Sky News - 6 months to find Maddie

Sunday Express -3rd April 2016 Headline

Six Months To Find Madeleine

By Tracey Kandohla and James Murray

After 12m spent in vain, slashed budget forces yard to set time limit on hunt for missing girl..

(The Sunday Express suggests that budget cuts have forced Scotland Yard to put a time limit on the search for missing Madeleine McCann)
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Wasn't much the same reported six months ago?

So, a six-month extension, then.

We were told a year ago that they were going to be given another 12 months.

Now, this is published on 3 April 2016, so 6 months after that is...3 October 2016.

Which will make it a nice, neat, 9 years to the day since Dr Goncalo Amaral, on his birthday, was removed as Madeleine McCann Investigation Co-Ordinator, four weeks after having pulled in for questioning what he thought were the chief suspects.

Another cynical boost of sales for the Sunday Express.

I wonder if they tell their advertisers that they're putting Maddie on the front page once again, and will sell therefore sell an extra 50,000 copies, to try and hook hesitant advertisers into splurging their money on adverts?


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ETA: The Express sub-heads its article: '£12 million spent in vain'. 

It was the Sun that raucously demanded this investigation which has clearly been 'in vain'. It looks like I was nearly 5 years ahead of the Express for calling this SY investigation an 'expensive charade' from the get-go. I see the two joint authors of this piece are Tracey 'Clarence-comes-to-my-house-for-tea-every-week' Kandohla, and James Murray, two journos who have recycled more rubbish stories about Madeleine and the McCanns than most

Clearly no further forward than they were when business commenced in May 2011.  Why do I get the feeling they are extracting the Michael?

Looking around on Google it would seem the same headline hit the newspapers on 19 Sep 2015 - MADELEINE McCann's parents have been told that Scotland Yard has another six months to find their daughter.

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[size=40]Six months left to find Maddie before Scotland Yard pull the plug on hunt for missing Brit[/size]

SCOTLAND YARD detectives have been given just six more months to find out what happened to Madeleine McCann.

By [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
PUBLISHED: 00:01, Sun, Apr 3, 2016

The Home Office has set a budget for this year of just under £95,000, which will pay for only half a year of investigations by the team of four working on the case. 
The sum will just about cover their wages and leaves little left for flights to Portugal or paying for expensive forensic work. 
Once the money runs out in the autumn, Scotland Yard will almost certainly shelve Operation Grange, their five-year review and investigation, which has cost close to £12million but has failed to bring anyone to justice or discover what happened to Madeleine.

Soon the child’s parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, face the emotionally daunting prospect of paying for a new private investigation with a war chest of some £750,000, raised largely through sales of Kate’s widely praised book on the enduring mystery.

We will never give up
Kate McCann

[size]

At the height of the Yard’s inquiries more than 30 detectives and support staff were working on Operation Grange, based at Belgravia police station in central London. 

When the inquiry was in full swing a team of specially trained officers carried out detailed searches of carefully chosen scrubland near where Madeleine was taken at Praia da Luz on the Algarve on May 3, 2007. 

Now Detective Chief Inspector Nicola Wall, who leads the small team, has the unenviable task of trying to make a breakthrough with limited resources and a ticking clock. Scotland Yard has said there are no “immediate” plans to further cut the team working on the case and insisted “there are still focused lines of investigation to be pursued”.

However, it remains to be seen whether those inquiries will produce meaningful results. A Home Office spokeswoman said: “Following a request from the Metropolitan Police Service, we have agreed to provide nearly £95,000 of further funding.


The spokeswoman said the £94,592 will cover the first half of the 2016/17 financial year. 

Kate and Gerry, who face the agonising ninth anniversary of their daughter’s disappearance next month, remain convinced their daughter, who would now be aged 12, could still be alive.

They had invested huge hopes in Operation Grange to end their nightmare and were relieved that the once well-financed formal police probe allowed them to halt their own private investigations. 

After Grange was launched in May 2011 the doctors from Rothley, Leicestershire, resumed relatively normal lives with heart expert Gerry working full time at Glenfield Hospital, near their home, and Kate concentrating on bringing up their twins, Sean and Amelie, now aged 11. 

