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Original Source: MAIL: SUNDAY 04 NOVEMBER
2007 |
By
VANESSA ALLEN and DAVID JONES
21:45pm on 4th November 2007 |
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Detectives leading the hunt for Madeleine McCann have questioned witnesses
about how much her parents drank on the night she vanished.
They interrogated waiters and other workers at the tapas bar where they ate on
May 3, asking: "Were they drunk?" The new head of the investigation,
Paulo Rebelo, has even summoned the junior local police officers who were first
on the scene to ask whether the group seemed inebriated.
Kate and Gerry McCann have always said they and their seven friends ordered six
bottles of wine, but that two remained virtually untouched because they
discovered their daughter was missing.
Leaks from inside the police investigation suggested the so-called Tapas Nine
ordered daiquiris, martinis and beers before dinner, downed up to 14 bottles of
wine with their meal, and usually enjoyed almond liqueur afterwards.
But the group's waiter, Jose Baptista, said they were 'very sensible' about
their drinking and usually had eight to ten bottles over the course of two or
three hours.
A second worker at the tapas bar, who asked not to be named, said: "They
didn't drink any more than anyone else. 'They might
have been tipsy but they weren't falling over. Everyone handles drink
differently."
The group of four families dined together every night and all left their
children sleeping in their own apartments, about 40 metres from the tapas bar.
The local police officers who were summoned to the complex after Mrs McCann
realised Madeleine was missing said the group "seemed to be normal"
and were not drunk, the Portuguese newspaper Correio da Manha said.
Mr Rebelo has launched a review of every step of the six-month investigation in
the hope of discovering a previously unchecked 'loose end' which could crack
the case.
But while he insists his methodical "back-to-basics" techniques could
still solve the crime, sources told the Sunday Mirror that the investigation is
floundering once more and could be shelved by Christmas if a break-through is
not made.
The newspaper said its sources believed Madeleine would never be found, and
that the case would be downgraded within weeks if Mr Rebelo could not find
stronger evidence of what had happened to the four-year-old.
The source said: "There is quite simply no evidence strong enough to use
against the McCanns. Unless a new piece of evidence falls out of the sky - some
good forensics which will tie everything together - the case will be closed in
a few weeks without conclusion."
Mistakes have plagued the investigation. The apartment was not sealed off as a
crime scene, meaning all the evidence there was contaminated, and police were
allowed to drive the McCanns' hire car and a van belonging to the other named
suspect Robert Murat to the police laboratory.
A footprint found on the couple's Renault Scenic was later found to belong to a
Portuguese policeman, and a forensic officer continued vital checks on it
despite his latex glove splitting half way through.
Mr and Mrs McCann, both 39, have said their worst fear would be never to know
what happened to their daughter, and to always be left under a cloud of
suspicion.
They have employed Spanish private detective agency Metodo
3 to follow up numerous sightings of Madeleine in Morocco, including two potential
sightings of a blonde child with her distinctive fleck in her right eye.
The Mail told last week how Moroccan doctor Naoual Malhi saw the child in Fnideq, as
she was bundled into a taxi by an older woman, and now a stallholder in the
small coastal town has also claimed to have seen her.
Dr Malhi said: "He said he had seen the girl
with the woman when she came to buy cheese and milk from his stall. He said he
gave the girl a lollipop and noticed her distinctive right eye."
Metodo 3 have received over 400 calls, including ten
new sightings of Madeleine in ten days, and their detectives plan to return to
the remote mountain village of Karia ba Mohamed to investigate sightings of a "strange new
girl".
A local school inspector said several people had spotted a woman with a blonde
child who looked like Madeleine in the farming town, 35 miles north-west of Fez.
But the mayor of the remote district flatly denied the child could be held
captive there. Lmfedal Lazar (corr)
refused to order a search and scorned reports of sightings.
He snapped: "There are no paedophiles in Morocco so it is quite impossible
that this girl is here. You should not even be investigating this. Your duty is
to write good things about Morocco
so that the tourists will come."
The McCanns' team of detectives are also checking claims that a Portuguese
teacher told police she spotted the missing girl at Barcelona airport a few weeks after her
disappearance.
Meanwhile, Mr McCann has told friends he plans to resume full-time work in
January, after returning to his job part-time last week.
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