Police continue to quiz McCann friends

Portuguese detectives are still attending police interviews with friends of Kate and Gerry McCann.

The so-called Tapas Seven are the group who ate with the McCanns on the night their four-year-old daughter Madeleine went missing.

Police said that witnesses and Portuguese detectives had arrived at Leicestershire Constabulary's force headquarters in Enderby to be re-interviewed about the dissaperience of Madeliene from an apartment in the Portuguese holiday resort of Praia da Luz on May 3 last year.

It is thought 34-year-old Fiona and 41-year-old David Payne from Leicester are the latest witnesses to be questioned.

The interviews are being conducted by British officers as a three-man team of Portuguese detectives, led by Paulo Rebelo, sit in.

On Tuesday, Jane Tanner, 37, and her partner, 36-year-old Russell O'Brien, were quizzed for about ten hours.

But sources said they were allowed a number of breaks and that the interviews had given them the chance to put their point of view across "strongly".

Meanwhile, Mr and Mrs McCann are preparing to travel to Brussels where they plan to lobby MEPs for the introduction of a child alert system that is used in the US in cases where children are victims of a suspected abduction.

The couple will give a presentation on the importance of greater co-ordination between European countries when a child is abducted.

Clarence Mitchell, the McCanns' spokesman, said: "For Kate and Gerry this is an important opportunity to ensure better co-ordination in Europe when a child goes missing to make sure that no other family goes through the anguish that they are continuing to endure."

The McCanns want to launch a dedicated information hotline that will be available across Europe for when police suspect a child has been taken.

Mrs McCann, 40, and 39-year-old Mr McCann, and their team, have already reserved the number - 116 000 - but it has yet to go live.

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