The information was allegedly kept quiet by tour operators and a British diplomat. Was that acceptable? Why did the diplomat then throw caution to the winds following the disappearance of a child and tell that child's mother about it? Didn't he realise that he was exposing them all to accusations of deceiving British tourists by omission?
The wonder is that the Portuguese police of the time failed to do what Colin Sutton is alleged to have done in his investigations ... that is to dot the i's ~ cross the t's and go that extra mile.
The Portuguese police of the time appear to have paid scant regard to looking for let alone apprehend the perpetrator who assaulted children in their beds while their parents slept in the next room.
Don't you think a police officer of Sutton's calibre given the evidence available in 2007 might not have checked out links between assaults on British girls ... and the disappearances of Joana Cipriano (difficult for the Portuguese I know since they had already 'solved' Joana's case and saw her mother jailed for her murder) and Madeleine McCann.
There are actually quite a few British child victims of crime who have been denied justice and that can only be due to the Portuguese police failure and not the civilians you blame.
Would Sutton have squandered the golden hours had he been in charge of the Portuguese investigation when it mattered in 2007?
Given his eye for detail do you think he would have ignored reports of a man entering holiday lets and the beds of children in a case involving a child disappearing from her bed in a holiday let?
I don't think he would have ignored all or any of that if his record is anything to go by.