By: ELOISE WALTON
A RECONSTRUCTION of the events leading up to Madeleine McCann’s disappearance on May 3, 2007, which was due to take place yesterday (Thursday) and today, has been cancelled after four of the seven friends of Gerry and Kate McCann who were in Portugal at the time declined to take part.
A statement released by Portugal’s Procurator General said that “the reconstruction will not take place” because four friends who were on holiday with the McCanns at the tourist resort in Praia da Luz when Madeleine went missing “have confirmed that they will not be present”.
A spokesman for the PJ police told The Resident: “We cannot confirm any information about the reconstruction.”
Portuguese police had invited Kate and Gerry McCann and their group of seven friends, known as the “Tapas seven”, back to Praia da Luz to take part in the reconstruction more than one year after their daughter Madeleine went missing.
Clarence Mitchell, spokesman for the McCanns, said that although the couple had not refused to return to Portugal, they had been made aware of their friends’ views, some of whom had “serious questions” about the value of the reconstruction.
Serious questions
“The bottom line is that there were a number of serious questions. For instance, why did they [Portuguese officers] want to hold a reconstruction more than a year after the event?” said Clarence Mitchell.
He also questioned why the reconstruction was not due to be televised, since that would have generated new leads and information and why other holidaymakers who were there when Madeleine disappeared had not also been asked to take part.
The “Tapas seven” are Matthew and Rachael Oldfield, Russell O’Brien and his partner Jane Tanner, David Payne and Fiona Payne and Diane Webster, Fiona Payne’s mother.
If you have any information on the whereabouts of Madeleine McCann, please contact the McCann helpline on 0034 902 300 213 or the Portuguese Police on 00351 282 405 400.
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