Scotland Yard used ex-police from private firm G4S to help hunt for missing Madeleine McCann

Scotland Yard used ex-police from private firm G4S to help hunt for missing Madeleine McCann
22:29, 3 JAN 2016 UPDATED 22:50, 3 JAN 2016
BY TRACEY KANDOHLA



Former police officers employed by G4S have been used by Scotland Yard in the hunt for Madeleine McCann.

Up to 81 former officers have been on the Met Police payroll to search for the missing girl over a five-year period.

Revelations of the global company’s input into the failed £12.1 million hunt for Maddie only emerged in documents obtained from the London force under freedom of information laws.

It is set to cause embarrassment to the Government who are now investigating the private firm for allegedly overcharging them.

Two weeks ago Maddie’s parents Kate and Gerry publically thanked Operation Grange, the police inquiry set up into their daughter’s disappearance on PM David Cameron ’s orders, in May 2011.

PAG4S guardsG4S: The firm's relationship with Government has been frayed
But the couple from Rothley, Leics, couldn’t resist a dig at cops for failing to do “as much” quickly enough in an online festive message.

It was not clear if the McCanns were aware G4S , whose reputation has been scarred after a string of blunders, had been brought on board.

The firm’s relationship with the Government has been frayed following a series of scandals including bungling the London 2012 Olympic contract and charging taxpayers for monitoring dead criminals.

The hunt for Maddie, who vanished during a family holiday to Portugal’s Praia da Luz, in May 2007 just days before her fourth birthday, is now being scaled down.

VIEW GALLERY Police-in-Faro
In 2011 G4S provided the most staff, up to 33, to help solve the Maddie riddle , at a cost to British taxpayers of up to £91,929, including an agency fee of £8,489.

The following year up to 16 officers were on Op Grange books, plus one intelligence assessor at a fee of up to £59,380. In 2013 up to 13 G4S staff were assigned to find Maddie at a rate of up to £54,134. In the summer of that year Scotland Yard travelled to Portugal to dig up ground in and around Luz where they suspected Maddie’s body could be buried.

In 2014 G4S provided up to 10 ex cops, a researcher and two digital media assessors to team up with the Maddie squad at a price spiralling towards £57, 413.

Read more: Gerry and Kate McCann reveal the reasons why they miss Maddie

On top of G4S Operation Grange used another private company Servoca to help the hunt.

A Scotland Yard spokesman said: “We can confirm we have used agencies to provide extra support on specific high profile cases, including Operation Grange, the search for Madeleine McCann. G4S has provided ex police officers during a period from 2010 to 2014. It is not believed that we are still using them.”

G4S has also been involved in Operation Yewtree, the Met Police’s child sex abuse inquiry which has seen the high-profile prosecution of celebrities collapse and Operation Withern, the investigation into the 2011 London riots.


At the weekend MPs questioned the decision by police, who have suffered 20 per cent budget cuts, to use staff from G4S.

The company is being investigated by the Serious Fraud Office for claims it overcharged the Ministry of Justice for the electronic tagging of criminals who were dead or back in jail. G4S also failed to provide enough trained staff for the London Olympics, causing troops to be brought in.

Private firms including G4S and Servoca have been paid nearly £170million of taxpayers’ money between January 2010 and December 2014 for helping police forces across the country.

Read more: Madeleine McCann's parents say they have 'fresh hope we will find her'

The newly-released statistics come from 28 of 45 forces who confirmed hiring staff from both companies.

Keith Vaz, Labour MP for Leicester East, and chairman of the home affairs select committee said: “Given the huge pressure on police budgets, it is puzzling that such a large amount of public money is being given to private-sector organisations.”

Scotland Yard has vowed to continue the search for Maddie for another three months despite recently scaling back on officers.

Getty ImagesParents: Gerry and Kate McCann are preparing for probe to be shelved
But former GP Kate and heart doctor Gerry, both 47, are preparing for the inquiry to be shelved later this year after, so far, failing to unearth any new clues. They believe their daughter, who would now be aged 12, could still be alive and will use money from the £750,000 set aside in official Find Maddie Fund to employ a new team of private eyes.

Until the end of June last year it emerged controversial Op Grange has cost £10.1 million with a further £2 million from the Government’s “Special Grants” budgeted until early April.

VIEW GALLERY Madeleine McCann police begin to search a patch of scrubland just outside of the small town as the search for clues enters a second week
A Scotland Yard spokesperson said: “The investigation is still ongoing although the number of officers has been significantly reduced.”

The task force has yet to make a single arrest. In October they drastically cut the number detectives from 29 to just four.

Kate and Gerry’s spokesperson Clarence Mitchell said: “How Scotland Yard run Operation Grange, and the manning of it, is entirely a matter for them. They will employ agency staff as and when they see fit. Kate and Gerry will not be commenting.”


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Absolute stark bonking madness.

Op Grange had 39 police officers working on the case, they also used up to 81 former police officers and still nothing.  

Isn't it time the public were issued with a full explanation of the use of public funds through the Public Accounts Committee?

