Portuguese police ignored 'kidnapper in the shadows' outside Madeleine's bedroom

Police failed to investigate a previous suspected abduction attempt from Kate and Gerry McCann's holiday apartment, it was disclosed yesterday.

A babysitter spotted a man lurking in the shadows outside apartment 5A while she was looking after a young girl inside.

But Portuguese police searching for missing Madeleine McCann dismissed her account as 'irrelevant' and refused to investigate.

The failure, one of a host of missed opportunities, was revealed in the mammoth files released last week.

It emerged as police in Belgium continued to trawl through CCTV footage from a bank in Brussels where a security guard reported seeing a girl resembling Madeleine last week.

The McCanns' private detectives are working on a theory that Madeleine was abducted and taken to Belgium on the orders of a paedophile gang who had seen a photograph of her taken by a 'spotter' in Portugal.

Family spokesman Clarence Mitchell said their detectives were working on all the missed clues in the police files.

He said: 'Kate and Gerry hoped from the outset that the police were following up every lead in the most thorough and professional manner possible. Where any information is found not to have been followed up, our investigators are working on it, all of it.'

The case files showed that Margaret Hall, a babysitter at the Mark Warner resort, was interviewed by detectives working for the McCanns from the Spanish-based agency Metodo 3 last year.

They handed their report, marked 'Very Confidential', to the Portuguese police.

It said Miss Hall had been in apartment 5A with a young girl in September 2006 - eight months before Madeleine's disappearance - when she heard a noise outside.

She went to investigate, the statement said, adding: 'In a dark area she noticed something was moving and thought it was a rat.

'She was shocked when, on closer examination, she saw it was the brown shoe of a man. She shouted and the man came out of the darkness, activating movement-sensitive lights. He walked towards her, saying "No, no".'

The incident happened on a Thursday night - the same night Madeleine was taken.
Madeleine parents Kate and Gerry McCann pictured in Portugal last year

Madeleine's parents Kate and Gerry McCann pictured in Portugal last year

But an internal Portuguese police memo said the report 'seems to us to be out-dated and of no relevance to the material under investigation'.

Detectives also failed to question George Brooks, 61, from Liverpool, who reported seeing a couple carrying a child near the local marina only hours after Madeleine vanished.

A friend of the McCanns, of Rothley, Leicestershire, said last night: 'The way the Policia Judiciaria dismissed a lot of the leads is astonishing. At the moment Kate and Gerry are concentrating on the Belgium sighting, as it was the most recent.'

A guard at the KBC bank in Brussels says he saw a blonde, blue-eyed girl with a Moroccan-looking woman last Monday.

The McCanns now have detectives working around the world at a reported cost of £166,000 a month.

Among the possible sightings they are following up, also apparently ignored by the Portuguese, is one by a British yachtsman on the Caribbean island of Margarita last May.

Trevor Francis, 64, of Worthing, West Sussex, said: 'I saw the little blemish in her right eye. She was the absolute image of Madeleine.'

He said the girl was in a restaurant with three women who looked Spanish. She seemed 'sullen' and refused to eat

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1043469/Portuguese-police-ignored-kidnapper-shadows-outside-Madeleines-bedroom.html
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Now why doesn't that surprise me???? And also they didn't question the Liverpool man George brooks???Why not...do they assume their way through an investigation or do they investigate their way through it.IMO the pj have hidden these files becasue they know dam well what a complete and utter shambles they have made of this little girls plight.Im only pleased it aint my daughter coz i would personally hunt down gonc and cut of his blood supply with my bare hands.What a complete waste of space he is.

So this is two reports we read in the papers last year which turned out to be true!

Why the hell didn't gormless Gonc get off of his lardy arse and investigate this? Why did he deem george Brooks info as not relevant but listened to someone elses who said they saw a man carrying a child towards the Marina?

Couldn't be that they both gave their information went away and one decided to change his story to say that he just remembered that this man must be Gerry because he held his child in a certain way even though he did not see the face! And George Bank's didn't change his story and so it wasn't any use to LudicrousLardy?

