The father of Madeleine McCann has said parts of the UK media made him feel like he was being “suffocated and buried” after the disappearance of his daughter, as he called for greater scrutiny of the press.

Gerry McCann said his family were subjected to “monstering” by sections of the press and are lucky to have “survived”.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that the headlines, hounding and abuse at the hands of the media can damage people’s lives.

He said the press interest into Madeleine’s disappearance in 2007 took a “huge toll” on his family, adding: “And obviously we had sustained interest and misleading headlines for 15 months or more that forced us, forced us to take legal action to stop it.

“But no one, no one wants to go to court.”

He added: “We had tremendous support.

“But I can promise you, there were times where I felt like I was drowning, and it was the media, primarily.

“It was what was happening and the way things were being portrayed, where you were being suffocated and buried, and it felt like there wasn’t a way out.”

Mr McCann said the press “repeatedly interfered” with the investigation into Madeleine’s disappearance.

He said that for months afterwards, his family had journalists coming to his house and photographers “literally ramming their cameras against our car window”, which would terrify the couple’s two-year-old twins.

“Published material which should have been confidential, should be passed on to the police, witness statements, many other things that have gone out,” he added.

“So if you were the perpetrator, you knew a lot more than you should have done – and as a victim, as a parent, it’s absolutely dismaying.”

Mr McCann said that more than a year on from Labour coming into power, “press regulation is no longer a priority”.

He hopes for a resumption of the cancelled second phase of the Lord Leveson Inquiry, which would have looked into unlawful action taken by the media as well as relationships between journalists and politicians and the police.

The McCanns are among more than 30 people who have signed a letter being sent to Sir Keir Starmer, in which they are calling on him to reverse the decision not to hold the second phase of the inquiry.

Mr McCann said he is “extremely disappointed” that Labour politicians had not committed to implementing some of the recommendations made in the first part of the Leveson Inquiry, which they had committed to in the run-up to the election.

He said: “We’re over a year into the government, and there haven’t been any changes.

“It’s not acceptable to me now, more than a year on, that Leveson and press regulation is no longer a priority.”

Madeleine McCann’s disappearance at the age of three from Praia da Luz in Portugal’s Algarve when her family was on holiday in 2007 remains unsolved.

Mr McCann said: “Madeleine’s been missing for 18 years, and the bottom line is, we still don’t know what’s happened to her.”

He said that there is “no evidence”, adding: “I don’t even mean ‘convincing’ evidence – there is no evidence to say she’s dead.

“Now we fully understand she may be dead, it may even be probable, but we don’t know that.”