Couple try to rescue Maddy lookalike

A British couple tried to rescue a small child who they wrongly believed was Madeleine McCann.

The tourists, who were on holiday in Croatia, were convinced the child they saw on the island of Krk was the missing girl.

But the blonde child turned out to be the two-and-a-half-year-old son of football star Dino Drpic and his wife Nives, a model.

Mrs Drpic told today how the British couple tried to grab her son Leone in a case of mistaken identity. She said that the tourists first began taking photographs in an attempt to check if it was Madeleine and then tried to grab the child when they thought she was not looking.

Mrs Drpic said: "I started getting suspicious when the British woman approached Leone and started chatting with him.

"Suddenly she grabbed him, apparently thinking nobody was watching him. When I went over she realised her mistake and apologised" Mrs Drpic said that she was used to people staring and taking photographs because she and her husband are famous in Croatia.

Drpic, 27, plays defence for Dinamo Zagreb and the Croatian national side.

Since Madeleine, then three, vanished during a holiday with her parents in Portugal on 3 May last year, there have been alleged sightings of her across Europe, Africa and even as far as South America.