The father of Madeleine McCann has issued a call for more robust scrutiny of the UK media, describing how sustained media attention made him feel like he was being "drowning under the pressure".
Gerry McCann stated that his family was deeply affected by press "excesses" and that the media had "consistently hampered" the investigation into his daughter's 2007 disappearance.
He stated that the intrusion took a "significant emotional cost" on his family. "We had sustained interest and inaccurate reports for 15 months or more that compelled us to take legal action to stop it," he commented.
"We were fortunate. We got through it. We had incredible backing. Yet, I must tell you, there were times where I felt like I was being suffocated, and it was the media, mainly, not the situation we were in," he stated.
McCann and his wife, Kate, are among dozens of individuals who have endorsed a letter calling on the government to reopen the second phase of the Leveson investigation, which was intended to examine the relationship between the media and the police.
He expressed that it was not acceptable that after more than a year, press regulation was "no longer a priority". He described how his family had been subjected to "monstering" by parts of the media and that the press was "stationed" outside his home for months after Madeleine went missing.
Describing the intrusion, he said: "Media at our doorstep, cameras being shoved their cameras against our car window, when we had our toddler twins in the back who were scared, and how traumatic that is for you as a parent."
"It's the misleading narratives. It's the making up of stories to drive a headline, rather than the facts, which ruins lives," he added.
He said the conduct highlighted why there needed to be tougher press regulation. "In the evenings, we'd put on the news, and there'd be front-page headlines about ourselves and alleged events," he described.
"That almost pulls you under, and you can see how people succumb to it and think they can't get out of it. It's so damaging, and we need that protection. There has to be redress. And at the minute, for most of these mainstream media, there is little accountability," he concluded.
A government minister stated that a second phase of the inquiry had been discounted and that the media landscape was now drastically altered.
"We agree that the context has evolved dramatically from the time the Leveson's second phase was proposed: people now are more likely to get their news online from a whole variety of sources, which has presented new and different challenges," they stated.
The minister further stated that balancing the rights of victims with the principle of press freedom was a "really difficult thing to get right," but recognized that "reform is required in this area".
The child went missing from a family vacation apartment in 2007 when she was three years old. It was stated that it was "absolutely dismaying" how the press had frequently obstructed with the investigation.
"Published material which ought to have remained private... Consequently, anyone involved, you knew a lot more than you should have done," he said.
Speaking about hope, he said the hope he would find his daughter was "small but still alive". "I'd love to find her alive, but we need to establish the facts and see justice served, and others are at risk while that perpetrator is free," he affirmed.
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