For eighteen years, Sean McCann has carried a secret so heavy it has shaped every breath he has taken since he was two years old.

Yesterday, in a dimly lit Leicestershire pub on a freezing January afternoon, Madeleine McCann’s younger brother – now 20, broad-shouldered, quiet, and on the cusp of Olympic selection – finally spoke the words that have haunted him since childhood.

“I still blame myself,” he said, voice cracking as tears rolled unchecked down his face. “I was in that room. I was right there, sleeping inches from her. If I’d woken up… if I’d cried out… if I’d just opened my eyes when the door opened… maybe she’d still be here. I’ve replayed that night a million times, and every single time I fall asleep wondering why it wasn’t me who was taken instead.”

The confession, given exclusively to this newspaper after months of gentle negotiation and with the blessing of his parents Kate and Gerry, is the first time any member of the McCann family besides the parents has spoken publicly about the night of May 3, 2007. It is raw, unfiltered, and utterly devastating.

Sean remembers nothing of the holiday in Praia da Luz – he was only two years and three months old – yet fragments have been pieced together for him over the years: the shutters clattering, the cold gust of air, Madeleine’s bed empty when Kate screamed. What he does remember, vividly, is waking up the next morning to chaos, to his mother’s face contorted in a way he had never seen, to strangers in the apartment, to the sudden realisation that his big sister – the girl who bossed him around, who shared her toys, who let him trail after her like a puppy – was gone.

“I know I was a baby,” he continued, staring into his untouched pint. “Logically, I know there was nothing I could have done. But guilt doesn’t care about logic. Every birthday, every Christmas, every time Mum looks at Madeleine’s untouched bedroom, I think: I was right there. I failed her.”

The interview took place just 48 hours after Kate and Gerry’s New Year message expressing hope that 2026 would finally bring “the breakthrough we long for.” It comes at a moment when the family had dared to believe the worst of the storm had passed. Sean is thriving – a chemical engineering student at Loughborough University, a freestyle swimmer ranked among Britain’s best juniors, tipped for Commonwealth Games selection this summer and the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. His twin sister Amelie is studying medicine in the north, outgoing and fiercely protective of her privacy. Outwardly, the McCanns have rebuilt.

But inside, the wound never closed.

Sean’s decision to speak now was triggered by something deeply personal. Last October, during the stalking trial of Julia Wandelt – the Polish woman who tormented the family for years claiming to be Madeleine – Sean sat in court and heard his own childhood fears read aloud. Messages Wandelt sent him on Instagram, letters pushed through the family letterbox, “memories” she claimed to have recovered under hypnosis of their home, their garden, their dog. Hearing them voiced in public cracked something open.

“I realised I’d spent my whole life trying not to add to Mum and Dad’s pain,” he said. “I never asked questions in case it upset them. I never cried about Madeleine in front of them. I thought if I was the perfect son – good grades, medals in the pool, no trouble – maybe that would make up for the one night I didn’t wake up. But keeping it inside nearly destroyed me.”

He described panic attacks before big swim meets, convinced that if he failed, he would be letting Madeleine down again. He told how he still sleeps with a night-light at 20 years old because the dark “feels like that bedroom in Portugal.” How he avoids children’s playgrounds because the sound of little girls laughing makes him physically sick. How he has never once been able to say Madeleine’s name without feeling his throat close.

And then, the most heartbreaking revelation of all.

“When I was about eight,” he whispered, “I asked Mum if she and Dad had hidden Madeleine’s body. I don’t know where it came from – some playground whisper, something I’d overheard. Mum cried so hard she couldn’t speak. Dad just held me and said, ‘Never think that, Sean. Never.’ That was the moment I decided I would carry the blame alone forever, so they wouldn’t have to.”

Kate and Gerry, informed in advance of the interview, released a short statement through their spokesman: “Sean has our full support. We are immensely proud of the man he has become, but we are heartbroken that he has carried this burden. No child should ever feel responsible for something so evil. We hope speaking out will finally allow him to breathe.”

The reaction across Britain has been overwhelming. Within hours of publication, #SeanMcCann trended worldwide. Parents flooded social media with stories of their own children’s survivor guilt after family tragedies. Child psychologists praised his courage, warning that “invisible siblings” in high-profile cases often suffer lifelong trauma. Swimming clubs launched fundraising campaigns in his name for missing children charities.

Yet the confession has also reignited the toxic debate that has shadowed the McCanns for nearly two decades. Online trolls – the same voices that accused Kate and Gerry of everything from sedation to murder – crawled out to claim Sean’s guilt “proves” the parents’ negligence. Others demanded to know why the twins were left alone that night, as if a 20-year-old man must justify decisions made when he was in nappies.

Sean anticipated the hate. “Let them say what they want,” he shrugged, wiping his eyes. “If it keeps Madeleine’s name in the headlines, if it reminds one person to check on their child, then it’s worth it. I just want her face on the front page again. I want the world to remember the little girl with the coloboma in her eye who used to steal my biscuits and call me ‘Seanie-Weanie’.”

He paused, staring out at the grey January sky.

“I don’t remember her voice. That’s what kills me most. Amelie says she thinks she can sometimes hear Maddie laughing in her dreams, but I can’t. All I have are photos and videos. I’m terrified that one day I’ll forget what it felt like to have a big sister.”

Before we parted, Sean pulled a small, worn photograph from his wallet – the famous image of Madeleine in the pink hat, smiling on that last family holiday. On the back, in childish scrawl that must date from when he was barely literate, were the words: “Come home Maddie. I’m sorry I slept.”

He pressed it into my hand.

“Tell people she’s still out there,” he said, voice steady for the first time all afternoon. “Tell them my sister is still missing. And tell them her little brother is still waiting – and always will be.”

As he walked away into the dusk, shoulders squared against the biting wind, it was impossible not to feel that Britain’s longest, saddest mystery had just gained its most poignant voice yet.

Madeleine Beth McCann has been missing for 6,566 days.

Her brother has been blaming himself for every single one of them.

Tonight, for the first time, he is not carrying that blame alone.