Claimed sightings of Madeleine McCann

[Brietta]

According to ths video was a language barrier with Spanish police

http://youtu.be/YGPrdCnPTKU

Then phoned LP

I suppose LP directed them to SY?? Seems SY were involved back then?

Good on the couple who made the attempt to follow protocol and were determined enough to keep at it until they were understood.  Wonder why they phoned the Spanish and not the Portuguese police who have jurisdiction in Madeleine's case.

Every time a possible sighting hit the headlines there were inherent dangers if that child actually was Madeleine. 

Sometimes people may have chosen the press approach because of the difficulties and frustration involved when dealing with officialdom, as in the case of the couple in the report.

There is a danger in consigning information to an 'irrelevant' file as Ricardo Piava did because of investment in a belief the child is dead;  but there remains a probability some of that information may have been  been very relevant indeed and there remains the probability that the Scotland Yard appeal has yielded results which for obvious reasons are not in the public domain.




98
Whilst interest in our family has on the whole died down when a new story about Madeleine does arise the papers are still quick to report it.  Unfortunately despite all of the warnings we have given they continue to do so with little or no regard to our family and more importantly the search for Madeleine.

99
We are of course very keen for the press to keep reminding the public that the search for Madeleine is ongoing in the hope that this may generate leads.  However, there are times when the search may have been jeopardised by the publication in the press of sensitive 'intelligence' with no regard for the harm that may be caused.

100
For example in July of this year the Daily Mail reported that Madeleine had been sighted in India.  They did so without contacting Kate or me or any number of the people searching for Madeleine.  Our concern is that this type of reporting has no regard for Madeleine's well being or of how best this information may be used in the investigation.  At worst it has the potential to tip off her abductors that we know where they are, which could have tragic consequences.  It appears to us that publication of 'the story' seems to be more important than potentially apprehending those responsible for Madeleine's disappearance and bringing them to justice.
http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20140122145147/http:/www.levesoninquiry.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Witness-Statement-of-Gerry-McCann.pdf

[mercury]

Good on the couple who made the attempt to follow protocol and were determined enough to keep at it until they were understood.  Wonder why they phoned the Spanish and not the Portuguese police who have jurisdiction in Madeleine's case.

Every time a possible sighting hit the headlines there were inherent dangers if that child actually was Madeleine. 

Sometimes people may have chosen the press approach because of the difficulties and frustration involved when dealing with officialdom, as in the case of the couple in the report.

There is a danger in consigning information to an 'irrelevant' file as Ricardo Piava did because of investment in a belief the child is dead;  but there remains a probability some of that information may have been  been very relevant indeed and there remains the probability that the Scotland Yard appeal has yielded results which for obvious reasons are not in the public domain.




98
Whilst interest in our family has on the whole died down when a new story about Madeleine does arise the papers are still quick to report it.  Unfortunately despite all of the warnings we have given they continue to do so with little or no regard to our family and more importantly the search for Madeleine.

99
We are of course very keen for the press to keep reminding the public that the search for Madeleine is ongoing in the hope that this may generate leads.  However, there are times when the search may have been jeopardised by the publication in the press of sensitive 'intelligence' with no regard for the harm that may be caused.

100
For example in July of this year the Daily Mail reported that Madeleine had been sighted in India.  They did so without contacting Kate or me or any number of the people searching for Madeleine.  Our concern is that this type of reporting has no regard for Madeleine's well being or of how best this information may be used in the investigation.  At worst it has the potential to tip off her abductors that we know where they are, which could have tragic consequences.  It appears to us that publication of 'the story' seems to be more important than potentially apprehending those responsible for Madeleine's disappearance and bringing them to justice.
http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20140122145147/http:/www.levesoninquiry.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Witness-Statement-of-Gerry-McCann.pdf

What has Levenson got to do with anything? Nothing. That was all about Gerry and Kate Mccann complaining about how terribly they were treated by the press. IIRC Gerry said there was no other person in its history as maligned as himself.

