McCanns vow to step up their hunt for Madeleine after Morocco heartbreak

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The family of Madeleine McCann today vowed to redouble their efforts to find the missing girl following the devastating news that a sighting in Morocco was not her.

Relatives also pleaded for any witnesses to come forward who might have seen her. An £80,000 advertising campaign is to be launched with posters highlighting Madeleine's disappearance being distributed across Portugal, Spain and Morocco.

Private investigators are also to be hired to scour countries where there have been sightings, including Belgium and Morocco - although not Portugal where it is against the law to use private detectives while a criminal inquiry is ongoing.

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Wrong girl: Bouchra Binaissa was mistaken for Madeleine, right

Yesterday it was revealed that a blonde girl captured by a Spanish tourist in a photograph in Morocco - and whom there were high hopes might be Madeleine - turned out to be Bushra Benaissa, a three-year-old from Zinat in the north of the country.

Found: Bouchra Benaissa with her father Ahmed and mother Hafida

Madeleine's uncle, John McCann, said her parents Kate and Gerry had stayed silent about the sighting in case their "hopes were dashed".

He said: "We are glad that people continue to search for Madeleine because she is still out there.

"The family have made a policy when it comes to sightings of not saying anything."

Madeleine's aunt, Philomena McCann, said the family had never given up hope since her niece vanished from a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal, on 3 May.

She said: "We have had so many disappointments that we just get back up and carry on going."

The McCanns' spokesman Clarence Mitchell told how the couple had desperately hoped their daughter had been found.

But Mr Mitchell, who had to break the news to the McCanns at their home in the Leicestershire village of Rothley, urged the public to keep looking for the little girl despite the bitter blow.

He said: "They believed for a moment that they were close to a breakthrough. But they take comfort from the fact that the focus is back on finding Madeleine.

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Mistaken identity: The tourist picture of Bouchra on her mother's back

"Maybe now they are a step closer to that. This underlines that this little girl is still lost and could be alive out there somewhere. The campaign to find Madeleine goes on and we can only ask people to redouble their efforts to find her."

It follows the news that nearly £300,000 has been spent on the search for the girl so far. The figure emerged when directors of the fund set up to help find the four-year-old met to discuss how the cash was being spent.

So far £1,036,104 has been given to Madeleine's Fund, a non-charitable not-for-profit company, by individuals and organisations.

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Bushra's father Ahmed,39, said he had not realised a tourist had even taken a picture of his family on the roadside near Zinat - when they were helping a relative take her possessions to the main road to catch a bus.

He said: "Until today we did even know the story of Madeleine and that this little girl was missing."

Bouchra clung to her mother Hafida, 38, while her sisters Aziza, 16, Souhaila, 12, and 11-year-old Mariam looked on in amazement at the British journalists who had travelled to their smallholding.

It was easy to see how Bouchra could have fleetingly been mistaken for Madeleine in the grainy photo.

Mrs Benaissa said: "We are amazed at what has happened. It is sad this girl is missing but this is my daughter Bouchra and not Madeleine."

Clara Torres, who took the photograph said she felt she had done the right thing in alerting police. "I did what I had to do," she said.

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Dashed hopes: Kate McCann outside her home yesterday before hearing that the girl in the photo was not Madeleine

"It was not my intention to raise false hopes."

Her lawyer, Seguimundo Navarro said last night he was with his client when police confirmed the picture was not Madeleine.

Clara Torres: She thought the girl in her holiday snap taken four weeks ago looked like Madeleine

He added: "Of course, it would have been excellent for everyone if it had been Madeleine. But it was not. Now for Clara the matter is closed."

Portuguese police remain convinced that she died on the night she vanished, May 3, possibly at the hands of her parents.

A family source accused them of "sneering" at the McCanns' hopes that they were a step closer to finding their daughter, and asked why they were not in Morocco to check on a series of possible sightings there.

A Norwegian woman and a British tourist both claim to have seen her in Marrakesh on May 9, and Spanish woman Isabel Gonzalez said she saw Madeleine in the northern town of Zaio at the end of May.

Yesterday another British holidaymaker came forward saying she had seen her in the Cafe des Epices in Marrakesh on May 11.

Jeannie Thompson saw a little blonde girl looking "dishevelled" with a man who was taking photographs of her.

Mrs Thompson, 56, a mother of one from Devon, thought immediately that something was wrong, but only reported it two weeks later when she was back in Britain.

"I was with a friend," she said. "The girl looked stunned, really shell-shocked.

"We didn't know then about the Madeleine case, but we were both really struck by how this girl looked."

The pair contacted Leicestershire Police when they heard about another possible sighting in Marrakesh and police took statements from Mrs Thompson in July but she has heard nothing since.

 

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