Madeleine, though, is never far from their thoughts. Kate said recently: “The urge to look for Madeleine absolutely hasn’t changed at all. We will never give up. I want an end, an answer. Whatever that it is.” 

Last December the couple said of Operation Grange: “Thankfully, the police investigation has made progress over the year. We are moving in the right direction and that’s the positive.”

They have employed several private eye agencies over the years but admitted that the hard-working small teams have limitations. Their first investigators, who started work in October 2007, five months after Madeleine went missing, were the Spain-based agency Metodo 3.

However, they were dropped after the agency’s chief investigator insisted they would have Madeleine home by Christmas, even though they found no evidence to support the claim. 

Then came US-based Oakley International, hired for six months in March 2008, but problems over payments ended the contract. Retired British detectives Dave Edgar and Arthur Cowley were next on board but their diligent work was stopped months after Operation Grange got underway. 

A source close to Kate and Gerry said at the time: “It was felt the lead should be taken by Scotland Yard detectives working on the review. Dave and Arthur passed over all their material to officers.”
[/size]

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[size=40]Why the inquiry into Madeleine McCann's disappearance has proved so frustrating[/size]

THE cut in funding to £95,000 for Scotland Yard’s Madeleine McCann investigation reflects growing frustration that finding out what happened to her has become a near-impossible task.

By [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
PUBLISHED: 00:01, Sun, Apr 3, 2016



Effectively, the investigation is being allowed to wither on the vine because British and Portuguese police officers have been unable to find the vital missing pieces of the jigsaw. 

Although the Yard say they have a “much clearer picture” of the events leading up to Madeleine’s abduction, they still do not know whether she is dead or alive and, if she is alive, where she is now. 

Following on from the collapse of Operation Midland, the failed investigation of child abuse allegedly by establishment figures, the impending winding up of Operation Grange – the Maddie case – exposes worrying fallibility in what was once seen as the world’s best police force.

When the Home Office announced the review way back in 2011, there was a real sense that at last, after so many false dawns, the true facts about what happened to Madeleine would emerge.

The funding by Home Secretary Theresa May was rightly generous, more than £2million a year, fuelling expectation of a breakthrough. 

Seasoned murder detective DCI Andy Redwood pulled in all the known information from the McCanns’s failed private investigations, persuaded distrustful Portuguese counterparts to get on board and had some of the best murder detectives in the country on his hand-picked team. 

In October 2013 the mood of the team was positive when it was announced the Yard was receiving “increasing cooperation” from Portuguese judicial authorities and, more crucially, the highly sensitive Policia Judiciaria (PJ), the country’s equivalent of our CID. 

The Portuguese even appointed six officers based in Faro to carry out inquiries on DCI Redwood’s behalf on the Algarve. Then there were 41 persons of interest, including 15 Britons, plenty to go at and plenty of people keen and able to do the digging.

A BBC TV Crimewatch edition featured a reconstruction and e-fits of men police were keen to speak to, particularly the man seen by an Irish family carrying a child in his arms toward the seafront in the late evening of May 3, 2007, when she vanished nine days before her fourth birthday. 

Sensationally, they announced that the famous sighting by Jane Tanner, a friend of the McCanns, near apartment 5A of the Ocean Club, where she was taken, was probably not significant as they believe he was on holiday and was simply returning to his holiday home with his own child. 

A reward of £20,000 and TV appeals in Germany and Holland produced a good response from the international public, but not a ground-breaking clue. 

In March 2014 Operation Grange announced there were 12 crimes between 2004 and 2010 on the western Algarve in which an intruder had gained entrance to holiday villas and assaulted sleeping girls. The smelly suspect had a pot belly, but despite publicity he was never identified.

In June of that year the tension was ratcheted up with an intensive search of scrubland in and around Praia da Luz, which, alas, produced no evidence relating to Madeleine. The Portuguese police and the Yard were less forthcoming about four potential suspects they had in for questioning in Faro, firing more than 250 questions at each of them. 

The Sunday Express understands police from both countries were interested in a sofa got rid of by one of the men, which when retrieved and analysed was found to have fibres similar to fibres found in apartment 5A. 

