Top cop tells of theory Madeleine McCann was bundled away to nearby caves
A SENIOR ex-cop says he believes Madeleine McCann was taken to caves three miles from the resort where she disappeared.
The reports Paulo Pereira Cristovao put himself in the shoes of a kidnapper to develop his theory about the caves, located in the small beach town of Burgau.
He told the Sunday Mirror: “I put myself in the role of someone who knew nothing about the streets or the region. Where would I put the body of a girl?
“It’s a good place to put somebody. As far as I know the police never went there, because you would need divers."
The former boss of Portugal's missing children agency also criticised his fellow officers - saying the case has "lots of mistakes".
He added: “Someone close to those people, or someone from the group, still has not said all that he or she knows about this."
It comes as veteran investigative journalist Danny Collins has revealed he believes he may have uncovered the truth behind the disappearance of little Madeleine McCann.
Having returned to examine the evidence in Portugal’s Algarve, from where three-year-old Madeleine vanished on the evening of May 3, 2007, Collins insists she could NOT have been abducted from her bed.
The writer, who covered the case at the time, is convinced she left the apartment in Praia da Luz looking for her parents before being snatched and possibly sold to gypsies.
His theory is backed up by evidence that discounts claims someone broke into apartment 5A via the bedroom window shutters — because they could ONLY be opened from the inside.
Collins says: “I came across no clear indication that a planned abduction took place that night.
Madeleine awoke and took the opportunity offered by the open patio doors to leave the apartment.”
He believes Madeleine was found and then carried off — in the way described by witnesses Jane Tanner, a friend of parents Gerry and Kate McCann, and holidaymaker Martin Smith and his family.
In the initial panic after returning to their apartment to find Madeleine missing, Gerry and Kate said they believed someone had “jemmied open” the shutters to get into her bedroom.
This led suspicion to wrongly fall on Madeleine’s parents, wasting precious time.
Collins says: “The McCanns overlooked the simplest of truths that would later be seized on by the Portuguese investigators and see them considered prime suspects.
“The metal shutters were impossible to lever upwards more than 1-2cm. Nor did the shutters or the sills on which they rested in the closed position show any marks of an attempt at forced entry.”
Collins returned to Praia da Luz and the Ocean Club holiday complex for an updated edition of his 2008 book Vanished.
While there, he studied video footage and more than 1,000 pages of eyewitness reports.
He also spoke to local and British journalists and listened first-hand to some of the police detectives.
Collins believes that crucial to the investigation was what happened with the shutters over the window to Madeleine’s room.
He says: “The window and patio shutters are made from slats linked together to form a continuous sheet housed on a roller in a box set inside and above the window.
“The roller is controlled by a vertical strap that is set on a ratchet, again contained in the room.
The security feature of the shutter blind is that it is gravity-fed.
Once down, the slats lock into each other and become impossible to break through.”
Portuguese police started to view the McCanns, now both 49, as suspects responsible for Madeleine’s death who were now covering it up.
Collins believes a fear of the damage a child abduction case would do to the country’s tourist trade also led the authorities to be sceptical of the British family’s claims.
He says officers were under pressure to prove it was not an abduction case as, at the time Madeleine went missing, a major trial of paedophile predators was due to take place. This scepticism severely hampered the investigation.
It took police 24 HOURS to notify border guards that a child was missing, losing vital hours in the investigation.
No forensic evidence was sought, fingerprints were not taken correctly and no cordon was set up around the apartment.
British police said it was the “worst preserved” crime scene ever.
A CCTV camera in the complex was not working. Another camera covering the road from the resort was never examined.
Collins says the police appeared interested only in getting the McCanns to admit their own guilt.
According to him, UK police believed Madeleine was most likely the victim of a “crime of opportunity by a hovering paedophile” and they do not discount her wandering out and being carried off, as the author suggests.
