An expat British gardener quizzed over the disappearance of Madeleine McCann has vowed to the Sunday People: “I never saw her.”
The man was working near a Portuguese holiday apartment where the little girl vanished on May 3, 2007, and attracted the attention of police at the time.
Detectives re-examining the case grilled him this month on his whereabouts on the night Madeleine went missing.
Lurking
The three-year-old was at the Ocean Club resort in Praia da Luz with her parents Kate and Gerry.
But the gardener insisted to us: “I never saw the girl, or the McCanns. I did do work for the Ocean Club. Someone apparently told the police they saw someone matching my description lurking around on the night she went missing.
“But I wasn’t there – I was in a bar somewhere else.”
“They’ve checked this out before. They sent detectives to the bar to speak to the owner. I have witnesses that I was there.”
The Brit also revealed he did not give a mouth swab for DNA tests during the original Portuguese investigation, as case files claim. He told us: “All I had to do was answer questions and have a photo taken. I’ve never given a mouth swab or been tested for DNA.”
Speaking at his apartment on Portugal’s Algarve coast, the gardener, who we are not naming, said he was questioned about Madeleine for “around 11 hours” in 2007.
He said of the new inquiry by a team including UK officers: “Why are they spending all this money? People go missing all the time.
“It’s a long time ago. They’ll never find her. I’ve racked my brains. They need to leave it now.”
Kate, 46, and Gerry, 45, of Rothley, Leics, were at a tapas bar about 80 yards from their apartment when Madeleine vanished.
Gerry checked on her and her brother and sister at 9.15pm. At 10pm Kate found she had gone.
The gardener says he was at a bar until 7pm, then went home. He returned to the bar at 9.30, staying until 11.30. At least one of his witnesses is now dead, he admits.
Police believe seven new possible suspects, five men and two women, may have information. It is reported they also plan to re-interview another expat, Robert Murat, 41, cleared by the 2007 inquiry.
