McCann: sleeping pill line 'ludicrous'
Updated on 14 September 2007
Gerry McCann, the father of missing Madeleine, today dismissed allegations that his daughter might have accidentally died of a sleeping tablet overdose.
McCann said the theory put out by a French newspaper was "ludicrous".
According to a France Soir report yesterday - which quoted unnamed sources in Portugal - toxicological analysis showed Madeleine consumed a "significant" quantity of the pills.
Traces of sleeping tablets were identified in the DNA samples from bodily fluids found in the McCann's hire car, the paper said.
'We are 100 per cent together on this, not one grain of suspicion about each other.'Gerry McCann
The hire car was rented by the family 25 days after Madeleine's disappearance.
The car was at the centre of police inquiries last weekend when both Gerry and Kate McCann were named as arguidos - formal suspects - in the case.
But Mr McCann told a friend that this was just another line of inquiry that lacked substance.
"There are large craters in every one of these theories, in these just ludicrous accusations," he told a friend, quoted in this morning's The Sun.
"As far as Kate and I are concerned, there is no evidence to suggest that Madeleine is dead.
"We are 100 per cent together on this, not one grain of suspicion about each other."
Mr McCann said he and his wife felt they had been "backed into a corner" by the recent speculation linking them with their daughter's death.
The case is now in the hands of Pedro Daniel dos Anjos Frias, the judge appointed to oversee the police investigation. It is understood that he may rule as early as next Wednesday on whether Gerry and Kate McCann should be arrested and charged.
