Madeleine McCann latest – Chief suspect Christian B ‘has network of pals who’ll provide alibi for night Maddie vanished’

‘Russians in the frame’

The TV investigators are also said to have found evidence other suspects may have snatched Madeleine.

A Portuguese source said: “The new information is pointing towards the fact two Russians could be behind it.”

It throws doubt on claims by prosecutors they have solid information incriminating jailed rapist Christian B.

The German investigators are said to have “concrete proof” Madeleine is dead, and claim Christian B killer her soon after snatching her.

But The Sun revealed last year that they actually have “nothing concrete”.

What is the new evidence?

A team working on a documentary about Madeleine say they have handed over fresh evidence to detectives.

They claim they have discovered proof that Christian B, 45, was near Praia da Luz when Madeleine vanished in May 2007.

The documentary team from Sat.1, made up of ex-investigators and journalists, say they collected “many new clues and indications” that Christian took her.

Editor-in-chief Juliane Ebling said: “The sad story of Madeleine McCann is a story that has many German facets.

“The case is being tried at the Regional Court of Braunschweig, as the German Christian B is the main suspect.

“In his environment there are many German women and men who can describe individual details surrounding the crime.

“Jutta Rabe has researched shocking material in Germany, Portugal and England over the past months, which heavily incriminates Christian B.”

The key dates in Madeleine’s disappearance? (Continued…)

• November 2018 – More funding, thought to be in the region of £150,000 is granted
• November 2018 – Former detective David Edgar, who once helped search for Madeleine, says she could still be alive and imprisoned, with “no idea who she is”. He believes she is being kept against her identity in a “lair” and could even still be in Portugal.
• November 2018 – UK police are re-examining a theory Madeleine left the apartment to look for her parents. They are also looking at whether her disappearance was the result of a kidnapping or burglary gone wrong.
• June 2019 – Another round of funding, believed to be £300,000 of government cash is granted
• June 2019 – Portuguese police are probing a “new clue and suspect” after talks with British officers, according to a bombshell local media report.
• August 2019 – A DNA expert in the US offers to analyse samples to provide an investigative lead.
• June 2020 – New prime suspect revealed as a German paedo, in a huge breakthrough in the 13-year investigation.

The key dates in Madeleine’s disappearance? (Continued…)

• November 27, 2013 – Met Police Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe called for British and Portuguese police to work together.
• April 28, 2015 – Detective Goncalo Amaral is ordered to pay Kate and Gerry McCann £209,000 each in damages by a court in Lisbon over claims made in The Truth Of The Lie and bans further sales of the book.
• October 28, 2015 – Scotland Yard reduces the number of officers working on Madeleine’s disappearance from 29 to four.
• January 31, 2017 – Portugal’s Supreme Court rules against Kate and Gerry McCann’s £418,000 libel claim. The court claims freedom of expression laws protect Detective Goncalo Amaral’s claims in the book.
• March 11, 2017  – The Home Office grants Operation Grange an extra £85,000 to continue from April until September.
• September 28, 2017 –  British police are granted £154,000 to keep the probe alive until March 2018.
• November 2017 – Cops moved the search to Bulgaria as they tried to find a “woman in purple” they wanted to speak to.
• May 2018 – Another round of funding, thought to be in the region of £150,000 is granted.
• September 2018 – An extra six months of funding is requested from the Home Office amid fears the cash will run out by the end of the month.

The key dates in Madeleine’s disappearance? (Continued…)

• July 24, 2009 – Detective Goncalo Amaral alleges that Madeleine died in her family’s holiday flat the day she went missing in a book called The Truth Of The Lie. In a documentary for Portuguese television he claims there was no abduction and the McCanns had hidden her body.
• May 12, 2011 – On Madeleine’s eighth birthday, Mrs McCann publishes a book about her disappearance. Scotland Yard launches a review into the case after a request from Home Secretary Theresa May, supported by Prime Minister David Cameron.
• April 25, 2012 – Scotland Yard officers say they believe Madeleine McCann is still alive. A new picture is released, showing what she might look like as a 9-year-old, and they call on the Portuguese authorities to reopen the case, but Portuguese police say they have found no new material.
• July 4, 2013 – Two years into a review of the case, Scotland Yard launch its own investigation into Madeleine’s disappearance. They claim to have “genuinely new” lines of inquiry and identify 38 people of interest including 12 Britons.
• October 24, 2013– Portuguese police reopen their case after new lines of inquiry are found.

