Met chief calls for decision on funding of Madeleine McCann review

Met chief calls for decision on funding of Madeleine McCann review
















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Plea: Kate and Gerry McCann asked David Cameron for help in finding MaJustin Davenport, Crime Editor



24 August 2012



Scotland Yard is to ask Prime Minister David Cameron if he wants to continue funding an inquiry into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.



Met Commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe is seeking a new commitment from the Government on financing the “investigative review” of the McCann case.

The force launched the new inquiry 15 months ago after Mr Cameron responded to a plea from Madeleine’s parents Kate, 43, and Gerry McCann, 42. Detectives are examining all the evidence from the Portuguese inquiry into the child’s disappearance from her parents’ holiday flat in Praia da Luz in Portugal in 2007.

The girl, who was three at the time, vanished as her parents were having dinner with friends nearby.

Police say that so far the Government has provided an open cheque to fund the review, which has included the cost of translating police documents and witness statements as well as the cost of officers travelling to Portugal and Spain.

A team of 28 homicide detectives and seven civilian staff are engaged in the full-time review and so far it is thought the inquiry has cost about £2.5 million.

Mr Hogan-Howe said he would be seeking a decision from the Government in the next few months over how long they wished to fund the investigation. He said police were still sifting through a huge cache of documents. However, the Portuguese authorities are still refusing to re-open the inquiry.

He said: “We are still reviewing a lot of material. It is a significant amount of money and we have quite a lot of officers tied up in this.

“There will be a point at which we and the Government will want to make a decision about what the likely outcome is.

“The Prime Minister agreed to fund this. We have not had any pressure to say you must stop spending more than x amount, we have received a lot of support. But by Christmas I would want a very clear view of what work is outstanding and what timeline there is for that.”


Mr Hogan-Howe’s comments are the first to suggest that there may be a limit on how long police spend on the case. Previously he has said there was no limit on the amount of time and manpower for the inquiry.


The official Portuguese inquiry was formally shelved in July 2008 but the Met opened a review of the case, Operation Grange, in May last year.

By April this year they had managed to look at a quarter of some 40,000 pieces of information.

Hopes were raised this year when Det Chief Insp Andy Redwood, leading the review, said he believed Madeleine had been abducted by a stranger and could be alive.




http://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/met-chief-calls-for-decision-on-funding-of-madeleine-mccann-review-8078769.html

Great..........

Mr Hogan-Howe’s comments are the first to suggest that there may be a limit on how long police spend on the case. Previously he has said there was no limit on the amount of time and manpower for the inquiry.



So suddenly they may decide enough is enough, there is no more money, and all that previously spent money down a black hole!!! No outcome, you couldn't make it up.

So what has all this been about then? Just a very expensive paper shuffling exercise for appearances sake?

I expect we will get something along the lines of .... "We have come to the conclusion that Madeleine may be alive although she may sadly be dead, unfortunately we have run out of money to carry the investigation any further............."

Police say that so far the Government has provided an open cheque to fund the review,

We were mislead it was going to be 3.5 million.

“There will be a point at which we and the Government will want to make a decision about what the likely outcome is.

Hmmmm...meaning what I wonder.
I thought it's the Police only who's supposed to come up with an outcome for the Review not involving politicians.

“The Prime Minister agreed to fund this. We have not had any pressure to say you must stop spending more than x amount, we have received a lot of support. But by Christmas I would want a very clear view of what work is outstanding and what timeline there is for that.”

Effective the police are given a carte blanche without expiry date on the card.
Isn't it just wonderful for the mccanns. A continual search for Madeleine with nothing spared.

When they do stop the review which I think this is getting people prepped for, surely they have to justify the money they have spent so far by releasing a final report of what the review found, informations they looked at, translated documents etc.

2.5 million is an awful lot of tax payers money and we have a right to know what this money came up with until they stopped it

There will be a point at which we and the Government will want to make a decision about what the likely outcome is.

Good point

Hopefully the Madeleine Foundation will submit a FOI request to find out how the money was spent.

candyfloss wrote:I expect we will get something along the lines of .... "We have come to the conclusion that Madeleine may be alive although she may sadly be dead, unfortunately we have run out of money to carry the investigation any further............."

