An abductor could have taken Madeleine to a shed, garage or house, I would have thought the police would have searched all sheds and garages around the area where she went missing.
The law in Portugal re entry to an area (house grounds) appears to be different to the UK, but like I said, don't quote me.
Here, if a property is not completely fenced off, people are allowed to enter it and partake of what they wish. There is a villa in Olhão that we rented a number of times. It was not fenced off. We had one instance of people coming on to the property to pick from a carob tree near the pool. Despite the tree being on 'our' land, I believe that action was legal in Portugal.
We had another instance, in the same villa, of being woken up early one Sunday morning to the sound of rifles going off. We are back to the 'property unfenced' idea again. It was legal for the hunting party to encroach on to 'our' property, in the absence of a fence. It happened to be illegal to conduct the hunt, because the hunting season had not started. It happened to be illegal to conduct the hunt close to our villa, because there is a law stating that hunts have to be a certain distance away from homes, and they were definitely closer.
The hunters concluded their foray through 'our' property by trampling underfoot a new flower garden the owners had recently put in.
The next evening, as we headed off in our car for dinner, the lead hunter was shepherding his sheep across a track we shared. Being the kindly souls we are, we chose not to hunt his sheep, despite being on unfenced land.
Let me turn to the villa I am in at the moment, in Luz, and let me pretend it was empty in May 2007. I don't know whether it was or not. This is just a thought exercise. I want to work out how much it would cost the PJ to search this single property without permission of the owner, and in my little neck of Luz, there are dozens and dozens of such properties.
First of all, the PJ would have to do a LOT of breaking and entering. To get into the main house, that involves forcing at least one shutter and breaking through double glazing, as a minimum. I simply can't see anyone getting through the front door with anything less than a cutting torch or explosives, as the door and lock are reinforced.
Now we have the rest of the property. There's 3 separate outdoor locked storage areas. I reckon a crowbar would do the trick on these. Then we have the pool equipment room, which in our case is old and does not shut, let alone lock, despite the fact that the equipment inside is worth thousands of euros.
One single house. Four lots of breaking and entering required. Cost of damage incurred = ???
We do not have all the keys to this house. The owners retain the key to one of the storage areas, and we have never seen inside it. Should I get a crowbar and have a go, just in case Madeleine might be inside?
By the way, we have just received confirmation that the bank has accepted our offer to buy a house, so we should be heading out of Luz in the near future. And you might wish to check out the link on here to the webcams, 'cos it is definitely ShiningInLuz.