 &%+((£

Topic is, what "sightngs" could have been Madeleine. And no, the girl in the shop with hair half way down her back, was not. You only have to compare pictures. It's not hard.

[Brietta]

In how many of the sightings of children who looked like Madeleine has the child been traced and properly eliminated from the inquiry as in the New Zealand sighting and the Australian one.

For example there were many sightings in Malta which were reported to police by many different people.
Suggesting that either Madeleine or a little girl looking very much like her was on the island in the months following Madeleine's disappearance.

It seems that analysis of a photograph is as far as the authorities may have travelled in eliminating lookalikes from the inquiry.
http://www.maltamedia.com/artman2/publish/law_order/article_2386.shtml

The child seen in India in common with Australia and New Zealand was properly checked out despite Madeleine's parents doubting it was her from the photograph they saw; a DNA test had the final word.


Quote
The girl was walking through a market place with a Belgian man and his French wife when she was spotted by the tourist.

A DNA test is being carried out to see if the child is Madeleine - although her parents have already discounted the potential lead.

The McCann's spokesman Clarence Mitchell said: 'Kate and Gerry do not believe the child seen in India was Madeleine. They have seen photographic evidence and concluded that it was not her.

'We remain grateful for people's vigilance around the world. Madeleine is still out there and the search for her very much continues.'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2020172/Madeleine-McCann-India-Tourist-convinced-blonde-child-her.html#ixzz3iUfo0lrQ

[mercury]

How many? You need to read the sightings sections in the files to answer that. I doubt the police can DNA test every girl spotted, who the spotter thought was/might have been Madeleine Mccann. Especially if they had no way to find them.
Don't forget the Mccanns have said on TV none of the sightings reported resonated with them, except one or two (but when asked, couldn't remember which ones). How odd. Also, don't you thnk all these "sightngs" in broad daylight all over the place, in busy cafes, airports, banks, restaraunts, and the rest, seem at odds with the fact that Madeleine Mccann's  picture and story was all over the press and TV 24/7? for so long?

[Brietta]

How many? You need to read the sightings sections in the files to answer that. I doubt the police can DNA test every girl spotted, who the spotter thought was/might have been Madeleine Mccann. Especially if they had no way to find them.
Don't forget the Mccanns have said on TV none of the sightings reported resonated with them, except one or two (but when asked, couldn't remember which ones). How odd. Also, don't you thnk all these "sightngs" in broad daylight all over the place, in busy cafes, airports, banks, restaraunts, and the rest, seem at odds with the fact that Madeleine Mccann's  picture and story was all over the press and TV 24/7? for so long?

That's a novel way of searching for a missing person.

• Publicise their image on the media.
• Make appeals for information.
• Then when people respond with information.
• Either file it as irrelevant to the inquiry ~ or fail to check it out thoroughly if in one or two cases DNA testing might be relevant

No Madeleine match after DNA test
    
DNA test results from a restaurant in Belgium have not provided a match with missing four-year-old Madeleine McCann.

The DNA - taken from a drink bottle and straw after a girl was seen with a man at a cafe - matched that of a man, prosecutors in Tongeren town said.

It "doesn't mean that the presence of Maddie is excluded", they added.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6936214.stm


I am not familiar with what the Drs McCann may have said in TV interviews regarding sightings of children who look like Madeleine but if one or two have resonated do you think it inappropriate that these should be investigated … and bearing in mind that Madeleine's appearance will have changed … have you any ideas other than DNA testing how these may be confirmed or rejected.

[mercury]

That's a novel way of searching for a missing person.

• Publicise their image on the media.
• Make appeals for information.
• Then when people respond with information.
• Either file it as irrelevant to the inquiry ~ or fail to check it out thoroughly if in one or two cases DNA testing might be relevant

That is a little disingenuous as the police did follow up sightngs before the case was shelved...LOTS of them

No Madeleine match after DNA test
    
DNA test results from a restaurant in Belgium have not provided a match with missing four-year-old Madeleine McCann.

