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Maddy police 'following eight major new leads'
Tom Worden in Barcelona and Justin Davenport14 Dec 2011
Scotland Yard detectives searching for Madeleine McCann are examining up to eight "very important" new leads after meeting Spanish private investigators, it was claimed today.
Four officers yesterday visited the Barcelona HQ of Metodo 3, the agency employed to look for her by Madeleine's parents Kate and Gerry for six months after she vanished.
The British officers, from a 30-strong Met team reviewing the case, took away 30 boxes of documents compiled by the private detectives.
The agency's director, Francisco Marco, said there were "six, seven or eight very important leads" within the files which he claimed could help police to solve the case.
Madeleine, of Rothley in Leicestershire, disappeared from her parents' holiday apartment in Praia da Luz on the Algarve in Portugal in May 2007. She was days short of her fourth birthday.
It is the second visit by British officers, who were in Barcelona last month. Mr Marco said on Spanish TV today: "We have provided them with all the documents and information we have collated worldwide about Madeleine's disappearance so they can continue the investigations we carried out in Spain, Morocco and the rest of the world.
"I think there are six, seven or eight very important leads in there."
He claimed Portuguese police ignored the leads for political reasons, and that when his investigators visited Portugal, "we were never allowed to do a proper job. The English police are now continuing with an investigation which should never have been closed".
Asked if he believed Madeleine is still alive, Mr Marco said: "When we were investigating we were always trying to find a living child. Hopefully for the parents she will be found alive."
Madeleine's parents, who have younger twins, a boy and a girl, hired Metodo 3 to find Madeleine four months after she vanished, for a reported £50,000 a month.
The agency, which it was claimed had 40 staff working on the case, sent a team to Morocco to chase up leads that she might have been smuggled out of Portugal.
Today Mr Marco said he still believed that was "very possibly" what happened to her but he refused to give more details on the leads.
