The parents of Madeleine McCann, a three-year-old British girl who disappeared while on a family holiday in 2007, have lost their data protection case in Europe’s highest legal court against a Portuguese police inspector.

Her disappearance sparked a Europe-wide search and multiple police investigations that led to a convicted sex offender in Germany last year.

Police initially suspected the child, known as Maddie, may have died accidentally and that her parents, Gerry McCann and Kate Healy, hid the body and staged a kidnapping.

In 2008, these claims were repeated in a book by Portuguese police inspector Goncalo Amaral, who originally led the case, prompting the parents to sue for defamation.

They won their case, but it was later struck down by Portugal’s Supreme Court, so the parents filed a case with the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, eastern France.

The couple – both doctors – said Amaral’s allegations damaged her reputation and violated her right to private and family life, and that the Supreme Court’s acquittal violated her right to the presumption of innocence.

But in its Tuesday judgment, the ECtHR said Amaral’s allegations had already been made in official police reports, to which the media had been given access.

It also noted that Maddie’s parents were under investigation before they were cleared and that the book was only released after prosecutors closed the case.

“Even if one assumes that the reputation of the complainants was damaged, this was not due to the arguments of the book author, but to the suspicions expressed against them,” the court said.

It added that, in relation to Amaral’s acquittal, “it did not appear that … the Supreme Court had made any comments implying guilt on the part of the applicants, or even suggesting suspicion against them”.

Kate and Gerry McCann responded that they were “naturally disappointed” with the court’s decision.

But they said on their website findmadeleine.com that “a lot has changed” in the 13 years since they took legal action against Amaral.

“We took action for one reason and only one: Mr. Amaral’s unsubstantiated claims adversely impacted the search for Madeleine,” they wrote.

“If the public believed that we were involved in their disappearance, people would ignore possible leads and may not pass relevant information to the appropriate law enforcement authorities.”

They added: “The focus now is rightly on the search for Madeleine and her captors. We are grateful for the ongoing work of the British, German and Portuguese police.”

After years of going cold on the case, German police announced in June 2021 that they had a new prime suspect, a child sex offender currently in prison.

In May, prosecutors said they had uncovered “new evidence” against the suspect, identified as “Christian B.”

He is serving a seven-year sentence in Germany for the 2005 rape of a 72-year-old American tourist in Praia da Luz — the same seaside resort Maddie disappeared from.

So far, however, no charges have been brought against Christian B. in connection with Maddie’s disappearance.

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