The DNA - taken from a drink bottle and straw after a girl was seen with a man at a cafe - matched that of a man, prosecutors in Tongeren town said.

It "doesn't mean that the presence of Maddie is excluded", they added.

So, no evidence whatsoever of a girl's DNA on a bottle she was supposedly drinking from, makes you wonder if there was any girl there


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6936214.stm


I am not familiar with what the Drs McCann may have said in TV interviews regarding sightings of children who look like Madeleine but if one or two have resonated do you think it inappropriate that these should be investigated … and bearing in mind that Madeleine's appearance will have changed … have you any ideas other than DNA testing how these may be confirmed or rejected.

Most sightings were at a time where her appearance will not have changed.

For your info and bearing in mind the Mccanns knew of what sightings they were referring to (ie were informed)

And before you get apoplectic because its a HDH video, and could havebeen "tampered with" the full version

[Brietta]

That's a novel way of searching for a missing person.

• Publicise their image on the media.
• Make appeals for information.
• Then when people respond with information.
• Either file it as irrelevant to the inquiry ~ or fail to check it out thoroughly if in one or two cases DNA testing might be relevant

That is a little disingenuous as the police did follow up sightngs before the case was shelved...LOTS of them

No Madeleine match after DNA test
    
DNA test results from a restaurant in Belgium have not provided a match with missing four-year-old Madeleine McCann.

The DNA - taken from a drink bottle and straw after a girl was seen with a man at a cafe - matched that of a man, prosecutors in Tongeren town said.

It "doesn't mean that the presence of Maddie is excluded", they added.

So, no evidence whatsoever of a girl's DNA on a bottle she was supposedly drinking from, makes you wonder if there was any girl there


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6936214.stm


I am not familiar with what the Drs McCann may have said in TV interviews regarding sightings of children who look like Madeleine but if one or two have resonated do you think it inappropriate that these should be investigated … and bearing in mind that Madeleine's appearance will have changed … have you any ideas other than DNA testing how these may be confirmed or rejected.

Most sightings were at a time where her appearance will not have changed.

For your info and bearing in mind the Mccanns knew of what sightings they were referring to (ie were informed)


And before you get apoplectic because its a HDH video, and could havebeen "tampered with" the full version

You may have missed that the Drs McCann do not refer to specifics regarding Madeleine and I think that was the case here. 

However had it been filmed after Ricardo Paiva's announcement in court about information received by the PJ and ignored Sandra might very well have had very different line of questioning.


Portuguese police 'ignored hundreds of sightings' in search for Madeleine McCann
By VANESSA ALLEN FOR THE DAILY MAIL
UPDATED: 05:22, 12 February 2010

Portuguese police faced growing pressure to reopen the Madeleine McCann investigation yesterday, amid claims they ignored potential sightings of the missing girl.

Detectives have refused to investigate hundreds of clues about the disappearance, including photographs of children said to bear a 'shocking' resemblance to the blonde youngster.

They include a cluster of sightings in Italy and Spain which could hold the key to solving the mystery and ending the years of heartache suffered by her parents, Kate and Gerry McCann.

But instead they have gone unchecked, marked as 'irrelevant' after the case was shelved, and left to gather dust in a police archive.

The McCanns' private detectives, who are continuing the search for the missing child, did not even know the dossier existed until a Portuguese policeman let slip a reference to it during a legal hearing.

Inspector Ricardo Paiva said police had received hundreds of tip-offs from witnesses convinced they had seen Madeleine and knew where she was being held.

They sent in photographs of children and of locations which they believed were being used by her abductor, believing that police would investigate their claims.

But arrogant detectives were so convinced by their own theory that Madeleine died on the night she disappeared, and that her parents faked her abduction, that they made no attempt to check the sightings.

The McCanns' lawyer, Isabel Duarte, has seen the dossier. She said every single statement had the same phrase scrawled across it: 'This is not relevant to the investigation.'

