Madeleine McCann’s Nanny Comes Forward After 10 Years
The nanny of Madeleine McCann, the 3-year-old girl who went missing from a Portuguese resort 10 years ago, spoke out for the first time and provided some shocking insight into what really happened in the high-profile mystery.
The nanny, who declined to give her name, broke her silence after a decade to provide insight into the girl’s disappearance as well as the chaos that followed.
“A parent came to me and said there was something going on, and said someone’s looking for a child, I didn’t instantly think it was Maddie,” the nanny told the Mirror of the night Madeleine went missing in May of 2007. Her parents, Kate and Gerry, were reportedly in hysterics.
“A couple of minutes later I walked into Kate crying, friends comforting her, Gerry looking under cars, and it just blew up. I don’t even think she saw me. I just stood next to her and tried to comfort her. She was pacing up and down. The worst possible thing had just happened to her. I think I said something like, ‘She’ll be found, these things happen all the time.'”
The nanny said that Madeleine’s parents were devastated and in total panic over their daughter’s disappearance.
“She was crying, but almost in a catatonic state, and Gerry was very distressed. That’s the one thing I really remember from him, looking under the cars. I can’t forget that,” she said. “We were told to start looking in bins in case her body was in there. It was at that point we [realized] this was serious.”
The nanny said she went through trash bins by hand to look for Madeleine, and walked the streets of the resort until 5 a.m.
Years later, the nanny said she was angry with Portuguese police – who she said took an hour and a half to arrive to the scene after Madeleine was reported missing. She added that people were in and out of the apartment that the girl disappeared from, which could have contaminated a potential crime scene.
“I know I didn’t step into that apartment but pretty much everybody else did. So, evidence gone, nothing. There was nobody there to say, ‘We need to lock this off now,'” she said.
“The police didn’t get there for ages, maybe an hour and a half, so we were looking for her. And at the end of the day, no matter how much you’ve been trained with children, we were children, mainly teenagers, we’re not police. hat’s why police were trying to get everyone’s timelines, because they weren’t there.”
One of the most consistent things the nanny has been asked about since Madeleine’s disappearance is whether or not she believed the parents were responsible. Theories have abounded since 2007 about whether or not the parents, who reportedly left their daughter alone to go out the night of the disappearance, were involved.
“I tell them no, there’s no way at all. A, timings and B, where it was, their reactions, the whole thing. Not a chance,” the nanny said. The resort where the family was staying at the time was reportedly known for crime and considered to be unsafe by employees.
“We were told, ‘Here’s a rape whistle, don’t go anywhere by yourself, ever.’ There’d been a girl attacked the year or so before in Praia da Luz. It didn’t sound like a family resort to me,” she said.
Many readers criticized the parents and the nanny for leaving the girl alone on the night of the crime.
“Resort notorious for being unsafe yet they still left three children under 5 alone!! And why did Kate say “they’ve taken her” also why Madden and not the younger twins. Come on it is as plain as the nose on your face as to the guilt of the pair of them,” one Shared reader commented on the site’s Facebook page.
“They have alot to answer for, why would you leave your child on their own… Why have they never answered that…. They should be brought to justice as thats child neglect in itself before even going any deeper… The truth will come out one day…. Justice for poor Maddie,” another added.
Sources: MIrror, Shared/Facebook / Photo credit: Shared, Getty via Mirror