Hunt for UK girl in major phase
Print Edition
THE seven-year search for missing British girl Madeleine McCann, who vanished on a family holiday in Portugal, is heading toward “a substantial stage of activity” but this did not mean a breakthrough was near, British police said yesterday.
McCann was 3 when she disappeared from her room at the Praia da Luz holiday resort in the Algarve in May 2007 while her parents were dining with friends at a nearby restaurant, prompting a global hunt and worldwide headlines.
Despite the international attention, the fate of McCann, whose case remains extremely high-profile in Britain and attracted the involvement of Prime Minister David Cameron, remains a mystery.
“In forthcoming weeks, we are going to be going to a substantial stage of operational activity on the ground in Portugal,” London Police Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley said. “I want to keep expectations down. You shouldn’t read into this that this is necessarily an end game or about to be a breakthrough of anything like that.”
London police began a review of the case in 2011 at the instigation of Cameron following appeals from McCann’s parents, and then launched their own investigation in July.
The new inquiry has thrown up a number of leads and last month, British police said their officers and colleagues in Portugal were investigating several sexual assaults or attempted abductions involving British children between 2004 and 2010.
In March, the British team also said they were in contact with their counterparts in Spain, Belgium, Switzerland, Netherlands, Germany and the Channel island of Jersey.
The upcoming activity is likely to involve searches, speaking to suspects and people of interest, and checking telephone dates and financial records.
“When you’ve got a massive investigation like this where you’ve got multiple lines of inquiry, potentially different hypotheses as to exactly what happened, then you have to systematically work through them all,” Rowley said.
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