The Sun
Antonella Lazzeri and Clodagh Hartley
Hand print on plate
THIS is the poignant last gift from Madeleine McCann to her gran -given just days before she vanished.
The heart-shaped plate bears Maddie's little handprints and the touching message, "I love you Grandma and Grandad, From Madeleine 2007."
Maddie's devastated gran Susan Healy showed off the plate yesterday and said: "This is so special I feel like locking it in a safe.
"I couldn't bear anything to happen to it -the handprints are the closest thing we have to a physical reminder of her."
Susan, 61, told how Maddie made the plate at nursery school with the help of her teacher. The three-year-old did handprints in pink and purple paint while the teacher wrote the message.
Maddie proudly told her gran about the gift in a phone call -but never got the chance to deliver it in person because she then went on holiday to Praia da Luz in Portugal with parents Kate and Gerry.
Instead Maddie's great uncle Brian Kennedy took it to Susan's home in Liverpool.
Maddie, below, disappeared five days later on May 3.
Susan added: "It was my last gift from Madeleine. We've got photos all over the house, but this is different. It is very, very precious."
Susan also revealed her daughter Kate had been tormented by visions of Maddie at the family home in Rothley, Leics. She said: "Kate hasn't been able to sleep well.
I asked if it was the twins waking her up and she said, 'No, Madeleine came'. She feels her presence. It's heartbreaking."
Forensic tests prove Kate and Gerry, both doctors, did NOT sedate their children, it emerged yesterday. Tests on the hair of two-year-old twins Sean and Amelie showed they had never been drugged.
The McCanns also have proof that Gerry IS Maddie's biological dad, shattering two vital theories in Portuguese detectives' case against them, and backing their claim that they are victims of a smear campaign.
Cops allege Maddie died from an accidental overdose. Her parents were made suspects after tests on their holiday flat and hire car, but insist DNA in the boot came from the twins not Maddie.
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