Any DNA evidence allegedly found in the back of a car hired by Kate and Gerry McCann can easily be explained in an innocent way, family sources said yesterday, and is likely to prove “totally useless” in building a case against them.

In the first detailed rebuttal of accusations that Mr and Mrs McCann were involved in their daughter, Madeleine’s, disappearance, a source close to the couple said yesterday there were “entirely innocent reasons” why her DNA may have been found in the car which could demolish the police case against them.

Leaks emerging from the police inquiry into the child’s disappearance on May 3 have suggested that Portuguese investigators have uncovered traces of Madeleine in the Renault Scenic which her parents rented 25 days after she vanished. This evidence has formed the basis of the police case against the couple, which led them to name them as formal suspects in her disappearance 12 days ago.

But in briefings to journalists yesterday, the source said at least 30 friends and family members had used the car before police tested it, several of them blood relatives, and the car had also been used to transport Madeleine’s belongings when the family moved holiday apartments.

The source said experts had told the family that DNA on some of these items, such as sweat on her sandals, could account for the traces allegedly found by police. Until now the family have declined to release details of their defence, citing Portugal’s strict secrecy laws.

“People need to consider what was carried in that car for entirely innocent reasons,” the source said. “When viewed as a whole by any rational person these reasons at best raise fundamental questions about the reliability of any so-called evidence and at worst render it totally useless.”

The intervention came as Mr and Mrs McCann’s new spokesman defended the couple against the “ludicrous” suggestion that they were involved in Madeleine’s disappearance. Clarence Mitchell, a former BBC reporter and civil servant, said the couple were “the innocent victims of a heinous crime”, adding the suggestion they had harmed their daughter was “as ludicrous as it is nonsensical”.

Yesterday’s developments signalled a proactive strategy in the couple’s campaign to find their daughter and assert their innocence, and followed meetings with their lawyers. The couple have been subject to press speculation over their possible guilt and a swelling tide of public hostility. A newspaper opinion poll on Sunday found that only 20% of Britons believe they are completely innocent.

Mr Mitchell, who assisted the McCanns in May and June while acting on behalf of the Foreign Office, said he was so convinced of their innocence that he had given up his government career to help them.

A Portuguese judge is reviewing police evidence against the couple, and must decide this week whether to act. But local newspapers have reported that Judge Pedro Daniel dos Anjos Frias has denied Portuguese investigators permission to summon Mrs McCann back to Portugal for further questioning.

In their first interview since returning home to Britain Mr and Mrs McCann said they talk to their two-year-old twins about their missing sister “all the time”.

They said when they ask where their older sister is they reply: “She isn’t here at the moment.”

England’s captain, Paul Collingwood, was forced to make a public apology yesterday for an impromptu visit to a Cape Town lap dancing bar and, to add to his woes, his team-mates were also embarrassed as an equally ill-judged defeat against New Zealand left them on the brink of elimination from Twenty20 World Cup.

Collingwood will definitely captain England in the one-day series in Sri Lanka, with the England and Wales Cricket Board refusing to view his misjudgment with the same gravity as Andrew Flintoff’s drunken pedalo affair in the World Cup, an escapade which was considerably more alcohol-fuelled and cost Flintoff the vice-captaincy.

David Graveney, the chairman of selectors, emphatically responded “of course he will” when asked if Collingwood would retain the job in Sri Lanka after a tabloid newspaper revelled in his visit to Mavericks following England’s defeat against Australia. The board formally pronounced that Collingwood had “been shown an inappropriate area”, which as definitions of lap dancing bars go sounded accurate enough. Last night they fined him some 1,000.

There was no suggestion that Collingwood was drunk, he left soon after midnight and he was playing golf by 7.30am on Saturday, 36 hours before England’s next game against South Africa. He had been socialising with England team-mates in a Cape Town nightclub and had accepted a lift home with people he dubbed as “not massively close friends”.

Nevertheless it was ill considered and some self-recrimination was necessary. “I was taken to an inappropriate bar and I realised that I had to get out of there,” he said. “It won’t happen again. I made a mistake. I have apologised to everybody already. I am disappointed with myself.”

Wherever you looked yesterday it was a bad day for England. A five-run defeat against New Zealand means South Africa must lose their last two games and England must beat India heavily in their final Super Eight match at Kingsmead today. Only then could they sneak into the semi-finals on run rate.

England were on their mettle for their first 10am start of the tournament. Collingwood won his fourth toss in succession and, with the pitch still a little spicy, New Zealand subsided to 31 for four by the sixth over. But the Black Caps bat deep and powerfully and escaped to 164 for nine through combative half-centuries by Scott Styris and Craig McMillan.

Collingwood also miscalculated Flintoff’s overs - he had time for only three - but it was a woebegone Flintoff who bowled in some discomfort off a short run. To concede only 11 from three overs was the staunchest of efforts but the view of Australia’s captain, Ricky Ponting, that the all-rounder should have six months off looks more sensible by the day. Graveney said he will go to Sri Lanka unless his condition worsens. Whether it is getting worse is debatable but it is certainly not getting any better.

One player is going home early. Matt Prior’s summer has ended with a broken right thumb, struck in practice by a throwdown from Peter Moores. Vikram Solanki, a respectable stop-gap stumper yesterday, will continue today against India, with Durham’s Phil Mustard confirmed as one-day wicketkeeper in Sri Lanka. Mustard will also open the batting.

Solanki and Darren Maddy shared 62 in 7.5 overs for the first wicket but England’s challenge foundered upon one over of left-arm spin from Daniel Vettori. Kevin Pietersen claims that anything is legitimate in Twenty20 - “silly game, silly shots” - but to be bowled on the reverse sweep against one of the most potent bowlers in the tournament, when he had the measure of the Kiwi seamers, was a blunder.

Flintoff was run out two balls later, a victim of Owais Shah’s indecision, Dimitri Mascarenhas fell first ball at deep cover and 16 off the final over never looked achievable. England had tossed the game into Kiwi laps.

The government is set to delay the introduction of the controversial home information packs (Hips), it was claimed today.

Communities secretary, Ruth Kelly, will make a Commons statement at 3.30pm on the packs, which were due to be introduced on June 1.

Channel 4 News reported that she would announce this would be put back.

The move comes hours before the House of Lords is due to take part in a last-ditch vote aimed at halting the Hips, which will cost homeowners hundreds of pounds to compile.

The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors was also set to launch a legal challenge.

A spokesman for the Department of Communities and Local Government told the Press Association: “It will be an update on Hips and the Energy Performance Certificate.

“All I can confirm is that Hips are not being scrapped.”

The row over Hips, which the government claimed would speed up the property buying process and reduce the risk of failed transactions, has rumbled on at Westminster for the past 10 years.

Property professionals, including estate agents and surveyors, have argued that making it illegal to put a home on the market without first compiling a pack costing around 500 risked exacerbating a shortage of property for sale, particularly in London and the south-east.

Channel 4 News said Whitehall sources could not confirm how long the delay would be, but MPs will hear more details when Ms Kelly makes her statement.

However, DCLG minister, Meg Munn, told Channel 4 News: “Hips are going to come in on June 1.

“Remember, this date has been signalled for some 18 months now and therefore it will be going ahead.”

A House of Lords source confirmed that an opposition debate and vote later today, calling on the government to revoke the Hips scheme, would go ahead as planned.