British witnesses: 'We saw two blond men on balcony next to Madeleine apartment'Two British sisters gave a dramatic account of a pair of strangers watching the Ocean Club pool and tapas bar hours before Madeleine McCann vanished.
In an exclusive interview, Jayne Jensen and Annie Wiltshire told how they saw two blond men in their 30s, standing on the balcony of an empty apartment only a couple of doors away from the McCanns' flat in Praia da Luz.
The women met police three times within 24 hours, tried to find out who the strangers were themselves and made several follow-up phone calls to the authorities.
But it was not until six weeks ago that a formal statement was finally taken.
The two women, both divorcees from Maidstone, Kent, spent 11 hours with British police officers providing details of their evidence and later met private detectives from Metodo 3, the agency employed by the McCanns to find their daughter.
They intended to remain anonymous but when their names were leaked to a Portuguese newspaper and they found themselves wrongly accused of waiting eight months before coming forward, they decided to reveal the truth.
The sisters said they were immediately struck by the behaviour of the two men on the balcony.
The pair, tanned and in Bermuda shorts, were standing outside the patio doors of a groundfloor apartment, which had been unoccupied all week, and were looking out over the resort's family swimming pool and restaurant area.
Mrs Wiltshire, 58, a mother of two, said: "It was odd because I hadn't seen them before. In May the resort wasn't busy.
{1}"There were only about 60 of us staying in the apartments and you got to recognise all the other people.
"One of the guys was walking down the steps and as I looked at him, he walked back up and started talking to the other one.
"They had a view of the whole Ocean Club and the McCanns' apartment. It just showed how easy it would be for anyone to use those balconies to watch the area. It has haunted me ever since."
That evening - May 3 - Madeleine disappeared from her bed as her parents, Gerry and Kate ate dinner with seven friends in the tapas bar.
The sisters, who helped search for the child that night, went to police the next day to report the sighting of the strangers and their concerns.
Mrs Wiltshire, who went on holiday with her sister to recover from a cancer operation, said: "The theory is that Madeleine could have been targeted. This story proves how easily it could have been done but the Portuguese police were not interested.
"It makes you wonder if there are more of us out there who have tried and not succeeded in reporting things they saw but have given up.
"They might not have been as persistent and tenacious as us but we were determined to get the information to the police somehow."
The two women had been in Praia da Luz for a week before the McCanns - Gerry, Kate, three-year-old Madeleine and two-year-old twins Sean and Amelie - arrived with a party of doctors for a short break.
Mrs Jensen and her sister were in the same daily tennis coaching group as Mr McCann. It was organised by Mark Warner, the tour operator which manages the Ocean Club complex.
"We never met Kate," Mrs Jensen said. "And we never socialised with Gerry. We just played tennis."
On the evening of May 3, the sisters ate in the same tapas restaurant as the McCann party.
Neither of them remembers the doctors being rowdy or drinking heavily that night, as other witnesses have suggested.
Mrs Jensen, a bar manager, said: "They were not noisy or dominating the restaurant. They were just a party of friends enjoying a meal."
The sisters finished their dinner and left to walk down into the village for a nightcap.
"We were on the way to the bar when we heard the hue and cry about a missing child," added Mrs Jensen.
"The Mark Warner staff were being called on their phones and everyone thought it was a child who had wandered out of her room, looking for her parents.
"Apparently it had happened before and there was a drill they carried out. I left Annie in the bar and came back up to the apartments to see if I could help. It was only then I realised the scale of the search.
"I went straight into the creche area and checked the play area and Wendy House but found nothing."
"It was hideous when we realised that the little girl had not been found. It really began to hit home that something horrible had happened.
"I thought maybe she had fallen down a manhole, or hit her head. I didn't think she had been taken at that point and we helped search bins and scrubland."
As they and the other holidaymakers combed the area, Mrs Jensen met another member of her tennis coaching group, TV producer Jez Wilkins.
"Jez told me it was Gerry's daughter we were looking for. I hadn't realised before that moment.
"Jez said that he knew Gerry had checked the children because he had met him coming back from the apartment."
As the hours passed without any sighting of Madeleine, Mrs Wiltshire became increasingly concerned about the strangers she had seen the day before.
She said: "I didn't know if it was significant or not but I needed to tell the police in case it helped.
"I got a member of Mark Warner's staff to get a policeman to come and see me and told two officers about the men I had seen.
"I told them they were blond and one had curly hair. One was stockier than the other and they had obviously just opened the gate and walked up to the balcony.
"I showed the policemen the balcony and as I was explaining the circumstances, Robert Murat appeared and started translating for me."
When Mrs Jensen got home, she made a number of calls to police and Crimestoppers. She gave them an outline of the sightings and was told someone would call her back but nobody did.
In September, the two women went back to Praia da Luz to try to make direct contact with the McCanns but as they arrived, Kate and Gerry were made official suspects and left to return to Britain.
The sisters admit they might have let things go at that point but the constant mention of Madeleine in the press kept nagging at them.
In desperation they finally e-mailed the McCanns' spokesman, Clarence Mitchell and told him what they knew.
Within days, they were contacted by Leicestershire police who apologised for the delay and sent an officer round to interview them.
"They were there for 11 hours, finishing at midnight and we finally got to sign a statement," added Mrs Jensen.
"All we wanted was to get the information to the right people. It is just ridiculous that no one would help us."
A spokesman for the McCanns said: "We remain extremely grateful to Annie and Jayne for making the efforts they have to get their information to us.
"They have been trying since day one and have only wanted to help Kate and Gerry find Madeleine.
"They are utterly credible witnesses and we are very grateful to them."
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-504950/British-witnesses-We-saw-blond-men-balcony-Madeleine-apartment.html
