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London • The parents of Madeleine McCann, whose 2007 disappearance sparked a media frenzy, told a London courtroom Wednesday how they were left distraught by the relentless U.K. press and its insinuations they were responsible for their daughter's death.

Kate and Gerry McCann told Britain's media ethics inquiry that the coverage had hurt their efforts to find their daughter after she vanished during a family vacation in Portugal, shortly before her fourth birthday.

"We were trying to find our daughter and you (the media) are stopping our chances of doing that," Kate McCann said.

"These were desperate times," she said, adding that the couple felt powerless. "When it's your voice against a powerful media, it just doesn't hold weight."

Madeleine's disappearance sparked an international manhunt and intense press coverage. The McCanns said the press was initially sympathetic but soon changed, with some articles implying the couple was hiding something.

The couple successfully sued several British newspapers over suggestions that they had caused their daughter's death and then covered it up.

Prime Minister David Cameron set up the public inquiry into media ethics and practices in response to a still-evolving scandal over phone hacking by tabloid journalists. This week it has taken evidence from celebrities including actor Hugh Grant and comedian Steve Coogan, and from ordinary people left bruised by unwanted media attention.

Gerry McCann said he and his wife did not think their phones had been hacked, but he volunteered to testify at the inquiry "for one simple reason — we feel a system has to be put in place to protect ordinary people from the damage the media can cause."

Inquiry lawyer Robert Jay said the couple had experienced "the good, the bad and the particularly ugly side of the press."

It is still not clear what happened to Madeleine, despite her parents' far-reaching international campaign and numerous reported sightings from around the world.

Earlier, a lawyer for several phone hacking victims said that illegal eavesdropping was widely practiced by Britain's tabloid journalists, producing stories that were both intrusive and untrue.

Mark Lewis said phone hacking was not limited to Rupert Murdoch's News of the World tabloid, which the media mogul shut down earlier this year as outrage grew over the scandal.

"It was a much more widespread practice than just one newspaper," he said.

Lewis claimed that listening in on voice mails was so easy that many journalists regarded it as no more serious than "driving at 35 mph in a 30 mph zone."