Maddie McCann hunt in numbers: Public’s 8,685 ‘sightings’ over 101 countries

The nine-year search for Leicestershire youngster Madeleine McCann has involved an A to Z of police forces across the globe.

Potential sightings of the British three-year old – snatched in May 2007 in Portugal – total 8,685 across 101 countries and territories, a Freedom of Information request reveals.

Many were collated by Portuguese officers and stamped ‘NFA’ – No Further Action – as they believed the child was dead.

Since May 2011 the Metropolitan Police Service has collated reported sightings – which stretch from French Polynesia to New Zealand – under the auspices of Operation Grange.

There has been a reported sighting of Madeleine in the UK, on February 20, 2008 when a retired civil servant reported that a Portuguese couple who knocked on his door in Dorset had a blonde-haired child with them he was sure was the missing girl. The couple were never traced.