Gerry McCann, father of missing Madeleine McCann, has accused sections of the UK press of 'monstering' his family and interfering with the investigation into his daughter's disappearance. In a rare interview with BBC Radio 4's Today programme, he said the media's behaviour hindered the search for Madeleine, who vanished from a Portuguese holiday resort in 2007 aged three.
Mr McCann described journalists coming to his home and photographers 'ramming their cameras against our car window' while his two-year-old twins were inside. He said the family felt 'suffocated and buried' by 15 months of sustained media interest and misleading headlines, adding: 'We are lucky we survived.'
He called for the second phase of the Leveson Inquiry into media ethics to resume, criticising the Labour government for not implementing recommendations from the first part. 'We're over a year into the government, and there haven't been any changes,' he said. 'It's not acceptable to me now, more than a year on, that Leveson and press regulation is no longer a priority.'
The McCanns are among more than 30 signatories of a letter to Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer urging the second phase to go ahead. Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy said a second phase had been 'ruled out' but offered to meet Mr McCann to discuss concerns.
