A former nanny of Madeleine McCann who worked at the resort in Portugal where she went missing has spoken out about the case for the first time.
The woman had minded Madeleine several times before she went missing. In an interview with The Mirror, she has remained anonymous, criticising the initial investigation by the police when Madeleine disappeared in 2007 from Praia da Luz.
“She [Kate McCann] was crying, but almost in a catatonic state, and Gerry was very distressed. That’s the one thing I really remember from him, looking under the cars. I can’t forget that,” she said.
“She [Kate] was pacing up and down. The worst possible thing had just happened to her.”
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She added that the staff were “told to start looking in bins in case her body was in there”.
“It was at that point we realised this was serious,” the woman said.
The main criticism she had of the investigation was that police took too long to arrive at the scene – they appeared 90 minutes after Madeleine’s parents noticed she was missing.
“I think a lot of things should’ve happened differently. Unfortunately the effects were catastrophic,” she said.
At one point of the interview, the former nanny noted that she didn’t feel safe at the resort, and was even told to carry a ‘rape whistle’.
“I just couldn’t get over how different it was to other Mark Warner resorts,” she said.
“We were told, ‘Here’s a rape whistle, don’t go anywhere by yourself, ever.’ There’d been a girl attacked the year or so before in Praia da Luz. It didn’t sound like a family resort to me.
“I just got the feeling the locals didn’t want us there.”
Madeleine McCann has now been missing for almost ten years. Operation Grange is currently taking place to continue interviewing witnesses and is working to help bring Maddie home.
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