London: Several people responding to a fresh appeal for information into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann have called police with the same name of an individual, it has emerged.
Police are investigating several new lines of inquiry into the disappearance of the British child in Portugal in 2007, after a fresh appeal on Crimewatch for information led to nearly 500 people contacting police.
Several people contacted the programme on Monday evening to give police the same name, which could match a new efit image released by officers.
The Crimewatch editor, Joe Mather, said those calling the programme included many British people who were in Praia da Luz at the time of the child’s disappearance. Some had given police new names, and the same name had been mentioned several times. “It’s been a truly unprecedented response,” he said. “We were genuinely pleased with the response and the police were too.”
Mather said he could not reveal new lines of inquiry but it was “always significant” if people called in with the same name of an individual.
New leads could be hampered by the fact that there are no plans to show the fresh appeal for information in Portugal, according to criminologist Mark Williams-Thomas, a former police officer and child protection expert.
The appeal would be shown in the Netherlands and Germany but there were no plans for it to be shown in the country were Madeleine disappeared six years ago.
British officers needed to resolve their differences with Portuguese police in order for the investigation to make a breakthrough, Williams-Thomas told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Tuesday.
He said the “very strained” relationship between British and Portuguese police was not helpful to inquiries. “We need to get [the Portuguese police] to show the appeal, set aside their political differences, set aside their pride and get to the position where [both forces] are both focused working together.”
The Metropolitan police revealed earlier this week that they had shifted the emphasis of their inquiry after discovering that a presumed sighting of Madeleine being taken away from her holiday apartment, long seen as central to the case, was a false lead.
Detectives from the Met now believe that a man with dark, collar-length hair seen carrying a pyjama-clad child near the McCann family’s apartment at about 9.15pm on 3 May 2007 was an innocent British holidaymaker returning his own child from a night creche. Police were now looking for more information about another man who was seen carrying a young child in his arms and walking towards the ocean near the McCann’s apartment at 10pm.
The senior investigating officer, Detective Chief Inspector Andy Redwood, said police would now follow up 300 calls and 170 emails received at the BBC studio and two police call centres in Belgravia and Hendon.
“We are extremely pleased with the response to the Crimewatch appeal We will now take the time to follow up these lines of inquiry. Our appeal continues and later today I will be travelling to Holland, and tomorrow Germany, to continue the appeal for information.”
He said that during Crimewatch two independent callers had put forward the same name for the man and another caller had given the name of a man who was known to be in Portugal at the time of Madeleine’s disappearance.
“Madeleine remains at the heart of everything we do and I will continue to update the McCann family as more information is received by the incident room,” he said.
During the programme Madeleine’s parents, Kate and Gerry, urged people to rack their brains and come forward with information. Gerry McCann said he was hopeful and optimistic at the progress of the new investigation: “These cases can get solved. That is what the public need to think about tonight.”
Kate McCann said: “It doesn’t matter how much heartache we put ourselves through, so long as we get the result that we need.”
There was evidence that the kidnapping had “the hallmarks of a pre-planned abduction that would undoubtedly have involved reconnaissance”, Redwood said.
On Crimewatch, viewers were shown two images of a man with dark hair, based on descriptions from two witnesses who were staying in Praia da Luz at the time. Witnesses described the man as white, aged 20-40, with short brown hair, of medium build, medium height and clean-shaven.
Investigators have also released efits of two fair-haired men seen “lurking around” the apartment at the time who could be Dutch or German. One was seen twice by the same witness near the flat where the McCanns were staying. He was 30-35, thin, with short hair, shaving spots on his face and was wearing a black leather jacket. Another witness saw a similar-looking man in the resort.
Police are also investigating a spate of break-ins in the area, one of which happened in the same week a year before Madeleine went missing, where a man got into a flat where young children were sleeping.
Redwood said the year before Madeleine disappeared two children were in an apartment when a man came in. “[He] appears to have come through the patio door, had a look around inside and definitely had a look into one of the cots and then left without taking anything. Then one of the children raised the alarm,” he said.
“We’re particularly interested in that event as to whether it has any resonance to the disappearance of Madeleine. The man was described as being a white man with dark hair.”
Police are also looking into bogus charity collectors who were operating in the area at the time, and at a spate of burglaries that peaked in the month Madeleine went missing.
On the day that Madeleine disappeared, bogus charity collectors targeted properties in the area four times.
Police have released two e-fits of Portuguese men one aged 40-45, who knocked on the door of the apartment where the McCanns were to stay on 25 or 26 April between 2.30pm and 3pm, saying that he was a charity collector; the other, aged 25-30, approached a property on the Rua do Ramalhete, near the Ocean Club, at around 4pm on 3 May.
There is a 20,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of those responsible for Madeleine’s disappearance.