It will go nowhere. The ambassador for missing children should have been a clue, as she would have been cleared I'm sure, before being appointed.

Ah well. Best be like me always expecting the worst, now I'm not disappointed, just resigned.

All I want to know is whether the Met Chief trusts the dog, and what he's going to do about it? Is he going to qualify that in the report or not?

Usually Police complain about tight budget hampering their work, but in this exceptional case it is the reverse way round. Police are in fact concerned about the open cheque without time frame limit, so could it be they already fear not being able to justify to the taxpayers over this expenditure. Since when Police complain about over budget if they are going to deliver what ever it takes to deliver.

candyfloss wrote:I expect we will get something along the lines of .... "We have come to the conclusion that Madeleine may be alive although she may sadly be dead, unfortunately we have run out of money to carry the investigation any further............."

If this happens, there's a chance the McCanns may start openly canvassing for public donations once again. Arrgghh!

They're trying to transform it into a 'done everything we can' situation. Ben Needham is getting more attention now too, trying to lump the two cases together in the public's mind? Waiting for a headline of them finding the remains of Ben Needham - that would settle the Maddie question too - little or no chance of finding her.

I thought the initial amount was 3 million, not an open cheque! I am really 100% sure of that. Perhaps that too, is part of the spin now, can't afford to spend more money even though we wanted to give 50 trillion and the British people wouldn't mind a bit, times are hard. British people will understand etc.

Bear in mind that a large percentage of the comments last April in the newspapers and on the web were hardly pro McCann. Politicians notice that sort of thing.

And Kate and Gerry will be able to sit on the sofas of chat shows and be so very sad that SY have had to stop their review, when behind their closed doors they will be high fiving each other. The fund then can take off with fresh pleas for donations, and any other way they can come up with to get more cash that they can spend, was it 13% on to search for Madeleine?
All falling into place nicely for them imo.

It sounds like they haven't found out anything worthy of changing it from a review to re-opening the case as an active search. If after 2.5m nothing of major importance has been discovered, I doubt it ever will. Think how many Eddie and Keelas could have been trained for that amount, or how many hours babysitting paid for. The mind boggles.

The original purpose of the Scotland Yard Review under D.C.I. Redwood, as explicitly stated by Prime Minister David Cameron's spokesman on 12 May 2011, the day the Review was commenced (under a threat* by Rebekah Brooks, CEO of News International 'to run of a week of bad headlines about Home Secretary Teresa May), and the very day the hardback edition of 'madeleine' was published by Dr Kate McCann, was...

"TO HELP THE FAMILY".

Maybe, then, the Review has achieved its aim?



[ * Foonote: Rebekah Brooks, questioned by Lord Leveson himself, siad (with a twinkle in her eye), that she did NOT 'threaten' the Prime Minister, merely 'persuaded' him. LOL ]

Short and sweet from Blacksmith re this article ..........

No Abductor found

http://blacksmithbureau.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/no-abductor-found.html

My goodness, I've just realised - will there be rioting in the streets in the UK? (if the SY no longer works on the case?)
Kate may have lowered her expectations somewhat since those heady days.
As far as I'm concerned they can collect as much as they like for the Fund, as long as we get the complete breakdown of where the money has gone over the last five years first.

I'm still puzzling over the discrepancy of the payments to the various detectives. Metodo3 said they never got as much as 500.000 - but TM said they did. Then there are the proceeds of the book in 2011, or rather the advance which must have been paid in 2010. All of this should have gone to the Fund but so far it hasn't shown up in the accounts. We might have to wait till the end of this year to find out.

Story now in Daily Mail......

Top Scotland Yard cop hints the hunt for Madeleine McCann may be wound down unless Government commit to funding it
Cameron requested Met investigation into Madeleine's disappearance

Police fear funding for 'Operation Grange' could be cut just 15 months after it was launched

By Sam Adams

PUBLISHED:17:24, 24 August 2012| UPDATED:17:35, 24 August 2012


The Metropolitan Police fears funding for its investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann could be cut.


Scotland Yard has asked David Cameron for a new commitment to financing the inquiry, which he requested 15 months ago, as the search for the missing youngster continues to draw a blank.