She said: 'I was shocked at how much was in there, and that absolutely nothing had been done to follow any of it up.
'Every piece of information was treated the same way - Ricardo Paiva writes on it "This is not relevant to the investigation".
'He is the witness who declared in court that he believed Madeleine is dead. You cannot find a person when you are not looking for them.'

Mr Paiva gave evidence at a legal hearing over a controversial book, written by his former boss, Goncalo Amaral.
He admitted that Mr Amaral's insistence that Madeleine died on May 3, 2007, meant the police investigation had failed to consider other options.

Mrs Duarte said they had not investigated any tip-offs since the case was officially shelved, in July 2008, when the McCanns were cleared as official suspects in the investigation.
She said information had continued to pour in from potential witnesses and even from other police forces in Europe, but was ignored, even when the clues including photographs of girls who looked like Madeleine.
The lawyer said: 'Some of them are very, very similar to Madeleine. But Kate and Gerry had never been shown them.
'There was information from Leicestershire Police, French police, Spanish police, and again nothing was done about it.

'Kate and Gerry did not even know this file existed until this week. I am going to give a copy of the file to them so that their private investigation team can follow up the information in it.

'But I am angry because it is the Portuguese investigative police who should be doing this job.

‘They have the power and the capability to do it. It is they who should be doing it, not Kate and Gerry.'
Mr and Mrs McCann, both 41, will discover next week if they have won their court bid to keep an injunction which bans Mr Amaral from repeating his vile claims that their daughter died in a 'tragic accident' and that they faked her abduction to cover up the death.

Their spokesman Clarence Mitchell said they had been shocked to discover the full extent of the Portuguese police's failure to investigate Madeleine's disappearance.
He said it had confirmed their worst fears about the investigation, saying: 'They were shocked when they went through the file and saw what was in it, and even worse what little had been done to follow any of it up.
'Kate and Gerry have consistently known that potential fresh information was not being properly followed up, if at all.

'The tragedy of this case, which once again has been highlighted by this, is what little was done to find Madeleine.
‘Kate and Gerry will have to do it themselves as they have been doing. They are the only ones looking for her.'

Mr Paiva said he could not discuss the case. He said: 'I cannot comment, in accordance with Portuguese law.'
 

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1250419/Portuguese-police-ignored-hundreds-sightings-search-Madeleine-McCann.html#ixzz3iY1WstrL

[Alice Purjorick]

You may have missed that the Drs McCann do not refer to specifics regarding Madeleine and I think that was the case here. 

However had it been filmed after Ricardo Paiva's announcement in court about information received by the PJ and ignored Sandra might very well have had very different line of questioning.


Portuguese police 'ignored hundreds of sightings' in search for Madeleine McCann
By VANESSA ALLEN FOR THE DAILY MAIL
UPDATED: 05:22, 12 February 2010

Portuguese police faced growing pressure to reopen the Madeleine McCann investigation yesterday, amid claims they ignored potential sightings of the missing girl.

Detectives have refused to investigate hundreds of clues about the disappearance, including photographs of children said to bear a 'shocking' resemblance to the blonde youngster.

They include a cluster of sightings in Italy and Spain which could hold the key to solving the mystery and ending the years of heartache suffered by her parents, Kate and Gerry McCann.

But instead they have gone unchecked, marked as 'irrelevant' after the case was shelved, and left to gather dust in a police archive.

The McCanns' private detectives, who are continuing the search for the missing child, did not even know the dossier existed until a Portuguese policeman let slip a reference to it during a legal hearing.

Inspector Ricardo Paiva said police had received hundreds of tip-offs from witnesses convinced they had seen Madeleine and knew where she was being held.

They sent in photographs of children and of locations which they believed were being used by her abductor, believing that police would investigate their claims.

But arrogant detectives were so convinced by their own theory that Madeleine died on the night she disappeared, and that her parents faked her abduction, that they made no attempt to check the sightings.

The McCanns' lawyer, Isabel Duarte, has seen the dossier. She said every single statement had the same phrase scrawled across it: 'This is not relevant to the investigation.'

