THIS CCTV image of a girl matching Madeleine McCann’s description was taken just 13 hours after the holiday tot went missing.
The sensational image taken in Portugal was released for the first time today.
It shows a little blonde girl holding the hand of woman at a service station in Lagos – only a few miles from where Maddie vanished.
The mystery girl and woman have not been identified.
It is one of several possible sightings of Maddie investigated by Portuguese detectives.
But it is not clear from the files if the petrol station sighting was thoroughly checked.
Clarence Mitchell, spokesman for Maddie’s parents Kate and Gerry McCann, said: “ Was the sighting followed up and ruled out properly? We just do not know.”
Earlier today the files revealed a little girl calling herself “Maddy” and claiming she had been snatched on holiday was seen in Amsterdam at the time Maddie disappeared.
Possible sightings of the missing little girl flooded into the Algarve police incident room from around the world, documents from the Portuguese Maddie investigation released yesterday show.
They include scores of e-mails from foreign police forces passing on reports that could provide investigators with a key lead.
But the Amsterdam sighting is one of the most intriguing.
Dutch shop worker Ana Stam, 41, said she spoke to a little girl aged three or four who said her name was “Maddy” and replied to a question about her mother: “They took me from my holiday.”
The girl entered her party shop in early May last year with a man and a woman and two other children, according to a witness statement to Dutch police in the police files.
'Where's my mummy?'
The man - who “did not look like a nice person” - appeared to be speaking Portuguese but the woman spoke in English and told Ms Stam they had a small circus in France.
Ms Stam was at the back of the shop when the young girl approached her and asked in English without an accent: “Do you know where my mummy is?”
The shop assistant answered that her mother was a little further back in the store but the child replied, “She is not my mummy,” and added: “She is a stranger, she took me from my mummy.”
When Ms Stam asked the girl where she last saw her mother, she said: “They took me from my holiday.”
The Dutchwoman went on: “I asked where that holiday was but the little girl was incapable of telling me.
“I even asked if she was on a camping site or in a hotel but she was unable to say.
“I told her I thought she was very cute and asked if she wanted a balloon. She didn’t.
“I thought it all a little odd and then I heard the woman call the girl. She didn’t call her Maddy, but a longer name. She could have said Madeleine but I don’t remember that.”
The girl had dark brown hair in a ponytail, “huge” green-brown eyes and a pale face which showed “little or no emotion”, she said.
Ms Stam said she thought the child looked “very much like” Madeleine apart from the colour of her hair.
The report was sent to the Portuguese authorities on June 18 last year but it is not clear what action was taken.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article1517823.ece
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ightings-CCTV-footage-police-kept-secret.html
See links for pics.
The sensational image taken in Portugal was released for the first time today.
It shows a little blonde girl holding the hand of woman at a service station in Lagos – only a few miles from where Maddie vanished.
The mystery girl and woman have not been identified.
It is one of several possible sightings of Maddie investigated by Portuguese detectives.
But it is not clear from the files if the petrol station sighting was thoroughly checked.
Clarence Mitchell, spokesman for Maddie’s parents Kate and Gerry McCann, said: “ Was the sighting followed up and ruled out properly? We just do not know.”
Earlier today the files revealed a little girl calling herself “Maddy” and claiming she had been snatched on holiday was seen in Amsterdam at the time Maddie disappeared.
Possible sightings of the missing little girl flooded into the Algarve police incident room from around the world, documents from the Portuguese Maddie investigation released yesterday show.
They include scores of e-mails from foreign police forces passing on reports that could provide investigators with a key lead.
But the Amsterdam sighting is one of the most intriguing.
Dutch shop worker Ana Stam, 41, said she spoke to a little girl aged three or four who said her name was “Maddy” and replied to a question about her mother: “They took me from my holiday.”
The girl entered her party shop in early May last year with a man and a woman and two other children, according to a witness statement to Dutch police in the police files.
'Where's my mummy?'
The man - who “did not look like a nice person” - appeared to be speaking Portuguese but the woman spoke in English and told Ms Stam they had a small circus in France.
Ms Stam was at the back of the shop when the young girl approached her and asked in English without an accent: “Do you know where my mummy is?”
The shop assistant answered that her mother was a little further back in the store but the child replied, “She is not my mummy,” and added: “She is a stranger, she took me from my mummy.”
When Ms Stam asked the girl where she last saw her mother, she said: “They took me from my holiday.”
The Dutchwoman went on: “I asked where that holiday was but the little girl was incapable of telling me.
“I even asked if she was on a camping site or in a hotel but she was unable to say.
“I told her I thought she was very cute and asked if she wanted a balloon. She didn’t.
“I thought it all a little odd and then I heard the woman call the girl. She didn’t call her Maddy, but a longer name. She could have said Madeleine but I don’t remember that.”
The girl had dark brown hair in a ponytail, “huge” green-brown eyes and a pale face which showed “little or no emotion”, she said.
Ms Stam said she thought the child looked “very much like” Madeleine apart from the colour of her hair.
The report was sent to the Portuguese authorities on June 18 last year but it is not clear what action was taken.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article1517823.ece
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ightings-CCTV-footage-police-kept-secret.html
See links for pics.
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