07 05 04 Ch4 Girl snatched in Portugal

TRANSCRIPT

KRISHNAN GURU MURTHY ...on them before she vanished. Her parents were having dinner at a nearby restaurant. They say she's been abducted. Police have spent the day searching around the Praia da Luz resort in the Algarve. Madeleine has now been missing for almost 24 hours. As Katy Razzall reports.

KATY RAZZALL Three year old Madeleine McCann, a little girl from Leicester on her first ever foreign holiday. As the hours pass, the agony grows. This, a major investigation into what the Portuguese police are still referring to as a missing persons enquiry. Abduction the word being used by Madeleine's family. Last night this was just a holiday resort. Today, the McCann's apartment in Mark Warner's Praia da Luz is sealed off. Madeleine's parents had been eating at a Tapas bar within sight of here but at ten last night Madeleine's mother found her little girl gone. The younger twin brother and sister still asleep in cots either side of Madeleine's bed. Her distraught father rang his sister.

TRISHA CAMERON (Madeleine's Aunt) He said that Madeleine had been abducted. She's not the type of wee girl to wander off and Kate went back to check her half an hour after Gerry had checked and Madeleine was missing. The window was open. The shutters were up. None of that had been left like that and they'd been interfered with, the windows.

KATIE RAZZALL Those shutters being checked for fingerprints today as the search continued. Maps of the area and photographs of Madeleine given out to ensure every corner of the resort is checked in the hope the little girl will be found. Many local residents and holidaymakers stayed up all night.

JOHN HILL (Resort Manager) When I arrived here err, gue... more guests, more local residents were getting involved in the search and we tried to do a strategic search from the right hand side of the village across through to the left. We sent people down to the beach and came up through the alley ways.

KATIE RAZZALL The police talking to anyone who may have noticed anything unusual. The hope that Madeleine woke up and went in search of her parents fading perhaps. If this is an abduction the police will need to know who may have entered or left the resort, to identify why Madeleine's room was targeted, whether this was an opportunistic kidnap or something planned? Such a crime so here rare its new territory for the Portuguese authorities.

PAUL LUCKMAN (Publisher, Portugal News) I cannot recall a child abduction on the foreign community. Its virtually unheard of in this country. This is taken very, very seriously. Now we know that they had the borders closed in very, very short time. The airport security is very high on children which are not travelling with their parents. So I would think they've done very, very well.

KATIE RAZZALL Gerry and Kate McCann are described as totally devoted to their children. The horror of it all too imaginable. The pain and shock etched on their faces today. A close-knit family shattered.

EILEEN MCCANN (Madeleine's grandmother) She's a doctor. He's a cardiologist consultant, saves people's lives and this, this is how he gets repaid. (??? short unintelligible phrase and sobbing.)

KATIE RAZZALL Madeleine's parents chose this resort for its family-friendly atmosphere. This afternoon, they said they believed their daughter, who'll be four next week, is still alive.