McCanns Won´t Tap Fund to Pay Legal Bills

The parents of Madeleine McCann will not use money from a fund set up to help find their daughter to pay their legal bills.

The parents of missing girl Madeleine McCann will not pay their rising legal bills with money from a public fund set up to help find their daughter, a family spokesman said on Wednesday.

Gerry and Kate McCann have raised a million pounds from well-wishers since launching the fund in May after the 4-year-old went missing while on holiday in Portugal.

"We are not seeking support from the fund," spokesman David Hughes told reporters outside the McCanns' family home in Rothley, Leicestershire.

The couple do not want to upset people who think the money should not be used to pay their legal bills, he added.

The fund's trustees said they had decided not to allow the money to be used to pay lawyers' fees, despite receiving expert advice that it would have been legal.

"The fund's directors realised there is not only a legal answer, but recognised too the spirit which underlies the generous donations to Madeleine's fund," Esther McVey, one of the fund's directors, told a news conference.

"For this reason, the fund's directors have decided not to pay for Gerry and Kate's legal defence costs."

The McCanns, both 39, returned to England on Sunday after detectives in Portugal questioned them for hours as formal suspects in the case.

On Tuesday, Portugal's public prosecutor passed the case against them to a criminal judge who will decide whether there are grounds for charges.

The judge can decide whether there is enough evidence for a trial or reject the case for having insufficient evidence.

The file includes the results of forensic tests of evidence taken from sites in the Praia da Luz resort where Madeleine vanished and details of police interviews with the McCanns.

The forensic evidence may clear up whether Madeleine's DNA was found in a car hired by the McCanns after she disappeared, as several newspapers have reported.

The couple have repeatedly denied any involvement in the disappearance of their daughter.

On his blog www.findmadeleine.com, Gerry McCann said: "We have absolute confidence that, when all of the facts are presented together, we will be able to demonstrate that we played absolutely no part in Madeleine's abduction."