He made my blood run cold

A holidaymaker who may have come face to face with Madeleine McCann’s kidnapper said she just wanted the culprit caught.

Grandmother Mrs Gail Cooper, whose description produced the first detailed picture of a possible abductor, said she was unnerved after confronting the mystery man.

She also questioned the response of Portuguese police to her story after it emerged it took nine months for her claims to be taken seriously.

Mrs Cooper, of Beacon Hill Road, Newark, was staying 600 yards from the McCann family’s apartment in Praia de Luz when she encountered the man three times.

Speaking as her description of him was circulated worldwide, she said: “I just hope they either catch this person or he comes forward.

“He was exactly as he is in the sketch. My memory of him is very vivid. It was unnerving. He made my blood run cold and gave me the creeps.”

Mrs Cooper was staying in the resort with her husband, Jonathan, and other family members between April 18 and April 25.

They were two days into their holiday when she first saw the man on the beach as she went for lunch with friends at the Paraiso restaurant.

Mrs Cooper said: “He was wandering alone, even though it was pouring with rain.

“I watched him for a few minutes before I went back to chatting to my friends.”

Later that afternoon, at about 4pm, the stranger turned up at the front door of her holiday villa just moments after her husband had gone out.

Heavily-clothed despite the warm weather and carrying what he claimed was an ID card, he said he was collecting for an orphanage in nearby Espiche.

Mrs Cooper (50) a community healthcare co-ordinator, recalled: “He must have seen my husband leave, because the bell rang only seconds later.

“He seemed really strange. It was a warm afternoon, but he was still wearing khaki trousers or joggers, a T-shirt and a bomber jacket.

“He said he was collecting for an orphanage that was caring for three children whose parents had been killed in an accident on the main coast road.

“It just didn’t add up — everyone would have known if there had been a tragedy like that. He was rambling and becoming agitated. He really unnerved me.

“I thought he was a conman trying to pull a fast one. He was very creepy. He wasn’t Portuguese — I think he was either Tunisian or Moroccan.”

Mrs Cooper saw the man for a third and final time two days later, on April 22, as she was having lunch with her husband at Bar Habana on the beach.

A children’s outing from the exclusive Mark Warner Ocean Club — where Madeleine’s family stayed — was taking place nearby at the same time.

Mrs Cooper said: “In my job I have to assess people and make a judgement. My judgement is that this man could have been the kidnapper.

“I would recognise him immediately if I saw him again.

“His appearance has really stuck in my mind. What happened is still very vivid to me.”

Mrs Cooper reported the man, described as aged 38 to 45, with sallow skin, lank, dark hair, a droopy moustache and large teeth, to police in May.

Speaking at her home, she said: “It’s certainly some time since I went to the police. I was a bit surprised it took so long for something to be done.

“I don’t really want to say too much else about it now, but it feels absolutely awful to be at the centre of a massive investigation like this.

“The whole thing really needs closure. I just hope that my information helps and that this man is either caught or eliminated from the inquiry.”

Mrs Cooper flew back to Portugal on Monday to be reinterviewed by detectives amid police claims the McCanns were using her account as a smokescreen, before the friends they were abroad with at the time of Madeleine’s disappearance are themselves reinterviewed.

Kate and Gerry McCann, who live 40 miles from Newark in Leicestershire, remain official suspects.