A little more than a day after UK tabloids suggested earth-diggers would be “everywhere” in a heightened police search for Madeleine McCann in Praia da Luz, Sky News has reported that it is “unlikely” that high-profile excavations will take place during the busy tourist season.
Reporter Martin Brunt said it was much more probable that ground penetrating radar equipment would be used, and in a way that “would not be obvious” to passers-by.
The update comes as Portuguese police are reported to have sanctioned the Met’s request for searches ‘on the ground’ and in stark contrast to reports in the Daily Mail and Daily Mirror – both of which suggested the holiday village would soon be turned upside down by fleets of JCB earth-movers “looking for clues” .
The Daily Mail claimed excavations would “not specifically be looking for a body” but more “hoping to rule out possible scenarios”.
Areas involved could include scrubland near the primary school – alongside which an Irish family are reported to have passed a man carrying a child on the night Madeleine was reported missing – and a road leading down from the Ocean Club complex, which was being dug up for new pipework when the McCanns first arrived on holiday.
Residents following this fast-developing story are intrigued. Said a former policeman: “Bearing in mind it is extremely difficult to bury a body at short notice in hard ground, this suggests that police are looking for something buried before May 3.
“Once Madeleine was reported missing, the village was crawling with journalists and search teams for weeks. No one could have buried anything.”
A former RAF navigator who has been following the story since 2007 added: “This certainly seems to have knocked the abduction theory into the long grass.
“We’ve had so many people suspected of abducting the child, but none of them were thought to have been in the possession of heavy-duty earth-digging equipment when they did so.”
By NATASHA DONN [email protected]
