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Lee Rainbow suggested Madeleine McCann’s
brother and sister should have been interviewed
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THE country’s most senior criminal profiler suggested Madeleine
McCann’s brother and sister should have been interviewed about her
disappearance.
Twins Sean and Amelie were aged just two years and three months
when Madeleine was snatched from a holiday apartment on the Algarve in
Portugal in May 2007 shortly before her fourth birthday.
A month later, Lee Rainbow, senior behavioural investigation
consultant at the National Policing Improvement Agency, wrote a report
for Portuguese detectives which may have altered the course of the
inquiry.
Mr Rainbow urged them to “consider the possibility of exploring
the potential of interviewing Sean and Amelie McCann”.
The children, now five, were sharing a bedroom with Madeleine
when she was taken. As reported last year in the Sunday Express, the
McCanns believe the kidnapper may have entered the apartment the evening
before because Madeleine complained she had been woken by Sean crying.
The last time British police seriously interviewed such a young
child was in 1992. Rachel Nickell was murdered in front of her
two-year-old son, Alex Hanscombe, on Wimbledon Common, south-west
London. Despite his age, Alex was able to give detectives valuable and
credible information.
Child psychologists worked closely with police to draw
information from Alex in a painstaking exercise which lasted months.
Former Portuguese detective Goncalo Amaral has presented Mr Rainbow’s
report to a civil court in Lisbon as he attempts to lift a ban on
selling his book about the case, The Truth Of The Lie.
In the summary of the 30-page report Mr Rainbow wrote: “The
potential involvement of the family in the disappearance of Madeleine
McCann cannot be discarded, and it can be considered that, when
pondering the basis for research, this hypothesis deserves as much
attention as the criminal with sexual motivations that has been
previously prioritised.
“It should be stressed that there is no evidence to directly
support an involvement of the family, yet given the absence of decisive
evidence to prove the contrary, such a scenario has to be explored.” At
court last week, Mr Amaral’s lawyer, Antonio Cabrita, read out a section
of 37-year-old Mr Rainbow’s report which said: “The family is a lead
that should be followed.”
On Thursday the judge hearing the libel case is expected to rule
on whether Mr Amaral’s book and a DVD should go back on sale.
Doctors Kate and Gerry McCann, both 41, from Rothley,
Leicestershire, won an injunction to have them banned.
It was on the grounds that Mr Amaral’s theory that Madeleine died
in the apartment was untrue and had damaged their global search for
their daughter.
A spokesman for the couple said that any suggestion from Mr
Rainbow would have been considered by investigating officers at the
time.
It is not known whether Sean and Amelie were formally interviewed
by police. The children are thought to have slept through the kidnap.
The McCanns have always insisted they had no involvement in Madeleine’s
disappearance. |
