A RESTAURANT owner from Kent who was in Portugal when Madeleine McCann went missing has told how she has given evidence that contradicts official suspect Robert Murat's account of his whereabouts that night.

Businesswoman Jayne Jensen, who owns Lashings restaurant in Maidstone, was

staying a few doors away from the McCann family in Praia de Luz and was dining in the same restaurant as the couple the night four-year-old Maddie went missing.

Now she has told a national newspaper that she and her sister Annie Wiltshire saw Mr Murat outside the McCann apartment half an hour after the alarm was raised.

The expatriate estate agent claimed that he was at home with his elderly mother all night.

The sisters also spoke of seeing two strangers watching the Ocean Club pool

and Tapas bar hours before the little girl vanished.

Mrs Jensen said she had contacted Portuguese police within hours of the

disappearance but that her evidence was ignored for six months.

Mrs Jensen, who lives in Aylesford, near Maidstone, told the Kent Messenger that she did not blame Kate and Gerry McCann for leaving their daughter sleeping in the

apartment while they ate a meal nearby.

"Praia de Luz is a safe place," she said. "Their apartment was so very, very

close to the restaurant. People are making it sound like they were terrible people to leave their children like that. But who is the first one to throw the first stone? There but for the grace of God go all of us.

"It's such a safe resort. They don't have crime there. It's difficult to

understand in England. It's a very family place."