Just minutes from saving Maddie: 10pm sighting suggests mother almost caught kidnapper in the act

• Kidnapper may have struck just before Kate McCann checked on Madeleine
• A suspect was seen just 500 yards from the family's holiday apartment
• 'This could be the man that took Madeleine' says top detective
• Officers believe she may have been kidnapped by an organised crime gan

Kate McCann may have missed the abduction of her daughter Madeleine by a matter of minutes, police revealed last night. Detectives believe a suspect seen carrying a child 500 yards from the McCanns’ holiday apartment was the kidnapper who had struck just moments before the mother went to check on her children. Yesterday Scotland Yard appealed for the public’s help in tracing the prime suspect – as it became clear Portuguese police may have been chasing the wrong man for six years. Crucially, the Metropolitan Police has now ruled out a sighting of a man once considered a key suspect and previously seen near the McCanns’ apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal, 45 minutes earlier. Jane Tanner, a friend of Kate and Gerry, previously told officers she saw a dark-haired man carrying away a child wearing pink floral pyjamas at 9.15pm on May 3, 2007. One of the so-called ‘Tapas Seven’, Miss Tanner had been dining with the McCanns in a nearby restaurant when their daughter went missing. But detectives have now traced the mystery man, an innocent holidaymaker picking up his two-year-old daughter from a night crèche at the same Ocean Club complex. The revelation has shifted detectives’ focus on to a later sighting at 10pm when an Irish family reported seeing a man walking towards the beach carrying a blonde girl in pyjamas who appeared to be in an uncomfortable position with her head slumped against him. Martin Smith, who was holidaying with his wife Mary, daughter Aoife and son Peter, said he saw the man 500 yards from the McCanns’ apartment between 9.55pm and 10pm – just minutes before Kate McCann walked into the apartment at around 10pm. Yesterday the Mail published two e-fits of the suspect which were released by Scotland Yard. It later emerged they had been produced by private detectives working for the McCanns back in 2008 but were never issued.

Prime suspect: These e-fits are of the man seen carrying a child 500 yards from the McCann holiday apartment

Wanted: E-fits from sightings of men at Ocean Club complex. Police believe they could be the same person

Charity scam: These men, of Portuguese appearance, are thought to have been preying on tourists in the flats

Yesterday Detective Chief Inspector Andy Redwood said the sighting was crucial. ‘A new understanding of events on the evening Madeleine disappeared has resulted in a renewed focus of the investigation,’ he said. ‘This could be the man that took Madeleine.’ Police presented a number of fresh theories about Madeleine’s disappearance in a dramatic BBC Crimewatch appeal last night. Officers believe the three-year-old – who would now be ten – may have been kidnapped by an organised crime gang who checked out the apartments in the days beforehand posing as charity collectors. A number of men were seen lurking around the Ocean Club complex hours before she vanished.

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Kate and Gerry McCann spoke of the events that fateful night, as well as the pain they continue to feel over the loss of their daughter

Police presented a number of fresh theories about Madeleine¿s disappearance in the dramatic BBC Crimewatch appeal

Police are probing a number of reports of bogus charity collectors who preyed on holidaymakers, going door to door asking for cash for an orphanage or to help children living on the street. Detectives also released e-fits of four suspects yesterday. Two of the men were said to be Portuguese charity collectors who approached tourists staying near the Ocean Club at 4pm on the day Madeleine vanished. One of the men aged 40 to 45, also knocked on the door of the apartment where the McCanns were to stay on April 25 or 26, saying he was a charity collector. The other two images are of blond or fair haired men seen hanging around the apartments, who may be German, Dutch, or Scandinavian. One man was seen twice by a 12-year-old girl near the flat where the McCanns were staying on April 30 and May 2.

DCI Andy Redwood said the sighting by the McCann's dining companion Martin Smith was crucial

He is described as 30 to 35, with short hair and was wearing a black leather jacket. Another witness saw a similar-looking man in the resort on May 3 at 4pm. Officers are focusing on a spate of break-ins the area after burglaries in Praia da Luz rocketed four-fold in the four months before her abduction. A year earlier in the same week of Madeleine’s disappearance, a man broke into a flat where two young children were sleeping alone. The man, described as skinny with dark hair, picked up a camera case and peered into one of the travel cots, but he was disturbed by the child’s screams and left empty-handed. Mr Redwood said he was struck by the similarities in the break-in through a patio door. He suggested that a gang who knew the area may have been watching the McCann family.