She said: 'I was shocked at how much was in there, and that absolutely nothing had been done to follow any of it up.
'Every piece of information was treated the same way - Ricardo Paiva writes on it "This is not relevant to the investigation".
'He is the witness who declared in court that he believed Madeleine is dead. You cannot find a person when you are not looking for them.'

Mr Paiva gave evidence at a legal hearing over a controversial book, written by his former boss, Goncalo Amaral.
He admitted that Mr Amaral's insistence that Madeleine died on May 3, 2007, meant the police investigation had failed to consider other options.

Mrs Duarte said they had not investigated any tip-offs since the case was officially shelved, in July 2008, when the McCanns were cleared as official suspects in the investigation.
She said information had continued to pour in from potential witnesses and even from other police forces in Europe, but was ignored, even when the clues including photographs of girls who looked like Madeleine.
The lawyer said: 'Some of them are very, very similar to Madeleine. But Kate and Gerry had never been shown them.
'There was information from Leicestershire Police, French police, Spanish police, and again nothing was done about it.

'Kate and Gerry did not even know this file existed until this week. I am going to give a copy of the file to them so that their private investigation team can follow up the information in it.

'But I am angry because it is the Portuguese investigative police who should be doing this job.

‘They have the power and the capability to do it. It is they who should be doing it, not Kate and Gerry.'
Mr and Mrs McCann, both 41, will discover next week if they have won their court bid to keep an injunction which bans Mr Amaral from repeating his vile claims that their daughter died in a 'tragic accident' and that they faked her abduction to cover up the death.

Their spokesman Clarence Mitchell said they had been shocked to discover the full extent of the Portuguese police's failure to investigate Madeleine's disappearance.
He said it had confirmed their worst fears about the investigation, saying: 'They were shocked when they went through the file and saw what was in it, and even worse what little had been done to follow any of it up.
'Kate and Gerry have consistently known that potential fresh information was not being properly followed up, if at all.

'The tragedy of this case, which once again has been highlighted by this, is what little was done to find Madeleine.
‘Kate and Gerry will have to do it themselves as they have been doing. They are the only ones looking for her.'

Mr Paiva said he could not discuss the case. He said: 'I cannot comment, in accordance with Portuguese law.'
 

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1250419/Portuguese-police-ignored-hundreds-sightings-search-Madeleine-McCann.html#ixzz3iY1WstrL

I wonder how that stacks up against the reports that DCI Redwood's review revealed 38 persons of interest and maybe a few dozen leads?

[mercury]

I wonder how that stacks up against the reports that DCI Redwood's review revealed 38 persons of interest and maybe a few dozen leads?

16 dozen plus, as it was 195

 &%+((£


But excellent question!

[Brietta]

Madeleine was a highly publicised missing person with the world being aware of her; that there were numerous reports about her is not surprising, that there were so very few spurious or malicious sightings is remarkable too ... nearly everyone seemed anxious to help.

Yet there appears to be a mindset as personified by Ricardo Paiva's 'irrelevant file' that this little girl isn't worth the time and effort for these sightings to be sorted in order of priority and investigated.

[faithlilly]

Madeleine was a highly publicised missing person with the world being aware of her; that there were numerous reports about her is not surprising, that there were so very few spurious or malicious sightings is remarkable too ... nearly everyone seemed anxious to help.

Yet there appears to be a mindset as personified by Ricardo Paiva's 'irrelevant file' that this little girl isn't worth the time and effort for these sightings to be sorted in order of priority and investigated.

The problem with your argument is that we don't know how deeply the sightings were probed before being consigned to the 'irrelevant' file. Perhaps it was as far as humanly possible, as the publication of some of the sightings in the newspapers several weeks later suggests.

[Miss Taken Identity]

Madeleine was a highly publicised missing person with the world being aware of her; that there were numerous reports about her is not surprising, that there were so very few spurious or malicious sightings is remarkable too ... nearly everyone seemed anxious to help.

