Mobile phone calls could provide vital clue

ALMOST all modern police investigations rely on mobile phone analysis to pinpoint locations and trace calls and texts.

Smartphones leave a digital footprint that is virtually impossible to erase, providing experts with cast-iron evidence.

But when Madeleine McCann disappeared in Praia da Luz on May 3, 2007 no such technology existed. Most people carried mobile phones with basic call and text facilities. There was limited internet connection and even fewer had GPS technology.

In an extraordinary move, Met detectives revealed a 30-minute call was made to a Portuguese mobile phone owned by the German suspect Christian Brueckner just an hour before Maddie disappeared.

They took the unprecedented move of releasing his phone number and the number that called him, saying any information could be critical.

The suspect is believed to have been using a Portuguese mobile phone with the number +351 912 730 680 on the day Madeleine went missing.

The phone received a call in the area of Praia da Luz from a second mobile number +351 916 510 683 from someone who was not in the area. They want the person who made the call to come forward. Mobile phone data, including location and records of calls and texts, could still be used to trace suspects and potential accomplices.

Networks would also have been able to roughly track users’ locations by seeing which mobile mast had been “pinged”.

It is probable Portugal’s mobile networks still hold a record of every phone call and text for every number for billing purposes, including how long calls lasted, and the number rung.