British police received intelligence suggesting Madeleine McCann could have been snatched to order by a Belgian paedophile ring, official case files revealed tonight.
Someone connected to the ring took a photograph of the little girl on holiday in Portugal and forwarded it to a “purchaser” in Belgium, according to information gathered by London's Metropolitan Police.
The intelligence is contained in an email dated March 4th sent to Leicestershire Police and forwarded to Portuguese detectives.
It was included in an appendix contained in a massive dossier of thousands of pages of police evidence in the Madeleine case made public this week.
John Shord, from the Metropolitan Police’s CO14 clubs and vice intelligence unit, wrote in the email: “Intelligence suggests that a paedophile ring in Belgium made an order for a young girl three days before Madeleine McCann was taken.
“Somebody connected to this group saw Maddie, took a photograph of her and sent it to Belgium.
“The purchaser agreed that the girl was suitable and Maddie was taken.”
The source of the intelligence was anonymous and it is not clear how reliable it was.
The revelation came as Kate and Gerry McCann's private detectives intensified their focus on Amsterdam after it emerged that a second witness had reported seeing Madeleine in the Dutch city.
Hannie Wiechmann (71), called police after seeing a young child she believed to be the missing girl in the second week of May last year. But officers dismissed her concerns - and when she called British police to
report the sighting they failed to take her details, she claimed.
The news follows the revelation that in early May last year a shop assistant in Amsterdam spoke to a little girl called "Maddy" who said she had been taken from her mother while on holiday.
The McCanns' team of private investigators are looking "very seriously" at the possible Dutch connection to Madeleine's disappearance, Mr Mitchell said.