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[This edited version of the report has been prepared by Dr Robert N Moles]

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Settlement of defamation action: this is the report of the settlement of the defamation action concerning the McCann family in respect of publications which have cast aspersions upon their inegrity

29 October 2007 the Sydney Morning Herald reported “McCann friend says she saw man abduct Madeline”.

It said that a friend of Kate and Gerry McCann has described for the first time why she is convinced she saw their daughter Madeline being abducted in Portugal. Jane Tanner, 36, saw a man carrying a child wearing pink and white pyjamas away from the McCanns' holiday apartment on May 3, when Madeline went missing just shy of her fourth birthday, The Sunday Times reported. At the time Ms Tanner gave little significance to what she saw, assuming that Madeline had recently been checked on as she slept with her younger twin siblings in the apartment, and instead returned to the tapas bar where the McCanns and other friends were dining.

The sighting was considered so significant by the McCanns that they commissioned their own artist's impression, which they released last week, showing a faceless man with dark hair carrying a pyjama-clad child. Ms Tanner told police about the sighting as soon as they arrived after Madeline was reported missing, but details have only now been made public by a friend, the newspaper said. When she was formally interviewed by police on the night of Madeline's disappearance, Ms Tanner realised the pyjamas on the child she had seen matched Madeline's. She regrets not attributing more importance to it in hindsight, but she never thought in a million years that it could have been Madeline, an unnamed friend told the paper. When she heard that she was missing, the first thing that came into her head was this person she'd seen and she felt complete horror.

In a fresh bid to find the missing toddler, the McCanns last week launched a new hotline, which yielded immediate responses with three sightings of a girl fitting Madeline's description in Morocco. Private investigators are trying to track down a woman aged about 60 seen with the child on each occasion.

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