Revelations as Missing Madeleine McCann Case Notes Released

By Stephen Webb, ABC News London The Portuguese police may have closed the case of the missing British girl Madeleine McCann,  but the investigation is far from over. The 20,000 pages of case notes were handed over to the McCann family last week, bringing new leads and controversy. It has emerged that Kate McCann wrote a plea to the head of the Portuguese police asking to be kept informed about the investigation, the BBC  reported today. The U.K. Press Association reports that she called for an end to “finger-pointing blame” and wrote of the anxiety and pain she felt at losing her daughter. The letter, dated December 4, 2007,  was part of the huge case file released to journalists this week. Madeleine McCann disappeared in May 2007 while on holiday in Portugal  with her parents. She was 3 years old at the time. The U.K. newspaper The Daily Mail reported today that Madeleine’s parents, Gerry and Kate McCann, were  "distressed"  that they  had not been informed about a potential sighting. An account in the case notes of a sighting in Amsterdam. According to one file in the case notes, Anna Stam, 41, a shop assistant,  said she spoke to a young girl who looked like Madeleine and said her name was "Maddy." The notes said the girl also said, "They took me from my holiday." Today, Anna Stam accused the Portuguese police of neglect, telling the U.K.’s ITV News, it was ‘stupid’ not to follow it up. CCTV footage of a girl resembling Madeleine at a petrol station the day after she went missing was also released, according to the BBC. It was reported Tuesday that two efits (computer generated impressions based on witness descriptions) of suspects were composed three days after the girl went missing but were not released by police because of fears that they would breach Portugal’s strict privacy laws. Despite the police investigation being shelved, the McCanns are determined to continue the search through private detectives. Clarence Mitchell, spokesman for the McCanns told ABC News that various private detectives had been recruited in a number of different countries to continue the investigation. He explained that there is a global network of bringing in information about the case and more private detectives would be recruited if necessary. According to PACT, a U.K. charity for missing children, some 100,000 children go missing every year in the  United Kingdom, while in the United States, an estimated 797,500 children are reported missing each year, according to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. Photo Credit: Reuters