Gerry McCann

GERRY McCann has returned to Portugal to help a team of actors working on a Channel 4 film reconstructing the night his daughter Madeleine was abducted.

He has been joined by two of the friends who were on holiday with his family when she went missing, at the age of three.

Jane Tanner and Matthew Oldfield will act as consultants for the reconstruction at the Mark Warner Ocean Club resort at Praia da Luz on the Algarve.

Miss Tanner claims she saw a man carrying a child away from the resort about 9.15pm on May 3, 2007, and is convinced he was the person who took Madeleine. The part of the little girl will be played by the unnamed daughter of a friend of the McCanns. No children will play the McCanns’ twins Sean and Amelie, who were aged two and asleep in the same room as Madeleine when she was taken.

The idea for the film came from private investigators hired by the McCanns who have spent months in Portugal going over local police files and speaking to as many witnesses as they can.

They wanted to stage a reconstruction to give the public and witnesses a clearer account of what happened on the night and the days leading up to the abduction.

Part of the film will concentrate on the suspicious behaviour of a man seen in the area a few days before Madeleine was abducted.

Miss Tanner has gone to the scene because private investigators want to get a full and accurate picture of what she saw on that night, and to ensure the actress playing her follows her exact footsteps. Speaking last year Miss Tanner, who had joined the McCanns in 2007 with her partner Russell O’Brien and their two daughters, said: “Every day I see him there, striding away, carrying Madeleine and I try desperately to remember more detail, what his face was like... it’s horrible. Madeleine was adorable.”

Dr Matthew Oldfield, who had been on holiday with his wife Rachael with the McCanns, was flying to Portugal yesterday. He will also help to recreate an accurate record of what took place.

Others friends who had been on the fateful trip, including David and Fiona Payne and her mother Dianne Webster and Russell O’Brien and Rachael Oldfield, have not flown out to the resort but have given the film their blessing.

Kate McCann, 41, still finds it too upsetting to travel to Praia da Luz and has remained at home in Rothley, Leicestershire, to look after Sean and Amelie.

Clarence Mitchell, spokesman for the McCanns, said: “It’s being done in the hope that it will jog someone’s memory.”

Mark Raphael at Channel 4 said: “We hope this documentary may be able to provide vital new leads.”

The Cutting Edge film will be on Channel 4 on May 7, in the week of the second anniversary of her disappearance. Madeleine’s sixth birthday is on May 12.