McCann friend speaks out over Madeleine

A woman who believes she saw a man carrying Madeleine McCann through a Portuguese resort shortly before the girl disappeared in May has insisted she is not a fantasist.

Jane Tanner was one of a number of friends dining with Gerry and Kate McCann on the night the girl disappeared from the Praia da Luz resort.

She told BBC television she remained adamant that Madeleine had been abducted.

Police have said the girl may be dead and named her parents as formal suspects in the case on September 7.

The couple say they are innocent and have launched a high-profile campaign to find their daughter.

Madeleine had been left asleep with her younger brother and sister in the family apartment while her parents ate at a nearby tapas restaurant. It was just days before her fourth birthday.

Tanner told a BBC Panorama documentary due to be broadcast on Monday how one of the friends had come to her apartment at around 10 p.m. tell her Madeleine was missing.

"I saw Kate and Fiona running around shouting 'Madeleine', and Kate said to me, 'Jane, Madeleine's gone, Madeleine's gone'. And that's the first I heard," she said.

Tanner says she saw a man walking away from the holiday complex carrying a child at around 9:15 p.m. that evening, the BBC said.

At the time she thought nothing of it, but was now convinced it was Madeleine.

The BBC said Tanner had told Portuguese police all she knew, and that she denied recent reports she had refused to cooperate or had been asked to change her story.

Tanner said she was speaking publicly for the first time because she wanted to reply to media accusations against her.

"I've been called a liar and a fantasist. I know what I saw and I think it's important that people know what I saw because I believe Madeleine was abducted," she said.

Last month Madeleine's parents released an artist's impression of the man seen by Tanner carrying a girl in his arms who was wearing the same colour pyjamas as Madeline was wearing.

(Reporting by Tim Castle; Editing by Steve Addison)