Kate and Gerry McCann hope three new investigators will solve their daughter’s disappearance

A CRACK team of British ex- police officers who have joined the search for Madeleine McCann are giving her parents fresh hope.

Kate and Gerry McCann are convinced three new investigators will help solve their daughter’s disappearance and she told a friend yesterday: “A new team, new ideas and new hope!”

The three, paid by the Find Maddie Fund, are now in the Portuguese capital Lisbon.

Kate has made a return trip to the resort where her daughter, now seven years old, was snatched nearly three-and-a-half years ago.

She visited friends in Praia da Luz and went alone to the Catholic Church and wept as she prayed.

A family source said: “Kate has been given fresh hope by her visit to ‘Luz’ and by the fact three new highly regarded investigators are injecting new impetus into the search for Madeleine. She didn’t meet the investigators but stayed with the local Anglican priest Father Haynes Hubbard and his wife Susan, who have become very close friends.

“Kate went out alone to have a break and, of course, to pray for Madeleine.”

Family doctor Kate, 42, spent last weekend in Luz while relatives looked after her twins Sean and Amelia, five.

She is believed to have taken a look at the Mark Warner flat from where Madeleine vanished in May 2007. Infamous Apartment 5a remains empty with its windows boarded up and gates padlocked.

Chief investigator David Edgar has boosted his team with three former policemen:

Nigel Brown

Nigel Brown, who was named Investigator Of The Year after securing the rescue of a kidnapped oil company executive, Dave Carter, who worked in Northern Ireland, and Ray Cooper, who investigated war crimes in Bosnia.

The McCann source said: “They are in Portugal on a semi- permanent basis.

“When new leads come in they are there to chase them up. They are an ideal addition to the team and, in Gerry’s words, have vowed to leave no stone unturned.

“Kate is upbeat because she is convinced they will have new ideas and methods of working, which gives her new hope.”

Last week, the McCanns were said to be “very upset and annoyed” that Jim Gamble, chief executive of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, has quit over a merger with the proposed national crime agency.

Kate and Gerry said: “He will be a huge loss to child protection…it is extremely saddening.”