Yet there appears to be a mindset as personified by Ricardo Paiva's 'irrelevant file' that this little girl isn't worth the time and effort for these sightings to be sorted in order of priority and investigated.

....And so there was a need to have the whole world to look for Madeliene?.. like people in poverty stricken people should just go loooking for her? did her parents go look for her?  did they go and check out the sightings?  they went to Portugal often to sue Amaral  and did Oprah saw the pope...but didn't go look for their daughter...

[Brietta]

I have always been slightly bemused by the apparent horror generated by possible sightings of Madeleine McCann.

For example ... http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6256944.stm  the photograph which purported to show Madeleine in Brazil but was actually a photograph taken after a bomb scare in Ibiza ... gave the sceptic fora some light amusement for a time.

Why concentrate on the fact it was a hoax perpetrated probably for financial gain ... and ignore the question of who the healthy fair-haired girl aged three or four in pink trousers, a green top and a blue hat pictured at a Spanish airport is? and why the near apoplexy engendered when children who may have been Madeleine were reported to the authorities?




No more Fake news!
Original Source: JOANA MORAIS: 15 FEBRUARY 2013

In less than a month we had three Madeleine sightings, one of which was echoed by the parroting world media. Three sightings of dubious origins, three sightings that coincided with, at least, one major development of the McCann couple quest to stifle free speech and now, of a press already threatened by archaic libel laws.

co·in·ci·dence (k-ns-dns, -dns)

n.

1. The state or fact of occupying the same relative position or area in space.

2. A sequence of events that although accidental seems to have been planned or arranged.


For those of us who have followed this case since 2007 coincidences abound. So does spin, purposely published at calculated times to mislead or suppress information. A tactic used often by what has become known as 'Team McCann'.


**Snip
On January 20, 2013 the Express' James Murray, published 'Madeleine McCann kidnap photo shock', claiming that “Officers were happy for us to describe the potentially key evidence which shows a healthy fair-haired girl aged three or four in pink trousers, a green top and a blue hat (...) The photograph was allegedly taken in Brazil in June 2007 (...) The man suggests paedophile Raymond Hewlett, who died of throat cancer, aged 64, in Germany in 2010, was involved with others in the abduction (...) We can also reveal the man has been in contact with Isabel Duarte, Kate and Gerry McCann’s civil lawyer in Lisbon (...) The Yard may send the picture to FBI imaging experts in America for an opinion (...) This week the Yard is expected to ask detectives in Brazil to interview the man before considering whether to fly him to London.”

On the same day, Pamalam, who received an email by the man in Brazil, and Reggie Dunlop (member of The Maddie Case Files), found out that the 'Madeleine McCann kidnap shock picture' was indeed taken in June 2007 but in Ibiza, Spain. It was a picture from Associated Press, that had been published in a BBC news article illustrating the passengers being evacuated from Ibiza's airport after an anonymous bomb threat. I translated the email for Pamalam's site, and it was obvious from the first line, that it was a hoax by someone who had used news reports online to fabricate a story - motivated by money, publicity or something else is anyone's guess.

James Murray, Isabel Duarte, the McCanns, the Yard team, all of them had the same email, with exactly the same picture. None of them thought of tracing back the origins of the picture? None of them thought the wording in that email was bizarre, to say the least. Or did they? It seems other newspapers around the world were wiser, this story wasn't regurgitated anywhere else, except in the 'O Crime' Portuguese weekly tabloid who totally forgot to credit Pamalam and Reggie for debunking the Brazil email hoax.

[Alfred R Jones]

I know lots of people online who have voiced disgust at sightings, blaming the McCanns personally for ruining the lives of these girls who turn out not to be Madeleine.

[Brietta]

Taxi driver 'drove Madeleine McCann, three men and a woman' the night after she disappeared

Driver's claims could provide vital clues in the case

KIRAN RANDHAWA Wednesday 2 May 2012 09:48 BST

A taxi driver who could help solve the mystery of Madeleine McCann’s disappearance has been ignored by Portuguese police, it was revealed today.

