The apartment that Madeleine McCann was kidnapped from is being used by FAMILIES for the first time since the crime.
A couple and their young child were spotted in Apartment 5a of the Ocean Complex in Praia da Luz, Portugal, which has been empty since the snatching in May 2007.
“I saw a young family staying in the apartment, enjoying their holiday,” said a British tourist.
“They didn’t seem to have a care in the world and the flat looked no different to any of the others.
“If I didn’t know about its history I wouldn’t have given it a second look.”
The British owner of the flat, Ruth McCann, 57, has been trying to sell the two-bedroomed ground floor apartment since 2007 for £255,000 – around £50,000 less than the original asking price. Retired teacher Mrs McCann, from Liverpool, who is not related to Madeleine’s family, began letting the apartment after her husband died and was planning to sell it once legal details had been sorted. But she took it off the market in May this year after finding no one was interested because of its history. She is now using rental firm the Ocean Club to let it to holidaymakers once again. The ground floor apartment within the large resort was last rented to Madeleine’s parents for £1,500 a week.
Madeleine was nearly four when she vanished while her parents dined at a nearby restaurant.
Earlier this year Mrs McCann said a number of people had viewed the property but women particularly were put off when they found out about its past. Under Portuguese law, estate agents have to tell prospective purchasers about the previous owners.
The police investigation at the resort ended in September 2007 and the property has been empty for the last three-and-a-half years.
A neighbour of the holiday flat recently descibed the empty apartment as a “mausoleum”
The neighbour said: “The flat has never been used again since the little girl went missing.
“The shutters have stayed down and it is more like a mausoleum than the happy holiday letting it once was.”
It would have been Madeleine’s eighth birthday in May this year.
The official inquiry was shelved in July 2008, but after the McCanns recently wrote to Prime Minister David Cameron he ordered the Metropolitan Police to carry out a review. Despite a huge police search no evidence has been uncovered to suggest that she has died.
