Madeleine McCann Appeal: Parents 'Delighted'

**bb1** Tue Oct 15, 2013 5:56 pm

http://news.sky.com/story/1154564/madeleine-mccann-appeal-parents-delighted

Madeleine McCann Appeal: Parents 'Delighted'
Investigators sift through information provided by nearly 1,000 people after a new appeal over the missing three-year-old.

Madeleine McCann's parents have said they are "absolutely delighted" with the "overwhelming" response to a new appeal for information about her disappearance.

Police have received more than 730 calls and 212 emails following Monday night's televised reconstruction and release of previously unseen evidence. Detectives are now working through them.

Kate and Gerry McCann said they are "genuinely hopeful" that one or more of the responses would lead to a major breakthrough in the investigation.

During the Crimewatch show, two new e-fits were broadcast of a man, who may have been Madeleine's kidnapper, seen carrying a child a few hundred yards from the family's apartment at around 10pm.

Viewers were shown two images of a dark-haired man, based on descriptions from two witnesses who were staying in Praia da Luz, Portugal, when the three-year-old went missing.

The sighting - which came at around the same time Mrs McCann checked on her three children - had previously been considered of less significance than an earlier, now-discounted sighting around 9.15pm.

When asked how convinced he was that the later sighting was of Madeleine, Detective Chief Inspector Andy Redwood told Sky News: "The timing and location speak for themselves."

He said two independent callers had put forward the same name for the man for the 10pm sighting and another caller gave a name of a man who was known to be in Portugal at the time of Madeleine's disappearance.

In a statement the McCanns said: "We know that the public desperately want to help the search for Madeleine.

"If anyone was in Praia da Luz around the time of Madeleine's abduction and has not spoken to the Metropolitan Police, or if they know who any of the e-fits might be, please have the courage to come forward and speak to the police in confidence."

For six years, detectives believed a man seen by one of the McCanns' friends, Jane Tanner, carrying a child close to the apartment in the Algarve tourist resort of Praia da Luz at around 9.15pm was their key suspect.

But a review of the evidence under the Metropolitan Police's Operation Grange concluded that it was an innocent British holidaymaker carrying his daughter home from a creche.

DCI Redwood said he realised that the man seen later could also be entirely innocent, but appealed for help from the public in identifying him.

"This child is described as being about three to four with blonde hair, possibly wearing pyjamas, and the man is white with dark hair," he said.

"If this is you, and you are nothing to do with Madeleine's disappearance, then we really need to speak to you. It's so important for us to eliminate innocent sightings."

Investigators are also trying to identify mysterious fair-haired men seen "lurking around" the apartment at the time who could be Dutch or German.

Two e-fits of the fair-haired men have been released. One is of a man seen twice by the same witness near the flat where the McCanns were staying.

He was 30 to 35, thin, with short hair, shaving spots on his face and was wearing a black leather jacket. Another witness saw a similar-looking man in the resort.

Police are also looking at a spate of break-ins in the area, one of which happened in the same week a year before Madeleine went missing, where a man got into a flat where young children were sleeping.

:: Sky News will show a special investigation tonight at 8.30pm on Sky Channel 501, Virgin Media 602 and Freeview 82

**lily** Tue Oct 15, 2013 6:04 pm

What a response. I take it that those were filtered callers?

Am so pleased to hear that the McCanns are feeling delighted by this.

It will be even better when we hear that they are over the moon as their daughter has been found.

Madeleine McCann Appeal: Parents 'Delighted'

Madeleine McCann Appeal: Parents 'Delighted'

Re: Madeleine McCann Appeal: Parents 'Delighted'