A woman who says she is a ‘super recogniser’ has drawn a picture of what she thinks Madeleine McCann would look like today.
Simone Malik - who says she has a 'gift' for recognising people's faces - believes the drawing she has done is more accurate than computer generated e-fits.
Malik has shared the drawing in a bid to help track down Madeleine who disappeared from a holiday resort in Portugal in 2007.
Forty-one-year old Malik says her ‘gift’ as a ‘super recogniser’ mean she can precisely depict how someone will age and believes a now-18-year-old Madeleine would have a ‘wider forehead’.
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She said: “I know as a super recogniser that is her face, that’s her nose.
“I think she’d be quite easy to find if she is alive, which we hope that she is.
“I think people just need some guidance that this may possibly be her face that we’re looking for.”
Malik said she was inspired to make the drawing after studying a computer generated image of Madeleine created by professors from Bradford University.
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She said: “Madeleine’s got a high forehead and she’s got a wide forehead, that’s clear for me to see – I think people looking at her image as a child would agree with it.
“[But] on this computerised image, it was a narrow forehead.
“I believe the reason that was the case is because in the original picture, which was used to create this 2020 image, she had a fringe.
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“So the fringe was obscuring her forehead and her true features, which the computer couldn’t recognise or go beyond.”
She added: “It made her look like she had a bottom-heavy face and a small forehead and a shorter nose, and I didn’t agree with that.”
Another feature that Ms Malik also believes she has accurately captured in her up-to-date drawing of Madeleine is her nose.
She said: “Usually, children are like their mother or their father, or a bit of both, but neither does her mother or father have the wide nose and square tip.
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“I decided to do a bit more digging, and as I did some digging, I found a very interesting fact: somebody with exactly that nose in her family.
“And it’s actually Philomena McCann, who is Gerry McCann’s sister, so it would be Madeleine’s aunty, from her dad’s side.”
Mike Neville, 54 a Retired Scotland Yard detective and founder of agency Super Recognisers International, said Malik’s sketch was ‘valuable’ to the ongoing search.
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“My view is the only way to find Madeleine if she is alive is with images.
“Simone is a super recogniser, so I recruit people who never forget faces, so they’ve got a real skill for looking at things.
“What we find with super recognisers is they look at unchanging features, and she’s sort of done that in reverse – she’s looked at what she should look like now.
“It’s a valuable addition if Madeline McCann is still alive to try and find her.
“I think it will keep the public interested and obviously give us a different perspective on what she should look like today.
Featured Image Credit: SWNS