In a development in the search for Madeleine McCann, Scotland Yard said it now is appealing to the public for information on what it describes as a male intruder. The man is 'probably a local,' who gained access to villas occupied by British families on holiday in the Algarve.
Detective Chief Inspector Andy Redwood from Scotland Yard said his team is looking at four cases from between 2004 and 2006 involving a man described as being tanned and having dark hair.
Un-named witnesses said the latest suspect spoke in accented English and his voice was described as slow or maybe slurred.
The Scotland Yard team report that the man "was sometimes bare-chested, some describe him as having a pot-belly, and three victims said that he had a noticeable odour.”
This unknown man is suspected of "sexually assaulting five white girls aged between 7 and 10 years while in their beds. On one of these occasions he assaulted two girls in the same villa.”
Scotland Yard’s priority now is to establish the identity of this man, saying "these offences are very serious and that no one yet has been charged. We also need to eliminate this man from our inquiries and ascertain whether these offences are linked to Madeleine's disappearance."
In January 2014 British police working on Operation Grange, dedicated to ascertaining the whereabouts of Madeleine McCann and the circumstances surrounding her disappearance, said they were on the point of arresting three burglars who has been targetting the Praia da Luz area, but so far have not arrested anyone or had the opportunity of questioning anyone on their list of 40 'persons of interest' derived from mobile phone records logged before and after the girl went missing.
The Operation Grange team has sent International Letters of Request to an estimated 30 countries, the majority of them within Europe where under European Union rules, foreign judiciaries normally comply with requests sent under Mutual Legal Assistance treaties. The British police have no jurisdiction overseas and must ask their counterparts in other countries to carry out investigations and interview suspects on their behalf.
Andy Redwood and his team have has to follow the rules and try to maintain cordial and cooperative relations with their Portuguese counterpats in this investigation, not easy when the initial handling of the case by the Portuguese has come under sharp international criticism.
A broadcast on British, Dutch and German TV stations of a re-enactment of the sequence of events on the night Madeleine went missing generated over 300 calls. Detective Chief Inspector Redwood said he believed there is a possibility that the girl is alive, “There is no clear, definitive proof that Madeleine McCann is dead, so on that basis I still genuinely believe that there is a possibility that she is alive," he said.
In its third attempt to solve the mystery, Scotland Yard today launched a multi-lingual website in an attempt to engage with Portugal’s social media networks in the search for clues.
The website contains an appeal for the identity of the man allegedly responsible for the sexual assaults of five British children between 2004 and 2006 in the Algarve.
Without an overt criticism, Portugal's police claim also to have been following the same line of enquiry and are keen to find the same man who came to light during the Oporto police review of the Madeleine McCann case in 2011.
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