Madeleine McCann: Woman says she saw missing girl speaking German in Portugal in 2017

‘I saw the spot on her right eye and after some time I associated the face with Madeleine,’ says witness

She told police the unique marking in her right eye - which stems from a rare condition known as a coloboma - made her think it was Madeleine (AP)

A former teacher has told Portuguese police she believes she saw Madeleine McCann in a supermarket in Portugal three years ago.

McCann disappeared at the age of three from a resort in the Algarve on the evening of 3 May 2007.

The retired teacher claims McCann, who would now be 17, was talking in German to another girl in a supermarket near the city of Albufeira, 37 miles from the resort where Madeleine went missing.

She told police the unique marking in her right eye – which stems from a rare condition called coloboma – made her think it was Madeleine, according to Sky News.

The witness says she had realised it could be the girl and waited by the checkout, but did not catch another glimpse of her.

“I saw the spot on her right eye and after some time I associated the face with Madeleine, but unfortunately it was too late, they had already left the supermarket,” she said.

The ex-teacher, who contacted the McCanns’ Lisbon-based lawyer Rogerio Alves, said she spotted her in Apolonia supermarket on the resort of Gale.

She is set to tell her story anonymously in an interview on the investigative news show Sexta at 9 which is being broadcast on state-funded channel RTP on Saturday night.

Portuguese police will interview the witness, it is believed, but do not think the teenager she saw was Madeleine, Sky reported.

There have been nearly 9,000 alleged sightings in 101 countries. Madeleine’s has been branded ​the most intensely reported missing person case of modern times.

The retired teacher told her family she thought she had spotted Madeleine but only contacted police recently after seeing media coverage of Christian Brueckner, who is suspected of kidnapping the girl in 2007.

German prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters has said he has evidence Madeleine is no longer alive. Wolters is attempting to put together a murder case against Brueckner.

Brueckner was convicted and sentenced to seven years in prison for raping an American woman in Portugal in 2005. The convicted paedophile is presently serving drugs and rape sentences in Kiel jail near Hamburg.