FURY has been sparked over a Portuguese newspaper’s claims Madeleine McCann’s mum Kate was a secret MI5 agent when her daughter went missing.
The slur in the run-up to the 12th anniversary of Maddie’s disappearance on May 3 is not the first time Kate, 51, has been accused of being in the UK’s secret service.
A family spokesman told the MailOnline: “These are absolutely absurd and ridiculous allegations, which Madeleine’s parents are certain no one in their right mind would even consider believing.
“It is unmitigated garble and yet more nonsense they are having to endure at a very painful and difficult time for them.”
It comes after Kate and Gerry have faced almost 12 years of bizarre and hurtful conspiracy theories over what happened to their daughter.
The disgraced cop who led the initial police investigation in Portugal, Goncalo Amaral, previously made the same spy claim.
Now veteran journalist and founder of Portuguese newspaper Sol, Jose Antonio Saraiva, has fed the wild conspiracy theories by alleging he was told Maddie’s disappearance was linked to her parents’ “secret activity” because of her mum’s “suspected” MI5 membership.
He wrote in the latest issue of Sol this was why Gordon Brown, then the UK’s Chancellor, decided to dispatch British Ambassador John Buck to Praia da Luz after the youngster vanished from the McCanns’ Algarve holiday apartment.
Saraiva said a female genetics doctor he named only as H. Santos had identified Kate McCann as an MI5 agent and claimed it explained her daughter’s disappearance.
He claimed Maddie’s dad Gerry was also a potential spy.
Writing in Sol, which sells to thousands every week, he fuelled the hurtful claims saying: “This would explain the immediate dispatch to Portugal of a representative of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and future Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
“It was said that Brown did it because he was Gerry’s schoolmate. But this explanation doesn’t wash.
“The English are very formal and there’s not the cronyism there that characterises southern Europe.
“A minister doesn’t send an official representative to find out about the disappearance of a little girl because he went to school with her father.”
In fact Brown and Mr McCann are not believed to have been at school together, and the former Prime Minister is at 68 around 17 years older than Gerry.
Disgraced ex-Portuguese police chief Goncalo Amaral, who features heavily in the new Netflix documentary on the Maddie case, claimed last year MI5 spies helped to cover up her death and disappearance.
He said British secret agents “for sure had an involvement” in her vanishing.
Kate and Gerry McCann have spoken in the past about the hurt speculation and conspiracy theories have caused to the family.
Family spokesman Clarence Mitchell said their refusal to take part in new Netflix series ‘The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann’ was based on their belief it may encourage conspiracy theorists and would do nothing to help with the ongoing search for her.
Kate insisted from the outset her daughter had been abducted and she and her husband took Amaral to court over his claims in controversial 2008 book ‘The Truth of the Lie’ that they had covered up her accidental death in their apartment.
Mr Mitchell revealed last year in an interview one of the “most ridiculous” conspiracy theories he had ever heard was that Maddie was born as the result of a government cloning project.
Gerry said two years ago of the hurt fake accusations had caused them: “I’m sure it is a very small minority of people who spend their time doing it, but it has totally inhibited what we do.”
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