Irish family's Maddie quiz

Private detectives hunting for Madeleine McCann are to quiz an Irish family who may have been the last to see her alive. (The Sun 3rd January 2007)

Martin Smith, his wife and children told cops they saw a man carrying a little blonde girl in Praia da Luz on the night Maddie vanished. Investigators from the Metodo 3 agency hired by Maddie’s parents Gerry and Kate are preparing to travel to Ireland to interview them.

The family, from Drogheda, Co Louth, believe they saw the man taking the sleeping tot down to the beach at the Portuguese resort. The Smiths were leaving Kelly’s Bar — 400 metres from the McCanns’ apartment — between 9.50 and 10pm on May 3 last year. They flew home to Ireland the next day, but when the times of Maddie’s abduction were revealed, the family remembered seeing a man, 5ft 7in to 5ft 9in tall and dressed in beige, carrying the child. Significantly the description matches that given by Jane Tanner, 37, a friend of the McCanns.

Mr Smith, who has already spoken to Portuguese cops over the sighting, said yesterday: “I’d talk to anyone to move this investigation on. I think about Maddie every day.” He added: “I found the Portuguese cops not to be the most efficient bunch.”

His wife Mary, 59, said: “We saw a man carrying a blonde child. It was just such a normal thing to see in a holiday resort — we didn’t think anything of it at the time.”