Rachel= British police investigating the disappearance of Madeleine McCann say they are looking at 18 break ins into villas on the Algarve by a lone intruder.


6 have come to light since an appeal last month, with 5 involving an alleged sexual assaults against young British girls.


Paul Luckman is the publisher of the english newspaper the Portugal News and has followed this whole story and the whole investigation over the past few years very closely.


Morning Paul. So do you thing the Met Police are genuinely onto something new here?



PL – Em, I think I Have to question it. the Met. We have certainly heard nothing of these cases and anything involving foreigners comes pretty quickly to our ears. Its inevitable we are the largest English paper in Portugal you get to hear about these things. Em I noticed locally, certainly nationally, none of the national papers have picked up on this story and they have extremely good police contacts here. I don't think anybody here is taking this seriously and you really begin to wonder er I wonder after all the money that the Met have spent on this case if they're not looking to almost justify, I think we're looking what £7 million at the minute, on the investigation.



Rachel – Yeah , just be clear you're saying that you doubt the reports of these break ins, or.. just the fact that they might be connected in some way to the Madeleine McCann disappearance.




PL – D'you know I am not in the position to, to say that definitely. But there have been no reports on this. Em at anytime I have found this extremely strange. I have searched through all our archives. Nothing has come to our ears or been reported.




Rachel – What about this assault on a 10 year old girl back in 2005 in Praia Da Luz. Now that's only recent that information & we don't know why it's only come to light recently. There are all sorts of … potential explanations. It could be that the child herself didn't report it at the time, They have to look closely at something like that don't they.



PL – Well the police will look closely and I think that the attitude, certainly the comments that I heard yesterday I believe eh will do little to create good relations between the English police and the Portuguese Police who are trying very hard to get this resolved. They have reopened the case



Rachel (interrupts) – are they cooperating with the Met?



PL – Yes, totally em this, this suggestion that they're not. I read headlines in the UK this morning arrests imminent … complete nonsense em the, the Met cannot make and I am sure they're not even claiming, they can't come into Portugal to make arrests mm you'll remember we had a situation like this 2, 3 months ago where there was mass coverage and they were arriving to make arrests and it just petered into nothing, there was nothing it was just a regular visit.

Em we had a situation where er the Met stated that the police, the Portuguese police had not told them about a Cape Verdian who apparently was accused of three rapes of children and yet we had it directly from the police that in fact they had briefed the Met and the McCanns 6 months earlier in Lisbon even with a power point presentation on this case so these things don't do an awful lot to help relations and uh lets see what happens.

Uh as I say I am very surprised there is no coverage at all not from any of the major dailies here in Portugal this morning and they are extraordinarily well connected much so than us ourselves of course. Just no mention at all.

Rachel – (interrupts) as you say we'll wait to see what happens. Thank you very much Paul, nice to talk to you. "