http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4254466/British-gran-buys-apartment-Maddie-disappeared-from.html

'I've been offered money by sightseers but I'm not interested': British grandmother buys the Portugal apartment where Madeleine McCann disappeared for £113,000 - half the asking price
Katherine Macguire-Cotton has bought apartment 5a of the Ocean Complex
She revealed sightseers obsessed with Maddie have offered cash to come in
Mrs Macguire-Cotton said people from all over the world have contacted her
But she has vowed never to open the door to snoopers as a mark of respect

By Gareth Davies For Mailonline


A British grandmother has bought the apartment in Portugal where Madeleine McCann vanished for half the asking price.

Kathleen Macguire-Cotton, who is in her 60s, is said to have snapped up the apartment for £113,000 after it had been on the market for £255,000.

She has revealed how sightseers have offered her cash to see inside, but has vowed never to let them enter apartment 5a at the Ocean Complex in Praia da Luz as a mark of respect.


Mrs Macguire-Cotton told The Sun: 'I’ve been offered money by the whole world but I’m not interested.

'I don’t think that’s very fair to the McCann family or the people of Praia da Luz, upsetting everybody – it’s terrible.

'It happened a long time ago and I don’t have any opinions on it.'

The grandmother, from Southport, Merseyside, had been staying in the apartment for years and actually bought the flat some years ago.

Madeleine McCann disappeared from the apartment in May 2007.

Detectives are said to be working on a theory that she was kidnapped by a European trafficking gang with an apparent 9,000 sightings of her across the world since she went missing.

At the early stages of the investigation journalists from Portuguese magazine Sol speculated that her parents were involved in the disappearance but allegations against them were dismissed quickly.

Gerry and Kate still hold hope that their eldest daughter, who would now be 13, is still alive despite being missing for close to a decade.

This could be Operation Grange's final year of searching for the missing child.

They have been concentrating on the notion that she was sold by child traffickers – her parents' and their first team of private investigators' initial hunch – and could still be alive.

So far the inquiry, launched in May 2011 on orders of then Prime Minister David Cameron, has cost more than £12million with topped-up funds set to run out at the end of March.

Maddie's parents Gerry and Kate McCann, who were eating tapas in a bar in the Algarve when their daughter went missing, were hit with a fresh blow of anguish this month.

The Portuguese Supreme Court ruled they had not proved they were innocent in the disappearance.

The McCanns accused the Supreme Court judges who ruled against them in their court fight with ex-police chief Goncalo Amaral of nonsensical 'contradictions'.

Furious Gerry and Kate made it clear through lawyers that they strongly disagreed with the judges' 'erroneous' premise the lifting of their status as 'arguidos' or formal suspects did not mean they were innocent of any involvement in their daughter's May 3, 2007 disappearance.

Portugal's Supreme Court issued its devastating put-down earlier this month when it backed Amaral over his hurtful 2008 book The Truth of the Lie in which he claimed the McCanns faked Madeleine's abduction to cover up her death in their Algarve holiday apartment.

Judges angered the McCanns by claiming the July 2008 archiving of the first Portuguese probe into their daughter's disappearance 'was determined by the fact that public prosecutors hadn't managed to obtain sufficient evidence of the practice of crimes' by them.

The couple's fight-back was laid out in a nine-page complaint revealed this week.

It was lodged with the Supreme Court last Friday in a bid to invalidate its ruling rejecting the McCanns' libel appeal against Amaral and the makers of a TV documentary based on his book.

The document, drafted by the McCanns' Portuguese lawyer Isabel Duarte and her colleague Ricardo Correia, says: 'The appellants understand the archiving of the case took place because during the inquiry, sufficient evidence had been collected to show the 'arguidos' had not committed any crime.'

They said the removal of the McCanns' 'arguido' status had legally binding connotations and claimed the Supreme Court judges' argument 'lacked foundation and could be easily altered'.

Accusing them of acting 'frivolously' and contradicting themselves with their statements about the reasons for the 2008 probe archive, they added: 'It cannot be stated that it is not acceptable that the archiving of the case is considered the equivalent to proof of innocence.'

Mrs Duarte confirmed at the weekend the McCanns had lodged a formal complaint against the latest court ruling, although she declined to go into detail about why and how they were fighting it.

On Tuesday, the McCanns were forced to hit out at TV show for hiring an ex-police officer who told the nation what he thinks happened to their daughter.

Kate and Gerry McCann hit out at ITV's This Morning for using Mark Williams-Thomas, now an investigative journalist, for voicing his 'astonishing new theory' about Madeleine's disappearance, a close friend said on Tuesday.

The couple have always insisted their three-year-old daughter was snatched from a Portuguese holiday flat while they were dining in a nearby tapas bar, either by a sex fiend or during a botched burglary nearly ten years ago.

But TV detective Mr Williams-Thomas, believes the unsettled youngster walked out of the unlocked apartment searching for her parents in the poolside restaurant.

The McCann's spokesman Clarence Mitchell said: 'This is pure speculation and as such Kate and Gerry will not be dignifying it with any sort comment whatsoever

A source close to the pair said: 'It's baffling a television programme had him on as an authority on the Madeleine case. He's re-invented himself as a criminologist but when did he become an expert on this high profile case? Never!'

The friend added: 'He said he had received a statement from the McCann's saying they were pleased there was an on-going investigation which they hoped would unearth some news but they haven't been in contact with him, neither has their spokesperson.

'It seems he was re-hashing a years-old statement that was circulated to all the media.'


Former police officer, Mark Williams-Thomas, theorises that the child woke up in the middle of the night and wandered off in search of Gerry and Kate McCann who were dining at a Tapas bar in the Algarve resort of Praia da Luz.

Williams-Thomas went to the resort just days after Madeleine went missing on May 3, 2007 aged three and has followed the unsolved case since.

Speaking This Morning as part of a new series on unsolved crimes on Tuesday he said: 'On that morning of Madeleine's disappearance, we do know she went to [her parents] Gerry and Kate and said: 'Where were you last night?' he explained.

'Because we know the twins did wake up on days prior to her disappearance.

'And I think as a result of that, Madeline was clearly aware they were in the tapas bar that was in the resort.

'Now the interesting element in that is in order to get to the tapas bar you had to actually come out of the premises, walk on a public road to go back in again.

The McCann source added: 'With no disrespect to this investigative reporter he is forever trying to latch himself onto the Maddie case. He's said this all before and he once stood outside Apartment 5a reporting his same old belief.

'Allowing him on This Morning to air his views won't help the show get in Kate and Gerry's good books. But they're not going to fall out with him over this. It's all based on speculation and it's a free country and they've got enough to be dealing with.'

Former GP Kate and heart doctor Gerry, both 48, of Rothley, Leics, believe Maddie could still be alive and have never given up hope of finding her. They face the heart-breaking 10th anniversary of her disappearance in 10 weeks. She would now be aged 13.

Mr Williams-Thomas boasts he has 'far-reaching experience of working at the centre of high profile investigations.'

The self-styled commentator boasts on his website how he has 'over the last decade reported on the biggest crime stories.'