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London: A new witness who was the first to see Kate McCann moments after she realised her daughter Madeleine had disappeared has given a dramatically different account of what happened that night.
A waiter at the Portuguese holiday complex where the family were staying said instead of running back to the Tapas bar where she was dining with her husband Gerry and friends, Kate raised the alarm from the balcony of their apartment.
The Portuguese man said Kate screamed: "They've taken her, they've taken her, they've taken our little girl."
This version of events contrasts dramatically with the account friends of the couple have given. It has previously been claimed that the 39-year-old GP raised the alarm when she ran back to the restaurant on May 3 shouting "Madeleine's gone, Madeleine's gone."
Detectives leading the case into the disappearance have always said her first words were "they've taken her" but it has only been revealed yesterday that she screamed these words from the balcony of the Ocean Club apartment in Praia da Luz.
They are understood to view this as suspicious because it indicates that Kate had already ruled out the possibility of Madeleine wandering off, and regard it as possible evidence that she was already engaged in a cover-up.
Text messages
According to the Portuguese newspaper Diario de Noticias, detectives in the Policia Judiciaria - Portugal's criminal investigation department - are looking particularly closely at the new evidence. They re-interviewed at least three Ocean Club workers - a receptionist and two waiters at the Tapas restaurant last week.
The waiter is reported to have told colleagues Kate was in "a state of panic". Gerry and the seven friends dining with the couple then came running out to see what had happened.
The paper says it also understands the receptionist has been asked by police to try to remember if someone had gone past her outside the complex around the time Madeleine disappeared.
Portuguese police are looking at 14 text messages sent by Gerry at dinner shortly before Madeleine vanished, days before her fourth birthday.
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