THE McCanns fear their daughter Madeleine's kidnapper may "strike again" and believe they will have been laughing at claims they hid the body.
Glasgow-born Gerry McCann and his wife Kate spoke out after delivering personal statements at Lisbon's Palace of Justice in the libel case brought by them against Goncalo Amaral over claims he made in a book about their role in the disappearance of their daughter in Praia da Luz in the Algarve in 2007.
Mr McCann said whoever was involved must have been laughing at what Mr Amaral claimed - that there was no abduction and no predator.
He said: "There's an unsolved serious crime and there's a series of other crimes against children who have been on holiday so at the very least these people need to be brought to justice. We don't know if Madeleine is alive but there is no evidence that she is dead and she is missing and she is completely innocent."
The couple earlier told the court there was no doubt Mr Amaral's claims had done "severe damage" to their struggle to find Madeleine.
Mrs McCann told the judge her young son Sean had asked her about the allegations she was involved in Madeleine's disappearance after hearing it reported on the radio on his school bus.
The libel case continues.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article