Kate McCann has told the Leveson Inquiry that she felt like “climbing into a hole and not coming out” when the News of the World printed her intensely personal diary.

She described feeling “violated” by the paper’s publication of the leaked journal, which she began after her daughter Madeleine disappeared on holiday in Portugal in 2007.

Mrs McCann, 43, said the diary – which was so private she did not even show it to her husband Gerry – was her way of communicating with her missing daughter.

She had just returned from church on Sunday September 14 2008 when she received a text message from a friend which read “Saw your diary in the newspapers, heartbreaking. I hope you’re all right”, the press standards inquiry heard.

The News of the World had apparently obtained a translation of her diary from the Portuguese police and published it without her permission, the inquiry was told.