McCanns 'drawing strength' from police files

Files from the Portuguese police investigation into Madeleine McCann’s disappearance have helped her parents to “draw strength” because of the lack of any evidence that their daughter is dead, the family spokesman said today.

Gerry and Kate McCann’s spokesman Clarence Mitchell said the newly-released files have revealed no evidence suggesting Madeleine had been killed or even harmed in the 15 months since she went missing on a family holiday in Portugal.

“The longer it goes on, they actually draw strength from that,” he told the BBC. “They hope against hope she is being held somewhere.”

Fresh revelations from the Portuguese police files are expected today.

Documents made public from the exhaustive inquiry have already revealed that detectives claimed the young girl’s DNA had been found in her parents’ hire car, despite a British scientist’s warning days earlier that tests were inconclusive.

A family friend accused Portuguese officers of trying to extract a confession from Madeleine’s father, Gerry McCann, by lying about the results of forensic analysis.

The Portuguese authorities released the police files yesterday after lifting the period of judicial secrecy in the case.

Journalists were handed DVDs containing copies of thousands of pages of evidence from the case outside the court in the Algarve town of Portimao.

The dossier includes details of the lines of inquiry pursued by detectives, forensic reports, pictures of the bedroom where Madeleine was sleeping before she disappeared, witness statements and transcripts of interviews with Mr McCann and his wife Kate.

Among the files is an email dated September 3 2007 written by senior British forensic scientist John Lowe to Detective Superintendent Stuart Prior, head of the UK side of the investigation.

Mr Lowe, from the major incidents team at the Birmingham-based Forensic Science Service (FSS), said it was impossible to conclude whether a sample from the McCanns’ hire car came from their daughter Madeleine.

Four days later Portuguese detectives named Mr and Mrs McCann as “arguidos”, or formal suspects, in the child’s disappearance, citing forensic evidence as grounds for their suspicions.

They categorically told Mr McCann in interview that his daughter’s DNA had been found in the family’s Renault Scenic hire car.

A friend of Mr McCann said it seemed clear that the Portuguese police were trying to force a confession from him.

The friend added: “It would appear they were seeking to apply pressure by overstating the evidence that they had – and frankly it is a scandal.”

Mr Mitchell said: “I can confirm that the Portuguese police put it to Gerry as a fact that Madeleine’s DNA had been found in the apartment and the vehicle, when it is now clear that that was not the case, and that the initial FSS report had said the findings were inconclusive.

“You have to ask what the police were trying to achieve by over-presenting evidence that they did not have, and clearly could not claim to have.”

In his email Mr Lowe reported that a sample from the boot of the car – which the McCanns rented 24 days after Madeleine went missing – contained 15 out of 19 of the young girl’s DNA components.

He cautioned that this result, based on the controversial “low copy number” DNA analysis technique which uses very small samples, was “too complex for meaningful interpretation or inclusion”.

Mr Lowe wrote: “Let’s look at the question that is being asked: ’Is there DNA from Madeleine on the swab?’

“It would be very simple to say ’Yes’ simply because of the number of components within the result that are also in her reference sample.

“What we need to consider, as scientists, is whether the match is genuine - because Madeleine has deposited DNA as a result of being in the car or whether Madeleine merely appears to match the result by chance.”

The expert noted that the components of the missing girl’s DNA profile were not unique to her – in fact some of them were present among FSS scientists, including himself.

He concluded: “We cannot answer the question: is the match genuine, or is it a chance match.”

The email was translated into Portuguese on September 4 last year, the official documents reveal.

Lawyers for the McCanns, both 40, from Rothley, Leicestershire in England, were formally given access to the police files last week.

They are studying them for fresh leads that the couple’s private detectives can follow up in their own search for their daughter.

The McCanns are keen not to give “a running commentary” on their legal team’s trawl through the dossier, Mr Mitchell said.

He said the priority was finding leads which could help to find Madeleine but told the BBC the team would be considering if there had been any “incompetency or anything worse” during the police investigation.

Details emerged yesterday of a witness statement from an Irish holidaymaker who said he had seen a man, who he said resembled Gerry McCann, carrying a child on the night of Madeleine’s disappearance.

The statement was dismissed by Portuguese police because other witnesses said Mr McCann was in a tapas bar nearby at the time.

Mr Mitchell told the BBC: “There’s a number of other witnesses that place Gerry very clearly at the tapas bar.”

Madeleine was nearly four when she vanished from her family’s holiday apartment in the Algarve resort of Praia da Luz on May 3 last year as her parents dined with friends nearby.

Despite a huge police investigation and massive coverage in the Portuguese and British media, she has not been found.

On July 21 Portuguese prosecutors announced they were shelving the case, although it can be reopened if credible new evidence comes to light.

At the same time the McCanns and Algarve resident Robert Murat were told they were no longer arguidos in Madeleine’s disappearance.