A second British police source has called for “time out” in the hugely expensive hunt for missing Madeleine McCann.
With costs of four-year-old Operation Grange now at almost €15 million – over twice the amount pledged by British prime minister David Cameron when the investigation was launched in 2011 – former Flying Squad boss John O’Connor has told the UK’s Sun newspaper that Scotland Yard should “stop chasing shadows”.
His comments come six months after Metropolitan Police Federation chairman John Tully admitted police in UK were “baffled” as to why they are being kept on in the seemingly endless Maddie inquiry.
And by coincidence they come days before David Cameron is due back in Portugal for private talks with prime minister Pedro Passos Coelho.
Speculation as to what the two PMs will have on their agenda has already piqued the interest of the Portuguese press, but for the Sun O’Connor’s views come as the paper’s own investigations reveal the spiralling costs of Operation Grange are expected to hit €16.2 million (£12 million) by April, and there has still not been one arrest nor do there appear to be any firm leads.
As O’Connor told the paper: “You can’t keep chasing shadows. Chasing sightings all over the world. It depends on whether detectives are making any real progress. For me it (the investigation) needs to be reviewed by a senior officer”.
Met federation boss John Tully said much the same thing in March, adding that it was time for Scotland Yard to “refocus” and concentrate instead on keeping London safe “from the increasing threat of terrorism at home”.
Here, PJ police are famous for playing their cards close to their chests. Last week national director Pedro do Carmo told the Resident that Portuguese costs in the hunt that began eight years ago “cannot be quantified”.
“We don’t have budgets for specific investigations”, he explained, adding that, unlike the UK – where Grange has a 30-strong team working full time – the PJ team in Porto running the Portuguese hunt is not exclusively working on the British toddler’s disappearance.
“It has other cases”, he told us. “Other disappearances. None of them children”.
Carmo said the Portuguese investigation was analysed regularly.
“If it comes to a point where there is nothing more that we think we can do, if there is no perpetrator of the crime to be found, then the next step would be to archive”, he agreed.
But for the time being, “there is no deadline”.
“We are still working with the Metropolitan Police”, he stressed, and there has been an “enormous effort” in terms of PJ resources in the joint police collaboration.
As UK media follows-up the Sun’s exclusive this morning – focusing on the ever increasing millions of British taxpayers’ money spent on an inquiry that seems to be going nowhere – the paper ends it story revealing “there are 155 children on the Missing Kids UK website, including Madeleine. Research shows an average of £2,415 (€3,200) is spent investigating a missing child”.
John O’Connor is a former Scotland Yard commander whose comments and opinions are regularly carried by British newspapers.
natasha.donn@algarveresident.com
