Met Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley gives update on the search for Madeleine McCann.

[Heriberto Janosch]

PART 1

Transcript of interview between AC Mark Rowley (MR) and broadcast media for use from
21:00hrs on Tuesday, 25 April.
Q: Six years’ on of Scotland Yard’s involvement, a team of largely 30 people, £11/12 million you’ve
spent, what have you achieved?
MR: We’ve achieved an awful lot. I think you know that we have a track record for using cold cases
on serious old cases, and we solve many cases that way. This is no different in one respect but is
particularly complicated. I think people get seduced perhaps by what they see in TV dramas where
the most complex cases are solved in 30 minutes or 60 minutes with adverts as well. What we started
with here was something extraordinary. We started with 40,000 documents. We’ve got the original
Portuguese investigation and six or eight sets of private detectives who’ve done work and we did
appeals to the public, four Crimewatch appeals, hoovering as much information as possible. Sifting
that, structuring it and working through it is an immense effort. It’s much more ‘hard slog’ in reality
than it is inspiration. That takes time and it takes systems. That’s what we’ve been working on. And
what you’ve seen in the bits which have been reported publically is those appeals, when we’ve
announced suspects, when we’ve made particular announcements, slowly crunching through it and
focusing our attention and making progress. And of course at one stage we had 600 people who at
one stage have been of interest to the enquiry, that doesn’t mean that they are suspects, people who
were suspicious at the time or have a track record which makes us concerned about them, sifting,
which focused the enquiry increasingly and when you’re doing this then across a continent and with
multiple languages and having to build working relationships with the Portuguese, you put that
together and that takes real time.
So we’ve achieved complete understanding of it all, we’ve sifted out many of the potential suspects,
people of interest, and where we are today is a much smaller team, focused on a small remaining
number of critical lines of enquiry, which we think are significant. If we didn’t think they were
significant we wouldn’t be carrying on.
Q: So when you talk of success and progress, it’s really a case of eliminating things? You’re not
getting any nearer to finding out what happened?
MR: So our mission here is to do everything reasonable to provide an answer to Kate and Gerry
McCann. I’d love to guarantee them that we would get an answer, sadly investigations can never be
100 per cent successful. But, it’s our job, and I’ve discussed it with them, we’ll do everything we can
do, reasonably, to find an answer to what’s happened to Madeleine. And I know, Pedro, the senior
Portuguese colleague I’ve worked with and his team, have a shared determination, to find an answer.
That’s what we’re going to do.
Q: You’ve described it as a ‘unique’ case. Why is it unique?
MR: I think it’s unique in two or three respects. First of all the way its captured attention in different
countries is quite unusual. You’ll get a very high-profile case in a particular country, the way it has
captured interest across countries, I think is significant. The length of it. And it’s unusual to have a
case like this where you’re doing a missing persons investigation, where ten years on, we still don’t
have definitive evidence about exactly what’s happened. And that’s why we’re open minded, even if
we have to be pessimistic about the prospects, we are open minded because we don’t have definitive
evidence about what happened to Madeleine.
Q: You say you haven’t got definitive evidence, do you have any clues at all which might explain what
happened to her?
MR: So, you’ll understand from your experience, the way murder investigations work, detectives will
start off with various hypotheses, about what’s happened in a murder, what has happened in a
missing person’s investigation, whether someone has been abducted. All those different possibilities
will be worked through. This case is no different from that but the evidence is limited at the moment to
be cast iron as to which one of those hypotheses we should follow. So we have to keep an open
mind. As I said we have some critical lines of enquiry, those linked to particular lines of enquiry, but
I’m not going to discuss them today because they are very much live investigations.
Q: Do you have some evidence, in your six years of investigation, have you unearthed some
evidence to explain what happened?
MR: We’ve got some thoughts on what we think the most likely explanations might be and we’re
pursuing those. And those link into the key lines of enquiry we’re doing now. As I said, those are very
much live investigations and I know that’s frustrating when you’re doing a programme looking back
but it’s hard to talk about that now, it’s going to frustrate the investigation.
Q: I know it’s not your money, it has come from the Home Office, but how do you justify spending so
much on one missing person?
MR: Big cases can take a lot of resource and a lot of time and we have that with more conventional
cases which Scotland Yard gets involved with that run over many years. I think it’s worth noting that
this cold case approach we do, every year we’re solving cases that have gone cold years ago. I think
in the last year it’s 35 rape cases, and two murder cases. Some of those reaching back to the 1980s.
