The mum of a boy who disappeared exactly five years to the day before Madeleine McCann has revealed her belief about what happened to her son.
Seven-year-old Daniel Entwhistle vanished in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, on May 3, 2003, when he went out to play with friends and never came home.
No body or sign of Daniel has ever been found.
Now, just over 20 years on, Daniel's mum Paula Taylor has shared her theory on her son's disappearance and what happened.
Paula said she believes Daniel fell into the River Yare around the Trinity Quay area and died after getting into trouble in the water, with the schoolboy's red BMX having been found nearby.
The hypothesis follows initial suspicions around Daniel's dad and former husband, David Entwhistle, at the time that he had harmed the youngster.
Entwhistle, it transpired, was a convicted sex offender previously serving six months in jail for a sex offence against a 12-year-old girl in the 1980s.
Paula, 50, said she had known nothing about his conviction while they were married, and split from him in the weeks following Daniel going missing.
"The last time Daniel was seen he was on his bike and he was on his own," Ms Taylor told Mail Online.
"If the police thought David was anything to do with it, he would have been locked up."
She added: "There have been all sorts of rumours and theories – but I am sure that he went into the river.
"It’s not a big mystery. The police showed me CCTV of him riding his bike across a garage forecourt towards the quay and he didn’t come out again.
"Nobody else was shown going towards the quay so it looks like he was on his own.
"I think he had gone to the garage because he wanted to buy a Kinder egg and they didn’t have any in the shop where he had been earlier."
Paula's theory comes as detectives in Portugal launched an operation on a reservoir in the Algarve last month in renewed search for signs of three-year-old Madeleine.
Police combed scrubland around the beauty spot, understood to have been an area frequently visited by German police's main suspect in her alleged murder, Christian Bruckner.
A number of items were recovered in the search which have since been sent off for forensic analysis.
Police in Daniel's case also revealed last month they had looked at 12 "credible" leads but were no close to finding him.
Andy Guy, the force's cold case manager, said on the 20 year anniversary: “We recognise the enormity of two decades passing since Daniel went missing, and the impact this has had on his family in that time.
"As a force we remain committed to finding answers for them, and we have continued to explore new lines of inquiry in this case in response to new and credible information."
