Madeleine McCann Case: Mother Claims ‘Gypsy’ Kidnappers Tried to Take Her Child

Madeleine McCann Case: Mother Claims ‘Gypsy’ Kidnappers Tried to Take Her Child
A photo of British girl Madeleine McCann aka Maddie is displayed on a TV screen at an apartment in Berlin, on October 16, 2013. (AFP)
Jack Phillips
2/11/2014
Updated:
7/18/2015

Madeleine “Maddie” McCann has been missing since 2007 but now a mother is saying that a week after the child disappeared, kidnappers may have tried to take her child after restaurant staff spiked her drink in Algarve, Portugal.

The 30-year-old mother, who was not identified, told Scotland Yard investigators that “gypsy” restaurant staff members spiked her drink and then attempted to carry away her 1-year-old daughter to a car, reported The Mirror.

She said she told the Find Madeleine campaign of the incident but they were too busy.

Police in the U.K. are now reportedly set to interview the woman in the hopes that it will reveal more about the McCann case.

“It was terrifying, like something out of a film,” she told the Daily Record. “From the first day of the holiday, a young dark-haired man kept popping up wherever we went. We would arrive at a restaurant and he’d show up minutes later as though he had been tipped off.

She added: “It was low season so everywhere was quiet. There were about three or four restaurants open but the same staff would show up where we were. They all knew the dark-haired man. It felt like the Eastern European mafia was watching us.”

“On the third night the man walked up to us, and chatted to us – but all about my daughter. He was obsessed, playing with her, stroking her hair. It was very over-familiar. He kept touching her and commenting on her blonde hair.”

She said the man was about 25, adding that her mother said that it’s not usual for a young man to be so interested in children.

“There was a middle-aged couple who had served us before at another place. They were all over my daughter,” she told the Mirror. “They told me they missed their children in Uzbekistan and begged me to let them hold her.”

She was served a drink, which she claims was spiked with a drug.

“Within half an hour I felt really dizzy,” she said. “I knew I’d been drugged. It was only us in the restaurant and I felt vulnerable. I stood up and told mum we had to leave. As I did, the woman lifted my daughter out of her high chair and walked to the door.”

She managed to grab her daughter and run off.

Jack Phillips is a breaking news reporter with 15 years experience who started as a local New York City reporter. Having joined The Epoch Times' news team in 2009, Jack was born and raised near Modesto in California's Central Valley. Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/jackphillips5
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