BRITAIN:Only one British sex offender with links to the Algarve remains a suspect in the hunt for Madeleine McCann, a television documentary claims today.
In the programme, The Madeleine McCann Mystery, Sky News crime correspondent Martin Brunt claims that all 52 British sex offenders with links to the Portuguese holiday destination have been investigated and only one remains in the frame as the search for the missing four-year-old continues.
The documentary comes as Madeleine's parents, Kate and Gerry, face their first Christmas without their daughter.
The programme features forensic expert Prof David Barclay, who says it is unusual for children of Madeleine's age to be abducted by paedophiles.
He said: "There are two options. She [ Madeleine] came to harm at the hands of some member of the family or of friends, or that it was some paedophile who happened to be passing by. Both are really, really unlikely, but we know she's gone.
"Abduction for sexual purposes of children is eight, nine, 10-year-olds. It is really, really unusual to want to take a child of three-and-a-half.
"It would be somebody overcome by the urge at that time. I mean, how often can you do that and get away with it? There are no people in Praia da Luz that have got that sort of history. I know people who have got that, they have been looked at but they [ the Portuguese police] didn't check up on the other people staying in the apartments."
Prof Barclay criticises the fact the McCanns' apartment in the resort of Praia da Luz was not protected as a crime scene, following Madeleine's disappearance on May 3th. He claims that in similar cases, police have bought the house so they could keep it until after any trial.
Brunt also claims a blue tennis bag used by Gerry McCann (39) hours before Madeleine disappeared has gone missing.
The McCanns' spokesman, Clarence Mitchell, rejected the claim. He said: "As far as Kate and Gerry are concerned, there's no missing tennis bag. They came back from holiday with everything except of course, tragically, Madeleine."
The programme hears from Robert Murat's aunt, Sally Eveleigh. She said: "All the people that know Robert, that were out on that night, that own bars, businesses, restaurants, that closed them all up to go and search for Madeleine, were interviewed and questioned by the police and they all didn't see him.
"Of course they didn't see him, he wasn't there. But three complete strangers who have never met him before say that they saw him in the dark with his dodgy eye, which is actually a detached retina, it is not a glass eye. I can't understand that." Asked who those people were, she added: "The friends of the McCanns."