It also emerged that a British woman witness had made a statement saying that she had overheard someone saying near one of the suspects’ homes, “Why did you bring her here? Now we have to dispose of the body.” 

It was widely reported that officers were working on a theory that a team of burglars targeted apartment 5A and Madeleine was abducted during a burglary that went wrong. However, officers have to date been unable to substantiate this line of inquiry with a view to bringing any charges.

Despite all the millions spent and the many trips to Portugal by the Yard, no one has been brought to book and it would appear the trail has gone stone cold. Exactly what happened during the past five years may never be fully known because Scotland Yard and the Portuguese shared little important information with the public.

However, details of their correspondence and interviews may emerge if the PJ decides to release its new files publicly. There was a storm when the PJ released thousands of documents after shelving their investigation in 2008. 

Statements from Madeleine’s parents Kate and Gerry and their friends, the so-called Tapas Seven with whom they were dining when Madeleine went missing, were made available along with thousands of pages of once-secret information.

Now the impatient Portuguese media will demand that the substance of the new investigation should also be freely available and the judicial authorities are likely to accede to their requests to bring this new material into the public domain. 

With all that information available, the McCanns would have a considerable dossier at their disposal to present to any new private investigators they may wish to hire. Sadly, the likelihood of discovering the fate of Madeleine before what would have been her 13th birthday next month looks as distant as ever.

Better and better...

WHY THE INQUIRY INTO MADELEINE MCCANN'S DISAPPEARANCE HAS PROVED SO FRUSTRATING

By James Murray - Investigations Editor (?)

THE cut in funding to £95,000 for Scotland Yard’s Madeleine McCann investigation reflects growing frustration that finding out what happened to her has become a near-impossible task.

Portuguese police officers have been unable to find the vital missing pieces of the jigsaw.

Although the Yard say they have a “much clearer picture” of the events leading up to Madeleine’s abduction, they still do not know whether she is dead or alive and, if she is alive, where she is now.

Following on from the collapse of Operation Midland, the failed investigation of child abuse allegedly by establishment figures, the impending winding up of Operation Grange – the Maddie case – exposes worrying fallibility in what was once seen as the world’s best police force.

When the Home Office announced the review way back in 2011, there was a real sense that at last, after so many false dawns, the true facts about what happened to Madeleine would emerge.

The funding by Home Secretary Theresa May was rightly generous, more than £2million a year, fuelling expectation of a breakthrough.

Seasoned murder detective DCI Andy Redwood pulled in all the known information from the McCanns’s failed private investigations, persuaded distrustful Portuguese counterparts to get on board and had some of the best murder detectives in the country on his hand-picked team.

In October 2013 the mood of the team was positive when it was announced the Yard was receiving “increasing cooperation” from Portuguese judicial authorities and, more crucially, the highly sensitive Policia Judiciaria (PJ), the country’s equivalent of our CID.

The Portuguese even appointed six officers based in Faro to carry out inquiries on DCI Redwood’s behalf on the Algarve. Then there were 41 persons of interest, including 15 Britons, plenty to go at and plenty of people keen and able to do the digging.

A BBC TV Crimewatch edition featured a reconstruction and e-fits of men police were keen to speak to, particularly the man seen by an Irish family carrying a child in his arms toward the seafront in the late evening of May 3, 2007, when she vanished nine days before her fourth birthday.

Sensationally, they announced that the famous sighting by Jane Tanner, a friend of the McCanns, near apartment 5A of the Ocean Club, where she was taken, was probably not significant as they believe he was on holiday and was simply returning to his holiday home with his own child.

A reward of £20,000 and TV appeals in Germany and Holland produced a good response from the international public, but not a ground-breaking clue.

In March 2014 Operation Grange announced there were 12 crimes between 2004 and 2010 on the western Algarve in which an intruder had gained entrance to holiday villas and assaulted sleeping girls. The smelly suspect had a pot belly, but despite publicity he was never identified.
In June of that year the tension was ratcheted up with an intensive search of scrubland in and around Praia da Luz, which, alas, produced no evidence relating to Madeleine. The Portuguese police and the Yard were less forthcoming about four potential suspects they had in for questioning in Faro, firing more than 250 questions at each of them.

