875 yards from where Maddie disappeared – abandoned well that police failed to search
A FORMER Scotland Yard commander has urged British police to search an abandoned well just 875 yards from the apartment where Madeleine McCann vanished.
The Mail on Sunday has established that the uncovered shaft is on scrubland used as a campsite by Roma gipsies – and has been overlooked by Portuguese police.
Hidden from the nearby road, the well drops 30ft down to 12ft-deep water.
‘It is clearly known to locals and possibly to local criminals as a place to discard evidence from petty crime, such as handbags and other unwanted stolen items,’ said Roy Ramm, who served 27 years with the Metropolitan Police and, as Commander of Specialist Operations,
The area is used as a campsite by gipsies
dealt with serious crime, from murder to rape and human trafficking. He added: ‘Whoever abducted Madeleine knew the local streets, alleyways and scrubland and used that knowledge to avoid detection.’
Three years ago British police began a new investigation into the disappearance of three-year-old Madeleine – daughter of Kate and Gerry McCann – who vanished from their holiday apartment in the Portuguese resort of Praia da Luz in 2007.
Met officers recently searched scrubland near the resort, but they have not examined the well.
Local authorities only allowed British police to check areas where ground anomalies picked up by aerial surveys might indicate a grave site.
Mr Ramm said: ‘If this had been a Yard-led inquiry from the outset, there is no doubt that the search would have been wider and more effective than that conducted by the Portuguese police. The well would have been searched thoroughly at the time, probably by using divers to get to the bottom of this very difficult and dangerous shaft.’
Mr Ramm added: ‘The Portuguese authorities have come a long way in letting the Yard conduct any inquiries, but they need now to take the final step and ensure the Yard team can conduct a really thorough search wherever they want. And in my experience that should include the well.’
Both Scotland Yard and the Portuguese police declined to discuss whether the well had featured in their investigations. Local residents said they could not recall ever seeing any police activity in its vicinity. From where Madeleine was snatched, her abductor could reach the well by walking 400 yards through empty back streets, climbing a low metal gate and continuing the rest of the way over scrubland.
The Mail on Sunday revealed last month that a prime suspect may have worked at a water treatment plant just 220 yards from the well.
Heroin addict Euclides Monteiro, who died in 2009, was suspected of kidnapping Madeleine in a botched burglary after mobile phone records placed him near the McCanns’ apartment when she disapppeared.
Last Tuesday, at the request of British officers, local police quizzed four Portuguese suspects – including Russian-born Sergey Malinka, 29, who was questioned as a witness in 2007. British officers sat in on
‘A Yard-led inquiry would not have missed this’
interviews, but sources suggest they led to no new developments.
The well is on land owned by two wealthy British property developers, who were unaware of its existence until The Mail on Sunday contacted them last week.
The plot includes a derelict farmhouse surrounded by rubble and litter, including a pile of English paperback novels. An old mattress inside the tumbledown building suggests someone once slept there.
One of the owners, who asked not to be identified, said: ‘If they want to search on the land we have got no problem with it. We are not going to stand in anyone’s way, but no one has contacted us.’
The McCanns’ spokesman said yesterday: ‘Kate and Gerry continue to have full confidence in the work being carried out by the Met Police but will not comment on it.’