Dog handler and ex-PC Martin Grimes is seen working with the dogs, named Keela and Eddie, while Portuguese detectives look on.

He remarks on camera that Keela will detect 'very old' blood. Yet local cops quickly leapt on the findings.

Shortly after the dogs were drafted in, police made Kate and Gerry, both 40, 'arguidos' . official suspects.

Cleared

Although the couple, from Rothley, Leics, were eventually cleared, they went through ten months of added hell as they led the search for Maddie, who has still not been found.

Last night ex-Flying Squad commander John O'Connor said: 'I find it absolutely appalling the detectives can treat the McCanns as official suspects on the back of such flimsy evidence.'

 

The Sun's never-before-seen footage gives the true picture of how the investigation was conducted.

It shows the dogs in the McCanns' Algarve holiday home ' apartment 5A of the Ocean Club in Praia de Luz.

Eddie is first to be taken into the two-bed apartment and spends nearly 30 minutes sniffing around.

He barks twice ' once in a bedroom and once at a spot behind a sofa underneath a living room window.

Martin says: 'As soon as I came in the dog is very excited. From his body language it would appear he has picked up a scent that he recognises.

'There is enough scent there for him to give me a bark indication.'

After Eddie leaves the apartment, Martin takes in Keela. She can be seen freezing ' a sign she has found something ' underneath the window where Eddie had earlier barked.

Martin says on camera: 'The crime scene dog has given me a positive indication. That indicates to me there is some human blood there. She will detect blood that is very old and find anybody's blood.'

While Portuguese cops carried out DNA tests on 'fluids' found in the flat, it has never been revealed if any blood was found.

Detectives also asked Martin to use his dogs on the McCanns' hire car.

Eddie is seen barking at the driver's door before standing still in the boot, then scrabbling in one corner.

Martin says: 'We had a reaction from the dog. The scent is coming out of the sealed door.'

The dogs also sniffed items of clothing ' and the film shows Eddie again picking up a scent on some of Kate's.

The family GP has insisted she came into contact with at least SIX dead bodies before going on holiday with her husband and three children.

Martin and the spaniels are then taken round the apartment hired by the McCanns after Maddie vanished. No evidence is uncovered there.

Portuguese police used the findings as a basis for their theory that Maddie had died in the family's apartment on the night she went missing.

The scent in the car convinced them the couple had hidden her body and later disposed of it, despite the world's media watching their every movement.

Police files released last month showed that all DNA evidence against the McCanns had proved inconclusive.

Mr O'Connor, with more than 30 years' police experience, last night blasted the 'ridiculous' Portuguese probe.

He said: 'This clearly shows they were clutching at straws. It seems to me they have used the dogs to reinforce their own prejudices.

'As far as I am concerned they suspected Kate and Gerry or their party of being involved from day one.

'They made up their mind so, when the dogs detected the scent, as far as they were concerned that was it.

'But the dogs found nothing that could be used as evidence in a court of law. They are a tool to finding conclusive evidence, nothing more