Kate and Gerry McCann will continue their legal battle against claims they faked their daughter’s abduction.
The couple previously lost their appeal to the Portuguese Supreme Court over a book by former police chief Goncalo Amaral, which claimed Madeline McCann ‘died’ and her ‘abduction’ was a cover-up.
Courts had reversed a libel win against the author in 2016 and the highest court in the land supported the reversal.
The parents of Maddie, who went missing in 2007 from an apartment in Praia da Luz, have lodged a formal complaint against the ruling.
Isabel Duarte, their Portuguese lawyer, confirmed: ‘We delivered it’.
Kate and Gerry now face having to pay the author’s legal fees and potentially being sued by him.
Amaral’s book ‘The Truth of the Lie’ was published three days after Kate and Gerry were regarded as no longer formal suspects in their daughter’s search.
The Supreme Court also claimed they were not ‘formally in the clear’ and said in court papers that the dropping of ‘arguido’ or suspects status did not equate to innocence.
The court ruling, amounting to a 78-page document, said: ‘It should not be said that the appellants were cleared via the ruling announcing the archiving of the criminal case.’
Adding stopping of the case against the pair: ‘Was determined by the fact that public prosecutors hadn’t managed to obtain sufficient evidence of the crimes by the appellants.’
They continued: ‘It doesn’t therefore seem acceptable that the ruling, based on the insufficiency of evidence, should be equated to proof of innocence.’
Amaral, 57, had originally led the case investigating the disappearance of Madeleine and was ordered to pay £360,000 to the parents in a libel case.
But that 2015 ruling has now been overturned once in April last year and now at the Supreme Court.
The court said the author did not have a ‘defamatory intention’ and the book was not a personal and unjustified attack.
It has been reported that Kate and Gerry are thinking of taking the case to the European Court of Human Rights.
When the ruling from the Supreme Court came down the couple: ‘What we have been told by our lawyers is obviously extremely disappointing.
‘It is eight years since we brought the action, and in that time the landscape has changed dramatically, namely there is now a joint Metropolitan Police and Policia Judiciaria investigation which is what we have always wanted.
‘The police in both countries continue to work on the basis that there is no evidence Madeleine has come to physical harm.
‘We will of course be discussing the implications of the Supreme Court ruling with our lawyers in due course.’
The court touched on Kate and Gerry’s decision to leave Madeleine alone as they went to a tapas bar with friends.
Saying: ‘We must also recognise that the parents are paying a heavy penalty over the disappearance of Madeleine for their carelessness in monitoring and protecting their children.’