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]    Madness?

Depends on you're view point - if you DON't want something done properly 'who you gonna call?' I'd say G4S could have been a well considered choice.

But yes, I agree, complete madness in the normal world.

Don't know what to make of it really.

The item wants to paint a picture that G4S are bunglers. And it's not known if the McCanns know they were involved.



Could this mean G4S were brought in to do a specific job?

MRNOODLES wrote:Don't know what to make of it really.

The item wants to paint a picture that G4S are bunglers. And it's not known if the McCanns know they were involved.



Could this mean G4S were brought in to do a specific job?

Yes.  To paint a picture..

Scotland Yard used ex-police from private firm G4S to help hunt for missing Madeleine McCann

Revelations of the global company’s input into the failed £12.1 million hunt for Maddie only emerged in documents obtained from the London force under freedom of information laws.

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Tony ???

Privatisation of the Police force by stealth.

Ther is a PDF version of the freedom of information request on the web from the met police Looks like it's dated from June 2015.sorry unable to do links here.

BlueBag wrote:Privatisation of the Police force by stealth.

Any comments from the dodgy one, Prime Minister Dave Cameron, Theresa May, Rebekah Brooks, "we're all in this together" mode for a special couple of friends and cohorts.  Is any one now convinced of "Operation Grange" being a farce dreamt up by special police Officers, eh Sir Bernard Hogan Howe, SIO Hamish Campbell, DCI Andy Redwood and "I nick erm before they know they know they're nicked DCI Nicola Wall, calamity?
What an absolute travesty of an investigation into a missing child costing over £12-15 million subsiding a "private company" to pursue a criminal case for over five years, how you gonna wriggle out of this one Dave, "I wanted to assist the McCann family.  "Well you have certainly done that Dave?
Time for cousin Boris to represent the Conservative party now eh Dave, wanting to spend time with Samantha and the family after securing office, "I said I'd go before 10 yrs in office, EU decision?

Could this be the case of..... there could be 'something' about to break in this case here, or from Portugal, and that it wasn't Britains 'finest' police officers SY et all who have bungled and squandered the millions allocated to Op Grange or not finding out what happened to Madeleine, but another nototiously bungling private company G4S......dodgy, dodgy feelings are stirring in me with this news. in my opinion part of the grand finale.  SY couldn't have been that inept now could they?????.  Stiff upper lip and all that!(lessons will have been learned)  Oh  yes  you could make it up.

Sophiebubbles wrote:Could this be the case of..... there could be 'something' about to break in this case here, or from Portugal, and that it wasn't Britains 'finest' police officers SY et all who have bungled and squandered the millions allocated to Op Grange or not finding out what happened to Madeleine, but another nototiously bungling private company G4S......dodgy, dodgy feelings are stirring in me with this news. in my opinion part of the grand finale.  SY couldn't have been that inept now could they?????.  Stiff upper lip and all that!(lessons will have been learned)  Oh  yes  you could make it up.

Perhaps Colt Severs will come forward as "Creche Dad"eh DCI Redwood or SIO Hamish Campbell,Zippy and George?

willowthewisp wrote:

Sophiebubbles wrote:Could this be the case of..... there could be 'something' about to break in this case here, or from Portugal, and that it wasn't Britains 'finest' police officers SY et all who have bungled and squandered the millions allocated to Op Grange or not finding out what happened to Madeleine, but another nototiously bungling private company G4S......dodgy, dodgy feelings are stirring in me with this news. in my opinion part of the grand finale.  SY couldn't have been that inept now could they?????.  Stiff upper lip and all that!(lessons will have been learned)  Oh  yes  you could make it up.

Perhaps Colt Severs will come forward as "Creche Dad"eh DCI Redwood or SIO Hamish Campbell,Zippy and George?

Yes..[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.].....the Fall Guy, perfect ending. just who they are looking for.

Since reading these two extraordinary articles (Mirror and Star) I have been struggling to understand exactly what a 'digital media assessor' does. None of these were around when I was a lad.

Some enlightenment has been gained by looking at LinkedIn to see how digital media assessors describe their work on their profiles: 

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I wonder if they were engaged on that epic production 'The BBC Crimewatch McCann Special', starring an imaginary bloke with two different faces ('Smithman') and another imaginary bloke invented by DCI Redwood ('Crecheman')?

The outrageous and expensive farce continueth...but maybe only until April...

A new disgrace in the €16.4 million police investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann has erupted in the British media.

It now appears that the Operation Grange ‘Maddie probe’ has involved the hiring of private investigators from firms that were actually being investigated by the Serious Fraud Office for “allegedly overcharging” the British government.

According to a report in the Sunday Times, both firms were under suspicion of putting in bogus charges for the electronic tagging of released prisoners who were either “dead, back in prison or had fled the country”.

One of the companies, G4S, has “since repaid more than €130 million to the Treasury” over the scandal, but it is still another low moment for the Metropolitan Police which has come under enormous criticism for spending so much money on the Maddie investigation over the past eight-plus years, without coming up with one single charge or provable theory.