Where is the Ocean Club in Praia da Luz?

The apartment is on the edge of travel firm Mark Warner's Ocean Club resort.

The Ocean Club is one of several tourist sites in the popular holiday town.

It is located close to the larger town of Lagos, about an hour's drive from Faro airport.

In February 2017 the apartment was sold to a British gran for £113,000 – half the asking price.

Police have recorded thousands of potential sightings of missing Maddie since 2007.

Who is Professor Angela Gallop?

Angela Gallop CBE was the scientist who found vital evidence that solved two of the UK's most notorious murders - Stephen Lawrence and Damilola Taylor.

The forensic biologist, 69, now wants to solve the disappearance of Madeleine, who was three when she vanished from her parents’ holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal, in 2007.

She told the : "It would be extraordinarily difficult because it's in a different country and you don't know what's happened to the exhibits.

"I've been involved in cases where it looks hopeless, so I'm not too daunted by anything these days. Every contact leaves a trace, it's just finding it."

Where did Madeleine McCann go missing?

Little Maddie, then three, disappeared from her bed in a holiday apartment in Rua Dr Agostinho da Silva, Praia da Luz, a resort in the Algarve region of Portugal.

The McCanns arrived on Saturday, April 28, 2007, for a seven-night spring break at the two-bedroom, ground-floor apartment.

It was in the fifth block of a group of apartments known as Waterside Village.

But on the evening of May 3, the little girl vanished from the apartment where she had been sleeping with her brother and sister. Her parents were at a nearby restaurant.

It was due to be the penultimate day of the McCann family holiday.

The three-year-old's disappearance remains one of the most well known missing person cases in British history.

Why did Kate and Gerry become the centre of scrutiny?

When three-year-old Madeleine vanished from the family's Praia da Luz holiday apartment on the Algarve, Gerry and Kate were dining with friends in a nearby restaurant.

Within 24 hours of their child's disappearance, they held a press conference to make the first in a string of public appeals to help find Madeleine.

In the intervening years, the couple have constantly kept the search alive for their daughter.

Over the course of the investigation, they have both been considered "persons of interest".

A Netflix documentary released in March 2019 called The Disappearance Of Madeleine McCann drew the couple back into public attention, despite their refusal to be involved in or with the film.

Are Kate and Gerry still together?

Shortly after Madeleine vanished, Kate said their marriage nearly broke down as she withdrew into herself.

She stopped reading, playing music or even having sex with her husband Gerry.

And the couple were gripped by the fear that a paedophile may have taken their daughter.

Writing about that period in her autobiography, Kate said: "Tortured as I was by these images, it's not surprising that even the thought of sex repulsed me.

"I worried about Gerry and me. I worried that if I didn't get our sex life on track our whole relationship would break down."

Kate went on to credit Gerry's understanding and the couple's resilience for the endurance of their marriage.

They remain together to this day, despite the stresses of intense media scrutiny on their lives.

Who are Kate and Gerry McCann?

Madeleine's parents Kate and Gerry are both practising Catholics who met in Glasgow in 1993.

Kate became a GP after studying medicine at the University of Dundee while Gerry has been a consultant cardiologist since 2005.

The couple got married in 1998 before having their first child, Madeleine, in 2003.

They also have twin children, a boy and a girl, who were born in 2005 and live in Rothley, Leicestershire.

Kate and Gerry had been married for nine years when Madeleine disappeared on the night of May 3, 2007.

'No evidence that Madeleine is not alive'

Scotland Yard detectives say they have seen no evidence that Madeleine is not alive.

The four-strong Operation Grange unit are still operating in an “active” phase of their missing child investigation.

A source told the  last month: “Clearly the Met have more open thinking than the German authorities have at the present.

“Madeleine’s parents have always said if they are presented with hard proof she has died they will accept it. 

“But the fact Operation Grange still exists and still gets funding shows the Met still thinks there is still work and investigation to be done.”

The Home Office awarded a further £350,000 in funding to last until later this year.

‘Shocking new evidence’

A team working on a documentary about Madeleine say they have handed over fresh evidence to detectives.

