Madeleine McCann: The theories around her disappearance

Madeleine McCann disappeared from her family’s holiday apartment in Portugal on 3 May 2007.

In the 10 years since she vanished aged three, one of the biggest missing person investigations in the last few decades has taken place, with more than £11 million spent on the UK probe.

Police officers have considered more than 40,000 documents and looked at more than 600 people.

Despite this, no concrete evidence has ever come to light about what happened to Madeleine.

There are some facts we know for sure about the night she disappeared. Madeleine’s parents left their three children asleep in their Praia da Luz apartment while they went for dinner with friends. Father Gerry checked on the youngsters just after 9pm, but when mother Kate returned at 10pm, Madeleine was gone.

Jane Tanner, a friend who dined with the McCanns on the night of 3 May, reported seeing a man carrying a child earlier that night.

Despite the lack of evidence, a number of theories have emerged about what happened to her. These are some of the suggestions.

She was kidnapped by slave traders and sold to a rich family

According to an ex-Scotland Yard detective, Madeleine could have been kidnapped and smuggled to Africa by ferry, to be sold to a rich Middle Eastern family. This is reportedly a practice carried out by gangs operating in Mauritania.

Colin Sutton told The Mirror this month: ‘The Mauritania line is certainly a possibility and needs to be looked at. If someone wanted to get a three-year-old child into Africa it’s the obvious route. The infrastructure and contacts for people smuggling are clearly there.’

Boats departing for Africa leave from Lagos, near where the three-year-old vanished. A couple also reported seeing a young blonde girl in Marrakech soon after her disappearance.

She left the apartment herself

Investigative journalist and former detective Mark Williams-Thomas says that Madeleine left the Portugal apartment herself in order to look for her parents.

Speaking on ITV’s This Morning in February this year, he said: ‘I think Maddie was aware they were in the tapas bar in the resort. In order to get to the bar you have to come out of the premises, walk on a public road and go back in again.The concern I have, I believe she woke up and went looking for them, she left the apartment and came out, we already know the patio door was insecure.’

She was the victim of a ‘botched burglary’

British police suggested in 2016 that Madeleine was a victim of a break-in that went wrong. A gang of thieves was known to be operating in the area, one of whom worked at the resort where the McCann family were staying. Police said that she could have been snatched by men who had broken in to the apartment where she was sleeping.

She was abducted by a paedophile

One of the first lines of enquiry police looked into was that she was seized by a paedophile. The theory was that a person broke into Madeleine’s bedroom and snatched her. No such person has ever been traced, however.

She is still living in the Algarve

Former Detective Inspector Dave Edgar, who worked on the case and was hired by the McCanns as a private investigator, said earlier this year that there is ‘every possibility that Madeleine is still alive and could be being hidden somewhere’. His suggestion is that she could be living in an isolated location close to where she disappeared with no memory of who she really is.