If the funding is discontinued the investigation will be forced to wind down.


Madeleine, who was six at the time of her disappearance, was last seen in her parents' holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal, in 2007.

Operation Grange was opened by the Met last year and involves 28 detectives.

It is believed to have cost around £2.5m so far.

Detectives said earlier this year that there was a chance Madeleine could still be alive.


They said they were pursuing dozens of leads and firmly believed she was abducted.

Portuguese police, however, have refused to re-open the case.


Mr Hogan-Howe said the police are sifting through a 'large cache' of documents.


He said 'there will be a point at which we and the Government will want to make a decision about what the likely outcome is,' according to the London Evening Standard.

'The Prime Minister agreed to fund this.


'We have not had any pressure to say you must stop spending more than x amount, we have received a lot of support.



'But by Christmas I would want a very clear view of what work is outstanding and what time line there is for that.'


Madeleine's parents Kate and Gerry have been desperately searching for her since May 2007.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2193130/Madeleine-McCann-Top-Scotland-Yard-cop-hints-hunt-missing-girl-wound-unless-Government-commit-funding-it.html#ixzz24Uck5Ypt



So Madeleine was SIX at the time of her disappearance So they are still pursuing dozens of leads and believe Madeleine was abducted.

So Madeleine was SIX at the time of her disappearance So they are still pursuing dozens of leads and believe Madeleine was abducted.

How subtle can this become using the age of six, slowly Madeleine will become of an age that paedophiles are interested in!, as to the Daily Wail, one of the most xenophobic web-sites using the english language and surprise,surprise, they proclaim to be the most read web-site in Europe, check out Brevnik, according to the DM he was sentenced to 21 years with the possibility of him being released after 10 years was /is their headline, rubbish, I would suggest that we should read the DM with a pinch of salt. Brevnik now faces solitary until he dies, he will have a three roomed cell and the only contact to the outside world will be through written post

Now wait a minute ... [I have a fever and could be imagining things, but ... ] there are 35 people working on the case. A working year has 47 weeks [5 weeks of holidays], a working week has 40 hours [at least in my book] and there are 35 people on the review. That means that in the first year, they had 65,800 hours of working power to sift through 40,000 pages of documentation, if I remember correctly. And they'd only done 10,000 by then?

I don't begrudge 3m for a missing child, as long as every parent is afforded the same.

This isn't for a missing child though. The 3m is toward damage limitation for the NHS, the core of the UK.

Nice one Spaniel, your first sentence I agree with , but you have me caught by the shorties on your second sentence, it doesn´t rhyme for me, I have always been of the opinion that the whole case has to do with politics, British Government and the EU.

ufercoffy wrote:Hopefully the Madeleine Foundation will submit a FOI request to find out how the money was spent.

Good Idea

Thank you

It may still be my fever [how the heck does one get a flu in summer ...?!], but I would want to repeat my calculations from the previous page:

A working year has 47 weeks [5 weeks of holidays], a working week has 40 hours [at least in my book] and there are 35 people on the review. That means that in the first year, they had 65,800 hours of working power to sift through 40,000 pages of documentation, if I remember correctly. And they'd only done 10,000 by then? nah

Invinoveritas wrote:So Madeleine was SIX at the time of her disappearance So they are still pursuing dozens of leads and believe Madeleine was abducted.

How subtle can this become using the age of six, slowly Madeleine will become of an age that paedophiles are interested in!, as to the Daily Wail, one of the most xenophobic web-sites using the english language and surprise,surprise, they proclaim to be the most read web-site in Europe, check out Brevnik, according to the DM he was sentenced to 21 years with the possibility of him being released after 10 years was /is their headline, rubbish, I would suggest that we should read the DM with a pinch of salt. Brevnik now faces solitary until he dies, he will have a three roomed cell and the only contact to the outside world will be through written post

I saw an interview with a Norwegian judge on Sky news earlier and she said exactly as the Daily Mail reported. She did add though that towards the end of his sentence, he will be reviewed and if it's thought he's still a danger to the public he'll be jailed for a further 5 years. Towards the end of the extension, he'll be reviewed again and a further 5 years may be added to his sentence. This process will continue ad finitum.