Tapas 9 woman: I saw Madeleine McCann being carried off

Nov 17 2007 by Caroline Innes, Liverpool Daily Post

ONE of the infamous “Tapas Nine” last night broke her silence to insist she saw missing child Madeleine McCann being carried away by her abductor.

Jane Tanner spoke in public for the first time about what she believes is the last definite sighting of the missing child.

Her evidence is one of the few clues Portuguese detectives have as to what happened to Madeleine at the Algarve holiday complex on May 3.

Ms Tanner said she saw a man carrying a sleeping child away from the Praia da Luz apartments just 45 minutes before Liverpool-born Kate McCann discovered her daughter was missing.

She decided to speak out, despite the instructions of the Portuguese police, after being labelled a liar and a fantasist.

In an interview with the BBC, she said: “I know what I saw and I think it is important that people know what I saw because I believe Madeleine was abducted.”

Describing the night of the abduction, she said another friend came to her apartment at about 10pm and said the child was gone.

She added: “That was the first I heard about it.

“Then I saw Kate and Fiona running around shouting ‘Madeleine’. “Kate said to me: ‘Jane, Madeleine’s gone, Madeleine’s gone’.”

Ms Tanner denied reports she has refused to co-operate with Portuguese detectives or that she changed her story.

Asked why she has not spoken out before, she said: “I have not spoken because the Portuguese police told us not to talk about these things.

“Maybe I am talking now because I have been called a liar and a fantasist.”

Ms Tanner and her partner, Russell O’Brien, who live in Exeter, are two members of the so-called Tapas Nine.

The party were eating together with Mrs McCann, who grew up in Anfield and Allerton and her husband, Gerry, and taking it in turns to check on the children.

Last month, Mrs McCann, a former Notre Dame school pupil, released a picture of the man created by an FBI-trained forensic artist using details provided by Ms Tanner.

The picture, which depicts a man with dark, collar-length hair cradling a pyjama-clad child in his arms, was published on newspaper front pages worldwide.

The McCanns, both 39, of Rothley, Leicestershire, were named arguidos, or formal suspects, in September over the disappearance.

But despite a battery of DNA and forensic tests, no charges have been brought.

THE Jane Tanner interview will be broadcast during Panorama: The Mystery Of Madeleine McCann on BBC One on Monday at 9pm.

carolineinnes