Katie Hopkins: Madeleine McCann's parents 'didn't deserve our cash to resolve their consciences'

Controversial columnist Katie Hopkins has lashed out at Madeline McCann's parents, saying "it's finally time to speak out" about them. Hopkins said that Gerry and Kate McCann should take part of the blame for Madeleine's abduction and that they "didn't deserve £11m of our cash to look for Maddie or try to resolve their consciences or salvage reputations".

Hopkins' comments come one day after Kate McCann said that she could never feel "at peace" until she knew what happened to her daughter. In her weekly column for the MailOnline, Hopkins slammed Kate and Gerry for "imagining there is some happy ending to this sorry tale" and sends them a message: "Enough."

Hopkins wrote: "I believe the truth is that Madeleine McCann is never coming home. She is long gone. There's no amount of money that will right the wrongs of the past, no libel action that will cancel out the damage the McCanns inflicted on themselves."

Hopkins said that the toddler's parents were to blame for leaving the child along while they were "out eating and drinking". She made a reference to a father who was arrested and prosecuted for leaving his two-year-old daughter alone for a few minutes in a car while he went to a chemist, saying that no other family in the same situation had been "lauded with such support and the protection of the state". She accused the McCanns of being "too self-assured to hire a babysitter and too self-centred to care".

The controversial comment from Hopkins was published as Kate and Gerry put their weight behind a campaign to raise awareness about the Child Rescue Alerts scheme, which sends text messages to people when a child in the area goes missing. However, Hopkins said that she wasn't "buying it".

She wrote: "The McCanns put their own children in harm's way. Those kids were in danger. Because of their parents. But now the faces I associate with neglect are being used to promote the Child Rescue Alert campaign. And I'm sorry, but I am not buying it. Maddie wasn't lost because someone took her. She was lost because she was left to be found."