The cold case approach does have some expense, it is time-consuming, looking back at old records,
but it does help solve old cases and you give families and victims an understanding of what went on.
It’s worthwhile. This case is unusual, it’s not in Scotland Yard’s remit to investigate crimes across the
world normally. In this case, in 2011, the Portuguese and British prime ministers were discussing the
case and agreed that Scotland Yard would help and recognising that it’s not what we’re normally
funded for, we were given extra money to put a team together to work with the Portuguese and that’s
what we’ve been doing ever since. We’ve tried to be careful about public money and we started with
that massive sifting and we’ve narrowed the enquiry, the funding has reduced accordingly. And we
will stick with it as long as the funding is available, as long as there are sensible lines of enquiry to
pursue.
Q: You’ve talked about 600 people. You at one point had four suspects. Can you tell me the story
about how they came into the frame?
MR: So, one of the lines of enquiry, one of the hypotheses was could this be a burglary gone wrong?
Someone is doing a burglary, panicked maybe by a waking child, which leads to Madeleine going
missing.
Q: Most burglars would just run out.
MR: Possibly.
Q: Difficult for the public to understand that potential theory, given that every child wakes up.
MR: In my experience, if you try to apply the rational logic of a normal person sat in their front room to
what criminals do under pressure, you tend to make mistakes, so it was a sensible hypothesis, it’s still
not entirely ruled out, but there was also lots of material about people acting suspiciously, a potential
history of some recent thefts from holiday apartments. Working through that it was a sensible thing to
pursue, and we had some descriptions to work with, and that led to us identifying amongst the 600, a
group of people who were worth pursuing, have they been involved in this activity, have they had a
role in Madeleine going missing? Because what the hypothesis was, then we’ve got some searches,
we’ve worked with the Portuguese, they were spoken to, and we pretty much closed off that group of
people. That’s one example of the journey I spoke about, you start with this massive pool of evidence,
you understand it, structure it, prioritise it, you work through and you try and sift the potential
suspects, and then you end up where we are today with some key lines of enquiry.
Q: As I understand it, the key to your suspicion about those four suspects was very much to do with
their use of mobile phones and one of the criticisms of the original Portuguese police investigation
was that they didn’t interrogate the mobile phone data as thoroughly as they could have done. How
important was it for you as that part of your investigation for you to pick up and thoroughly investigate
the mobile phone data?
MR: So that phone data is always something we will look at and we wouldn’t have had it available if
the Portuguese had not got hold of it at the time so we need to be careful about criticism. But we had
the data available and we worked with the Portuguese and that was part of the background to do with
phone data and various sightings. There was enough there to say, not to prove the case, but there
was something worth looking at in more detail and that’s what we did.
Q: How old were the suspects because I think you interviewed them originally through the Portuguese
beginning of July 2014?
MR: By the end of the year we were happy to have brought them out and we were moving on to other
parts of the investigation.
Q: Do you have any other suspects at the moment?
MR: So, we have got some critical lines of enquiry that are definitely worth pursuing and I’m not going
to go into further detail on those. Another I would say though is, these lines of enquiry we have to
date, they are the product of information available at the time and information that has come from
public appeals that we have done. Four Crimewatch appeals, and other media channels have been
incredibly helpful, including yourselves, and thousands of pieces of information have come forward,
some useful some not, but amongst that have been some nuggets that have thrown some extra light
on the original material that came from the time and that is one of the things that has helped us to
make progress and have some critical lines of enquiry we are pursuing today.
Q: The question of other suspects, is there anyone like those four who have been dismissed, is there
anyone who has the “alguido” status?
MR: I’m not going to give that level of detail away, we have got some critical lines of enquiry and we
are working with the Portuguese on that, we are both interested in. Disclosing any more information
on that will not help the investigation.
Q: You said the burglary gone wrong theory is not completely dismissed. What are the other theories?
You have spoken in the past, Andy Redwood spoke in the past about focussing on the idea of a
stranger abduction, is that still the focus, or a focus?
