Kate McCann's book detailing hunt for missing daughter Madeleine raises £1million for search fund
- Madeleine’s Fund hit £1.8million shortly after the three-year-old vanished
- Last seen at her family’s holiday flat in Praia da Luz, Portugal, in May 2007
- After four years of searching fund level had dwindled to £125,000
- The bestseller which came out in May 2011 netted £738,487 after tax
Madeleine McCann's mother has ploughed £1million from book sales back into the search for her missing daughter.
The bestseller, entitled Madeleine by Kate McCann, was published in 2011 on the day of her eighth birthday.
Madeleine, who was three, disappeared from her bed in the family’s apartment in Praia da Luz on the evening of May 3, 2007, while her parents were eating at a nearby tapas restaurant – as they did every night of the holiday.
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Fundraiser: Kate McCann and Gerry McCann at the launch of the book entitled Madeleine which has now raised £1million
After tax the book netted £738,487 providing a much-need boost to the fund set up by the McCanns, reported the Mirror.
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Madeleine’s Fund hit £1.8million shortly after the three-year-old vanished from her family’s holiday.
But by 2011, after four years of searching, it had dwindled to £125,000.
Official papers filed with Companies House show all the money raised from the 384-page book went to the fund.
The fund’s directors said: 'Income from the book has significantly improved the position.
Missing: A photo Madeleine McCann, left, taken on May 3, 2007 - the day she went missing from the family's holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal. The photo on the right was used in the campaign to find her
'This will continue as a result of publication in other countries and the release of the paperback.'
The continuing search and costly advertising campaigns means the remaining total now stands at £474,86.
In the searingly honest book Kate McCann explains she thought it would be 'unwise' to leave her three children with a babysitter on the night they dined at the resort restaurant.
Explaining why they did not make use of the babysitting service offered by the Ocean Club, she said the couple never even thought about it.
She said: 'I could argue that leaving my children alone with someone neither we nor they knew would have been unwise, and it's certainly not something we'd do at home, but we didn't even consider it.
'We felt so secure we simply didn't think it was necessary.'
Disappearance: Madeleine, who was three, disappeared from her bed in the family¿s apartment in Praia da Luz on the evening of May 3, 2007, while her parents were eating at a nearby tapas restaurant
Kevin Halligen, 53, self-styled security consultant accused of swindling the Madeleine McCann fund out of £300,000'
With the infamous tapas restaurant 'so near', the McCanns and their friends decided to do their own child-checking service, said Mrs McCann, adding: 'It goes without saying that we now bitterly regret it.'
However British police later told the couple their holiday apartment, being a corner flat on the ground floor, next to two roads and with secluded entrances, made it a perfect target for criminals.
The fund report revealed it was no longer paying private investigators in Portugal after Scotland Yard announced a major cold case review.
The McCanns from from Rothley, Leicestershire hope this will lead to Portuguese authorities reopening their inquiries.
Last month a self-styled security consultant accused of swindling the Madeleine McCann fund out of £300,000 is to be extradited to the United States this week to face fraud charges.
Kevin Halligen, 53, lost his final appeal before the High Court in London on Friday and will be flown to Washington on Thursday to face allegations of cheating former business partners out of £1.2 million.
In 2008, Halligen’s company Oakley International signed a contract to help find Maddie, who went missing in Portugal a year earlier.
He said he would use his MI6 and CIA contacts and high-tech surveillance equipment in the hunt but over six months he came up with no new leads.
He was arrested in Oxford in November 2009 after fleeing Washington DC when the US government began seeking an indictment against him for ‘wire fraud and money laundering’.
US Courts have also ordered Halligen to pay about £4 million to other former business partners who claim he fleeced them.
Halligen had been fighting extradition since his arrest.
VIDEO: Gerry and Kate McCann speak at the Leveson Inquiry
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