Key questions

Private detectives working for Kate and Gerry McCann reported that the front door of the holiday apartment where Madeleine disappeared was left unlocked and the key had been left in the apartment.

The claim was made in a report prepared in May 2007 by Ken Farrow, then Director of Investigation Services at security company Control Risks.

Farrow, along with Joint Director Michael Keenan, was sent to Praia da Luz on 13^th May 2007 to conduct comprehensive interviews with Mr and Mrs McCann and members of their holiday group.

The report describes the two entry points to holiday apartment G5a at the Ocean Club.

At the back, facing the pool, were double-glazed sliding windows, with one central locking point, an ‘Open’ or ‘Closed’ button on the handle.

According to the investigators, the McCanns had left this terrace door unlocked when they left for dinner at the tapas bar around 8.30pm in order to provide easy access when they periodically checked on their three children.

At the front of the apartment, Farrow states that there was a heavy wooden door fitted with a double-locking mortise lock.

He goes on to report that, on the night of May 3, the front door was not locked and the key was left on the shelf dividing the kitchen and living room of the apartment.

(The shelf is pictured above, centre-right in a photograph made by Portuguese police.)

The investigators admitted that they had no access to the crime scene or to any other information collected by the Portuguese authorities or by Leicestershire Police.

Farrow’s report was not included within the Portuguese police case files released to the public in August 2008.