May 4.

"I'm 99.9 per cent sure it was Madeleine." - Norwegian tourist Marie Ollie reports the sighting of a little blonde-haired girl at a petrol station in Marrakech, May 9.

"I've been made a scapegoat for something I didn't do." - Expat Robert Murat, May 15. He was quizzed over Maddie's disappearance but later cleared of all involvement.

"The guilt will never leave us" - Gerry on leaving Madeleine and twins Sean and Amelie alone in their hotel room, May 25.

"Never has there been so much evidence collected in a crime scene by specialised teams." - Portuguese Chief Inspector Olegario Sousa, August 15. He claims Madeleine died the night she was taken.

"Kate and I are totally 100 per cent confident in each other's innocence." - Gerry after the couple are named as official suspects by Portuguese police, September 7. Police later say they have no evidence against them.

"As parents we cannot give up on our daughter until we know what has happened." - Gerry as the couple arrive back on British soil, September 9.

"We hope that a new head of the inquiry will work to ensure the unsubstantiated and unfounded allegations surrounding the case will now end." - the McCanns' spokesman after Portuguese police deputy national director takes over from Goncalo Amaral, October 8.

"I don't know how anyone could harm anyone as beautiful as Madeleine." - Kate in her first TV interview since being named a suspect, October 26.

"I know what I saw. I think it's important that people know what I saw because I believe Madeleine was abducted." - Friend Jane Tanner, November 16, on seeing a man carrying away a child the night Madeleine was taken

"There's a greater possibility of the girl being dead than being alive." - Portuguese Attorney General Fernando Jose Pinto Monteiro, November 22.

"Kate and Gerry McCann: Sorry." - The Daily Express and Daily Star print apologies and pay out s550,000 for stories which hinted at the McCanns' alleged involvement, March 19, 2008.

"Why didn't you come when we were crying last night?" - Madeleine's words to Kate in leaked papers from Portuguese police interviews, April 10. The couple say it is a "blatant" attempt to discredit them.

"We have no doubt it saves lives." - Gerry McCann calls for a new alert system for missing children across Europe, April 10.

"Their biggest regret is that they were not there when Madeleine was taken. They possibly, God forbid, will live with that regret for the rest of their lives." - the McCanns' spokesman Clarence Mitchell, April 11.