THE hunt for missing British child Madeleine McCann appeared to gather pace as reports emerged of three key suspects spotted in a car with British number plates.

As well, a British businessman has offered a $2.4 million reward as the search for the three-year-old enters its ninth day.

It may provide a boost to Madeleine's distraught parents, Kate and Gerry, as they mark their daughter's fourth birthday in Praia da Luz today with no news of her whereabouts.

Police confirm they are checking CCTV footage from several locations, including a tape from a service station close by showing a young girl with a woman.

Portuguese police are understood to have CCTV footage of two men and a woman, taken on the night of the apparent kidnap in a petrol station near Praia da Luz, the small seaside resort where the three-year-old vanished last Thursday.

One of the men and the woman, described as blonde and in her late 40s, are also said to have been seen behaving suspiciously in a nearby town days before the child disappeared. They are said to have fled after being challenged when they took photographs of a young girl.

The police have so far refused to comment on the reports, which also suggest the car's registration has been passed to police forces throughout Europe.

Police also confirmed that CCTV images had been collected in several locations, but Chief Inspector Olegario Sousa said there had been no arrests either in Portugal or abroad.

The statement said police were checking countless hypotheses from new information and that searches were continuing, with about 150 people involved each day.

Police have searched the countryside and more than 500 apartments in and around the Praia da Luz resort in the southern Algarve region.

The possible sighting was the strongest lead to emerge since the child vanished nine days ago. According to local newspapers, a man and woman "of British appearance" were seen on April 30 photographing children in the nearby town of Sagres.

When challenged by one of the children's parents, a German expatriate, the couple fled; he managed to snatch a photograph on his mobile phone. The Correio da Manha newspaper said the man had been shown the CCTV footage and told police he had "not the smallest doubt" that the woman and one of the men were the couple he had seen.

A shopkeeper told the 24 Horas newspaper that she had seen a blonde woman, matching the description, outside Madeleine's bedroom window on the night she vanished.

Earlier in the day, Madeleine's mother attended an ecumenical communion service in the town's chapel, accompanied by a female friend and still clasping the pink soft toy belonging to her daughter that she has carried since Madeleine disappeared.

More than 150 local people, expatriates and holidaymakers crammed into the small church for a service that the Anglican priest, Haynes Hubbard, described as having no precedent. "We are simply going to ask God's power and protection on Madeleine and her parents and her siblings, and on everyone who has been shocked and saddened and utterly desolate at what has happened," he said.

More:
http://news.google.co.uk/nwshp?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&tab=wn&ncl=1116016460


Keep praying.

One of a parent`s worse nightmares. Sad story. I hope they find the little girl alive and well.

i hope so too.. some way to spend her 4th birthday

Keep me updated on the story, please.

poor sweety...

I heard this morning that J.K.Rowling and Simon Cowell...among other celebrities...are offering rewards for her safe return.

Yeah..

They've been interviewing a suspect - something to do with a man that lives beside the hotel complex? - over the last day, but apparently don't have enough evidence to make an arrest yet.

Still nothing


PRAIA DA LUZ, Portugal - Madeleine McCann's father returned alone to Britain for the first time since his daughter's disappearance last night to meet campaign organisers and discuss whether private detectives might be deployed across Europe in the hunt for the four-year-old.

Gerry McCann left his wife, Kate, with the couple's twins at the resort where Madeleine disappeared 18 days ago for a flying visit to Leicestershire and is set to return early tomorrow morning.

The trip, which seemed more sensible to Mr McCann than flying a number of the Leicester-based campaign team out to Portugal, was scheduled to deal with "personal matters." It is thought Mr McCann will also set matters in order to enable him and his wife to stay in Portugal for the foreseeable future.

Last week Mrs McCann said that she "couldn't even consider" leaving Portugal while her daughter was still missing.

The trip comes as Britain is encouraged today to follow Portugal's lead and maintain a minute's silence at noon for Madeleine.


Advertisement

AdvertisementHer great-uncle, Brian Kennedy, told the Portuguese newspaper Correira de Manha that the deployment of British detectives was being considered by the family - though not immediately, out of "respect for the Portuguese authorities".

Another family member, Michael Wright, also indicated last week that money from the Madeleine fighting fund might be diverted to "the detection process."

The McCanns' spokeswoman here also indicated yesterday that the McCanns, who are said to be convinced that their daughter is outside Portugal, are prepared to leave Praia da Luz and travel around Europe to boost efforts to find Madeleine.

"[The couple] are looking at everything and at what's right. If it means going around Europe to meet people and talk to people then they will do it," she said.

Mr Kennedy said that such a trip could take place if the couple "continued without any news for a few months".

The importance of deploying resources outside Portugal became clear at the weekend when police indicated that dozens of sightings of Madeleine - from Spain to Switzerland - were impeding their inquiry.

A woman who reported seeing Madeleine in southern Spain last week claimed local police had shown no interest in what she was saying.

Though the McCanns have continually stated their confidence in Portuguese police, experienced detectives in Britain are astonished by some aspects of the unfolding inquiry and are willing to step in and help.

The investigation of the main suspect, the Briton Robert Murat, has been haphazard, they say, pointing to the way that Mr Murat's villa was searched last week in the suspect's presence.

Officers also apparently emptied a shredder during the search, attempted to piece together the paper but abandoned the task and left the shredder behind.

Mark Williams Thomas, a former British child protection officer, who is ready to place his team of detectives at the McCanns' disposal, said this was one of many flaws.

"You would obviously take a shredder away," he said. "There might be potential to place [one] under the microscope, to establish if there is something hand-written. You don't want this done at the scene."

Detectives also agree that all residents at the Mark Warner Ocean Club from the week of the McCanns' holiday should be interviewed, but Mr Williams Thomas is aware of at least one resident who has not been.

Reports in Portugal suggested a Russian computer expert, Sergey Malinka, wiped clean one of two hard drives seized by police from his flat last Wednesday, 48 hours after Mr Murat's house was searched.

Police are also interested in a series of three phone calls between Mr Malinka and Mr Murat on the night of Madeleine's disappearance.

While Mr Malinka said last week he had not spoken to Mr Murat for a year, the number of calls between the two suggests that the two may be more than business associates.

But the woman who approached police about Mr Malinka last Monday, leading to them questioning of him 48 hours later, told The Independent yesterday that she had never seen the two men together.