I know Robert Murat would never take Madeleine, says his ex-wife
By HELEN WEATHERS
Last updated at 23:05 23 November 2007
As for Dawn Murat, 42, she has never once doubted her former husband's innocence.
"I have known Robert for 13 years and was married to him for six and he would never, ever hurt a child," says Dawn, who lives in Norfolk.
"He's the parent of a daughter, almost the same age as Madeleine, and he would never put anyone through the misery the McCanns are going through because he couldn't bear to think of something like that happening to Sofia. She is the most important person in Robert's life.
"No one has ever produced a shred of evidence linking him with Madeleine's disappearance. This has totally ruined his life and he does not deserve that."
Indeed, Dawn reveals that last month Murat secretly travelled to Britain to see Sofia during half-term and she allowed their daughter to stay with him overnight at the Devon home of Murat's sister Sam.
"If I had thought for just one second that Robert was involved in Madeleine's disappearance I wouldn't let Sofia near him, but I trust him with her 100 per cent," says Dawn.
What makes Dawn's unswerving support for her former husband all the more remarkable is the fact that he doesn't really deserve it.
She has every reason to hate him for the way he callously ended their marriage two years ago and for the upheaval his arguido status has caused them since May: this summer Dawn had to stay with relatives in Devon after Murat received hate mail making threats against his own daughter.
When Robert first became a suspect he was in a terrible state. I was really worried he might kill himself," says Dawn.
"But his thoughts quickly turned to Sofia when he got hate mail. He called me, and though he never told me exactly what was in the letters, he was obviously very frightened for her. I thought it safest to go and stay with my family."
The story Dawn tells gives an intimate and fascinating insight into the character of the man at the centre of the Madeleine mystery.
Dawn was 27 when she first met Robert Murat, eight years her junior, through her sister who lives in Devon near Murat's family.
Dawn was the unhappily married mother of a six-year-old son, David, and Murat - the son of a British mother and a Portuguese entrepreneur - had moved to Britain from Portugal aged 16 to care for his frail grandmother.
They were friends first, and when Dawn separated from her husband they started a romance.
"At first, my family were against the relationship because they thought he was too young for me," says Dawn.
"But Robert seemed so much older than his years. He was wise, gentle, loving and caring. Soon, my family thought he was fantastic, and he was wonderful with my son. David adored him.
"He never called Robert 'Dad', but when he introduced him to his friends, he'd say: 'This is my father.'
David loved him so much he formally applied to take his surname, Murat, at 17.
"Robert was the kind of person who could walk into a room of strangers and start talking to anyone. He was incredibly sociable and everyone liked him.
"He was very family-orientated from the start and never liked going out to pubs and clubs. He was virtually tee-total."
Murat moved from Devon to live with Dawn in Norfolk and they started talking about having a baby together.
He found work initially at the Bernard Matthews turkey processing plant and then as a car salesman, which suited his outgoing personality.
They married on May 16, 2001, at Gretna Green and were thrilled when Dawn became pregnant with Sofia the following year.
"I remember the night I did the pregnancy test. Rob was out with his friends so I phoned him. He rushed home immediately and came bounding through the door with a huge smile on his face.
"He was by my side when our daughter was born and he was a doting father. The minute he came through the door from work, he'd say 'Where's my baby?' and go straight to her cot and give her a cuddle, even if she was asleep.
"If ever we went to family parties, Robert wouldn't be the one standing there looking at the children, he would be down on the floor playing with them. Everyone was totally enamoured of him."
Murat's father, John, had died when he was 12. It had always been Murat's dream to follow in his late father's footsteps and run his own business, and it was he who suggested they move to Portugal to turn this dream into reality.
So when Sofia was two, Dawn and Robert moved into his mother's villa in Praia Da Luz with their daughter, leaving David - who was by now almost 18 and wanted to stay in Britain - at the Norfolk house.
"At first it was fantastic living in Portugal in a lovely villa with its own pool, and Robert's mother was like a second mum to me, but it soon wore off,"says Dawn, a former office worker.
"Robert got a job selling properties and was putting in so many hours that we hardly ever saw him. Sofia would keep asking me 'Why can't Daddy take me to the beach?' or 'Why isn't Daddy home?' and we started arguing about the time he was spending away from us. I was also incredibly isolated. I couldn't speak the language and couldn't get a job."
The rows became so fierce and Dawn's unhappiness so apparent that Murat suggested she go back to Britain for a break.
He said he would join her there in a few weeks; they'd spend some time together before returning to Portugal to start afresh.
"As soon as I got home, Robert phoned me and said he wasn't coming over and didn't want me to come back," she says. "He said: 'I'm not sure if I still love you or if I want to be with you any more.' It was a complete bolt out of the blue."
Devastated, Dawn was convinced that Murat was simply going through some kind of premature mid-life crisis until she heard her daughter Sofia talking to her mother Margaret.
"They were watching TV and a presenter called Michaela came on. Sofia started telling my mum about her Dad's friend Michaela and how they'd bumped into her when he took her out for an ice cream. Then Sofia said: 'Why were Daddy and Michaela holding hands?'
