The cost of the search for Madeleine McCann - to Nov 2012

Updating a previous post:

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How much has the search for Madeleine cost so far? It began at 10.00pm on Thursday 3 May when the McCanns said that Madeleine had been abducted.

Here is a rough calculation of the total costs so far, accompanied by a few notes:

£548,477 - The cost for Leicestershire Police's part in the search in 2007-8 was £548, 477, of which the Home Office refunded £525,069.

£4 million - A conservative estimate of the cost to the Portuguese Police of their investigation, just in 2007-8.

£3 million - A conservative estimate of the costs of the McCanns’ private investigations so far, made up as follows:
• At least £300,00, maybe more, to Metodo 3
• £½ million plus expenses to Kevin Halligen
• Salaries and expenses to Dave Edgar, Arthur Cowley and assorted other detectives, plus trips to Germany (Hewlett), Barcelona (Victoria Beckham-lookalike) and various other trips
• Salaries of Justine McGuinness and Clarence Mitchell plus expenses: £300,000 so far

£2 million - the estimated cost to Interpol and an assortment of police forces around the globe, who have had to deal with hundreds, possibly thousands of ‘sightings’ of Madeleine, in countries such as the U.K., Germany, France, Portugal, Morocco, Spain, Canada, Venezuela, Australia and New Zealand.
The estimate is based on say 1,000 ‘sightings’ requiring an average of say £2,000 of police time to investigate each sighting

£3.5 million - for the current Scotland Yard ‘Review’. The review is said to be staffed by 37 officers. If their average salary is say £40,000, and they work on the review for say at least a year, that would cost around £2 million alone (including e.g. pension and employer’s N.I. contributions), and that doesn’t include the cost of e.g. hotels and travel for visits to Portugal and Spain

£3.88 million [see other thread: Compendium of lawyers used by the McCanns] - for lawyer’s fees: Edward Smethurst (co-ordinating lawyer), Carter-Ruck (suing lots of people), Michael Caplan Q.C. (extradition), Portuguese lawyers including extradition lawyers and Isabel Duarte, International Family Law Group (wardship proceedings before ms Justice Hogg in the High Court)

An unknown amount - for the current Portuguese investigation begun in Oporto.

An unknown amount - for answering various Freedom of Information Act queries from press and public about the case.


TOTAL now approx £23 million

These are direct costs. Don't forget indirect costs like the costs to the local tourist industry in PdL.

If she is found alive and well AS A RESULT OF THE ABOVE, then it will have been worth every penny.
Sadly very few people in the world believe that the above will have, or would have, or has had, any effect whatsoever.

(Except to stop one or two fairly important questions being asked of the very people who might be expected to know the answers - obviously !)

PeterMac wrote:If she is found alive and well AS A RESULT OF THE ABOVE, then it will have been worth every penny.
Sadly very few people in the world believe that the above will have, or would have, or has had, any effect whatsoever.

(Except to stop one or two fairly important questions being asked of the very people who might be expected to know the answers - obviously !)

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Peter Hyatt [Statement Analysis thread] has concluded that the parents have "guilty knowledge" of what happened. I have so far [though, I haven't followed all of the cases he analysed] not seen him wrong ...

But you're right, PeterMac, it would have been worthwhile the expenditure, if there would have been a result. And imagine how many other missing children cases would have benefitted from just part of such money.

'kinell, that's a lot of money to spend on trying to convince people you're innocent when all it would have taken was to answer the 48 questions and take part in the official police reconstruction.

And that's only for the first 6 years....keep on running Kate and Gerry....

In 2012 the approx cost of the search was £23 million.

Does anyone know what the cost of the search is now?