'Caller Knows Where Tots Is'Daily Record still runs the story ....
POLICE were last night desperately trying to find a caller who said he knows where Madeleine McCann is.The man used an unregistered pay-as-you-go mobile phone to make the dramatic call on Wednesday. He told Spanish police: "I know where Madeleine McCann is" before asking to speak directly to her parents Kate and Gerry. Detectives in Madrid were so convinced by the call they alerted the couple and British police.
It came as other reports in Spain claimed Madeleine, four, was "snatched to order" by a paedophile. Kate and Gerry were forced to delay their flight from Berlin as police tried to contact the caller. Phone experts are in a race against time to find who phoned and what he really knows. Police sources said the 60-second call was definitely made from outside Europe. But they said the nationality of the caller was unclear and he did not disclose his identity.
The drama unfolded as the couple prepared to travel from Berlin to Amsterdam. Kate and Gerry were alerted that the mystery caller might try to make contact. They were told to delay their flight in case he phoned while they were in the air. Frantic efforts followed to try to re-establish contact as the McCanns waited for news at the British Embassy in Berlin.An emergency contingency plan was drawn up in which the McCanns would speak directly to the man. At about 6pm, the flight crew of their jet told journalists travelling with the couple of a possible change of destination. But all efforts to reestablish contact failed and the McCanns were finally given the all-clear to proceed to Amsterdam.
However, they have been put on standby to talk to the mystery man if necessary.
A Spanish police source said yesterday: "A man called saying he knew where Madeleine was and wanted to speak to the McCanns. This did not appear to be a crank call and the information was felt credible enough to warrant the couple being informed immediately. Eventually, after three hours, the urgency of the situation waned but it remains an important new lead and inquiries are continuing. The McCanns have always said that it might only take one phone call to get Madeleine back. They are still waiting for that call."
According to other reports in Spain, a convicted paedophile told drinkers in a bar that he was going to the Algarve a week before Madeleine was snatched. Investigative journalist Antonio Toscano claims the paedophile was hired by two other people to snatch Madeleine from her bed in Praia da Luz on May 3. He said the bar in Seville was at the centre of a child abuse probe in the mid-1990s.
