McCann lawyers 'will not meet Omagh case briefs'

Solicitors for the parents of Madeleine McCann have no plans to have talks about controversial DNA testing with legal representatives of a man accused of the Omagh bombing, a family spokesman said tonight.

Solicitors for the parents of Madeleine McCann have no plans to have talks about controversial DNA testing with legal representatives of a man accused of the Omagh bombing, a family spokesman said tonight.

Belfast lawyer Kevin Winters had earlier said a meeting with solicitors Kingsley Napley would take place in the city next week.

Mr Winters added that the McCann legal team had contacted his firm and a meeting with one of his staff, Peter Corrigan, the instructing solicitor in the Omagh defence team, has been scheduled for Belfast next week.

However, a spokesperson for the McCann family said tonight: “We have been contacted by a number of legal companies offering their services and this includes Kevin Winters and Co. We have no plans to meet them at the present time.”

Kate and Gerry McCann became suspects after Madeleine’s DNA was allegedly found in the boot of a hire car which they used weeks after her disappearance.

A controversial forensic test known as Low Copy Number (LCN) DNA is at the centre of the marathon Omagh bomb trial, in which a man from south Armagh has denied murdering 29 people who were killed in a no-warning bomb attack on the Tyrone town in August 1998.

Mr Justice Weir, judge in the case, which finished last January, has yet to deliver his verdict.

Sean Hoey, 37, from Jonesborough, Co Armagh, the only man charged over the Omagh bombing, which was carried out by the republican dissident organisation the Real IRA, is in custody awaiting the verdict.

LCN DNA is a highly sensitive testing procedure which magnifies potential forensic evidence that cannot be identified by traditional DNA.

Opponents argued that LCN DNA tests are unreliable because the magnification process leaves it open to potential distortion.

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