Kate McCann screamed from the BALCONY 'they've taken her', claims new witness

A waiter at the Portuguese holiday complex where the family were staying said instead of running back to the tapas bar where she was dining with her husband Gerry and friends, Kate McCann raised the alarm from the balcony of their apartment.

The Portuguese man said that instead of running back to the tapas bar where the McCanns and their friends were dining Kate McCann screamed: "They've taken her, they've taken her, they've taken our little girl."

This version of events contrasts dramatically with the account friends of the McCanns have given.

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It has previously been claimed that the 39-year-old GP raised the alarm when she ran back to the restaurant on 3 May shouting: "Madeleine's gone, Madeleine's gone."

Detectives leading the case into the four-year-old's disappearance have always insisted her first words were "they've taken her" but have only today revealed she screamed these words from the balcony of the family's holiday apartment at the Ocean Club in the Portuguese town of Praia da Luz.

According to the Portuguese newspaper Diario de Noticias, detectives in the Policia Judiciaria — Portugal's criminal investigation department — are looking particularly closely at the new evidence.

They are understood to view this as suspicious because it indicates that Mrs McCann had already ruled out the possibility of Madeleine wandering off, and regard it as possible evidence that she was already engaged in a cover-up.

But friends of the couple have always insisted Mrs McCann reacted with such horror that they are convinced she could not have faked it.

They re-interviewed at least three Ocean Club workers —a receptionist and two waiters at the tapas restaurant last week.

The waiter is reported to have told colleagues Mrs McCann was in "a state of panic". Mr McCann and the seven friends dining with the couple then came running out to see what had happened.

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They also insist that both the child's parents were so distraught it would have been impossible for them to have killed their child several hours earlier.

The Portuguese police are also looking the 14 text messages Gerry McCann sent at dinner shortly before his daughter's disappearance.

This development comes as it was revealed that the couple, declared suspects in their daughter's disappearance in September, could sue the Portuguese police for failure to find their daughter.

The couple could sue for an estimated £1million if the investigation is closed, it was reported.