Cops reveal shambles of Maddy crime scene
THE HUNT FOR MADELEINE
Two police officers called to the McCanns' apartment the night Madeleine vanished claimed yesterday their bosses "mucked up big".
The pair blamed senior officers for "chaos" as the scene was contaminated, destroying key evidence as a "circus" of people came and went.
And they claimed police had put up a wall of silence to hide the scale of the fiasco.
The uniformed Guarda Nacional Republicana officers, who cannot be named due to Portugal's strict secrecy laws, are the only officials to speak out about the shocking blunders in the first crucial hours of the botched investigation.
It has been revealed that detectives failed to seal off the apartment and even contaminated forensic clues with cigarette ash. The pair were among officers called in as back-up when Madeleine was reported missing on May 3.
One told the Mirror: "When we arrived it was chaos. Everyone had walked through that place.
"I lifted my arms up, rolled my eyes, put my head down and just got on with it. There was nothing we could do.
"The damage had already been done. It's so frustrating."
The other said: "To find a circus walking in and out of a possible crime scene - well, it's ridiculous.
"Family, friends, neighbours, staff, people off the street - everyone was in and out of that place.
"The whole world's laughing and pointing fingers in disgust, saying how incompetent Portuguese police are.
"We mucked up big and there's nothing they can do to change things - it's too late."
The first officer added: "When we see our superiors on scene we expect the situation to be under control. It was like they weren't even there."
The second, who has worked on several murders, said: "We should not have to tell our superiors what to do. Any disappearance should be treated as a potential crime.
"They know they mucked up. They should have secured the scene and waited for the Policia Judiciaria" - whose detectives arrived later to lead the probe.
The officer went on: "The apartment had been completely compromised before we arrived. There was nothing to protect.
"Our boys should have done it and the Policia Judiciaria should have done it - but even if they had it was already too late."
The pair fear the blunders mean the case will remain unsolved and Madeleine never found.
One said: "This case has no end. It'll get filed away with an open verdict. The parents will be suspects for ever. That's justice for you.
"There's only one fact. That little baby isn't where she was supposed to have been." The second said: "I just feel for the little girl. We can all argue until we're blue in the face but whoever it was, it's not about the parents, it's about that poor little girl."
They spoke out as a woman who claimed she saw Madeleine being bundled into a taxi in Morocco said she has had death threats from gangsters.
Naoual Malhi, 30, said last week she saw a girl with a woman near Fnidk in September.
Abdelmajid Chadili, head of the judicial police, said last night: "We did find a small blonde girl. She was among her true parents and she only speaks Arabic."
But Naoual, who lives near Marbella, Spain, said men claiming to work for Morocco's crime barons had called her to warn her not speak about what she saw.
She said one told her: "Let this lie if you know what's good for you, your daughter and the rest of your family, otherwise you're a dead woman."
But she said she was not frightened: "It's obvious I'm on to something or they wouldn't be calling.
"I know the girl I saw was her and I'm not going to stop until I find her."
Stewart.Maclean@Mirror.Co.Uk
