Portuguese police are investigating the possibility that the parents of Madeleine McCann were negligent when they left their daughter alone in their unlocked holiday apartment on the night she went missing.

According to the first published court ruling on the case, the investigation covers abduction, homicide, exposure or abandonment of a child, and concealment of a corpse.

The judgment, released by the Evora Supreme Court of Justice in Portimao, gives the first official glimpse into the course of the police inquiry, which has hitherto been guarded by Portugal’s strict judicial secrecy laws.

The reference to “abandonment” suggests that detectives are looking for evidence that Gerry and Kate McCann were negligent in leaving Madeleine and her twin 18-month-old siblings unsupervised while they ate dinner with friends on the evening she vanished.

Under Portuguese law, the crime of abandonment carries a prison sentence of up to 10 years.

Mr and Mrs McCann, who are arguidos - or suspects - in their daughter’s disappearance, have repeatedly denied neglecting Madeleine, who was three when she vanished from the family’s holiday apartment in Praia da Luz on 3 May 2007.

Source and full article: telegraph.co.uk/