I fear you are right, the British police have gone out of their way to keep the public in the dark as much as possible while spending public funds as if there was no tomorrow. Hopefully the Met will be held accountable in the end for what has been going on and those behind this charade exposed.
I don't think it is usual for police to release information into the public domain while they are involved in working a live case. I think business will be conducted on a need to know basis. Makes sense to me ... if you or I know what they are doing so will the guys they are after.
Scotland Yard and their colleagues in the Judicial police have been operating with the greatest discretion and I think that is because they have a firm idea of the direction their investigation is going.
Maddie Case: Judicial Police will have new clues and new suspectThe information is still kept in great secrecy, but Correio da Manhã says it already has confirmation that the investigation has gained new momentum and will have a bigger team.
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Although the details of the identity of the new suspect, for example, are still being kept in absolute silence - the hypothesis is that this new line of investigation does not address the parents of the child - who were beginning of the case - as suspects. Even the prosecution has admitted that this new wave of research promises to be conclusive.
After the news was released, the PJ sent a statement to the newsrooms where it does not confirm or deny the information advanced this Friday but explains that the investigation "remains open, as part of an investigation supervised by the Portimão Public Prosecutor" and that it has been "developed in articulation with international authorities, obeying the rules of judicial and police cooperation, which the circumstances of the situation justify." It ends by announcing that "it does not consider timely the provision of additional clarifications."
https://observador.pt/2019/05/03/caso-maddie-policia-judiciaria-tera-novas-pistas-e-novo-suspeito/