• Sweden edition

Swedish police search for kidnapped Madeleine

Published: 11 Aug 09 08:21 CET | Double click on a word to get a translation
Online: http://www.thelocal.se/21230/20090811/

Stockholm police were called out to a local beach on Monday after a tip off that the kidnapped British girl Madeleine McCann had been spotted there.

The tip off was by a father who believed that he had seen the missing Madeleine McCann at Flatenbadet in the southern Stockholm suburb of Bagarmossen, according to the Expressen newspaper.

The mystery of Madeleine McCann - the girl who disappeared from a holiday apartment in Portugal in 2007 while her parents were having dinner with friends at a nearby restaurant - was not however solved at a Swedish bathing spot.

"It was an Alva or Ylva who was out with her grandmother. So the police patrol left the scene without getting involved," Joakim Caryll at Stockholm police said to the newspaper.

Madeleine McCann was born in 2003 in Leicester in central England. She was on holiday with her parents Kate and Gerry McCann, and her twin siblings, in the Algarve region of Portugal when she disappeared on May 3rd 2007.

Since her disappearance there have been a number of sightings of Madeleine in Portugal and elsewhere in Europe after the case received massive media attention across the continent.

The case took a twist in September 2007 when Madeleine's parents were classified by Portuguese police as arguido (suspect). The case was closed and their suspect status lifted on July 21st 2008.

The campaign to find Madeleine has continued however and on May 4th 2009 Kate and Gerry McCann were interviewed on the Oprah Winfrey show.

TT/Peter Vinthagen Simpson (news@thelocal.se)

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14:05 August 11, 2009 by Paddy
Wow, what an amazing story. A man thought he saw Madeleine McCann and called the police, who instantly realised it wasn't her! I find it strange that this wasn't on the breakfast news in the UK this morning!
14:22 August 11, 2009 by byke
Seriously, me and my wife thought we saw the latest suspected lady (photofit) as shown on the UK media this Saturday.

Any idea if this is latest swedish sighting is being taken seriously?
14:55 August 11, 2009 by Puffin
Not anymore - the Police turned out and search and found the child in question who turned out to be a Swedish child called Alva or Ylva on a swimming trip with her gran mother.

Personally I think that the latest search for a "Posh Victoria beckam lookalike" on the basis of the memory of a man on a drunken stag night in Spain 2 years ago is nothing more than a wild goose chase.
15:28 August 11, 2009 by byke
Well after seeing the E-fit of the latest POSH look a like ....

Basically this weekend (12.00 // 8th August 2009) we went front Stockholms grand hotel boat station to Köviksudde (sp?)

Anyway, on jumps a bird with short 1" or 2" dyed black hair, 1 piece black dress, and black thick strappy elastic 3" heels ....

The lady had a unique look, not tarty or stunningly attractive, but still something that drew attention to her.

I didn't look uber hard as I had the wife next to me and our kids kicking up a ruckus.

But when the lady left (the stop after Nacka - I think it was hasseluden ?) my wife said didn't that look like the Maddie posh E-fit ... I obviously looked out the window to get a full scope as I agreed with the statement (based on the lady bording).

And at that point I noticed that E-fit lookalike was with a male, and a daughter? (at least a young child) looking around 6yrs old ... the daughter had very blond hair, almost white-ish ... so I passed it off as being a coincidence as it all seemed to fit into the normal swedish family profile.

I kicked myself afterwards, wishing I had seen the child from the front profile and to see if I could see her left eye.

But the sense of logic kicked in ...

reported facts :::: Australia, Posh spice ... in stockholm with a generic swedish looking child?

It didn't seem right and I didn't want to report it to the maddie website as there was defiantly not enough common sense in making such a reporting.

While the gut feeling said one thing, I had the feeling the lady was swedish in some way and the hubby was kinda ok looking middle upper working class ... and just went with it being too much imagination.
15:34 August 11, 2009 by Puffin
I don't think that it has ever been claimed that the "posh spice" character has ever been spotted in Sweden - just Madeleine (or not as it turned out) with an older woman.

If you look closly you will seen blonde children who look a bit like Madeleine everywhere
15:36 August 11, 2009 by byke
Exactly ... and the blond small girl i saw was uber blonde and not dirty blond
16:52 August 11, 2009 by dahlin
puleeeze....if you DON'T look closely there are blond small children that look like Madeleine

everywhere in Sweden
23:39 August 11, 2009 by peropaco
If you look even closer you will see blond women that look like Whoopi Goldberg in drags..
00:24 August 12, 2009 by HisNameWasLen
Blonde girl spotted on Swedish beach!!...I don't believe it...how can it be!!...Why,ever since this story began do endless people from Scandinavia and the Netherlands continually report sightings of this girl??...You clearly haven't read the UK media.
19:54 March 4, 2010 by missfriendly
Don't, just don't... my first trip to Stockholm, I followed a poor family for about 10 minutes, convinced it was Maddy. Then I saw another Maddy. And another. Then I decided it was time to go back to the bar and just drink vodka... :/
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