Daily TelegraphMadeleine McCann: police highlight cluster of sightings of 'prime suspect' Multiple witnesses claim to have seen a man loitering outside the holiday apartment where Madeleine McCann disappeared in the days before she went missing, detectives have disclosed.
By John Bingham
Published: 7:00AM BST 07 May 2009
A man with a distinctive pock-marked face has emerged as the prime suspect after apparently being seen outside the flat in the Ocean Club resort in Praia da Luz, Portugal, five times in the four days.
A "cold case" review of thousands of documents from the original Portuguese investigation conducted by two retired British policemen has identified a cluster of five "critically important" witness statements.
Four separate people, including a 12-year-old girl, reported seeing a man apparently spying on the apartment while a total of 13 others believe that they saw Madeleine being carried away by her abductor on the night of May 3 2007.
Dave Edgar, 52, a former RUC and Cheshire Police detective, and Arthur Cowley, 52, formerly of Merseyside Police, found no evidence of Portuguese detectives systematically linking the accounts or eliminating them.
They released their findings as a Channel 4 Cutting Edge documentary team filmed a reconstruction of the events of May 3 2007 for the first time.
One British woman on holiday said that she saw an "unnerving" man acting suspiciously outside the apartment on two separate occasions just before Madeleine's disappearance.
"He was about 5ft 10in, slim build and wearing casual clothes, probably jeans I think," she said.
"I would describe him as very ugly, pitted skin with a large nose."
Meanwhile a fresh appeal based on a new "age progression" photograph of how Madeleine might look on the verge of her sixth birthday has generated about 30 possible sightings of her around the world.
:: Cutting Edge: Madeleine Was Here will be shown at 9pm on Channel 4 on Thursday.