MR: Whilst we’ve got some lead ideas there is still a lot of unknown on this case. We’ve got a young
girl gone missing 10 years ago. Until we get to the point where we have solved it, we’re unlikely to
have definitive evidence as to exactly what happened at the time. All the hypothesises that you or I
could come up with, they all have to remain open and the key lines of enquiry open today focus on
one or two of those areas but we have to keep them all open until we get to that critical piece of
evidence that narrows it down and helps us to be more confident as to exactly what has happened on
the day Maddie went missing.
Q: Over the years you have appealed for a number of what could be called suspicious-looking men,
watching the apartment, watching the apartment block. Knocking on the doors touting for a bogus
charity. You have issued E-fits, have you been able to identify and eliminate any of those?
MR: Some of them have been identified and eliminated but not all of them.
Q: The theory of a sex predator responsible for Maddie’s disappearance is something the Portuguese
police have focussed on. How big a part of your investigation has that been, because there were a
series of sex attack on sleeping, mainly British children in nearby resorts. So how important has that
been to your investigation?
MR: That has been one key line of enquiry. The reality is in any urban area, you cast your net wide
and you find a whole range of offences and sex offenders who live nearby and those coincidences
need to be sifted out; what is a coincidence and what could be linked to the investigation we are
currently dealing with and just like we do in London we have been doing in Portugal so offences which
could be linked have to be looked at and either ruled in or ruled out and that’s the work we have been
doing.

[Heriberto Janosch]

PART 2

Q: Andy Redwood, the first senior investigating officer, said in one interview his policy was to go right
back to the beginning, accept nothing, but one thing you appear to have accepted is that this was an
abduction. It’s in your first remit statement, it refers to ‘the abduction’, which rather suggests right from
the start you had a closed mind to the possibility of parents’ involvement, an accident or Madeleine
simply walking out of the apartment.
MR: Two points to that, firstly the involvement of the parents, that was dealt with at the time by the
original investigation by the Portuguese. We had a look at all the material and we are happy that was
all dealt with and there is no reason whatsoever to reopen that or start rumours that was a line of
investigation. The McCanns are parents of a missing girl, we are trying to get to the bottom of. In
terms of Andy using the word abduction, she was not old enough to set off and start her own life.
However she left that apartment, she has been abducted. It is not a 20-year-old who has gone
missing and who has made a decision to start a new life, this is a young girl who is missing and at the
heart of this has been an abduction.
Q: One of the biggest criticisms of the Portuguese investigation, which they acknowledge as well, is
that they did not interrogate the parents from the start, if only to eliminate them. When you started
your investigation, you appear to have done the same. Did you formally interview the McCann’s under
caution, ever consider them as suspects?
MR: So when we started, we started five or so years into this and there is already a lot of ground
been covered, we don’t cover the same ground, what we do is pull all the material we had at the start,
all the Portuguese material, private detective material, with all the work that had been done, what that
evidence supports, what rules these lines of enquiry out, what keeps them open and you progress
forward. It would be no different if there were a cold case in London, a missing person from 1990, we
would go back to square one look at all the material and if the material was convincing it ruled out that
line of enquiry we would look somewhere else. So you reflect on the original material, you challenge
it, don’t take it at face value. You don’t restart an investigation pretending it doesn’t exist and do all
the same enquiries again that is not constructive.
Q: The first detective in charge of the case said he was going right back to the start of the case and
accepting nothing. It seems very much he was suggesting that it was going to be a brand new
investigation.
MR: It’s a brand new investigation, you are going in with an open mind. You are not ignoring the
evidence in front of you. That would be a bizarre conclusion. You would look at that material, what
does it prove, what it doesn’t. What hypothesis does it open what does it close down and you work
your way through the case.
Q: Just to be clear you did not interview the McCanns as potential suspects?
MR: No
Q: Let’s move to today, recently you were given more funding £84,000 to £85,000, how is that going
to be used?
MR: As you understand we started with a full-sized murder team of 30 officers, that was a standard
operating approach at the time. So we start with that team and work through the massive amount of
investigation. The Home Office has been funding that and of course it is public money so they review
that from time to time and as the enquiry has gone on we suggested we could run it with a smaller
group of people and that is what happened. That recent level of funding reflects that it’s keeping the
team going for the next six months and we will want to keep this running as long as there are sensible
lines of enquiry and keep asking the Home Office to fund it as long as there are those open lines of
enquiry.
Q: I know you don’t want to go into detail but are there more forensic tests, is that what is going on?
