Met bill for Maddy soars to £2million - Evening Standard

Met bill for Maddy soars to £2million


Evening Standard



Justin Davenport, Crime Editor
1 Feb 2012

The cost of the Met's review of the Madeleine McCann investigation is set to reach £2 million less than a year after it was launched, the Evening Standard reveals today.

The bill for 30 detectives, translation and travel expenses has soared since David Cameron called in Scotland Yard last May.

Detectives from the homicide squad were asked to examine the case of the missing three-year-old after the Prime Minister acted on the request of Madeleine's parents. A spokesman for Kate and Gerry McCann said: "They have always been very appreciative of the time and resources that the British police and Home Office have committed to the search for Madeleine and they are grateful that the review is ongoing."

Met detectives have made at least four trips to Portugal and Spain to meet police and private investigators who were engaged in the original investigation.

When the review was announced it sparked controversy over the use of public funds. Labour peer Lord Harris has said the case raises "very big questions", adding: "There is clearly an issue about the resources being used."

The cost is disclosed in a document to the Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime. Sources say the Met has already sent the Home Office a bill for £800,000 but the figure is expected to reach £1.9 million by the end of the financial year next month.

The bill includes the costs of the detectives' salaries, translation and interpretation fees and travel expenses. Madeleine disappeared from her parents' holiday apartment in Praia da Luz on the Algarve in Portugal on May 3 2007.

She vanished days before her fourth birthday as her parents dined with friends yards away. Since then there have been hundreds of "sightings" of Madeleine around the world but none confirmed.

The official police inquiry into her disappearance was shelved in July 2008 but private detectives employed by the McCanns continued the search.

Scotland Yard says the trips to Portugal, and now Spain, are part of "laying the groundwork" for future co-operation between the police forces.

Officers are examining all the evidence connected to the case, including material gathered by private investigators.

Detectives have spent months reading a huge file of case material that had to be translated from Portuguese to English at a considerable cost. In December detectives met Spanish colleagues in Barcelona to check on reports that the toddler had been abducted and smuggled across the border.

Private investigators in Spain also handed the Met police team 30 boxes of evidence which they claimed contained up to eight "important new leads".

However, sources say the inquiry could take years to complete and they have played down hopes of a major breakthrough in the review so far.

The cost of the inquiry compares with the £80 million spent on the policing operations to tackle and investigate the summer riots.

http://www.mccannfiles.com/id232.html

However, sources say the inquiry could take years to complete and they have played down hopes of a major breakthrough in the review so far.

So, not even a year yet and 2 million gone, and it could take years!!

Thread here Nina

https://jillhavern.forumotion.net/t2512-lord-toby-harris?highlight=Lord+Toby+Harris

We only have the gov say so at the cost so far, bet you these coppers are doing sod all and just playing at investigating and i say a white wash on the way, as there is no way it would take years,The pj didnt make them arguido,s for nothing, so the gov should have told the mccanns from the off to go do the reconstruction.

tiny wrote:We only have the gov say so at the cost so far, bet you these coppers are doing sod all and just playing at investigating and i say a white wash on the way, as there is no way it would take years,The pj didnt make them arguido,s for nothing, so the gov should have told the mccanns from the off to go do the reconstruction.

The salaries wil make up most of the costs and from the article we learn salaries are included in the £2million figure. The thing is, those salaries are fixed costs and would have been paid by the Met anyway. I suspect that the Met are receiving extra funding as a sweetener for doing the review which may not actually be costing as much as we have been lead to believe (in terms of new funding required).
I do think the whole thing is a whitewash with Leveson another strand of the whitewash. Remember it was Cameron who appointed both Leveson and the Met!

Just sounds like a nice jolly to the Costas/Algarve for the police involved.

As to the cost and that the salaries would be paid anyway - yes, they would but it must mean that some other police work is not being done.

Miraflores wrote:Just sounds like a nice jolly to the Costas/Algarve for the police involved.

As to the cost and that the salaries would be paid anyway - yes, they would but it must mean that some other police work is not being done.

Yes, thats correct. Precious Police manpower is being diverted to the McCann whitewash report. But hey, murder rates are falling in the capital so everything is OK!

I agree that this Review should start and end with a reconstruction - there is no need for all this manpower unless it is designed to be "a whitewash" - have a sneaky feeling that it wasn't designed to satisfy the McCanns but to shut us up! Time can wear out even the most vociferous protestor and I think this is what this really is about.

First the Evening Standard, now the same story is running in the Mail. An almost identical cut and paste job. Someone puts out a story emphasising the high costs of the Met 'review' aimed at attracting criticism of it and causing trouble. Now who could that be and why?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2095197/Met-Police-review-Madeleine-McCann-abduction-cost-taxpayer-2m-year.html

This negative publicity could be the start of a wind down, or closure of the review, without the results being made public.

The McCanns want to be cleared Offically, and the abduction declared genuine, but I can't see that happening either. There will always be a risk that a body could turn up, or that the Pact could be broken. Can the government really afford to tie up 30 or so, experienced career detectives for the next few years, chasing random leads and sightings to satisfy the constant demands of the McCanns, especially if their own investigations point to the same conclusions as the PJ? The McCanns want absolution of course, perhaps another audience with the Pope might do the trick?

Not sure why, because if TM believe their own publicity, they have already been cleared, but it seems not in a way they wanted. Gone are the heady days of walkabouts, balloons and lanterns and envelopes stuffed with cash addressed merely to Saints Kate and Gerry at Rothley. Kate hasn't been given that high powered head of a Childrens Charity job that she dreamed of, Gerry didn't get a mention in the New Years Honours List and standing ovations are a distant memory.

There probably won't be any satisfying result from this costly review, but I also don't expect TM to fade into obscurity.

Cristobell wrote:The McCanns want to be cleared Offically, and the abduction declared genuine,

That is never going to happen by any event occurring in the UK. The only way that will ever happen, is to ask for the investigation to be reopened in Portugal, do the reconstruction and along with their friends physically show the PJ that they are not involved.

However, sources say the inquiry could take years to complete and they have played down hopes of a major breakthrough in the review so far.

A major breakthrough to nab the suspected perpetrators, who were once official suspects, is not impossible using whatever new evolving new approaches and methods. However a major breakthrough in nabbing the abductor is like looking a needle in the ocean, especially since there were no evidence an abduction took place, where do you possibly start looking for an abductor is an unknown factor, so forget a breakthrough in this aspect.

Could it be the MET is hoping for a major breakthrough to take this homicide case to Court? Not unlike the murder of Stephen Lawrence and Jill Dando cases!

I remain ever hopeful, or the MET will be reduced toincompetent jokers, wasting tax payers money only to return a non-actionable verdict.

You may well be right Aiyoyo. 5 years is a long time in the world of technology and science. Lets hope they still have samples to work with.

And what about Ben Needam !!
- diane, leicestershire, 2/2/2012 3:59
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This is an absolute waste of taxpayers money and an affront to all other victims of missing persons. Why just the McCanns?
- Freddy Johnson, Pennan Scotland, 2/2/2012 5:59

What is it with this continued political obsession with the McCanns, public money cannot be spent like this indefinitely whatever the rights and wrongs of this case. There are many other worthwhile causes that desperately need public money and 2 million a year would go a long way.
- Robbie, Sidmouth UK, 2/2/2012 3:38

Madeleine disappeared due to her parents' leaving her alone in an apartment in a foreign country. There has been enough money and time spent on her disappearance. A lot more could be achieved in crime prevention in our own country by spending the same amount to fund policing in crime hot-spots at home. While I empathise with the parents about the pain of a missing child, their own irresponsibility caused this sad event. Time to move on. No point in spending tax-payers' money to fund expensive reports. Mr Cameron should stop this waste of public money. Right now. Before more millions are spent, in a climate where pressures on public money are so great.
- msmoneywise, Somewhere, UK, 2/2/2012 7:24


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2095197/Met-Police-review-Madeleine-McCann-abduction-cost-taxpayer-2m-year.html#ixzz1lFLD393Y

The Express ran an article on the two children in Spain whose father has been arrested, bottom of page mentions the McCanns with caveat that of course it's not the same situation. Very neat.

So now we have Evening Standard, DM (majority of comments are anti TM - although only 55 or so in total - I think the majority has been whooshed) and DE, using the freedom of the press. The DT (re TB) mentioning 'harassment' in quotes (rather like it's a 'beef burger' - indicating probably not the real thing).

O yes, and Pat Brown has had a "Cease and Desist" notice served on TM.