Leads kept secret in missing child case

LONDON, Aug. 6 (UPI) -- The parents of a missing British child are accusing Portuguese authorities of withholding potentially crucial evidence in the search for their daughter.

Kate and Gerry McCann say files kept secret by Portuguese police reveal a series of possible sightings of Madeleine McCann and missed opportunities in locating the child who disappeared from the family's holiday hotel last year, The Daily Mail reported Wednesday.

A spokesman for the couple, Clarence Mitchell, says the McCanns were particularly distressed to learn that a shopkeeper in Amsterdam said she encountered a couple last May with a little girl who said her name was Maddie.

The shopkeeper told Dutch authorities the little girl said the woman she was with wasn't her mother and that she had been taken from her mother while on holiday.

That information, Mitchell said, was given to Portuguese authorities but never passed on to Madeleine's parents.

Madeleine McCann has been missing since May 3, 2007 -- just before her fourth birthday.