That is what I mean, it may not have been perfect but they accepted it and didn't prosecute.
IMO there could be a reason why they accepted it - and not because they believed them.
Revealed: Why the Portuguese police didn’t charge McCanns for children’s ‘abandonment’ after Maddie disappeared
MADELEINE McCann’s parents were not prosecuted for abandoning their daughter
while they dined near by because of “compassion”, law chiefs have claimed.
Portuguese officials thought Brits had “peculiar customs” where it was “natural
for them to leave the two-year-old twin siblings and the other
three-year-old child alone”.
Former minister of internal affairs Rui Pereira slammed Portuguese cops for
not making Kate, 48, and 47-year-old dad Gerry suspects for abandonment.
Madeleine, who was three at the time, was left sleeping in the family’s
holiday apartment in the Algarve resort with her younger twin siblings as
her parents went for dinner with friends in a nearby restaurant.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/archives/news/1151476/revealed-why-the-portuguese-police-didnt-charge-mccanns-for-childrens-abandonment-after-maddie-disappeared/