Oh, Coopermans been resurrected again
NEWS
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‘Maddie’ weirdo targeted our kids
Scruff spotted by second Brit
Wanted ... cops' sketch of oddball
1
EXCLUSIVE
By RYAN PARRY, GARY O’SHEA & JAMES BEAL
Published: 9 hrs ago
A SCRUFFY long-haired man tried to lure away a small child in Portugal just WEEKS before Madeleine McCann was kidnapped, a witness claims.
Missing for 6 years ... Madeleine McCann
He approached a British holidaymaker saying he was a charity collector — while a sinister accomplice watched from a short distance away.
Cops probing Madeleine’s 2007 disappearance now believe the man — also described by TWOother witnesses and similar to police images issued in 2008 — may be key to their investigation.
The Brit holidaymaker, who asked not to be named, said the drugged-up Portuguese man approached her and her five-year-old daughter in Vilamoura — 30 miles from where Madeleine was taken.
She said: “I knew there was something wrong with him, I just wanted to get away from him.
“I felt he was trying to usher us down a cobbled street.
“I could see his accomplice sitting a way away watching us. He was pretending that he wasn’t with the other guy, I could tell.”
The woman, from the North of England, later reported the incident to private detectives hired by Madeleine’s family.
They revealed a villa owner had reported thesame men trying to lure away his daughter in Vilamoura.
His sighting came a month before Madeleine was snatched from her Praia da Luz holiday apartment on May 3, 2007.
Sighting ... Gail Cooper
And The Sun has learned a THIRD witness has been quizzed three times by British detectives over her account of seeing a similar man.
Gran Gail Cooper saw a weirdo on the beach in Praia da Luz staring at a blond boy two days before Madeleine vanished.
The same man later knocked on her door collecting money for charity “for an orphanage”.
Gail, 56, of Newark, Notts, saw the oddball a third time lurking behind kids from a holiday complex.
She said: “He was very intimidating at my door. He kept waving his hands and staring. My grandchildren were in the pool. I just wanted him to go.
“It wasn’t until later that I made the connection to Maddie.”
Last month cops made a Crimewatch appeal to trace bogus charity workers seen around Praia da Luz.
One theory is that Madeleine was taken by an organised crime gang who “cased” her apartment in the days before.