McCanns meet brother of Ken Bigley

Aug 21 2007

The parents of missing Madeleine McCann met the brother of Ken Bigley, the hostage murdered in Iraq, to discuss the trauma of having a relative kidnapped, it has emerged.

Phil Bigley visited the couple in Portugal to offer his support, Madeleine’s father Gerry wrote on the Find Madeline website.

The visit comes as hopes are mounting of a long-awaited breakthrough in the hunt for the missing four-year-old

Full results of DNA tests on blood specks found in the family’s apartment are expected from a British forensic laboratory “imminently”.

Portuguese detectives investigating the four-year-old’s disappearance are understood to be poised to carry out a series of new searches in the Algarve as reports suggested the police inquiry had entered a “decisive phase”.

They are also looking again at claims a pensioner disturbed an intruder in her apartment directly above the McCanns’ holiday flat just two weeks before Madeleine vanished.

The McCann’s met Mr Bigley in Portugal on Saturday afternoon. Ken Bigley was beheaded in Iraq in 2004 and footage of the murder was posted on the internet.

On his blog on the Find Madeleine website, Mr McCann wrote: “This afternoon we had a British visitor who came to offer us a different type of support. He has been through an ordeal similar to ours involving one of his family.

“It was good to talk about our emotions, the pressures and different coping strategies that we use in an ongoing trauma, with someone who has experienced a tragic event like ours.”

It is now 110 days since Madeleine, from Rothley, Leicestershire, was snatched from her bed in the village of Praia da Luz as her parents Kate and Gerry dined nearby with friends.

In recent weeks the focus of the police investigation has shifted away from Anglo-Portuguese expat Robert Murat, 33, still the only official suspect in the case.

British detectives and sniffer dogs sent to Portugal to help with the inquiry discovered the blood stains in the McCanns’ flat three weeks ago.

A spokeswoman for the Forensic Science Service (FSS) in Birmingham, which is analysing samples taken from the apartment, said that the tests were still “ongoing”.

It is unclear how close detectives are to solving the case, partly because of Portugal’s strict “secrecy of justice” laws which severely restrict what police can say publicly.

Alipio Ribeiro, national director of the Policia Judiciaria (PJ), which is leading the investigation, said last week his force had “no idea” where Madeleine was and warned there was “a long way to go”.

But reports said police would step up the hunt for the young girl this week by launching fresh searches, and the Portuguese paper Correio da Manha claimed the investigation was at a “decisive phase”.

A possible suspect is also under surveillance in Britain and could be arrested within days, according to an unconfirmed report in the newspaper.

A Briton who owns a holiday flat in Praia da Luz’s Ocean Club complex, where Madeleine was snatched on May 3, suggested that burglars could be behind her disappearance.

Ian Robertson, from Neyland in Pembrokeshire, south Wales, experienced a break-in at his apartment, which is just 100m from the McCanns’ flat and identical in layout, in February.

The patio doors and a lounge window were left open but police discovered no signs of forced entry, suggesting that the burglars may have had access to a key.

Mr Robertson later discovered that at least three other Ocean Club residents had also suffered burglaries, including two in ground-floor apartments like the one where the McCanns were staying.

Meanwhile donations to the fund set up by the McCanns to help find Madeleine have now topped £1 million.

The money raised for Madeleine’s Fund pays for everything from posters and yellow-and-green wristbands to the McCanns’ campaign manager.

The McCanns have now started thinking about returning to the UK with their two-year-old twins, Sean and Amelie, a family spokeswoman said.

The couple have remained in Praia da Luz since Madeleine went missing, leaving Portugal only to publicise the campaign to find her and for a family christening in Britain.

The family spokeswoman said: “They are starting the process of thinking about coming home. They haven’t made any decision.”