Smash hit

"We do so because we accept that a number of articles in the newspaper have suggested that the couple caused the death of their missing daughter Madeleine and then covered it up.

"We acknowledge that there is no evidence whatsoever to support this theory, and that Kate and Gerry are completely innocent of any involvement in their daughter’s disappearance.

"We trust that the suspicion that has clouded their lives for many months will soon be lifted."

It concluded with a direct address to the couple: "Kate and Gerry, we are truly sorry to have added to your distress.

"We assure you that we hope Madeleine will one day be found alive and well, and will be restored to her loving family."

The statement in the Daily Star was similarly worded, saying that the newspaper had decided to make a "wholehearted apology to Kate and Gerry McCann for stories suggesting the couple were responsible for, or may be responsible for, the death of their daughter Madeleine and for covering it up".

It added: "We now recognise that such a suggestion is absolutely untrue and that Kate and Gerry are completely innocent of any involvement in their daughter's disappearance."

Media commentators suggested today that the coverage had been the result of journalists in the Algarve being ordered by their bosses to find stories with nothing to go on but speculation after Madeleine's disappearance.

Roy Greenslade, Professor of Journalism at City University London, said on Sky News: "So bad is this case that I think that the editors of the Express and Daily Star should resign forthwith."

Max Clifford, the publicist, told the Today programme on BBC Radio 4: "It is a lot of journalists out in Portugal that have got no facts and are being told: 'We have got to have something because we have not got a story,' so rumours and nonsense are being given to us as facts."

Bob Satchwell, executive director of the Society of Editors, said: "Part of the problem seems to have been that it [Madeleine's disappearance] was made for speculation and these newspapers have fallen into that trap."

Charlie Beckett, director of Polis, the London School of Economics’ media think-tank, said that he hoped the settlement would turn the tide "against certain media excesses that have been growing in recent years".

"A combination of the McCanns’s public relations campaign, the internet, the Portuguese press and a loss of UK media inhibition had combined to ’commodify’ a tragic human story," he said. "Vast amounts of innuendo and tenuous rumour were printed — and broadcast — without fact-checking or proper contextualisation."

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