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Supposed Sightings and Locations

Statement of Abdrea Griffin re sighting in Alcateia, Algarve

Transcript of Statement in English

Confidential
Document Record Print

Date 22. 05. 2007

Incident message
M837

From: Griffin

Forename: Abdrea

Information

I came back from Portugal last Sun, I went out with my sister and my niece from Manchester on April 29th and came back on May 13th. We were staying at a place between Villamoura and Albufeira and the hotel Albinuf in Acoteiaf. The only we knew that Madeleine had disappeared was cause we kept seeing something on the Portuguese station, none of the three of us could speak Portuguese but I picked up odd words that indicated that an English girl had gone missing froma village up the coast from where we were staying. Sat May 5th we went out to a restaurant in Acoteiaf called Pateo de Golfe. We came out at about quarter past ten in the evening and we passed coming back to the hotel an internet café on a row of shops, restaurants and an Aromoatherapy bar and outside was parked a white Portuguese car (Portuguese number plate). There was no pedestrians in the area at the time but in the internet café there was at least one person, my niece after we walked passed the white car said there was a little girl o the back seat of the car asleep on her own. At that point we all walked back to have a look in the car and on the back seat there was a little girl dressed in a white cardigan and a short blue denim skirt, she wasn't moving and what i found strange was she was lying with her knees up in the air and not prone on the seat like other children. We couldn't see her face or head at all as she was in shadow, behind the passenger seat in the well there were two balloons both pearlised, 1 pink and 1 white and on the side of the white car was the words Homecare written in blue writing and there was a telephone number underneath. On the back window my niece spotted a sticker again saying Homecare and I think she said either blue and red or blue and green. Whilst we looked in the car there was no-one around and the child didn't move at all or make a noise. We were concerned but we thought that Dad or whoever would be in the Internet café. When we got back to the hotel we tried to find the news because I thought they might have released what the little girl was wearing at the time. We got an English station but there was nothing about clothing. After about quarter of an hour we were concerned and talking about it and I said I'm not going to sleep tonight we need to make contact with someone even if it is dismissed. Niece said there was something else odd, there was no car seat in the car. My niece (29 years) used to work in the area 2 years ago she knew it was the law to have a car seat. I said I'm going to reception to report it which I did. They took it seriously and rang the Portuguese police. About 20/30 minutes later I got a call from Reception to say the police were on their way to speak to me. 2 very young policemen turned up, they spoke English and they asked questions. They said the car had left the internet café. We realised we hadn't taken the car registration number. They showed me a picture and said "is this the little girl you saw" I said "the face was in shadow so I can't be sure". The picture they showed was more mousey hair. They wrote nothing down. My niece said to them "I hope you go to the Internet café and question the owner as the car was right outside". Our minds were put to rest as we'd told the police. Nothing appeared locally till the last Saturday when a poster was put up about Madeleine. The reason I'm calling now I'm catching up on things I'd missed due to the lack of papers. Speaking to the two policemen has not settled me I feel they dismissed it.

Person receiving: Sharon Sorby

Family members so the above may need clarifying.
Caller had no further information

Evaluation - Source - E - Untested source
Intelligence - 4 - Cannot be judged
Handling - 1 - may be disseminated to other law enforcement and prosecuting agencies, including law enforcement agencies within the EEA and EU compatible (no special conditions).