![](TimesLive9712mcm.jpg) |
Madeleine McCann at age three |
A Cape Town estate developer who claims to have located the remains
of British toddler Madeleine McCann might face criminal
charges for trespassing.
Stephen Birch claims that through extensive research he was able to
trace the three-year-old's burial site to a villa in
Praia da Luz, Portugal, the town in which her parents
reported her missing in May 2007.
After using an underground scanner, Birch said he believed the body
lay beneath the concrete driveway of the home of one of
the main suspects in the case.
To get the evidence he hoped would convince the authorities he
staked out the house for days and climbed over the fence
in the early hours of the morning.
"It took four days using time-lapse cameras to determine the
movement of the people and secondly to determine the
pattern of where the dogs went. On some evenings the big
dogs were in the front and small dogs were in the house.
We had to get our timing right. It was a covert
operation," said Birch.
After filming the find and posting the video on internet website
YouTube, Birch said he had been told that the suspect
was consulting lawyers about the validity of the clip
and whether he could prefer criminal charges.
"I can understand that [the suspect] is very upset. I'm hoping that
he's a level-headed man and that he sees that my
intentions were honourable."
He said the suspect would not allow police to enter his mother's
property to excavate the driveway to prove his
suspicions wrong.
Birch said an extensive 15 months of research led him to the
suspect's back yard in June.
"It became a job; when I start something, whatever I do, I give it
100%."
Birch said his personal quest to investigate the McCann child's
disappearance had cost him about R500000.
He admits he was not immediately interested in the case after
hearing about it from a tenant of one of his buildings.
"My core business is property but I went on to Google and happened
to see a video of Madeleine McCann.
"I saw the video clip of her mothering and looking after her two
siblings. It was a heart-wrenching video," said Birch.
McCann went missing from a holiday flat in 2007 while on holiday
with her two-year-old twin siblings and parents Kate and
Gerry. The children were unsupervised while their
parents went out for dinner at a nearby restaurant.
Birch said that he had never spoken to the McCanns. |