BRITAIN:KATE AND Gerry McCann have confirmed that their £550,000 (€700,000) libel award from Express Newspapers will go to the fund dedicated to finding their missing daughter Madeleine.
While not wishing to appear aggressively litigious, the couple are also reserving the right to sue other newspapers following their legal action brought in response to "numerous grotesque and grossly defamatory allegations" implicating them in their daughter's disappearance and presumed death.
In a statement read out on their behalf following the hearing by Mr Justice Eady, Mr and Mrs McCann said: "As part of our settlement, Express Newspapers have agreed to pay damages, by way of a donation of £550,000, to the fund that was established to help find Madeleine. We feel it is entirely appropriate that the search for Madeleine will now benefit directly out of the wrongs committed against us as her parents."
The couple also expressed the hope that the Portuguese authorities will lift their arguidoor "suspect" status in the near future, "so that everyone can focus on finding our beautiful little girl, Madeleine".
Mr and Mrs McCann's representatives said that from late summer last year until February of this year the Daily Expressand Sunday Express, the Daily Starand the Daily Star Sundaypublished more than 100 seriously defamatory articles about the couple. In court Stephen Bacon, representing the group, said Express Newspapers regretted publishing these "extremely serious, yet baseless, allegations". And yesterday's editions of the Daily Expressand Daily Starcarried front-page apologies under the headline: "Kate and Gerry McCann: Sorry."
The couple's solicitor-advocate Adam Tudor had told the court: "The general theme of the articles was to suggest that Mr and Mrs McCann were responsible for the death of Madeleine or that there were strong or reasonable grounds for so suspecting, and that they had disposed of her body; and that they had then conspired to cover up their actions, including by creating 'diversions' to divert the police's attention away from the evidence which would expose their guilt."
Many of these articles were published on the front pages of newspapers and on websites accompanied by sensational headlines: "In addition to the allegations referred to above, the Daily Starpublished further articles (under the headlines 'Maddie mum sold her' and 'Maddie sold by hard-up McCanns') which sought to allege that Mr and Mrs McCann sold their daughter in order to ease their financial burdens."