Madeleine McCann left alone as 'last minute decision'

Kate and Gerry McCann said that they had planned to take the family to The Millennium, a restaurant half a mile away. But because Madeleine and their twins, Sean and Amelie, were tired they decided to put them to bed and eat at the tapas restaurant near their apartment.

They sat down at 9pm and within an hour Madeleine had vanished.

The couple speak about their change of heart during a two-hour documentary, Madeleine, One Year On, Campaign for Change to be televised tonight [in the UK].

Mrs McCann’s mother, Susan Healy, 62, from Liverpool, said she wanted to “shake” them both for leaving her granddaughter alone.

“I could shake all of them, every single one of them,” she said. “You find yourself over and over again in your head thinking: 'Why did they think it would be all right?’”

The documentary, filmed over four months, focuses on how the McCanns have coped and their campaign for the introduction of a Europe-wide Amber Alert early warning system for missing children used successfully in the US.

They talk frankly about their feelings, with Mrs McCann regularly breaking down.