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Original Source:
EXPRESS: 07 JANUARY 2008 |
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Monday January 7,2008 |
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AN intruder tried to break in to Madeleine McCann’s holiday apartment just days
before she vanished, the Daily Express can reveal.
British holidaymaker Paul Gordon confronted a man trying to get in through the
patio doors of flat 5A at the Ocean Club Resort in Praia da Luz where his two
young children were sleeping.
Mr Gordon was so convinced it was linked to Madeleine’s disappearance on May 3
he contacted British police immediately he heard she had gone missing.
But Portuguese detectives have never interviewed him to ask about the intruder
who has not been identified by any other witness.
Mr Gordon, 34, a salesman, from Fareham,
Hampshire, said: “I find it incredible that no one has tried to work out who
this person was who came to the apartment unannounced just days before
Madeleine McCann went missing.”
Recalling the incident at the ground floor apartment in April last year, Mr
Gordon said: “I came across someone at the flat. I now believe he was
suspicious.
“He said he was collecting donations for an orphanage in the mountains. But he
did not come to the front door.
“And it happened in the middle of the day when most people are out. He must
have been staking out the property, or worse.”
He added: “We used the creche facilities a few times in the morning and a
couple of times in the afternoon but we didn’t go out without the children or
use a babysitter.”
Mr Gordon was midway through a two-week Mark Warner holiday with his wife and
two children, aged one and two, when he confronted the man at the doors of the
patio through which Madeleine is thought to have been taken.
The doors are at the back of the apartment, hidden from the main road by a high
hedge. The intruder, described as “definitely not British”, engaged Mr Gordon
in conversation.
He even convinced the father to fetch something, allowing him time to survey
the layout of the apartment and the flimsy state of the locks securing the
patio doors.
Relaxed and enjoying his holiday, Mr Gordon did not think anything about the
incident at the time.
But he and his wife, Saleigh, were struck by its significance the moment they
heard Madeleine had gone missing from the same apartment.
The couple provided written statements to British police as well as
fingerprints and DNA samples. Mr Gordon was reinterviewed by Leicestershire
Police in the past few weeks.
And most recently he has spoken to agents from Metodo 3, the private detective
agency hired by the McCanns to find their daughter.
Staff are working on the theory that Madeleine’s abductors used spotters to
target potential victims.
The revelation of the mystery intruder stalking the apartment could provide a
fresh lead in the police investigation that appears to have ground to a halt
recently.
And it follows a chilling series of incidents linked to the flat.
A British nanny has claimed a man tried to kidnap a child from the same
apartment six months before Madeleine went missing.
The unnamed babysitter says she popped out briefly from apartment 5A to get food, and the man
fled empty-handed as she returned.
In November British mum Karen Sixsmith told how she got suspicious when she saw
a woman trying to get into an apartment at the Ocean Club where her daughter
was playing.
She said the woman claimed to be a Jehovah’s Witness and wanted to discuss her
faith. But Mrs Sixsmith said the woman and a male friend seemed anxious to get
inside.
In October a childminder told investigators she saw a man lurking in bushes
outside the holiday apartment. And in September an Ocean Club employee said she
witnessed a British tourist hiding in a stairwell outside Madeleine McCann’s
apartment on the night she disappeared.
Last night the McCann family spokesman, Clarence Mitchell, confirmed Mr
Gordon’s account.
He said: “Mr Gordon has spoken to the police about his time in the apartment.
And our investigative team has spoken with him.
“He said somebody came round to the apartment
5A asking for a charity donation and said it was suspicious.”
Mr Mitchell said Madeleine’s parents, Gerry and Kate, both 39,
have never met Mr Gordon |
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