Madeleine McCann: Tycoons withdraw support

Madeleine McCann: Tycoons withdraw support

By Caroline Gammell in Praia da Luz
Last Updated: 1:36pm BST 13/09/2007

Two millionaire businessmen who gave money to help find Madeleine McCann refused today to contribute to the legal fight to clear her parents’ name.

Kate and Gerry McCann, 39, have hired top lawyers in Britain and Portugal after they were named official suspects in their daughter’s disappearance.

Detectives believe Mrs McCann may have accidentally killed her daughter and relied on her husband to help cover up the crime. Although the couple insist the claims are baseless, the cost of trying to clear the “cloud of suspicion” is expected to run into tens of thousands of pounds.

Although the fighting fund set up to find Madeleine has raised more than £1 million, the trustees said the couple - who did not want to take the money anyway - would not be able to make use of the funds.

One entrepreneur, who refused to be named because of the delicate nature of the case, has given his backing in the past.

But today he told the Evening Standard: "I am not going to contribute any more. It is a difficult issue and it is not something I propose to get engaged in.

"It is the most confusing scenario anybody has ever seen. I am not judge and jury and I hope what I am reading is wrong. I have not yet been approached [a second time] but I wouldn't put any money in.

"If they can turn the tide in some form maybe there will be loads of backers. But right now this does not look a good place to go."

A number of well known figures have publicly supported the McCanns including JK Rowling, Virgin boss Sir Richard Branson, Topshop owner Philip Green and EasyJet founder Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou.

A second wealthy businessman, who has given £100,000 to the fund, said: “We won't be pledging any more right now.

"I don't think that at the moment we would allow the money to be swapped to cover defence costs, but this is a difficult position and a very sensitive issue." The McCanns, from Rothley in Leicestershire, returned to the UK on Sunday, 48 hours after being declared suspects by Portuguese police.

The world's leading expert in DNA cast doubt on a key facet of the alleged forensic evidence against Kate and Gerry McCann last night as he offered to act as an expert witness for the couple.

Sir Alec Jeffreys, who invented DNA fingerprinting, said a match did not necessarily demonstrate a person's guilt or innocence.

It follows claims that DNA samples matched to Madeleine had been found in her parents' hire car and holiday apartment. Sources said the traces were being treated by Portuguese detectives as strong evidence that Madeleine's body was placed in the car.

However, Sir Alec told BBC's Newsnight programme: "There are no genetic characters in Madeleine that are not found in at least one other member of the family.

"So then you have an incomplete DNA profile that could raise a potential problem in assigning a profile to Madeleine given that all other members of that family would have been in that car."

Sir Alec, 57, added: "DNA testing seeks to establish whether DNA sample A from a crime scene came or did not come from individual B.

"So if you get a match there's very strong evidence that it did come from B. It is then up to investigators, the courts and all the rest of it to work out whether that connection is relevant or not.

"So DNA doesn't have the words innocence or guilt in it - that is a legal concept. What it seeks to establish is connections and identifications."

Off-camera, Sir Alec said he was prepared to act as a witness for the McCanns.

His caution came as a leading genetics expert also called into question the value of DNA evidence in its own right. Dr Paul Debenham, a member of the advisory body the Human Genetics Commission, said there could be legitimate reasons as to how DNA from Madeleine found its way into the hire car.

Prosecutors would need to establish that it got there as part of a criminal process and not through chance contact, he said.

Dr Debenham said: "With the current highly sensitive DNA methodologies we can deposit DNA as a trace amount just from contact with a fabric. And that fabric can touch another surface where the DNA is passed on.

"So there is a situation where there is a legitimate or a possible explanation as to how the DNA got on the back seat despite the individual not being there, but through some legitimate transfer of garments, clothes or soft toy.

"It questions the value of that particular evidence in interpreting what happened."

The development came as it emerged that Portuguese prosecutors have applied for Gerry McCann’s laptop and his wife’s personal diary to be handed over to the authorities investigating their daughter’s disappearance.

Detectives in the Algarve are particularly keen to track emails sent by Mr McCann, a cardiologist, from the computer he used while in Portugal to keep an almost daily blog on the campaign to find Madeleine.

An urgent application for access to the personal artefacts was made by public prosecutor Jose Cunha de Magalhaes e Meneses to a judge in Portimao yesterday.

Philomena McCann, Mr McCann's sister, said she advised her sister-in-law to keep the diary to show Madeleine how much they loved her.

She told The Sun: " I said to Kate that it would be a good idea if someone wrote down, for Madeleine, notes on everything that was happening, because we have to prove to Madeleine how much we looked for her and how much we love her.

"That wee girl will be thinking, 'They're not looking for me. My mummy, daddy and my aunties - they don't love me because they can't find me'.

"I was just thinking about how insecure Madeleine would be, so Kate has been keeping that journal faithfully every day.

"She's been writing down everything that we've been doing so we can prove to Madeleine that we have worked so hard to try and find her, that we've put our lives on hold to search for her and show our love for her is unending."

Gerry's brother John McCann said last night that his brother believed the Portuguese police had "gone up a cul-de-sac".

He told BBC's The One Show: "Gerry keeps telling me that they have gone up a cul-de-sac and have lost track of what they should really be doing."

Asked whether the fact the case was being dealt with at such a high level in Portugal gave him confidence, he said: "It does and it doesn't. There is data out there, there's all these leaks.

"There is so much speculation going on as to what the actual information the Portuguese police have.

"If they have got something that suggests Madeleine really is dead then for goodness sake tell the family who have the strongest feeling for this."