Madeleine: Portuguese police finally target local paedophiles

Police in Portugal are trawling through a newly-seized hoard of child pornography for pictures of Madeleine McCann, it emerged last night.

The files were found on 150 computers taken from 80 suspects in raids across the country which smashed a major paedophile ring.

Though Operation Predator was not formally linked to the Madeleine inquiry, officers will alert detectives searching for the four-year-old if pictures which could be her are found.

Sources said the suspects had accessed the images through filesharing programmes.

Experts at the Child Exploitation and Online Protection unit in London are already using state-oftheart facial recognition software to scan computer porn for Madeleine.

The Portuguese raids involved more than 300 officers in the country's biggest-ever operation of its kind.

Kate and Gerry McCann were said last night to have been encouraged by the development. A friend said: "This shows Portuguese police appear to be looking in the right direction. It may provide vital leads."

The hunt for their daughter has been reinvigorated by the appointment of a new detective to lead it this week.

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Paulo Rebelo, deputy national director of the Policia Judiciaria, is said to favour a root-and-branch review of the five-month investigation.

Officers have returned to the McCanns' Algarve holiday apartment for the first time in three months, and police in Britain have been asked to obtain DNA samples and fingerprints from some 350 tourists who stayed in the Ocean Club complex in Praia da Luz.

They will be compared with samples from various apartments, which Portuguese police have refused to identify.

The country's most senior detective, Alipio Ribeiro, insisted last night that the inquiry would consider the McCanns' fears that their daughter was abducted, although it would continue to assess evidence against the couple.

Officials have always played down the idea that Madeleine could have been taken by a paedophile, initially claiming that she could have wandered off alone. There are fears that the lucrative tourism industry would be hit if families felt the country had a major paedophile problem.

But the extent of this week's raids shows that senior officers privately acknowledge that it does exist.

The police moves came as the newspaper 24 Horas repeated claims that Madeleine and the McCanns' two-year- old twins, Sean and Amelie, were all drugged on the night of May 3. It said preliminary results from forensics tests in both Portugal and England showed sedatives had been used.

The claim provoked fury from the couple last night. Their spokesman Clarence Mitchell called the report "utter rubbish", and said they were considering legal action.

He said: "Contrary to renewed speculation in the Portuguese press, Gerry and Kate McCann wish to make it categorically clear that they have never, ever used sedatives on their children. To suggest otherwise is as outrageous as it is hurtful."

A family friend said Mr McCann in particular was "livid" over the latest slurs as he felt they distracted attention from the hunt for his daughter and could damage the couple's professional reputation as doctors.

The McCanns, both 39, have told their lawyers to study Portuguese newspapers for evidence that the Policia Judiciaria has been leaking 'propaganda' against them. They have already launched a libel action against one paper.

The Forensic Science Service in Birmingham refused to comment on the leak last night.

Experts say it is possible that toxicology tests on samples of hair could show up the use of certain drugs, but they could not pinpoint dates when they were administered.