The Sunday Express understands police from both countries were interested in a sofa got rid of by one of the men, which when retrieved and analysed was found to have fibres similar to fibres found in apartment 5A.

It also emerged that a British woman witness had made a statement saying that she had overheard someone saying near one of the suspects’ homes, “Why did you bring her here? Now we have to dispose of the body.”

It was widely reported that officers were working on a theory that a team of burglars targeted apartment 5A and Madeleine was abducted during a burglary that went wrong. However, officers have to date been unable to substantiate this line of inquiry with a view to bringing any charges.

Despite all the millions spent and the many trips to Portugal by the Yard, no one has been brought to book and it would appear the trail has gone stone cold. Exactly what happened during the past five years may never be fully known because Scotland Yard and the Portuguese shared little important information with the public.

However, details of their correspondence and interviews may emerge if the PJ decides to release its new files publicly. There was a storm when the PJ released thousands of documents after shelving their investigation in 2008.

Statements from Madeleine’s parents Kate and Gerry and their friends, the so-called Tapas Seven with whom they were dining when Madeleine went missing, were made available along with thousands of pages of once-secret information.

Now the impatient Portuguese media will demand that the substance of the new investigation should also be freely available and the judicial authorities are likely to accede to their requests to bring this new material into the public domain.

With all that information available, the McCanns would have a considerable dossier at their disposal to present to any new private investigators they may wish to hire. Sadly, the likelihood of discovering the fate of Madeleine before what would have been her 13th birthday next month looks as distant as ever.

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This guy is a clear contender for 'Live at the Apollo' -  a comedian in the making.

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Think we are in tandem.  I will delete my post !

ETA:  No can do.  Perhaps someone can delete for me - it's either that or this laptop is going out the window.  I'm out of here..

Although the Yard say they have a “much clearer picture” of the events leading up to Madeleine’s abduction


Move along. Nothing to see here.

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

Think we are in tandem.  I will delete my post !

ETA:  No can do.  Perhaps someone can delete for me - it's either that or this laptop is going out the window.  I'm out of here..

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] - I looked to see if I could delete my post, not possible either. 

After all that money, all those years they have tacitly admitted there is no evidence of an abduction taking place otherwise they would have shouted it from the roof tops.

Since there was no abduction, they now have to look at other scenarios and that means the mccanns and chums and the cover up of a homicide.

Is it necessary to be negative about this?  We know NOTHING about SY investigation and if they DID have an answer, what are they able to do?  Can they only make charges relating to anything in UK? eg Fund?

Isn't it ONLY  the PJ that have the ability to charge them for a crime of being complicit in Madeleine's disappearance?

Even if SY were able to would they do so BEFORE the PJ have completed their investigation?

I could be very wrong but we are all putting a lot of effort here and I prefer to be positive or I may as well do something else...

I want to see PROOF that SY haven't got anything to charge them 

Even the Express was 'helpful' 

£12 million spent in vain on one child, which was more than all the other child abuse inquiries put together.

maebee wrote:Although the Yard say they have a “much clearer picture” of the events leading up to Madeleine’s abduction


Move along. Nothing to see here.

If you'd never read the files.

Then sat down and read the files.

You would have a much clearer picture.

If you read Amaral's book you would have a much clearer picture.

We all had a much clearer picture before SY started this travesty.

The Sunday Express understands police from both countries were interested in a sofa got rid of by one of the men, which when retrieved and analysed was found to have fibres similar to fibres found in apartment 5A.

It also emerged that a British woman witness had made a statement saying that she had overheard someone saying near one of the suspects’ homes, “Why did you bring her here? Now we have to dispose of the body.” 

hogwash wrote:It also emerged that a British woman witness had made a statement saying that she had overheard someone saying near one of the suspects’ homes, “Why did you bring her here? Now we have to dispose of the body.” 

Indeed.

It's a slam dunk.

So.. where are the arrests?

I smell something.

The death of a child should NEVER be turned into a whitewash, a circus, a farce, a marketing ploy, a money-making fraudulent hoax.

Not by the parents, nor the police, nor the media.

How is all this going to affect Sean and Amelie when they start researching and learn the truth?

All three McCann children have been abused.

It's disgusting.