Could not organise a #### up in a brewery!

Portuguese police tactics under fire

A FORMER top cop says he is stunned by suggestions that Portuguese police tried to “bluff” the parents of Madeleine McCann into a confession on the basis of dubious DNA evidence.

Graeme Pearson, ex-head of crime at Strathclyde Police and recently retired boss of the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency, has also expressed disbelief the Portuguese refused to release e-fits of potential suspects.

Mr Pearson is adamant that last week’s release of files detailing the police probe has sparked more questions than answers.

Documents reveal detectives claimed the young girl’s DNA had been found in her parents’ hire car despite a British scientist’s warning tests were inconclusive.

It’s been suggested it was a bid to get the McCanns to confess.

Duty bound

Mr Pearson said, “If there is genuine evidence you’re duty bound to put it to the family. But to try to ‘bluff’ them or invent a scenario to get a resolution doesn’t seem best practice.”

The former detective admits he was surprised by the information in the files about images of potential suspects.

Portuguese police drew up two e-fits of suspicious men seen hanging around Praia da Luz before Madeleine went missing but never made them public.

He said, “If you’ve gone to the bother of bringing witnesses in and getting e-fits, the inclination is to get that out to the public to see if somebody identifies them.”

Another revelation was a shop worker in Amsterdam reporting speaking to a little girl named Maddie who said, “They took me from my holiday”.

Mr Pearson said there was an apparent lack of information in the paperwork about how such reports were followed up.

“In the UK we use HOLMES — the Home Office Large Major Enquiry System. That means reports are allocated to a specific officer, who investigates them and brings them back to a senior colleague, who can ask for more information before satisfying himself everything possible has been done.

Review

“The officer in charge of the inquiry reviews all the reports as well so all clues are thoroughly looked at.”

Mr Pearson, now head of the Institute for the Study of Serious Organised Crime at Glasgow University, added, “There was a tip-off from a Scotland Yard informant that a paedophile gang from Belgium had Madeleine stolen to order. But you need to be able to judge the quality of the intelligence when looking into a lead like that.”

He also stressed that if British police were struggling as much as the Portuguese did there would be a speedy review of the case by fresh officers or an outside force.

“The system of having a ‘critical friend’ to look over the evidence helps provide insurance for the original team and makes sure nothing has been missed.

“Police files being made public wouldn’t happen here,” he added.

“What if there was eventually a prosecution? A witness could be asked by the defence if he was giving testimony based on his memory of his police statement or what he read later in a newspaper.”

Watching all this come out makes my blood boil. How many more sighting were irrelevant?.
They wouldn't get a job at "Trumpton" or "Toy Town". Gonc you've got a lot to bloody answer for, nothing but a waste of space and bone idle slob to boot. Sue Me you creep Do you :doyouwantdirec

Roll on September


Any complaints about this post rosie please delete it, but its made me feel better :banghead:

Well said chris ,cant see anyone disagreeing with you hunni....and i will stand beside you all the way...me you gonc and a thousand others will join forces with us to i bet.........no good for nothing creep.

Witnesses should wave a ciggar and a bottle rum in his face maybe to get him shifting either that or throw the dog a pie!!!!!

christabel wrote:Watching all this come out makes my blood boil. How many more sighting were irrelevant?.
They wouldn't get a job at "Trumpton" or "Toy Town". Gonc you've got a lot to bloody answer for, nothing but a waste of space and bone idle slob to boot. Sue Me you creep Do you :doyouwantdirec

Roll on September


Any complaints about this post rosie please delete it, but its made me feel better :banghead:

ACTUALLY....I wish t complain about chris's post if i may....Im absolutely gutted at how well she as spoken the truth here and that i couldnt get in first!!! LOLLLLLLL


Well said chris......lard arss has to grease the sides of the bath first by all accounts so he can get his backside in it !!!!LOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL