People all over the world believe a student from Manchester is Madeline McCann because she has a mark on her eye and on her leg that looks like Madeline’s.
Harriet Brookes made the crazy claim in a message to a friend, which was then shared by 30,000 people on the internet.
The group chat started with “Right guys,” which is obviously a bad joke. Usually I don’t believe in conspiracies, but I really think I’m Madeleine McCann.
She said, “My name is Madeleine McCann and I don’t know what to do with myself.” Her friends laughed at her.
Madeline McCann failed to return from Portugal in May 2007. She was 14 years old at the time.
But Ms. Brookes went to school at the University of Leeds.
Someone on social media asked, “Are you even Madeline, or are you just joking around and making people think?”
On Facebook, Sue Garland wrote, “To sum up: “Woman acts like a complete attention-seeking idiot by saying she is a missing child at least five years younger than she is.” I hope that clears things up: no, you’re not Madeleine Love.
“She put it in a group chat for a laugh,” said someone else.
In response to the criticism, Ms. Brookes said the post was a joke that those people didn’t get.
Last month, the Metropolitan Police said they were going to keep looking into what happened to Madeline.
Most of Operation Grange’s work is done, and the team is now focusing on a small group of focused leads.
In May 2011, Scotland Yard began looking into the disappearance by going through more than 40,000 documents.
It took the team 1,338 statements and 1,027 exhibits to put together. Over 60 people of interest have been questioned by police, and 650 sex offenders have been looked at by the team.
There have been 8,685 possible sightings of Madeline around the world.
