Kate and Gerry McCann were driven at speed from their holiday apartment to a police station in Portimao to help officers examine the tapes after Mrs McCann again went to the local church to pray for her daughter.

Bill Henderson, the British Consul in the Algarve, was seen leaving the police headquarters while Mr and Mrs McCann were still inside.

Two of the three suspects in the CCTV footage that may show the missing girl have been identified by a man who claimed he caught them photographing his own child two weeks ago.

The witness, Portuguese-born Nuno Lourenco who lives in Germany, said the gang attempted to abduct his own young daughter. 

He told detectives that he saw a man of English appearance photographing his daughter, described as strikingly similar in appearance to Maddy, on April 30 in Sagres, a town just a few miles from the holiday complex where the McCann family was staying.

The witness, who with his German wife has two children aged two and four, said he chased the man, who fled, jumping into a car with a woman and another man before speeding off. Mr Lourenco is believed to have provided the authorities with a photograph taken on his mobile phone.

The witness has told officers he was ?100 per cent certain? they were the same people caught on CCTV with the girl matching Maddys description hours after she went missing.

 

The description of the woman also matches that given by a witness who spotted someone acting suspiciously outside Madeleines bedroom on the night of her disappearance. The CCTV footage from the garage shows a young girl with a blonde, middle-aged woman and two men. The child apparently wanted to say something, which made staff suspicious.