Kate and Gerry McCann today welcomed grovelling apologies and £550,000 compensation from the Express newspapers over "grotesque and grossly defamatory" articles that accused them of being involved in their daughter Madeleine's abduction.

In addition to the publication of front-page articles saying sorry to the couple today, the owners of the Daily Express and the Daily Star agreed to pay the six-figure sum to the couple's official Find Madeleine fund.

The climbdown came after lawyers for the couple began legal proceedings against Express Newspapers over more than 100 articles published in the group’s daily and Sunday papers. The Sunday Express and Daily Star Sunday are also expected to publish separate apologies this weekend.

In a statement made outside the High Court, Clarence Mitchell, spokesman for the McCanns, said: "We are pleased that Express Newspapers have today admitted the utter falsity of the numerous grotesque and grossly defamatory allegations that their titles published about us on a sustained basis over many months.

"The exceptional publication of these apologies, together with today’s statement of full apology in open court before Mr Justice Eady, was the only just and proper response by Express Newspapers following our complaint."

Mr Mitchell said that he had met the Editor of the Express last October to warn him that the couple were considering legal action if coverage was not toned down.

He said that action had eventually been taken against the group "with a heavy heart", because the warnings had not been heeded and that Mr and Mrs McCann believed its newspapers were the worst offenders.

"I sat in their editorial office with their Editor," he said. "We felt that the Express newspapers had been politely but fairly firmly warned. It was implicit that legal action was always a possibility."

In his High Court statement, Stephen Bacon, the Express group's counsel, reiterated his group's earlier front-page apologies, saying: "Express Newspapers regrets publishing these extremely serious, yet baseless, allegations concerning Mr and Mrs McCann over a sustained period of what will already have been an enormously distressing time for them, and at a time when they have been trying to focus on finding their daughter."

The offending pieces had appeared after Portuguese detectives last September named the couple as "arguidos", or official suspects, in the disappearance of their daughter on holiday in the Algarve in May last year. The McCanns' legal team claimed that the tone of coverage in question implied they may have been directly involved, and that this was defamatory.

Both newspapers ran prominent pieces at the top of their front pages today, headlined "Kate and Gerry McCann: Sorry".

The Express apology read: "The Daily Express today takes the unprecedented step of making a front-page apology to Kate and Gerry McCann.

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