'....did not physically search for Madeleine...'
How typical to take a few words out of context and hold them up as proof. Kate was not asked if she never searched for Madeleine, she was asked if she didn't feel she had wanted to join the locals and others who had given up their time in the days/week following the abduction, not on the night it happened - which is when Kate and Gerry searched.
The following day they were at the police station. Do you think they should have refused to attend - on the grounds that they were looking for their daughter? When they returned hundreds of press had arrived - with one aim in mind and that was to photograph and question the McCanns. We've all seen what happens when the 'target' of the press comes into sight. They are mobbed, jostled, have microphones stuck in the faces and questions fired at them. The idea that they would have been allowed by the Press to walk around PdL searching for their daughter unhindered is preposterous.