The Strasbourg Court issued its ruling on Tuesday regarding the Madeleine McCann case, addressing the family’s claim in the wake of her disappearance in May 2007 while the McCanns were on holiday along the southern coast of Portugal. The decision touched on how the family’s reputation had been affected by early police theories that suggested their possible involvement in the events surrounding Madeleine’s vanishing.
European judges concluded that Portugal did not violate the presumption of innocence and found that the book in which one investigator initially framed the theory contained a mix of fact and fiction, rather than serving as the catalyst for a broader media campaign that had already begun to unfold. The court noted that public attention to the case had been shaped by multiple forces and that the controversial narrative surrounding the investigation had gained traction independently of the book’s publication.
The court also considered doubts expressed during the initial stage of the investigation. Although charges were filed in July 2008, three days before the release of the controversial book, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) clarified that it was assessing the broader context rather than endorsing a single narrative about responsibility for the girl’s disappearance. The ruling underscored that the case had evolved within a wider public debate and that the inspector’s thesis represented one of several competing viewpoints that circulated at the time.
Three-year-old Madeleine McCann vanished on May 3, 2007, while her family and siblings were staying at a resort in Praia da Luz. The case has remained a focal point in discussions about missing children and media influence on criminal investigations.
The investigation took many twists and turns over the years. At one point, in 2020, authorities in Germany indicated they believed Madeleine was no longer alive, and suggested that a man who was imprisoned there at the time might be connected to the case. That assessment, and subsequent charges brought by Portuguese authorities, reflected the ongoing, evolving nature of the investigation and the continued effort to establish accountability in a highly publicized case.