According to stories in the media today, “up to 81 officers from private security firm G4S were recruited to assist Operation Grange - even though at one stage 31 detectives were assigned to work on the case full-time”.

G4S was also involved in Operations Yewtree, the Met’s child sex abuse inquiry, and Withern - a probe into the 2011 London riots. But it is the Maddie angle that has inflamed tabloid media, as it centres on the “failed” aspects of police investigations this far, and how much they have cost the British taxpayer.

The information emerged as a result of documents obtained under Freedom of Information laws, explained the Sunday Times, quoting shadow police minister Jack Dromey as saying: “The public will be rightly concerned at the creeping privatisation of core police functions and that the policing of their communities is being increasingly handed over to private companies”.

Where the revelations will leave the already “drastically scaled down” Maddie investigation is anyone’s guess. Here in Portugal, the PJ’s parallel investigation remains ongoing, although not exclusively focused on finding the British toddler who disappeared without trace from a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz in May 2007.

As a police source told us late last year, the case has been “worrying, because in most cases where no-one is arrested or charged, we know what happened, we just can’t prove it.

“But in this case, rigorously, there is no definitive idea on what happened. We don’t know a thing”.

As Sky News Martin Brunt said on air last October, “it is a case of £10 million spent and nothing achieved”.

Since then, the investigation’s total expenditure has increased, with the figure of €16.4 million due to be reached by April this year.

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Tony Bennett wrote:Since reading these two extraordinary articles (Mirror and Star) I have been struggling to understand exactly what a 'digital media assessor' does. None of these were around when I was a lad.

Some enlightenment has been gained by looking at LinkedIn to see how digital media assessors describe their work on their profiles: 

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

I wonder if they were engaged on that epic production 'The BBC Crimewatch McCann Special', starring an imaginary bloke with two different faces ('Smithman') and another imaginary bloke invented by DCI Redwood ('Crecheman')?

The outrageous and expensive farce continueth...but maybe only until April...

Nah, that would be a media manipulator, or to make it more official a media monitor - or is that the same as one who assesses the media digitally?  Whatever it sounds vital. 

Tony Bennett wrote:Since reading these two extraordinary articles (Mirror and Star) I have been struggling to understand exactly what a 'digital media assessor' does. None of these were around when I was a lad.

Some enlightenment has been gained by looking at LinkedIn to see how digital media assessors describe their work on their profiles: 

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

I wonder if they were engaged on that epic production 'The BBC Crimewatch McCann Special', starring an imaginary bloke with two different faces ('Smithman') and another imaginary bloke invented by DCI Redwood ('Crecheman')?

The outrageous and expensive farce continueth...but maybe only until April...

Looks at a digital image.

Decides whether it is true or fake.

It has been on here for yonks.

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@Tony Bennett wrote: wrote:Since reading these two extraordinary articles (Mirror and Star) I have been struggling to understand exactly what a 'digital media assessor' does. None of these were around when I was a lad.

Is is possible to find out of it was Clarence?

Sounds a lot like a Media Monitor.

BlueBag wrote:[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

@Tony Bennett wrote: wrote:Since reading these two extraordinary articles (Mirror and Star) I have been struggling to understand exactly what a 'digital media assessor' does. None of these were around when I was a lad.

Is is possible to find out of it was Clarence?

Sounds a lot like a Media Monitor.

The impression I have of what is a 'digital media assessor' is.. They are self appointed internet guardians who dictate who and who isn't a troll.

MRNOODLES wrote:

BlueBag wrote:[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

@Tony Bennett wrote: wrote:Since reading these two extraordinary articles (Mirror and Star) I have been struggling to understand exactly what a 'digital media assessor' does. None of these were around when I was a lad.

Is is possible to find out of it was Clarence?

Sounds a lot like a Media Monitor.

The impression I have of what is a 'digital media assessor' is.. They are self appointed internet guardians who dictate who and who isn't a troll.

Surely what must spring to any ones knowledge of this scenario,"Abduction"that 81 G4S officials(ex-police?) and 31 full time Metropolitan Police officers that has finally been revealed to be a"false" investigation from the start, as Mr Cameron and cohorts have stated on the record,What we could do to help the McCann's?  Rather than seek the Truth of what actually happened in Madeleine's disappearance during the holiday vacation 28 April 03 May 2007,Ocean club Apartment 5a?
It is only with continued persistence from CMMOM,Mr Goncalo Amaral,Tony Bennett,Joanna Morais and dedicated people(Hideho) have given to reveal the deceptions from the statements, of the involvement of Government officials to obfuscate their collusion in still trying to manufacture some sort of exit policy from the "Monster Genie" they have created, that they cannot put back in the Bottle?
We can only hope that the Portugal,PJ release the file notes on"Operation(wildgoose)Grange"and the shenanigans from the 112 dedicated "Officials"cannot reveal their knowledge of the case, as they probably had to sign the "Official Secrets Act" before accessing the case evidence,Scenario,"All the Presidents Men" involved in the "Cover up"?