MADDIE: SECOND KIDNAP BLUNDER; Cops ignored intruder claim.

Byline: By Victoria Ward

BUNGLING Portuguese cops failed to follow up a suspected abduction attempt at the holiday flat where Madeleine McCann disappeared, police files reveal.

British nanny Margaret Hall was looking after a girl of six at the Ocean Club resort in Praia da Luz when she interrupted an intruder outside flat 5A.

She gave a statement to Metodo 3, the private detective agency hired by Kate and Gerry McCann, who passed it on to the Portuguese police.

But they never followed it up - even though the account supports the McCanns' fear that their daughter was targeted by an abductor who might have spied on the family.

The McCanns' spokesman Clarence Mitchell said: "Kate and Gerry hoped from the outset that the police were following up every lead in the most thorough and professional manner possible.

"Where any information is found to not have been followed up, our private investigators are working on it, all of it."

In a statement about the alleged intruder that was handed to Portuguese police, Metodo 3 said: "The little girl's parents had warned the babysitter that there was a problem with rodents in the apartment and she went to take a look around at 00.30am.

"She left by the main entrance and, in a dark area, noticed something was moving and thought it was a rat.

"On closer examination, she saw that it was the brown shoe of a man who was peeping in the dark area outside the apartment.

"She shouted and the man walked towards her, setting off motion sensitive lights, and said, 'No, no'."

The baby sitter gave detectives a description of the man.

The incident happened six months before Madeleine disappeared on May 3, 2007.

Margaret gave her statement to Metodo 3 last November and it was passed straight to police.

Metodo 3 met with the Portuguese invetigators on November 14.

A note on the file said: "In this meeting, the director of M3 handed us a small notepad with information relating to Madeleine's disappearance.

"We notice that it reports facts which took place in August/Sept of 2006, which seems to us outdated and of no relation to the material under investigation."

Meanwhile, it emerged that Portuguese police also failed to question a British man who saw a couple carrying a child near the local marina just hours after Madeleine was snatched.

George Brooks, 61, who worked at a pizza restaurant in Praia da Luz, reported the sighting to Metodo 3 but had left Portugal by the time police tried to contact him.

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VANISHED: Madeleine