Madeleine McCann was just three-years-old when she went missing from an apartment in Portugal, sparking a ten year investigation into her disappearance.
Her parents Kate and Gerry McCann and had left Maddie and her two younger siblings alone in the apartment while they went for dinner in a nearby restaurant.
Many people questioned why they were never prosecuted for leaving their children alone, an answer that has finally been revealed.
According to the Mirror, former Minister of Internal Affairs Rui Pereira explained to Portuguese channel TV CMTV recently, that they were not suspects for abandonment due to an “extraordinary and ridiculous theory that said the English have very peculiar cultural customs.”
"And therefore it was natural for them to leave the two-year-old twin siblings and the other three-year-old child alone in a bedroom for the parents to go out a few hundred metres away to socialise with their friends."
Adding that investigators showed "compassion" towards both Kate and Gerry, former Police Chief Moita Flores explained that had they been Portuguese they would have been arrested for abandonment.
"In our culture this kind of behaviour would have not been tolerated as reasonable. I am not even sure it is tolerated under Anglo-Saxon cultural values," Moita said.
Their comments come just weeks after Home Secretary Theresa May granted Scotland Yard £95,000 to extend their inquiry for another six months.
Explaining that the team goes to the Home Office every six months looking for funding, Detective Chief Superintendent Mick Duthie said that if they have not completed their inquiries they will go back again in six months.