Madeleine McCann police given £350,000 extra public cash to investigate suspect

One year one month down the line

Madeleine McCann police given £350,000 extra public cash to investigate suspect

The Met Police's request for extra funding in the Madeleine McCann case has been approved as the British force works alongside German police to build a case against convicted paedophile and rapist Christian Brueckner

Ryan MerrifieldReporter
18:04, 20 JUL 2021UPDATED18:05, 20 JUL 2021

Detectives investigating the Madeleine McCann disappearance have been given an extra £350,000 to continue their probe.

Operation Grange, launched in 2011 to find out what happened to the missing British toddler, has already cost taxpayers £12.5million.

And with Met Police Commissioner Cressida Dick saying the search will go on until there is "nothing left to do", the Home Office has confirmed a request for further cash has been approved.

A spokesperson for the government department told the Mirror: "The Government has provided up to £350,000 for Operation Grange in 2021-22.

"In line with our Special Grant processes, funding for Operation Grange is approved on an annual basis.

"Ministers have approved a request for £349,328 of funding for this financial year," they added.

Three-year-old Madeleine disappeared from the holiday apartment her family was staying at in May 2007 in Portugal's Praia da Luz.

Convicted paedophile and rapist Christian Brueckner was named as German police's prime suspect last year for her abduction and murder and they are working with the Met to gather evidence.

Brueckner, 44, is yet to be questioned in the case and claims he is innocent.

Madeleine, from Rothley, Leicestershire, was just days from her fourth birthday when she was allegedly snatched.

Her parents, Kate and Gerry, have personally raised £773,629 in case public funding is ever pulled.

Last month, the Mirror revealed investigators had been told of a secret compound on the Algarve owned by Brueckner’s ex-girlfriend.

Nicole Fehlinger’s father Dieter went back to speak to the German equivalent of the FBI for a second time.

Prosecutors have confirmed he gave a lengthy interview and that they are seriously examining this new lead.

Mr Fehlinger has told investigators that Nicole and Brueckner had a secret compound which no-one else had been aware of.

He said it was guarded by four fierce Kangal dogs, which have the strongest bite of any in the world.

The secret compound is on land very close to the house where Nicole lived, 38 miles from Praia da Luz.

There is no suggestion she had anything to do with the disappearance of Madeleine.

German Police are only investigating Brueckner over the case. He is currently in jail after being convicted of other offences including rape.

Last year they named Brueckner as the prime suspect in Madeleine going missing after phone records placed him in the resort on the night she vanished.

The paedophile has accused prosecutors of bringing “shame” to the German legal system by making “scandalous” statements against him.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/madeleine-mccann-police-given-350000-24577866

#makesyerpukedunnit

Madeleine McCann investigation update as probe receives £350,000 in extra funding

MADELEINE McCann investigators have been handed up to £350,000 to continue operations into the missing Briton.

By LUKE HAWKER
PUBLISHED: 19:07, Tue, Jul 20, 2021 | UPDATED: 19:11, Tue, Jul 20, 2021

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1465306/Madeleine-McCann-news-investigation-met-police-funding-disappearance

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Maddie McCann boost: Police given $690,000 extra public cash to try to nail prime suspect

20 Jul, 2021 11:11 PM

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/maddie-mccann-boost-police-given-690000-extra-public-cash-to-try-to-nail-prime-suspect/NJFH2OV3IZDU6BWVQLPAU7BTCU/
....................

The gutter press is stuck in the groove. In recent years, every time they report on Sloperation Grunge, the fictitious sum of £350,000 is quoted - just the same as £11m to date has been rolled-over for quite a few years.

The only purpose a broom cupboard serves is hoarding a supply of social distancing tools. I seriously doubt the Met Police are actively investigating, searching as team McCann like you to think, the case of missing Madeleine McCann - I truly believe they already know the fate of 'the toddler'!

As for building a case against Christian Brueckner, there is no case to build. Either they the German police have evidence to lead to prosecution - or at least questioning, or they haven't! Clearly they haven't!

'Building a case against' smacks of a stitch-up, not a healthy position for a police force to find themselves in.

Why oh why oh why is this tripe repeated over and over again. Why now?

£350k is the full on costs of 4 police officers for a year. So not just Salary, (£48-52,000) but Pension, NI, overtime, training, office, uniform, transport and all the rest portioned out among all the officers in the Met.
350/4 = £ 87.5k which is about right.

The Money article has at least pushed the Secret Compound nonsense back a bit.
With the help of another poster here I am tracking that back to source, and .. 
GUESS WHAT > > >
it was the Olive Press which published it LAST YEAR.  June 2020
and even put a long and boring video on You Tube, complete with JC ( we believe) standing close to the four savage dogs

We then know that the Chief Reporter for the Mirror was complaining on Linked-in that he was bored with all the COVID stories and was asking for anything new.
And suddenly the OP story gets resurrect'ed, different screen shots of the "compound" lifted directly from Google Maps Street View are sent as it they were first hand photos, and the whole thing is then presented as if it had come from the German BKA, and that the OP had done a wonderful investigative follow-up.

Still a work in progress, but yet another example of the OPs malign influence in this whole saga.

The Olive Press report, including the video journey, was published on 8th June 2020..

Exclusive:  Footage of property where paedophile and suspect Christian Brueckner lived in the months after Madeleine McCann disappeared from Portugal

By Laurence Dollimore - 8th June 2020

https://www.theolivepress.es/spain-news/2020/06/08/exclusivve-footage-of-property-where-paedophile-and-suspect-christian-breuckner-lived-in-the-months-after-madeleine-mccann-disappeared-from-portugal/

The same story was reported the day before, on 7th June 2020  by  https://www.fr24news.com/a/2020/06/villa-owner-of-madeleine-mccann-murder-suspect-urges-police-to-search.html  as very recently posted on the Brueckner thread and also The Daily Mail..

https://jillhavern.forumotion.net/t16955p875-christian-brueckner-to-be-or-not-to-be#438890

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8396679/Owner-villa-Madeleine-McCann-murder-suspect-lived-urges-police-search-grounds.html

Jon Clarke of the Olive Press is small fry in terms of the international media syndicate. even though he might have rattled a few cages.  He seems to think he's some kind of celebrity and likes having his mug-shot wherever he can.  Fingers in pies so to speak.

Try Kate Burley for size, she of Sky News, who has also worked with British tabloids and appears to have a bit of a friendship with Jon Clarke.  Only the other day she was chatting with Clarke about COVID and it's impact on tourism.

https://www.theolivepress.es/spain-news/2021/07/21/watch-olive-press-live-on-sky-its-great-to-see-the-brits-coming-back/

The only reporter on the scene till late that evening was Kay Burley, who happened to be on holiday there.
Jon Clarke - Olive Press

Burley + Mitchell + Peribañez + Felgueiras  = a formidable quartet!

Interesting that the Olive press ONCE AGAIN gets her name wrong.

He did this in the infamous blog many years ago, which he then corrected to Kay Burley
The only reporter on the scene till late that evening was Kay Burley, who happened to be on holiday there.
Jon Clarke - Olive Press

Started with Kate, then corrected to Kay, but in fact she was in the UK at the time, on TV that very evening.
He was LYING– as usual
The identity of the weather girl was pointed out to him, but he failed to correct the record, as thus it has passed into Internet knowledge.

The Portugal News is reporting this now - short and sweet:
https://www.theportugalnews.com/news/2021-07-22/madeleine-mccann-case-uk-police-granted-a-further-350000-pounds-funding/61270

Madeleine McCann case, UK police granted a further 350,000 pounds funding
in Algarve · 22-07-2021 12:07:00 · 0 Comments

According to press reports the UK Home Office has approved a Metropolitan Police request for 350,000 Pounds of extra funding to try to convict a prime suspect in Madeleine McCann's disappearance from Luz Bay in 2007

This case, Operation Grange, has already cost the UK tax payer £12.5 million since it was launched in 2011. Convicted paedophile and rapist Christian B was named by German police last year as the prime suspect for her abduction and murder. But a source close to the case told The Portugal News ‘I’m not sure they have the right man, nor obviously are they’ (the Met). However, Christian B is yet to be quizzed over Madeleine's disappearance and says that he is innocent. It is claimed that dramatic new clues have come to light recently

Status update of Operation Grange

Freedom of information request reference no: 01.FOI.19.09.012036

I note you seek access to the following information:

Clarification and status update of Operation Grange, the British tax payer funded investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.

A media article has appeared on the 20th October 2019 stating operational changes had taken place within Operation Grange.

Please provide the following information for the British taxpayers benefit:

When was DCI Nicola Wall replaced with DCI Mark Cranwell and is she still working on Operation Grange?
Why was this replacement/change deemed necessary?
What are the staff numbers now working on Operation Grange and are they all still working on that specific case full time or is it now a completely part time investigation? Previously it was 4 DC's +1 SIO full time. If there has been a change of staff numbers in relation to Operation Grange, when did those new personnel numbers come into effect over the old quotas? The article states the now SIO is only working on it part time.
With the 'investigation' only being supervised part time, what is the
need/requirement for circa up to £300, 000 (according to media) funding for a whole tax year to run what is apparently a part time investigation considering that the officers salaries are already accounted for within Met. Police annual budgets?
Has any part of the funding Operation Grange has received since its inception been used to pay for the Portuguese Police re-investigation either in full or in part?

Decision

I have today decided to disclose the located information to you in full.

Please find below information pursuant to your request above.

Q1 - When was DCI Nicola Wall replaced with DCI Mark Cranwell and is she still working on Operation Grange?
DCI Nicola Wall retired from the MPS in November 2018 – DCI Mark Cranwell succeeded her the same month.

Q2 - Why was this replacement/change deemed necessary?
Please see above.

Q3 - What are the staff numbers now working on Operation Grange and are they all still working on that specific case full time or is it now a completely part time investigation? Previously it was 4 DC's +1 SIO full time. If there has been a change of staff numbers in relation to Operation Grange, when did those new personnel numbers come into effect over the old quotas? The article states the now SIO is only working on it part time.
As widely published in the media, One Detective Sergeant and 3 Detective Constables are currently working on this investigation full time – the SIO as published is part-time, sharing his time between Op Grange and one of the Homicide teams in the MPS.

Q4 - With the 'investigation' only being supervised part time, what is the need/requirement for circa up to £300, 000 (according to media) funding for a whole tax year to run what is apparently a part time investigation considering that the officers salaries are already accounted for within Met. Police annual budgets?
The budget from the Home Office is for the Detective Sergeant and the 3 Detective Constables to work on a full time basis on Operation Grange. The SIO isn’t funded by the Home Office.

Q5 - Has any part of the funding Operation Grange has received since its inception been used to pay for the Portuguese Police re-investigation either in full or in part?
No funding from Operation Grange has been used to pay for any part of the investigation being carried out by the Portuguese police.

https://www.met.police.uk/foi-ai/metropolitan-police/disclosure-2019/november/status-update-operation-grange/

Same meat different gravy..

Madeleine McCann detectives want cash for another year to look into Christian Brueckner

EXCLUSIVE: Met Police chiefs want more Home Office funds to investigate German paedophile Christian Brueckner - the operation has cost £12.5million since 2011 but its current Special Grant expires this month

By Martin Fricker - 18 MARCH 2021

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/madeleine-mccann-detectives-want-cash-23755484

And from one year ago, CMOMM friend and co-justice seeker Natasha Donn reports from the Algarve..

Renewed Home Office funding for Maddie search as Germans admit inquiries into latest suspect may be dropped

By Natasha Donn -16th July 2020

After all the media hullabaloo, and news of renewed searches in the 13-year hunt for missing Madeleine McCann, German authorities appear to be admitting they may drop their inquiries into the latest suspect – jailed sex attacker/ pedophile/ drug trafficker/ convicted thief Christian Brückner – while UK papers report the nine-year Operation Grange probe run out of Scotland Yard is to get renewed Home Office funding “to keep it going until at least spring next year”.

Says the Mail: “A spokesman for the Home Office, which is on the verge of formally approving the Met Police’s fresh request for more money, said: ‘We do not foresee a problem and often grants, in special cases like this, are given retrospectively while work is still being undertaken.’

The missing child’s parents are described as ‘unlikely to be surprised’ if the case splashed over the world’s media last month by federal police in northern Germany is “dropped due to lack of evidence”. Although so much was trailed in the way of ‘we know this, and we know that’, the reality appears to be that none of it can be proved (click here).

A friend of the McCanns cited by the Mail Online admits if the case is dropped, it “would be a huge embarrassment to the German authorities”.

But the family at least can cling to the knowledge that efforts are still being made by police forces (even if these forces don’t seem to see eye-to-eye) and the Grange probe – which has already cost upwards of €12 million – is to be extended.

Today (Thursday), lawyers for 43-year-old Brückner are challenging the terms of his 2018 extradition from Italy to Germany in the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg.

Explain reports, if successful, this means he could be released from jail immediately.

https://www.portugalresident.com/renewed-home-office-funding-for-maddie-search-as-germans-admit-inquiries-into-latest-suspect-may-be-dropped/

This Brueckner saga is no longer a red herring, it's been hanging around so long it's a friggin' dead herring.

Maybe DNA can now solve this mystery

Las Vegas murder case cracked with record-small amount of DNA - BBC News

The 1989 murder of a 14-year-old girl in Las Vegas has been solved by using what experts say is the smallest-ever amount of human DNA to crack a case.
Stephanie Isaacson's murder case had gone cold until new technology made it possible to test what little remained of the suspect's DNA: the equivalent of just 15 human cells.