A former Metropolitan Police detective has said he does not believe Madeleine McCann is alive, and that her family rejected his help. The three-year-old disappeared on May 3, 2007, from her family’s holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal. Retired Detective Chief Inspector Mike Neville, who reviewed the case with the Sun journalist Mike Sullivan, told our podcast, the Daily Expresso, that if Madeleine was alive she could have been spotted in a photo shared on social media.
Madeleine is dead, he believes. The former investigator added that the toddler had a “distinct” mark in her eye – a rare coloboma of the iris – and was wearing recognisable patterned pyjamas when she went missing.
“In this day and age, you can’t help but be caught in images,” Mr Neville said. “So, if you and I were out for a beer, and we have a selfie, we’ll catch the people in the background, won’t we?”
“So, if she’s alive, the world is awash with images,” he added. The ex-officer told podcast host JJ Anisiobi that he has written to the family three times offering to help check all images on Facebook for any sign of Madeleine using AI and super-recognisers – people with an ability to recognise and remember faces.
“They’ve never come back to me, and I think that’s a bit odd,” Mr Neville said. “I don’t know why that is.
“If my daughter went missing, and somebody wrote to me and said, ‘I’m an expert in dreams.’ I’d say, ‘You get on with it right now. You tell me what these dreams mean.’
“Somebody could come with the most whacky idea, if my child was missing, you can do whatever you want. Please, please, whatever it is.”
He added: “That disappoints me, that I’ve offered my services, I was an expert in this area, around the world, I’m recognised as an expert on these matters.”
It comes as a new crime drama depicts Kate McCann being treated as a suspect in the investigation into the disappearance of her daughter.
The feature-length programme will be broadcast on 5 and stars Slow Horses actress Laura Bayston in the lead role of Kate McCann.
The prime suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine is allowed to leave Germany after a legal restriction was lifted in November.
Christian Brueckner was freed from jail in September after serving a seven-year prison sentence for the rape of an elderly woman at her home in Praia da Luz, Portugal, in 2005.
On Monday, a German court overturned one of the conditions imposed on him, requiring him to live in his native country.
Brueckner has never been charged over Madeleine’s disappearance, but remains the person being looked at the most by German and British investigators.
