Police at crossroads in search for Maddie

The two police forces who are investigating Madeleine McCann’s disappearance are now working on wildly different theories, it has emerged.

Met Police believe she may have been abducted by an Algarve sex attacker targeting British girls on holiday with their families.

But Portuguese detectives leading a separate probe are now said to have come round to the view Madeleine’s disappearance was a “unique case” and nothing to do with the pervert intruder behind the sex assaults.

Porto-based police persuaded legal chiefs to reopen their archived Madeleine McCann inquiry last year after discovering similarities between her case and five sex attacks by a mystery intruder and probing a dead immigrant burglar still thought to be on their list of Maddie suspects.

But Portuguese detectives briefed leading daily Correio da Manha yesterday that evidence gathered over the last six months had weakened the possibility of a connection.

The paper said they suspected a foreigner who has now left Portugal had snatched missing Madeleine in a “unique case” and her body if she was killed smuggled out of the country.

The theory signals Portuguese police think excavations near the holiday complex she vanished from seven years ago requested by the British police and approved by an Algarve court will be a waste of time. No date for the digs, expected to be preceded by searches involving ground-penetrating radar and sniffer dogs, has been set.

It was reported on Friday that Portuguese police also believe the Algarve sex attacker may be a British holidaymaker.

Met Police are linking 18 incidents when a male intruder broke into British families’ holiday villas between 2004 and 2010 and sexually assaulted nine girls with three near-misses. One of the victims, a ten-year-old girl, was assaulted in Praia da Luz two years before Madeleine vanished from the resort.

The Met Police reportedly want permission to question eight ‘people of interest’ include an unnamed British paedophile who was living on the Algarve when Madeleine went missing seven years ago. An Algarve judge has yet to decide on the application.

The same judge recently banned them from searching the homes of three former Ocean Club workers but approved the land searches and digs they requested.

Respected Portuguese daily Jornal de Noticias claimed Scotland Yard was planning to send another letter formally requesting more searches on top of the ones already authorised.

A local police source told the paper: “We don’t understand why they want to put in more applications when there isn’t even a start date for what’s been approved.”