Police ignored tip that Madeleine was 'raped, murdered - and then dumped in reservoir'

Madeleine McCann was raped, murdered and her body dumped in a reservoir within 48 hours of her disappearance, a lawyer has claimed.

Underworld criminals contacted a human rights lawyer on May 6, three days after the girl vanished, with details of her alleged abduction and murder, he said.

But when Marcos Aragao Correia tried to tell police, he was ignored, he added.

The lawyer has contacted Kate and Gerry McCann's detective agency, which has begun to investigate his theory. If true, Mr Correia, 32, believes it would clear the couple of suspicion that they were involved in their daughter's disappearance.

He refused to reveal his underworld sources but said: "They indicated that Madeleine had been abducted, raped and murdered within the first two days after her abduction, and her body thrown into a lake in the Algarve."

From the description of the location that he was given, Mr Correia deduced that Madeleine's body is at the bottom of the Barragem do Arade reservoir, near Silves, 40 miles from Praia da Luz.

The lawyer, from Madeira, travelled to the Algarve to investigate the claims and visited the reservoir, 150ft deep in places, with Metodo 3 last month.

In an interview with the Portuguese magazine Lux, Mr Correia said: "It is the ideal place for somebody to get rid of a body, practically without leaving any trace."

He said Metodo 3 was "very interested" in his information.

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First supsect: Robert Murat (right) and his girlfriend Michaela Walczuch

The private detective agency has also investigated a sighting in Silves by a Portuguese lorry driver, who said he saw a woman handing a child to a man on a nearby roadside on May 5.

The witness told Metodo 3 the woman looked like Michaela Walczuch, the girlfriend of Robert Murat, the first official suspect in the case.

She said the claim was "ridiculous".

Mr Correia said Metodo 3 "sent two detectives to Praia da Luz to meet with me and told me that their own investigations indicated that Madeleine was switched from one car to another, precisely in Silves".

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Kate and Gerry McCann's detectives have been investigating the claims

Police sources told Lux they did not believe Mr Correia's information was credible.

The McCanns' spokesman said: "The lawyer concerned has acted appropriately by making contact with the authorities and our investigators and clearly the matter is now in their hands."