They claim they have discovered proof that Christian B, 45, was near Praia da Luz when Madeleine vanished in May 2007.

The documentary team from Sat.1, made up of ex-investigators and journalists, say they collected “many new clues and indications” that Christian took her.

Editor-in-chief Juliane Ebling said: “The sad story of Madeleine McCann is a story that has many German facets.

“The case is being tried at the Regional Court of Braunschweig, as the German Christian B is the main suspect.

“In his environment there are many German women and men who can describe individual details surrounding the crime.

“Jutta Rabe has researched shocking material in Germany, Portugal and England over the past months, which heavily incriminates Christian B.”

Explained: How old would Madeleine McCann be now?

Madeleine would have turned 18 on May 12, 2021.

In April 2012, UK cops released a computer generated image of Madeleine showing what she would look like aged nine.

In 2019 updated age progression images were uploaded on social media but Kate and Gerry said the images of Madeleine are bogus.

Kate and Gerry warned the new fake images were neither “commissioned nor endorsed” by them or Scotland Yard’s Operation Grange team.

When did Madeleine McCann go missing?

Madeleine disappeared 13 years ago on May 3, 2007, when her family, from Leicestershire, on holiday in Praia da Luz, in the Algarve, Portugal.

Parents Gerry and Kate left their three kids, including toddler twins Sean and Amelie sleeping in their apartment while they dined at a tapas bar 120 metres away.

When Kate returned to check on the kids at about 10pm that evening, she found Madeleine was not in her bed and was missing.

In September of that year, Gerry and Kate, both doctors, were sensationally named as “arguidos” by Portuguese police.

The following summer the McCanns were cleared by investigators in Portugal who declared they had exhausted all avenues in the case.

‘Russians in the frame’

The TV investigators are also said to have found evidence other suspects may have snatched Madeleine.

A Portuguese source said: “The new information is pointing towards the fact two Russians could be behind it.”

It throws doubt on claims by prosecutors they have solid information incriminating jailed rapist Christian B.

The German investigators are said to have “concrete proof” Madeleine is dead, and claim Christian B killer her soon after snatching her.

But The Sun revealed last year that they actually have “nothing concrete”.

What theories are there about Madeleine’s disappearance? (Continued…)

• Another theory is that Madeleine was taken as part of a bungled burglary in which an intruder panicked and snatched her after she woke up. While Scotland Yard looked into this theory it has always been dismissed by cops in Portugal since nothing else was taken from the apartment.
• US think tank The Rutherford Institute said Madeleine could have been taken by a sex trafficking gang after studying how kids are abducted and abuse in the sex industry. The institute’s John Whitehead also believes these gangs could be aided by “predator cops” – although there is no evidence suggesting Portuguese police were involved in assisting with Madeleine’s kidnapping.
• In 2019 Portuguese police were said to think Madeleine was kidnapped by a surgical-mask wearing man who is known to the cops, after a tip off from Scotland Yard.

Maddie ‘still alive’

Scotland Yard detectives say they have seen no evidence that Madeleine is not alive.

The four-strong Operation Grange unit are still operating in an “active” phase of their missing child investigation.

A source told the  last month: “Clearly the Met have more open thinking than the German authorities have at the present.

“Madeleine’s parents have always said if they are presented with hard proof she has died they will accept it. 

“But the fact Operation Grange still exists and still gets funding shows the Met still thinks there is still work and investigation to be done.”

The Home Office awarded a further £350,000 in funding to last until later this year.

What theories are there about Madeleine’s disappearance? (Continued…)

• In the 2019 Netflix documentary The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann, investigators point out that the coastal resort of Praia da Luz would make it easier for traffickers to escape on a boat and travel to North Africa. The resort is also only 90 minutes drive from the border with Spain.
• A local resident in the Netflix film pointed out that the Algarve has many wells, some of which are 100ft deep. They suggested Madeleine could have wandered out of the apartment and fallen to her death.
• Parents Gerry and Kate have been forced to confront rumours around their daughter’s disappearance, with the couple vowing to fight “tooth and nail” if they are ever prosecuted over leaving their children alone. 
• In July, 2017, Madeleine parents failed in their bid to silence ex Portuguese cop Goncalo Amaral‘s over his claims they faked their daughter’s kidnapping to cover up her death.