The man who invented DNA fingerprinting stepped into the case of missing Madeleine McCann last night by offering to be an expert witness for her parents.
Sir Alec Jeffreys said that DNA matches - on which the case against the McCanns hinges - did not on their own establish a person's innocence or guilt.
His dramatic intervention came as Portuguese prosecutors turned the screw on the McCanns by seeking leave to seize Kate McCann's diary and other family items.
Among them are her husband Gerry's laptop computer, correspondence, and Madeleine's toys, including Cuddle Cat, a pink stuffed animal which Mrs McCann has been seen clutching almost continuously since the four-year-old vanished on May 3.
For their part the McCanns are to commission independent forensic tests on a hire car which has become the focus of investigation by the Portuguese police. Speaking on Newsnight, Sir Alec said there were no genetic characters in Madeleine that were not found in at least one other member of the family. "So then you have an incomplete DNA profile that could raise a potential problem in assigning a profile to Madeleine, given that all other members of that family would have been in that car," he explained.
"It is then up to investigators, the courts and all the rest of it to work out whether that connection is relevant or not.
"So DNA doesn't have the words innocence or guilt in it - that is a legal concept. What it seeks to establish is connections and identifications."
Unnamed "sources close to the investigation" who have been briefing the Portuguese media have claimed that DNA linked to Madeleine, and hair, have been found in the car, implying that it may have been used to move the four-year-old's body.
Another UK scientist called into question the value of DNA evidence in its own right in the case of Madeleine's disappearance. Dr Paul Debenham, a member of the advisory body the Human Genetics Commission, said there could be legitimate reasons as to how DNA from the missing toddler found its way into the hire car rented by the missing girl's parents.
Prosecutors would need to establish that it got there as part of a criminal process and not through chance contact, the expert added.
The police dossier on the case - now said to run to 4000 pages - has gone to the public prosecutor, Jose Cunha de Magalhaes e Meneses, who is to hand it on to criminal instructional judge, understood to be Pedro Daniel dos Anjos Frias. As their fate was being mulled over in Portugal the McCanns took their other two children - two-year-twins Sean and Amelie - to their local playpark in Rothley, Leicestershire, and made clear they would not be using any money raised for the fund to find Madeleine to pay for their legal defence.
They are facing the prospect of being charged over their daughter's disappearance from the family holiday apartment in Praia da Luz after police named them as "arguidos", or formal suspects, last week.
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