Kate McCann has one regret for ‘the rest of her days’ over disappearance of daughter Madeleine

Kate McCann opened up about the one thing she will regret for 'the rest of her days' in the days leading up to the heartbreaking disappearance of her daughter, Madeleine.

It's now been 17 years since little Madeleine disappeared while holidaying with her family in Portugal back in 2007.

Madeleine was sleeping in her Praia da Luz hotel apartment alongside her younger twin siblings, Sean and Amelie, while her parents enjoyed a dinner at the Ocean Club restaurant on the night she vanished.

The restaurant they visited was around 100 yards from the bedroom.

Only when returning to the two-bedroom apartment at around 10.00pm did Madeleine's mum discover the youngster was missing.

After the news broke of her disappearance, millions have been invested into the investigation into Madeleine's whereabouts, which has often been branded the 'most reported on missing person's case in modern history'.

The tot's disappearance has also been the subject of countless documentaries and conspiracy theories.

Meanwhile, a handful of individuals have since claimed the identity of the missing youngster, though no evidence has yet prevailed.

Since then, her parents Kate and Gerry have refused to give up the search for their daughter.

Kate McCann opened up about her number on regret following the disappearance of her daughter, Madeleine, back in 2007. (WPA Pool / Pool / Getty Images)

In Kate's 2011 memoir, Madeleine: Our Daughter’s Disappearance and the Continuing Search For Her, she opened about a 'bitter regret' that she and Gerry have harboured since the night of their daughter's disappearance, after discovering a small but pivotal detail.

The mother-of-three revealed that she had requested a specific table at the Ocean Club restaurant the night she disappeared that would allow the group a full view of the apartment in which their kids were sleeping.

Following Madeleine's disappearance however, Kate discovered that what had been written by the member of staff in the reservation book could have alluded to the fact that there were unsupervised children in the nearby apartment that night.

"To my horror, I saw that, no doubt in all innocence and simply to explain why she was bending the rules a bit, the receptionist had added the reason for our request: we wanted to eat close to our apartments as we were leaving our young children alone there and checking on them intermittently," she wrote.

Kate added: "We now bitterly regret it and will do so until the end of our days."

German authorities stated in 2020 that Christian Brückner was their prime suspect for the abduction of Madeleine, but no charges have been formalised.

Brückner denies any involvement in Madeleine's disappearance.