PORTUGUESE police wanted to bug the parents of missing Madeleine McCann but a judge refused permission, their case files have revealed.
Police wanted to bug Gerry and Kate McCann to eavesdrop on their conversations before making the couple formal suspects, last summer.
Their files from the investigation have revealed that on 1 August last year, detectives requested permission to p
lace two bugs in the McCanns' apartment in Praia da Luz and one in their car.
But judge Pedro Frias refused to grant the order, saying the couple's witness statements would be enough.
The parents' suspect status was lifted on 21 July, when prosecutors shelved the case.
Madeleine vanished from her family's holiday flat in the Algarve resort of Praia da Luz on 3 May last year.
A cluster of new leads in Holland and Belgium were yesterday being examined after Belgian police said they had received more than 100 reports of possible sightings of the youngster.
The sightings came after it was revealed a Scotland Yard informant suggested Made-leine was stolen to order by a Belgian paedophile gang. Met sources said they did "everything possible" with the tip.
Artist sketches of a man and woman seen in an Amsterdam shop with a girl who identified herself as "Maddie" have also been released. The pictures were drawn by a police artist on the evidence of Anna Stam, who met a girl who looked like Madeleine in her shop in May last year.
The full article contains 249 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
