Madeleine McCann: 2,400 replies to new appeal

Detectives investigating the disappearance of Madeleine McCann have received more than 2,400 calls and emails after a renewed appeal for information.

Madeleine McCann disappeared in Praia da Luz in 2007, aged 3. Picture: PA

The Metropolitan Police team revealed earlier this week that they had eliminated a key sighting thought to be of an abductor carrying Madeleine, and are now trying to identify a second man who was seen with a child in his arms.

Detective chief inspector Andy Redwood appeared on the BBC’s Crimewatch on Monday, to publicise the renewed appeal, as did Madeleine’s parents Kate and Gerry.

The little girl, then aged three, vanished from a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal, in 2007, as her parents dined with friends in a nearby restaurant.

DCI Redwood said: ‘’Madeleine McCann’s disappearance does, on one reading of the evidence, have the hallmarks of a pre-planned abduction that would undoubtedly have involved reconnaissance.”

His team are looking at a spate of burglaries in the area that peaked in the month that Madeleine disappeared, and a number of bogus charity collectors who were pretending to raise money for needy children.

Police are also trying to trace various fair-haired men, possibly Dutch or German, who were seen lurking near the apartment at the time, and have made television appeals in Holland and Germany this week.