Good to see Tracey is always on the ball with her impeccable reporting and always gets it right!

19th September 2015:

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3rd April 2016:

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Hobs wrote:After all that money, all those years they have tacitly admitted there is no evidence of an abduction taking place otherwise they would have shouted it from the roof tops.

Since there was no abduction, they now have to look at other scenarios and that means the mccanns and chums and the cover up of a homicide.

@ Hobs     I am afraid not.  All police officers employed on Operation Grange are duty bound to stick to the official remit, which was stipulated right at the beginning to be 'to investigate the abduction'. 

It may also be recalled that this remit was set by former Det Chief Supt Hamish Campbell, the original Senior Investigating Officer for Operation Grange. Campbell, it will be remembered, was a major part of the Metropolitan Police team that failed to find the professional murderer of Jill Dando and was credibly accused of having 'fitted up' Barry George/Bulsara' by inserting a piece of firearms residue - matching the bullet that killed Jill Dando - into Bulsara's coat pocket.    

When I say that police officers are duty bound to follow their remit, I should add that it is a potential disciplinary offence to pursue lines of enquiry or investigations beyond their remit.

@ HideHo     You wrote:  "Is it necessary to be negative about this?  We know NOTHING about SY investigation and if they DID have an answer, what are they able to do?  Can they only make charges relating to anything in UK? eg Fund? Isn't it ONLY the PJ that have the ability to charge them for a crime of being complicit in Madeleine's disappearance? Even if SY were able to would they do so BEFORE the PJ have completed their investigation? I could be very wrong but we are all putting a lot of effort here and I prefer to be positive or I may as well do something else...

REPLY:  I think we do know quite a lot about the SY investigation. A great deal, in fact. I suggest that the overwhelming evidence is that the PJ long ago gave up on any active investigation in this case, and are merely going through the motions of co-operating - minimally - with whatever SY want to do.

As you know, I've called Operation Grange an 'expensive charade' from Day 1, and have seen absolutely nothing since to change my view. But that most certainly doesn't stop me from carrying on researching...

Tony Bennett wrote:

As you know, I've called Operation Grange an 'expensive charade' from Day 1, and have seen absolutely nothing since to change my view. But that most certainly doesn't stop me from carrying on researching...

But what's the point, Tony?

I sped read through all the article's  drivel but my eyes homed in on the sofa and the "why did you bring her here" part. So who was the man who got rid of the sofa and who is the suspect and witness around this conversation and why the interest in the sofa ? Of course most here know something happened around the sofa or behind it but many don't.   That is the new information that has came out into the public eye.   The rest is just padding.

melisande wrote:I sped read through all the article's  drivel but my eyes homed in on the sofa and the "why did you bring her here" part. So who was the man who got rid of the sofa and who is the suspect and witness around this conversation and why the interest in the sofa ? Of course most here know something happened around the sofa or behind it but many don't.   That is the new information that has came out into the public eye.   The rest is just padding.

This was a conversation heard outside SM`s door. 
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But James Murray`s article later refuted it.

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Richard IV wrote:

melisande wrote:I sped read through all the article's  drivel but my eyes homed in on the sofa and the "why did you bring her here" part. So who was the man who got rid of the sofa and who is the suspect and witness around this conversation and why the interest in the sofa ? Of course most here know something happened around the sofa or behind it but many don't.   That is the new information that has came out into the public eye.   The rest is just padding.

This was a conversation heard outside SM`s door. 
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But James Murray`s article later refuted it.

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Refuted it and then repeats the alleged events again?? Now why would he do that?

HiDeHo wrote:Is it necessary to be negative about this?  We know NOTHING about SY investigation and if they DID have an answer, what are they able to do?  Can they only make charges relating to anything in UK? eg Fund?

Isn't it ONLY  the PJ that have the ability to charge them for a crime of being complicit in Madeleine's disappearance?

Even if SY were able to would they do so BEFORE the PJ have completed their investigation?

I could be very wrong but we are all putting a lot of effort here and I prefer to be positive or I may as well do something else...

I want to see PROOF that SY haven't got anything to charge them 

Even the Express was 'helpful' 

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They could also make charges for attempting to pervert the course of justice should statements given to a UK police force be found to be deliberate lies.

