Do we have the right to ask, "What happened to Madeleine McCann?"

As a parent, I can imagine no anguish greater than losing a young child.  This is what happened to Gerry and Kate McCann on 3rd May 2007 when their daughter, Madeleine, disappeared whilst on holiday in Portugal.

The accepted version of events is that Madeleine was abducted by a person or persons unknown.  To date, nobody has been convicted of abducting Madeleine and her body, alive or dead, has never been found.

Is it acceptable to question the accepted version of events?  Despite the risk of causing distress to the parents I believe it is acceptable given that:

• the case has never been solved.
• there are investigators who offer another explanation as to what happened that night, based on the available evidence.

One such investigator is Goncalo Amaral.  Amaral was originally placed in charge of the investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine but was later dismissed from the investigation.

Following his dismissal, he resigned from the Police Force and wrote a book about Madeleine's disappearance entitled, "The Truth of the Lie".  It is currently not available in the UK and was, as far as I am aware, the subject of an injunction.

There is an in depth summary of the book here and below you can watch a documentary about Amaral's investigation.  He is convinced Madeliene died in the apartment she was staying in and was not abducted.  The reasons (in brief) are:

• Despite intensive border checks following the reported disappearance of Madeleine, no trace of her or her abductor(s) was found.
• Amaral believes there are significant inconsistencies in the version of events given by the the McCanns leading up to reporting Madeleine missing. 
• Two trained sniffer dogs from the UK found traces of blood and a corpse in the flat where the McCanns were staying and in the boot of a car hired by the McCanns, 23 days after Madeleine's disappearance.
• Samples of blood were analysed for DNA but results were inconclusive (i.e. for traces of Madeleine) due to the DNA from at least 3 people being present.
• Following evidence provided by the sniffer dog team, Gerry and Kate McCann were questioned as suspects.  Kate reportedly refused to answer any questions whilst Gerry continually professed innocence.    
• A family named Smith, holidaying in the same village as the McCanns at the time, were leaving a restaurant at 10pm that night.  They reported seeing a man carrying a child walking towards the sea.  Later, after seeing Gerry McCann on television carrying one of his children, Mr Smith gave a statement to Portuguese police that he believed the man he saw carrying the child that night to be Gerry McCann.