A RETIRED solicitor has taken the first steps towards bringing a private prosecution against the parents of missing youngster Madeleine McCann.

Tony Bennett, who unsuccessfully tried to bring a private prosecution against celebrity Michael Barrymore over the death of Stuart Lubbock at the entertainer's Roydon home six years ago, has applied for a summons to be issued against Kate and Gerry McCann.

The summons would claim that the McCanns neglected their three children by leaving them in their holiday apartment in Portugal when they went out for dinner in the evenings.

It was during one such evening that four-year-old Madeleine disappeared.

Mr Bennett, of Chippingfield, Harlow, has applied to magistrates in Loughborough, Leicestershire, and is waiting to hear whether the case will proceed further.

A magistrate or District Judge at the court will decide whether a papers should be served, and whether Mr Bennett has provided sufficient evidence that a crime has been committed.

He said: "I'd already got some concerns about the case. I've researched it quite thoroughly over the last six to eight weeks."

Mr Bennett, who alleges the McCanns were guilty of neglect under Section 1 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933. said: "Obviously speaking as a qualified social worker I was concerned that no action was being taken."

Social workers are understood to have spoken to the McCanns but no action has resulted.

The family's spokesman, Clarence Mitchell, said the couple had committed no offence under UK law or any other country's law.

The McCanns left Madeleine, then three, and their two-year-old twins, Sean and Amelie in their holiday apartment in Praia da Luz while they ate at a nearby tapas bar. They and their friends took it in turns to make regular checks on the children.