During his investigations, Collins was told by Iberian travellers that if Madeleine had been found on the street it was likely she would have been taken and a plan hatched to extract a ransom or reward.
But then, given the immediate high-profile nature of the case, they might have sold her to Romany gypsies.
Collins thinks this is the “most logical conclusion”.
MOST READ IN NEWS
He says: “Three people swore in statements that they had seen a man walking down the street carrying a small child dressed in pink pyjamas, similar to those worn by Madeleine.”
Holidaymaker Gail Cooper also reported seeing a seedy-looking stranger who also fitted Smith’s description during her stay in Praia da Luz days earlier.
Collins says: “Her statement, one of many alleged to have been ignored by DCI Goncalo Amaral (who led the initial hunt) because it didn’t fit in with his own suspicions, would later spark a huge but unsuccessful manhunt across Europe and Morocco.”
Police claim to have tracked down and ruled out these suspects.
But Collins says: “Why would an intruder, who had taken the trouble to stalk the family of a three-year-old, make an entry into the child’s bedroom by stealth then carry her along a street in full view?
“Surely such a careful planner would have had a vehicle waiting in the front car park where he was guaranteed to make his exit?”
His conclusion then is: “Madeleine left apartment 5A of her own free will at around 10pm, passing through the open patio doors.
“Forensics, if they had looked, might have found the imprint of small fingers as the little girl pushed the doors open wider.
“She then exited from the bottom of the steps through the wrought-iron gate into the street, where she was approached and picked up by the man seen by the eyewitnesses.”
Gypsies were suspected of two attempts to snatch kids from apartments in Spain the next year.
In each case, a car waiting outside sped off when the alarm was raised.
Collins says: “Whoever carried off Madeleine that night was a passing itinerant, who saw her as a small child who would bring a handsome profit if sold on in the travelling market of gypsies.”
But Madeleine’s parents insist she would NOT have wandered out, saying she would have had to open a patio door and two gates, one with a child safety lock, and close them afterwards.
Collins went on: “The McCanns were an intelligent couple. He was a consultant cardiologist and she worked as a GP. Both knew nothing about the art of housebreaking.
“They overlooked the simplest of truths that would later be seized on by the Portuguese investigators and see them considered prime suspects.
“The shutters installed on the windows of the apartment blocks were impossible to lever upwards.”
Whatever occurred that night, Collins adds: “I hope, somewhere, a beautiful young teenager is alive.
“For Madeleine will always live on in the memories of those who knew her or followed her story.”
- Madeleine McCann: Ten Years On (John Blake Publishing) is out on May 4, priced £7.99.
DID CALL DIVERT POLICE?
A MYSTERY call reporting a burglary minutes after Madeleine went missing could hold the key to finding her abductor.
Portuguese cops were called to a break-in nine miles from where the tot was snatched as the frantic search began.
The new lead was buried in Portuguese police files.
A detailed analysis of police phone records for the first time reveals how the National Republican Guard police station in nearby Lagos received a call 16 minutes after Madeleine was reported missing – diverting them in the other direction.
One of the only patrol cars on duty was sent to respond to an incident in the town of Odiaxere, northeast of Praia da Luz.
The vital lost hour is now being probed as investigators focus on the theory that the triggering of a burglar alarm could have been used as a ploy to cover the abductor’s escape.
The burglary call was made from a building in the Portuguese capital of Lisbon owned by Securitas Direct Portugal – a firm contracted to oversee alarm systems.
It can also be revealed that traces of Madeleine’s scent from her clothes were not picked up on the night she vanished because local sniffer dogs were attending a police function hundreds of miles away.
Two untrained dogs failed to pick up any clues in the crucial first minutes.
But the day after, trained dogs followed a trail to apartment 5C, two doors from where the McCanns were staying, that was reportedly unoccupied.
Scotland Yard are eager to trace two blond-haired men seen on the balcony of that apartment at 2.30pm on the day of Madeleine’s disappearance.