Last month Scotland Yard detectives flew from the UK to Barcelona, Spain, to re-examine parts of the investigation into the disappearance of British child Madeline McCann, who went missing from a holiday resort in Praia da Luz, Portugal, in 2007 

 While it has not been confirmed by Scotland Yard, it is believed that the detectives travelled to the Spanish city to probe a lead into the girl’s disappearance, a suspicious encounter that took place in Barcelona three days after she vanished.

Details of the incident emerged in 2009 through private detectives hired by the McCanns. It is understood to involve a “glamorous and well turned out Victoria Beckham lookalike” with an Australian or New Zealand accent who also spoke fluent Spanish.

The woman, then in her early thirties, was noticed by two British men on a stag party in Barcelona pacing up and down outside Barcelona Marina’s El Rey de la Gamba bar, in an agitated fashion.

It is claimed that the woman approached one of the men, a British businessman, and asked him: “Are you here to deliver my new daughter?”

The private detectives were convinced the woman might have information as to Madeleine’s whereabouts.

Initial suggestions in the press were that she could have been smuggled by yacht from Praia da Luz to Barcelona.

Reports this week in the Aberdeen Evening Express said that Scotland Yard officers had spent three days with Spanish colleagues in Barcelona last month discussing the girl’s disappearance from Portugal.

Their endeavours are part of a revision of the case in which all relevant information is being examined.

It has also been reported that, since May this year, Scotland Yard detectives have been to Portugal three times.

Toddler Madeleine went missing on 3 May, 2007, days after her fourth birthday.

The investigation into her disappearance was reopened by British Prime Minister David Cameron following a plea from the girl’s parents for an “independent, transparent and thorough revision” of the case. 

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