"I had never met Michaela, but I knew she worked with Robert. I immediately phoned him and demanded to know if he was having an affair. He denied it and said: 'I just need to sort myself out for a bit.'"
Does she think Murat was telling the truth? "Probably not," she says sadly, "but it doesn't matter now."
Yet for six months Dawn held out hope that Murat would come to his senses. But on New Year's Eve 2005 Murat phoned Dawn and said he wanted a divorce.
"I pleaded with him not to leave us," says Dawn. "I had never cheated on him, never lied and had been 100 per cent committed to the marriage.
"He was the love of my life and I felt he had destroyed me. I had a nervous breakdown as a result and was on anti-depressants. I couldn't function."
At the beginning of January 2006, Dawn tried to commit suicide by taking an overdose of prescription drugs. Her son David saved her life when her found her and called for an ambulance.
"I was in despair," says Dawn. "For six months from the time he asked for a divorce, Sofia and I never heard from Robert.
"He has since told me that he wanted to give me time, that he was being cruel to be kind and that it was the hardest six months of his life. I think he regrets it now and he has apologised."
Murat renewed contact only in the summer of 2006 when he heard on the grapevine - falsely, as it turned out - that Dawn was seeing someone new.
"He said: 'I don't want Sofia to have a new Daddy. I will always be Sofia's Daddy.'
"Even though he hadn't spoken to Sofia for six months, the thought of somebody else becoming her father had jolted him back to reality," says Dawn.
That August Sofia and her mother saw Murat when he returned to Britain for the funeral of his grandmother.
All the bitterness over the way Murat had treated her dissipated when she saw how happy Sofia was to see her father again.
In December last year Dawn even met Michaela when she visited Britain with Murat and charitably says now: "She is a very nice woman. Both Robert and I have realised that Sofia is our main priority so we have to get along. I still love him, but I'm not in love with him any more, and I think he still loves me."
Murat visited Sofia in Britain in April this year, staying for a few weeks, and returned to Portugal just two days before Madeleine disappeared - hardly time, he has argued, to plan and execute a kidnapping.
"I remember Rob then phoned me up on May 4 and said 'a little girl's gone missing from Praia da Luz, switch on the news'," says Dawn. "I switched on and there were these pictures of Madeleine McCann and I said: 'Oh my God, she looks just like Sofia.'"
"Robert said 'Where is Sofia, is she OK?' and I told him not to worry, that she was at playgroup."
Dawn believes that the nightmare which followed was all down to Robert's over-eagerness to help the police find a child so strikingly similar to his own.
In Britain he'd occasionally worked for the police as an interpreter - being fluent in both languages - so she says it would have been natural for him to offer to do the same there.
To outsiders, however, Robert Murat's constant presence at the very heart of the investigation appeared to border on the suspicious.
He came across as a bit of an "oddball", and the close proximity of his mother's villa to the McCanns' apartment appeared rather suspect, too.
A journalist, reminded of killer Ian Huntley's eagerness to help the media during the Soham murder hunt, related her suspicions to police.
Murat was subsequently hauled in for questioning, despite his mother Jenny's alibi that he'd spent all evening with her. Their villa was searched, his computer was seized, his mobile phone records examined.
He seemed to fit the description of a man seen hanging around the McCanns' apartment. Claims were made that police had found porn on his computer - fiercely denied by Murat and never officially confirmed - and details emerged of his relationship with Michaela and her curious domestic set-up.
Yet there remains not a single piece of evidence linking him to Madeleine's disappearance, and although he is prevented from speaking out under Portuguese law, his family vehemently insist he is innocent.
Dawn says: "When Robert was first whisked in for questioning by police my reaction was one of total disbelief.
"The Robert Murat you read about is not the person I know. I have yet to meet anyone who has ever known Robert who thinks he was involved in Madeleine's disappearance.
"My family will never forgive Robert for the way he treated me, but not a single one of them thinks he did this.
"When Robert was with me he never watched porn, but what he does have on his computer are hundreds of pictures of his daughter and nieces.
"Yes, some may include them playing naked on the beach, but they are totally innocent. Both Robert and I were brought up never to judge people without knowing all the facts, but people are so swift to judge him.
"My heart goes out to the McCanns and what they've been put through is absolutely horrendous. Personally, I would never leave my children on their own, but I would never condemn them for leaving Madeleine and their twins alone in the apartment.
"I know Praia da Luz, I lived there, and it is quiet and sleepy. When you are on holiday it's very easy to be lulled into a false sense of security and what parent hasn't at some time done something which in hindsight they regret?
"I don't know what happened to Madeleine. I do think she was abducted - predators are everywhere - but I know it wasn't Robert. He doesn't deserve this, and neither does Sofia."
• Additional reporting TOM HENDRY
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-496105/I-know-Robert-Murat-Madeleine-says-ex-wife.htmlTHE FIRST SUSPECT
Robert Murat is placed under investigation and interviewed at the offices of the police in Portimão from 10am. He does not wish for the presence of a lawyer. He is the first suspect who will be declared arguido. As such, he benefits from certain rights, one of them being to remain silent. But he does not assert that right and responds to all questions put to him. Despite obvious nervousness, his statements are clear and precise. (TOTL)