It always bugs me that the media forget to say that all this money is coming from the TAX PAYER not `the government`.  Each one of us is paying for the McCanns to carry on this farce.

However, it`s always stuck in my mind that it was said (by the Mirror and maybe other papers) that this money is coming from "a special Home Office Fund" and I`ve wondered what is `special` about it.  Is it being funded by someone `special` who wants to manipulate the end result but keep it looking kosher.  I`m sure this goes on all the time, e.g. all these supposed government `Inquiries` that always conclude in favour of the establishment.

"Operation Grange has cost almost £8million. More than £100,000 has been spent on the transport of British authorities to and from Portugal. The money comes from a special Home Office fund."
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Google.Gaspar.Statements wrote:

Tony Bennett wrote:

As you know, I've called Operation Grange an 'expensive charade' from Day 1, and have seen absolutely nothing since to change my view. But that most certainly doesn't stop me from carrying on researching...

But what's the point, Tony?

inspirespirit wrote:According to the Operation Grange official Remit, they are looking at the WHOLE investigation.  So surely that covers everything as well as abduction.

Tony...You know a lot more about the workings of the UK.  I'm in Canada and don't really have access to any UK news and politics and whitewashes etc except on here.

However, I have spent a good deal of time on the phone to Operation Grange and spoke to three different detectives (two of them answered the direct line when the detective I was in contact with was away)  they were not only helpful they encouraged me to send in my research including my videos.

I approached them about what was being said at the time...that it was a whitewash.  I knew that I was not going to be told specific information but he told me himself (during the time Andy Redwood was giving  media interviews) that they were not releasing any of the investigation (for obvious reasons) but made a point of saying that regarding what WAS in the media that different people hear it differently....basically to read between the lines. He emphasized the importance about that.

I have done this and CAN see many positives in what has been said as opposed to just 'hear' what it sounds like.

eg.  McCanns are not suspects = The McCanns are not suspects in THIS line of inquiry (there are MANY lines of Inquiry
    
       McCanns are not suspects = They are not suspects TODAY

Was the time and effort and expense of digging in PdL to FIND the suspects or to ELIMINATE every possible avenue and therefore ensuring that if the PJ (being the jurisdiction that can charge them with being complicit in the disappearance) CHARGE the McCanns and it goes to trial they cannot use the defence of not everything was done...not everything was followed up?

I was ASSURED with emphasis they include everything, EVERYTHING in the investigation and it is ALL entered into the computer just like any other investigation.  He chuckled and said 'No stone is left  unturned'

As mentioned before, I am not familiar with the 'darker' side of corruption in the UK and you may well be correct about it being a whitewash from the higher echelons, but after speaking to the detectives I was assured (as well as reading between the lines) that it was an investigation that the 'men on the ground' were treating as a full blown investigation and NO credible evidence was discounted.

There is no question that they were extremely helpful and the assurance about how the investigation would be kept 'under the radar, and to read between the lines in any media interview.

He answered the phone... 'Homicide'

Pardon me for being cynical in regard to Operation Grange and the dodgy senior elements of Scotland Yard as Mr T Bennett has stipulated,as some how "Not being the finest Police Force", take a long look at the unsolved Daniel Morgan Murder and the manipulation of evidence by the UK Police force, then ask the question if "Scotland Yard" had ever been the finest in the world with all the chicanery coming to light of what they had been involved in all along?
Isn't it funny how there is to be an "Extension time period" for Operation Grange and the demise of the Mr Goncalo Amaral defamation trial still not decided,also note how many times their decisions taken in regard to when likely announcements for the defamation case, then supposedly looking for an alive Madeleine with Tracker Dogs,"ask the dog's Sandra" eh Gerry!?
The UK Government cannot afford for the Portugal PJ to have a different conclusion of their investigation case findings,can they or will both Countries care politely to disagree?
Another point is, how come the MSM are afraid to mention the Find Madeleine fund being swindled/conned out of donations being misappropriated by Kevin Haligen,Metodo3 and how they had paid £500,000.00 to have the Madeleine story kept in the headlines to Bell,  Pottinger,Leveson Inquiry?