Many Maddie look-alikes have been reported since she disappeared in 2007

MORE than five years after Madeleine McCann’s disappearance, the media spotlight remains firmly on the little girl’s fate.

Despite continued speculation about her whereabouts and a consistent stream of potential sightings, the trail remains cold.

With each story that appears, hope is temporarily revived only for it to seemingly be dashed again, but the media has a duty to keep these cases in the public domain.

However unlikely or tenuous the link may be, there remains the possibility that one piece of evidence could become a vital piece in the jigsaw.

The danger is that the story becomes a case of the boy who cried wolf, and that when a genuine sighting emerges, no one takes it seriously.

Either way, the real tragedy of the case is that there are thousands of other missing children around the world who do not have the benefit of worldwide media interest in their fate