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McCanns admit using Madeleine fund to pay mortgage
2007-10-30
The parents of missing toddler Madeleine McCann used public money donated to a fund for finding their daughter to pay their mortgage, their spokesman confirmed Tuesday. Gerry and Kate McCann, both 39-year-old doctors, both stopped working to search full-time for Madeleine after the three-year-old went missing from their holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal, in May. "The fund has always had the ability to assist the family financially if necessary and they've only used it to pay for two mortgage payments earlier this year," their spokesman Clarence Mitchell said. He added that the couple and fund organisers agreed to stop the payments when the couple were made formal suspects by Portuguese police last month. "They were happy to accept that their changed status meant they were no longer entitled to that assistance," Mitchell said. The McCanns live in a large, detatched house reportedly worth 500,000 pounds in the well-heeled village of Rothley, Leicestershire. The Find Madeleine fund has received donations of over a million pounds since being set up shortly after the girl's disappearance and helped pay for the couple's trips around Europe to publicise their daughter's case. Gerry McCann is due to return part-time to his job as a cardiologist at a hospital in the city of Leicester on Thursday. It will be six months on Saturday since Madeleine, then aged three, disappeared and he has said the couple will mark the occasion with a prayer service for their daughter and other missing children in their local church.
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