The report appeared in the 24 Hours newspaper, which has followed the McCann case closely, but has been the source of some of the more outlandish reporting.
It has been widely reported in Portugal, but never officially confirmed, that detectives working on the five-month investigation believe the McCanns killed their daughter with an accidental overdose of sedatives and then staged her abduction to cover their tracks.
It is understood the basis for this wild theory was simply the fact that on the night Madeleine went missing the two-year-old twins, Sean and Amelie did not wake up during all the confusion.
Little is known about the forensic tests currently being undertaken at a laboratory in Birmingham, but 24 Hours claimed on its front page that the results were now complete.
Without naming its source the report stated the tests indicated the presence of drugs in DNA samples belonging to Madeleine and the twins.
The Forensic Science Service refused to comment on the reports. Spokeswoman Laura Mackin said: “We don’t comment on any tests from the lab.
The inquiry is ongoing and we just can’t comment. We are just working closely with the police.�?The McCanns have insisted they have never administered anything stronger than the widely used children’s painkiller Calpol, Gerry’s mother Eileen recently admitted it was possible the children had been drugged by an intruder.
Last week Eileen McCann, 69, said: “I really believe they (whoever took her) gave her a drug. There is no way they carried her out of there without her awakening. “If she was taken when she was sleeping by somebody she did not know, she would have screamed the place down.�?/SPAN>
One of the McCanns�?neighbours at the Ocean Club, Pamela Fenn, who has been interviewed by the police, has stated that she heard a little girl crying in the apartment the night before Madeleine went missing, exploding the idea that the children were being sedated every night.
Portuguese police are hoping detailed tests will be able to ascertain whether the strands of hair came from Madeleine’s head when she was alive or after she died and also whether they show any traces of sedatives or drugs which could explain how she died.
But friends of the McCanns have always maintained that any of Madeleine’s DNA which is found in the vehicle has a “wholly innocent�?explanation.
They have explained that the hire car was used to transport items of Madeleine’s unwashed clothes in the weeks after she went missing as well as rubbish which contained dirty nappies belonging to the little girl’s brother and sister.
The couple are now planning to hire their own forensics experts to refute the claims put forward by the Portuguese police. Ends affleck,QPS By Tony Bonnici Madeleine McCann’s parents have thanked Ben Affleck for his “sensitivity�?at postponing a film which bears uncanny similarities to their daughter’s disappearance.
The thriller Gone Baby Gone is directed by the actor and tells the story of a missing four-year-old girl. The star agreed to put off opening the film - which had been due to be screened at the London Film Festival next week - without any intervention from the family.
Speaking at the US premiere in Los Angeles, the star said he understood why the distributors, owned by Disney, decided to pull the film.
He said: “It just came down to the fact that there is a family there, and there is a country that has been exposed to the story and seems to have become to a certain degree emotionally sensitive to it. “Disney thought they would err on the side of good taste and postpone it until it calmed down a bit.�?/SPAN>
Yesterday Gerry and Kate McCann’s spokesman Clarence Mitchell said that it had been a welcome decision.
He said: “We thank him for being thoughtful enough and sensitive enough to Gerry and Kate’s position to make such a commercial decision.
“Obviously we hope Madeleine will be found very soon to enable Kate and Gerry to move on, but also to enable him and the movie to go ahead in due course.�?nbsp;
The film is based on the book by bestselling novelist Dennis Lehane and bears some bizarre coincidences with the McCanns�?own circumstances.
It is about the search for a girl called Amanda who police believe was kidnapped from her bed after her parents left her home alone.
The girl is played by a young actress called Madeline (COR) O’Brien, who bears a close resemblance to little Madeleine, who was taken six days before her fourth birthday.
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