Detective Colin Sutton has drawn on his 30 years of policing to compile a list of the five most likely situations
BYPAUL JOLLANDS
23:00, 21 APR 2017UPDATED23:03, 21 APR 2017
Colin has five explanations for what happened to Maddie (Photo: PA)
There are five possible scenarios that could explain Madeleine McCann’s disappearance.
Colin Sutton has drawn on his 30 years of policing to compile the list.
He says: “Detectives like to put all the scenarios down in a flow chart system.
They then methodically go down each scenario and all the forks and branches that come off them.
“You go down the most likely scenario – the one likely to bring you success more quickly – and may come to a stage where you realise it’s the wrong scenario.
Was Maddie the victim of a targeted kidnap? (Photo: PA)
"Then you go back to the beginning and choose the next scenario.
“It’s like a game of snakes and ladders which carries on until you have exhausted all the options.”
The scenarios he came up with include one that she wandered out of apartment 5A by herself and had a fatal accident.
Another possibility is that a paedophile was watching the McCann family and deliberately targeted the youngster.
Here, Colin looks in detail at the five scenarios – and comes up with the most likely explanation for Madeleine’s disappearance.
1 The McCanns or the Tapas Seven
I can understand why the Portuguese police asked questions about the McCanns and the Tapas Seven.
As uncomfortable as it is, the first place I would have started looking is their group.
The villa Maddie disappeared from (Photo: Daily Mirror)
Without any other information to go on, the most likely scenario when a three-year-old girl disappears into thin air is that someone close to her knows what happened.
However, the police do appear to have decided quite quickly that was the only line of investigation they were going to take.
By concentrating just on that scenario they may have missed tips or other lines that meant going down a completely different investigation route.
2 Targeted kidnap by a trafficking gang
This is the most likely scenario once those closely linked to Madeleine have been ruled out.
This was not the first night that Madeleine and the twins had been left alone. Crucially there was a routine.
If you were watching you would know there were three children in that apartment and the parents were in the tapas restaurant. It would make it easier for abductors to pull it off.
Not only that, but if the Tapas group’s timings are accurate, it gave the abductor a 30-minute slot where they knew they would not be disturbed. Given all the facts we know, it’s the most likely and credible scenario.
A trafficking ring is more likely than a lone paedophile or paedophile ring. Yes there are paedophiles, yes she is a little blonde girl.
But I think six and seven-year-old girls are much more at risk from paedophiles or child abuse rings.
Looking at the trafficking angle, unless the order was specifically for a young blonde girl, why her and not one of the twins?
Babies have less memories than a three-year-old. If Madeleine is alive she will probably remember she had another mother and father and used to live in another house.
No risks of that if you take a baby. More importantly, babies have far less physical identity. They have not developed as a three or four-year-old has.
If you were stealing on spec you would have taken one of the twins. Not both, just one. So it goes back to a specific order for a young blonde girl.
Has a young blonde girl died and their parents want to replace her? Or is there another reason for stealing to order? When you pick it all apart it’s the most likely scenario.
3 She wandered off and had a fatal accident
Looking at it objectively, incidents of children wandering off are much more common than a targeted or non-targeted abduction.
This is also the scenario that police appear to have initially thought the most likely.
However Cuddle Cat is a compelling fly in the ointment with this theory.
If Maddie was as attached to Cuddle Cat as we are led to believe, she would surely have taken it with her if she had wandered on her own out of the apartment.
4 Opportunist abducted her
This is less likely than other scenarios.
The chances of a predatory paedophile just happening across Madeleine and being able to abduct her without being detected are just so remote.
Sarah Payne, right, who was eight (when she was killed by Roy Whiting in 2000), and five-year-old April Jones (who was killed by Mark Bridger in Wales in 2012) are probably the only cases that match something like that.
That shows how rare they are. Then there is the age.
It is uncomfortable to discuss, but most paedophiles are not interested in pre-school-age children. It does happen, but it’s the thin end of the tape. I don’t know of any other opportunistic abduction of a girl so young.
5 Killed as part of a burglary gone wrong
This is extremely unlikely. If you have got a burglar who has gone into the apartment for material theft, the chances are once they find there are kids in there they will run a mile.
Not only are there kids there, but they will assume an adult is also present. Going from stealing laptops, passports, etc, to taking a young child is too big a leap.
You are looking at two different types of criminals, two different types of crimes. It’s the least likely of all the scenarios.
Burglars are commonly drug addicts. They usually want something small, like cameras, tablets or jewellery, which they can easily sell for cash or even swap directly for drugs.
Junkies don’t take three-year-old girls.
The Mirror
