Portuguese police to quiz Tapas Nine in Britain in final bid to solve Madeleine mystery

Portuguese police are set to fly to Britain on April 7 to interview members of the so-called Tapas Nine in a last bid to solve the Madeleine McCann mystery.

Investigators are pinning their hopes on fresh interviews with the seven holiday friends who were eating tapas with Kate and Gerry McCann when their four-year-old daughter disappeared.

They are thought to be particularly keen to reinterview David Payne, Jane Tanner and her partner, Russell O'Brien.

Prosecutors in Portugal have rejected police requests to call the McCanns in for a second round of questioning.

But they have agreed to an application to quiz the McCanns' former spokeswoman Justine McGuiness and a psychologist who comforted GP Kate, 39, after Madeleine went missing.

A source close to the case said: "The Policia Judiciaria had prepared various questions it wanted Kate and Gerry to face but they were crossed off the list of priorities on the advice of public prosecutors.

"They felt it was a waste of time because the McCanns would refuse to answer the questions, a right that Portuguese law grants official suspects."

Portuguese police indicated recently they were ready to spend more than two months in Britain.

They hope to wrap up the interrogations within a week but are packing for a much longer stay.

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Dr Payne, 41, a cardiovascular researcher from Leicester, was the last person outside the McCann family to see Madeleine at the Ocean Club in Praia da Luz on May 3. Gerry asked him to check on his wife and children while he was having a tennis lesson at about 6.30pm.

Dr O'Brien, 36, from Exeter, was away from the group for up to 45 minutes between 9.30pm and 10.15pm tending his own child who was being sick in his apartment.

He told police he had changed her bed linen, but staff at the Ocean Club deny any change of sheets was requested.

Attention has also focused on 36-year-old Miss Tanner's claim that she saw a man carrying a girl from the McCanns' apartment at about

9.15pm - when another witness says he was outside the flat at the same time but did not see her or the mystery man.

The trio have denied reports they intended changing their original police statements. The McCanns' spokesman Clarence Mitchell says the friends are keen to help police and want the reinterviews to take place as soon as possible.

The McCanns - who are official suspects along with expat Robert Murat - deny any involvement in Madeleine's disappearance.