 |
|
Missing: Frank Bode believes the girl on the
holiday flight was Madeleine |
A holidaymaker claims he saw Madeleine McCann on board a flight
from Ibiza to Munich.
Tourist Frank Bode contacted British cops after he saw a little
girl resembling the missing youngster with a German
family on the holiday jet.
The 42-year-old managed to take a blurry photograph of the child,
who he said was British and did not seem to fit with her
family.
“My intuition told me that the girl, who was around seven to 10
years old, could be Madeleine,” Mr Bode told the
Olive Press , an
English newspaper published in Spain.
“She didn’t seem to fit with her family at all. Her father was
clearly German, as were her two brothers, both around 10
to 12 years old, but her mother appeared to be British.”
German Mr Bode saw the little girl at Spain’s Ibiza airport as he
returned home from a five-day break earlier this month.
 |
|
Football fan: Madeleine in her beloved
Everton kit in a snap taken shortly before
she disappeared |
He claims said the family all spoke German except for the little
girl, who he claims he heard speaking British English.
The mother, he said, did not speak for the entire
flight.
He added that the two boys were “touching [the girl] strangely” as
if to stop her from running away and that the youngster
appeared “nervous” and “out of place”.
Mr Bode was so convinced that the little girl was Madeleine – who
disappeared on hoiday in Portugal days before her fourth
birthday in May 2007- he immediately contacted
investigators in the UK.
He told the Olive Press: “I was never very interested in the case
but my instincts told me something was up, and I’m
almost never wrong about these kinds of things.”
A Scotland Yard spokesman today confirmed they had received new
information from Mr Bode and said: “We are aware, but we
are not providing a running commentary on this case.”
Madeleine went missing from a rented holiday apartment in Praia da
Luz, in the Algarve, while her parents dined with
friends in a restaurant a few yards away.
 |
|
Appeal: How Maddy would look today, aged
nine |
 |
|
Age progression: Previous
mock-ups of how Madeleine might look as an
older child, including how her skin might
have tanned in a hot country |
Scotland Yard began a review of the botched Portuguese police
investigation last year at the request of Home Secretary
Theresa May.
A team of detectives is wading through 40,000 pieces of information
and have identified 195 potential new leads.
Earlier this year, the man heading the review, Det Chief Insp Andy
Redwood, claimed new evidence suggests Madeline – who
would now be nine- could still be alive.
He said: “We genuinely believe there is a possibility Madeleine is
alive.”
“Evidence to support that view stems from the forensic view of the
timeline.
“There were opportunities for Madeleine to have been taken as part
of a criminal act.” |
