The Twitter account for Madeleine McCann has been shut down (Picture: PA)

The official Madeleine McCann Twitter profile has been shut by her parents after receiving online abuse, amid a dispute with a fellow missing child account dedicated to Ben Needham.

Tension had been building between the two missing persons campaigns in recent weeks after Kerry Needham, whose son Ben vanished 24 years ago in Greece, questioned the huge sum of police money spent on looking for Madeline McCann.

The official Find Madeline Campaign group, endorsed by the McCanns, said it has experienced a spike in abuse over the past few weeks and reportedly blocked the Ben Needham Campaign account.

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The Ben Needham account is still going strong (Picture: Twitter)

Kerry Needham (Picture: PA)

‘They (Kate and Gerry) agree it’s time to remove ourselves from a place that allows so much toxic content to be directed at us and does not permit us the ability to protect ourselves from people who want to damage the search for Madeleine,’ the Official Find Madeleine Campaign Facebook page said.



But the decision to close the account has been criticised by Ms Needham.

‘It feels like a personal attack on me. It is deeply, deeply hurtful,’ she told the Daily Mirror.

‘I have myself had massive amounts of slanderous abuse from supporters of the McCann campaign in the past but I have never taken that personally.

‘I have never criticised the McCann family. I have only ever criticised the authorities for the way the two cases have been handled so differently.’

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Kate McCann and Gerry McCann (Picture: Getty Images)

Three-year-old Madeleine disappeared during a family holiday in Praia da Luz, Portugal, in May 2007 and Ms Needham’s 21-month-old son Ben vanished from the Greek island of Kos in July 1991.

Both families believe their children are still alive.

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