Missing Madeleine: Another story cooked up

LONDON: Unable to trace British toddler Madeleine McCann missing since five months, the Portuguese police have come up with yet another story.
 
This time, the police have claimed that Madeleine was left in her parents' apartment with six other kids on the night she had disappeared. Detectives believe the seven friends holidaying with Kate and Gerry McCann in Portugal left their young children in the couple's apartment.
 
Police sources told Portuguese newspaper '24 Horas' that they had 'significant evidence' that seven of the group's eight children - all under the age of five - had been in the McCanns' apartment on May three.
 
According to the police, the presence of so many youngsters would make it highly unlikely that four-year-old Madeleine was abducted.
 
However, the McCanns' spokesman Clarence Mitchell denounced the latest claims as part of a smear operation.
 
"It's utter rubbish. If you put seven children together, you're going to have a far harder time getting them to sleep than three," the 'Daily Mail' quoted Mitchell as saying here.
 
Another source told the daily that the group had regularly visited each other's flats during the six-day holiday before Madeleine vanished, but insisted the children all slept in their own apartments.