Wellington - New Zealand police said on Thursday that the little girl snapped by a store's security camera in Dunedin in December 2007 was definitely not missing British child Madeleine McCann.
They said they had identified the girl and her family and she was not Madeleine, who disappeared in Portugal seven months earlier.
Details of an investigation by New Zealand police into the mysterious disappearance of the 4-year-old were revealed this week in a 2 000-page dossier released by Portuguese courts.
Subsequently, shop assistant Taryn Dryfhout told reporters that she raised the alarm when she saw the girl with a man in a white shirt and shorts walking out of The Warehouse variety store in the South Island city of Dunedin on December 5, 2007.
She said she was so convinced the girl was Madeleine that she asked her name. The girl stumbled nervously and eventually replied, "Hayley," Dryfhout said.
The man and a woman with them acted strangely so police were notified, she said.
The file was sent to Interpol but Portuguese police who were in charge of the investigation did not ask their New Zealand counterparts to follow it up, Dunedin Police Inspector David Campbell said Wednesday.
He issued another statement on Thursday saying that police had identified the child and family photographed and "she is not the missing British girl."
He said police would not name the family or provide any details of their identity, and asked media organisations to "remove the image portraying the child and family from their coverage including websites to protect the privacy of the family."
"New Zealand Police are mindful of the stress on the McCann family from possible sightings of their daughter worldwide," Campbell said, declining any further comment on the case. - Sapa-dpa