[West Ender]

Isn't this all so typical of the bungling way the Portugese police have handled this case? I know someone who works very closely with police, in this country, who deal with "specialised" cases. When the child went missing they said they would go to Portugal immediately, with all their resources, to help with the investigation. The Portugese police refused to allow them to do so and have stumbled along ever since, only accepting help far too late.

I am very sorry to say, and I desperately hope I'm proved wrong, that I have thought from the start that the child is dead. I have never thought, and I still don't, that her parents have harmed her. I don't believe the other suspect, Robert Muran, had anything to do with the case either. He was "fingered" by a fanciful reporter, clutching at straws, just as Mrs McCann is now.