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Original Source:
Express 05 May 2007
[Now removed from internet] |
Saturday
May 5,2007
Mark Reynolds |
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THE
three-year-old daughter of two doctors
is feared kidnapped today after
disappearing during a family holiday in
Portugal.
Police are investigating whether little
Madeleine McCann was snatched from their
ground-floor holiday apartment while
they dined out.
Kate McCann, a GP, and her husband,
Gerry, a heart specialist, had left the
toddler – dressed only in white pyjamas
– sleeping with her two-year-old twin
brother and sister.
As the parents ate in a tapas restaurant
just yards away in Praia da Luz, western
Algarve, on Thursday night, intruders
are feared to have broken through
shutters into the bedroom and abducted
Maddy as she slept. The twins, Amelie
and Sean, were not disturbed.
Specialist anti-kidnap officers from
Britain’s Serious Organised Crime Agency
were heading to the resort last night to
help the Portuguese police.
Sniffer dogs scoured the area for any
signs of the missing youngster. One dog,
after smelling a piece of the child’s
clothes, appeared to pick up the scent
before it disappeared some 50 yards away
outside a local supermarket.
The store’s CCTV was checked – but it
had not been working.
The McCanns, both 38, from Rothley
village, near Leicester, were due to
celebrate Maddy’s fourth birthday next
week.
They issued an emotional statement,
saying: “We have received lots of
support from friends, family and the
public and the family are very grateful
for that support.
“At this time, all the family’s focus is
in assisting the UK, and in particular
the Portuguese, authorities in securing
Madeleine’s safe return.”
The youngster’s aunt, Trish Cameron, of
Dumbarton, near Glasgow, said: “The
phone went last night and it was my
brother Gerry, distraught on the phone,
breaking his heart.
“He said, ‘Madeleine’s been abducted,
she’s been abducted’. They kept going
back to check the kids every half-hour.”
On the last visit, at 10 pm, Mrs McCann
went into the apartment, then ran out,
screaming.
Mrs Cameron said: “The door was lying
open, the window in the bedroom and the
shutters had been jemmied open. Nothing
had been touched in the apartment, no
valuables taken, no passports. They
think someone must have come in the
window and gone out the door with her.
It looks as if somebody has either been
watching, or they’ve targeted her.”
Police were keeping an open mind about
what happened. They were also
investigating whether Maddy could simply
have wandered off.
The apartment block in the Mark Warner
complex is just 200 yards from the sea,
and it was dark by the time the alarm
was raised. But kidnapping remained the
most likely explanation for the
disappearance.
The McCanns had not employed a
baby-minder, although the holiday
company offers a free drop-in creche
service or a paid-for private
babysitter.
Dr McCann is a cardiologist at
Leicester’s Glenfield Hospital. His wife
is a popular family doctor in Melton
Mowbray. A Portuguese police spokesman
said: “They immediately raised the alarm
and a search was begun, but so far there
has been absolutely no sign of the girl.
The fear is she has been abducted.”
Police sealed off the five-storey block
and began taking fingerprints. Three
police vans and three police cars were
at the scene as four uniformed officers
searched the family apartment. Forensic
specialists fingerprinted the window
sill of the McCanns’ ground-floor
apartment.
A patio at the back of the block,
believed to be attached to the family’s
room, was sealed off with tape.
As soon as the disappearance was
discovered, hotel guests joined a
frantic search of the grounds until
4.30am.
Resort hotel manager John Hill said: “It
was a very emotional and very frantic
night and everyone did a fantastic job
of getting involved and trying to search
the area. As you can imagine,
Madeleine’s parents are distraught and
not doing very well at all.”
A Mark Warner spokesman stressed that
the resort offered a “dining out
service” providing creche facilities for
children aged four months to nine years.
“We are all hoping that the child is
asleep under a bush somewhere, and that
we will find her soon,” he said.
He added that there was no physical
evidence that the girl had been
abducted. And he said Mark Warner had
never had a child missing or abducted
before.
Yesterday, Maddy’s grandparents, Brian
and Susan Healy, from Mossley Hill,
Liverpool, flew to join their daughter
Kate. They said she felt the Portuguese
authorities were not doing enough to
find Maddy.
But Portuguese police said every
possible theory was being investigated.
A close friend of the McCanns, Jill
Renwick, said the parents were adamant
their daughter had been abducted.
“They were just watching the hotel room
and going back every half-hour,” she
said.
“They went out about eight, went back in
at nine, they were fine, went back in at
10 – and she was gone. They are very,
very anxious parents and very careful
and they chose Mark Warner because it is
a family-friendly resort.”
Another friend, Pat Perkins, 61, said:
“Gerry and Kate are fantastic parents
and could see the bedroom from the hotel
restaurant.
“Madeleine’s a beautiful little girl.
It’s her fourth birthday soon. They were
supposed to be flying home tomorrow to
celebrate. We can’t believe what’s
happening. We’re sat by the phone
waiting to hear news. We’re all going
through hell.”
Praia da Luz resident Mark McCarrick
said the girl might have simply walked
out of her room.
“The parents left the door ajar so they
could keep going over and looking at
her,” he said. “We are hoping that
because the door was open, she just
walked out.”
The resort, set in sub-tropical gardens,
is made up of self-catering cottages and
low-rise apartment blocks. Though a
popular, quiet holiday haven for
Britons, it has also attracted
“unsavoury types”, mainly burglars, who
target holidaymakers.
Last night, the Foreign Office confirmed
that the British anti-kidnap unit was in
contact with the McCanns’ local police
force and a liaison officer based in
Lisbon was in contact with Portugal’s
police chief. |
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