A lawyer for her parents told how the man, who says he saw the toddler a day after she vanished, is a crucial witness who could provide vital clues in the case.

Today, on the eve of the fifth anniversary into her disappearance, the cab driver told the Standard, how he has never been interviewed by detectives.

Antonio Castela says a young girl, who looked like Madeleine, got into the back of his taxi with four adults near the Spanish border in the Algarve, the night after she went missing.

Despite telling the Policia Judiciaria, the Portuguese police's investigative unit, what he saw, he has never been questioned.

The 72-year-old said he picked up three men, a woman and a child at 7:50pm on the May 4 2007, from Monte Gordo, about an hour's drive from Praia da Luz, where Madeleine vanished the night before.

He drove them two miles to the Hotel Apolo in Vila Real de Santo Antonio near Faro, where they got into a blue jeep and drove away.

He said: "The little girl, who looked like Madeleine was sat on the lap of a man sitting at the back of the cab. I remember thinking it was odd because they did not speak a word during the entire journey apart from at the end when the man sat in the passenger seat said to me; how much?"

Speaking from his home in Vila Real de Santo Antonio, he added: "Only when I heard about Madeleine going missing and seeing her picture on the TV did I contact the police as the little girl in the back of my taxi had that same distinct mark in her eye as Madeleine does."

Mr Castela, who has been a taxi driver for 23 years, said the girl, who was dressed in pink pyjamas, was awake, but did not speak and was just "staring ahead" as though she had been doped.

"After I went to the police, I never heard anything from them again" he said. "They did not seem to take me seriously and never questioned me. They simply took down the details and that was it. I am amazed that it has been five years and nobody has ever asked me what I saw that night. I am absolutely certain it was her."

Kate and Gerry McCann's lawyer in Portugal, Isabel Duarte, said Mr Castela's account is one of several important leads that the Portuguese police have failed to follow up.

Scotland Yard, which last year launched a £2million review of all known evidence in the case, says there are 195 new leads in the case adding they believe she is still alive.

A team of detectives, based in Oporto in northern Portugal, has been appointed to re-examine the case but so far say there are no credible new facts to justify re-opening the investigation.

Kate and Gerry McCann said today they have "no doubt" that the Portuguese authorities will eventually re-open the investigation into their daughter Madeleine's disappearance.

Police in Portugal said last week they had found "no new element" to justify re-launching their inquiry into how the little girl vanished on a family holiday to the Algarve in May 2007. But the McCanns, speaking on the eve of the fifth anniversary of Madeleine going missing, added their voice to calls from Scotland Yard for the case to be re-opened.

Mr McCann, 43, said: “I think the most important thing is that a lot of the investigation opportunities are in Portugal.

“I think it’s fairly clear that the case will have to be re-opened for those to be pursued adequately.

“We weren’t expecting a knee-jerk reaction by any means. This is an ongoing dialogue, and I am sure the investigation will get opened again in due course.

“I have no doubt about that. It will get re-opened.”

His wife, 44, added: “It’s certainly the best way that we’re going to find Madeleine, and who took her. If people want to find Madeleine, and want to find the person who took her, then we need the case to be re-opened.”

The officer leading Scotland Yard’s review of the original investigation into Madeleine’s disappearance spoke last week of his belief that the case can still be solved and said there is evidence she could still be alive.

Detective Chief Inspector Andy Redwood said the Metropolitan Police would like the case to be re-opened, but stressed that the decision was one for Portugal.

Mr McCann said: “The only way everyone will be able to move on is for the case to be solved, and that is for Madeleine to be found and the perpetrators brought to justice. Until then it’s not going to go away. It can’t go away.”
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/taxi-driver-drove-madeleine-mccann-three-men-and-a-woman-the-night-after-she-disappeared-7706355.html


Does anyone know what the outcome of the above sighting was ... it doesn't appear to have been investigated at the time as Mr Castela reports he was not interviewed.