Disappointment as Maddie photo proves false alert

0 Comments | AFP, September, 2007

LONDON (AFP) — The parents of missing British toddler Madeleine McCann were left disappointed after a photo of a blonde girl snapped in Morocco turned out to be a false alert, their spokesman said Wednesday.

The picture, taken by a Spanish tourist and showing a grainy image of a small girl clinging to the back of a local woman, was splashed on the front pages of British newspapers amid reports it could be a breakthrough.

But by the end of the day journalists dispatched to investigate the sighting south of Tangiers confirmed they had found the woman and girl in the picture, and it was not Madeleine.

The toddler disappeared from a holiday apartment in southern Portugal on May 3 while her parents were eating nearby.

"Clearly, if these reports that the...