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Madeleine police question witnesses over McCanns drinking

HOMEPAGE NEWS REPORTS INDEX NEWS NOVEMBER 2007
KATE MCCANN PHOTOS MAIL NEWS SCREENSHOTS 2007 & 2008 MADELEINE PHOTOS
Original Source: MAIL: SUNDAY 04 NOVEMBER 2007
By VANESSA ALLEN and DAVID JONES
21:45pm on 4th November 2007
 
Detectives leading the hunt for Madeleine McCann have questioned witnesses about how much her parents drank on the night she vanished.

They interrogated waiters and other workers at the tapas bar where they ate on May 3, asking: "Were they drunk?" The new head of the investigation, Paulo Rebelo, has even summoned the junior local police officers who were first on the scene to ask whether the group seemed inebriated.

Kate and Gerry McCann have always said they and their seven friends ordered six bottles of wine, but that two remained virtually untouched because they discovered their daughter was missing.

Leaks from inside the police investigation suggested the so-called Tapas Nine ordered daiquiris, martinis and beers before dinner, downed up to 14 bottles of wine with their meal, and usually enjoyed almond liqueur afterwards.

But the group's waiter, Jose Baptista, said they were 'very sensible' about their drinking and usually had eight to ten bottles over the course of two or three hours.

A second worker at the tapas bar, who asked not to be named, said: "They didn't drink any more than anyone else. 'They might have been tipsy but they weren't falling over. Everyone handles drink differently."

The group of four families dined together every night and all left their children sleeping in their own apartments, about 40 metres from the tapas bar.

The local police officers who were summoned to the complex after Mrs McCann realised Madeleine was missing said the group "seemed to be normal" and were not drunk, the Portuguese newspaper Correio da Manha said.

Mr Rebelo has launched a review of every step of the six-month investigation in the hope of discovering a previously unchecked 'loose end' which could crack the case.

But while he insists his methodical "back-to-basics" techniques could still solve the crime, sources told the Sunday Mirror that the investigation is floundering once more and could be shelved by Christmas if a break-through is not made.

The newspaper said its sources believed Madeleine would never be found, and that the case would be downgraded within weeks if Mr Rebelo could not find stronger evidence of what had happened to the four-year-old.

The source said: "There is quite simply no evidence strong enough to use against the McCanns. Unless a new piece of evidence falls out of the sky - some good forensics which will tie everything together - the case will be closed in a few weeks without conclusion."

Mistakes have plagued the investigation. The apartment was not sealed off as a crime scene, meaning all the evidence there was contaminated, and police were allowed to drive the McCanns' hire car and a van belonging to the other named suspect Robert Murat to the police laboratory.

A footprint found on the couple's Renault Scenic was later found to belong to a Portuguese policeman, and a forensic officer continued vital checks on it despite his latex glove splitting half way through.

Mr and Mrs McCann, both 39, have said their worst fear would be never to know what happened to their daughter, and to always be left under a cloud of suspicion.

They have employed Spanish private detective agency Metodo 3 to follow up numerous sightings of Madeleine in Morocco, including two potential sightings of a blonde child with her distinctive fleck in her right eye.

The Mail told last week how Moroccan doctor Naoual Malhi saw the child in Fnideq, as she was bundled into a taxi by an older woman, and now a stallholder in the small coastal town has also claimed to have seen her.

Dr Malhi said: "He said he had seen the girl with the woman when she came to buy cheese and milk from his stall. He said he gave the girl a lollipop and noticed her distinctive right eye."

Metodo 3 have received over 400 calls, including ten new sightings of Madeleine in ten days, and their detectives plan to return to the remote mountain village of Karia ba Mohamed to investigate sightings of a "strange new girl".

A local school inspector said several people had spotted a woman with a blonde child who looked like Madeleine in the farming town, 35 miles north-west of Fez.

But the mayor of the remote district flatly denied the child could be held captive there. Lmfedal Lazar (corr) refused to order a search and scorned reports of sightings.

He snapped: "There are no paedophiles in Morocco so it is quite impossible that this girl is here. You should not even be investigating this. Your duty is to write good things about Morocco so that the tourists will come."

The McCanns' team of detectives are also checking claims that a Portuguese teacher told police she spotted the missing girl at Barcelona airport a few weeks after her disappearance.

Meanwhile, Mr McCann has told friends he plans to resume full-time work in January, after returning to his job part-time last week.

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