Sunday Express 9th May 2010

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/174024/Madeleine-suspect-on-beach-snap-


MADELEINE SUSPECT 'ON BEACH SNAP'










Gail Cooper with artist's impression of man on the beach



Sunday May 9,2010


By James Murray



DETECTIVES have been handed a photograph showing a
man behaving oddly in the days before Madeleine McCann was kidnapped.



A British holidaymaker accidentally captured
him in the background of a family snap taken at the Portuguese resort of
Praia da Luz in April 2007, days before Madeleine, then three,
disappeared.
It was passed
to detectives from Leicestershire who are assisting the police in
Portugal. Last week we published Gail Cooper’s account of her encounter
with the strange man when he later came to her holiday villa in the
resort, asking for money for an orphanage.
Today we reveal that one of Mrs Cooper’s friends,
Leanda Hodson-Mackey, took a snap of her husband Stephen, 34, and son,
then aged two, and the man appeared in the background, walking along the
beach during a downpour.
Although
his features cannot be clearly made out, there is a rough image which
could be enhanced with FBI picture improvement techniques.

Mrs Cooper, 53, from Newark,
Nottinghamshire, told the Sunday Express last week she believes the same
man went on to kidnap Madeleine McCann.
She had flown to Luz with a party of 13 family and
friends in the week before Madeleine was taken, to celebrate her 50th
birthday. Mrs Hodson-Mackey, 34, and her family spent four days at an
apartment in the Mark Warner complex with Leanda’s mother Trudy Dawkins,
49, and her husband Lee, 40.
The apartment was directly above apartment 5a, where
the McCanns would stay the following week.
Last night Mrs Dawkins, also from Newark, said: “When
we were back home it was on the news that Madeleine had disappeared and
we all racked our brains to see if there was anything we could remember
which would help the investigation.
“We all remembered this man walking along the beach in
the rain, then Gail recalled he later went to her villa.
“Leanda had a throwaway camera. She went
through the pictures she had taken and realised the man was in the
background in one. Detectives took a statement from her and took away
the picture, but we don’t know what happened after that.

Tomorrow Madeleine’s mother Kate, 42, from
Rothley, Leicestershire, will meet Prince Charles at Westminster Abbey
during a service to remember young victims of violence. She will be
among 1,000 guests marking the anniversary of teenager Jimmy Mizen’s
murder in 2008, during a fight in a bakery shop in Lee, south-east
London.
The families of
Damilola Taylor and Ben Kinsella will also be at the “Building a Legacy
of Peace” service.

So, the Express have yet again taken to pulling out old stories, no doubt this in preparation for Madeleine's birthday tabloid hype. As surely it cannot be that this photo snapping woman has only just come forward with the compelling...cough...image now!

One has to laugh at the way this bedraggled and unkempt woman is proudly holding up this rather gruesome drawing. One could be forgiven for thinking that it is she who has pencilled a portrait of a member of her own family and that she is just about to submit the work as part of her A Level in art.

This man needs arresting just for looking offensive. One thing is now for certain, Hewlett had not looked like that for at least thirty years before he passed away.

meow.

I would like to see the real photo that this woman took ,Also why did she not keep a copy of it ,no one hands anything over without makeing a copy ,Well i dont anyway

“Leanda had a throwaway camera. She went
through the pictures she had taken and realised the man was in the
background in one. Detectives took a statement from her and took away
the picture, but we don’t know what happened after that.

sounds like she might have done, if it was a throwaway camera then there'd be no digital record, so unless she got a second copy taken then it's probably at the back of the man draw with all the other unidentifiable rolls of film.