MR: I’m not going to talk about detail of the type of work going on but there are critical lines of enquiry
of great interest to ourselves and our Portuguese counterparts and there are some significant
investigative avenues we are pursuing that we see as very worthwhile.
Q: Are you still waiting for answers to new ‘rogatory’ letters. I understand how the system works if you
want something in Portugal, you have to send ‘rogatory’ letter and get that approved over there. Are
there letters in the post?
MR: That process you describe reflects the first four or five years of our work there, sifting through
mass amounts of material, putting together with new evidence that comes from appeals, generates
new enquiries and the legal requirements the Portuguese have is quite labour intensive in terms of
dotting I’s and crossing T’s and working through that detail. Where we are now is much narrower
much more focussed.
Q: Is there anyone you are still looking for?
MR: Where we are now is much narrower and much more focussed.
Q: There was a report recently that there was an international manhunt in regards to a person you
were interested in talking to, maybe not even a suspect, maybe a witness?
MR: There are odd headlines and odd stories in newspapers on a regular basis and most of those are
nonsense.
Q: You say in your statement, you are getting information on a daily basis, new information, what sort
of information?
MR: First of all it is indicative of the level of interest in this case, not just in this country but across the
world. The team are getting emails, phone calls, new information all the time and it ranges from the
eccentric, through to information that on the surface looks potentially interesting and needs to be
bottomed out and are constantly sifting through them.
Q: Are you any closer to solving this then you were six years ago?
MR: I know we have a significant line of enquiry that is worth pursuing, and because of that, it could
provide an answer. Until we have gone through it, I won’t know if we will get there or not.
Q: What area is that enquiry?
MR: Ourselves and the Portuguese are doing a critical piece of work and we don’t want to spoil it by
putting titbits out on it publically.
Q: How confident are you this will solve it for you?
MR: It is worth pursuing
Q: What does your instinct say about what happened to Maddie?
MR: If I start going in to my instinct having read the material of interest we are dealing with at the
moment it would give away what we are looking in to so I’m not going to answer that. But what I would
say from my experience of dealing with cold cases and these types of investigations is that this time,
even sadly after 10 years of Maddie being missing there are nuggets of information and lines of
enquiry that are worth pursuing and it is possible they may lead to an answer. As long as we have the
resources to do it, and as long as we have those sensible lines of enquiry because if we can provide
an answer to a family in this horrible situation that is what we must do.
Q: Do the significant lines of enquiry suggest to you Maddie is alive or dead?
MR: As I said earlier on we have no definitive evidence as to whether Maddie is alive or dead. We
have to keep an open mind that is why we describe it as a missing person enquiry. Of course we
understand why after so many years people would be pessimistic but we are keeping an open mind
and treating it as a missing person enquiry.
Q: You’ve said you are realistic about what you are dealing with, what do you mean by that?
MR: We are realistic about the prospects and the assumptions people will make 10 years on when a
little girl has gone missing but there is no definitive evidence and as long as that is the case we have
to have an open mind and treat it as a missing person enquiry.
Q: If she is alive, she is nearly 14, do you have any idea what she might be doing, where she might
be, the circumstances she might be living?
MR: That is such a hypothetical question I cannot begin to answer.
Q: There is a chance she may still be alive.
MR: We have to keep an open mind, it is a missing person enquiry, we don’t have that definitive
evidence either way.
Q: How confident are you that you will solve the case?
MR: I wish I could say we will solve this. We solve more than 90 per cent of serious cases at Scotland
Yard. I wish I could say I could definitely solve it but a small number of cases don’t get solved. What I
have always said on this case and I’ve said to Kate and Gerry. We will do everything we can that is
possible to try to find and answer. I hope to find an answer but can’t quite guarantee and as a
professional police officer and dealing with the families in awful situations it always hurts you can’t
guarantee success, but we will do everything we can to try to get there.
Q: How long might it keep going, your investigation?
MR: It is impossible to be exactly clear. We have a small number of ongoing lines of enquiry, they are
critical and we need to deal with those and see how long it takes.
Q: You talk about lines of enquiry because last year the ex-commissioner said there was one piece of
work still to be done and when that was completed that would be the end of the investigation. You are
rather suggesting things have moved on since then and there is more to pursue, is that true?
MR: We have a small number of lines of enquiry and that’s what we are focussed on.
Q: But he was the boss and he was quite specific ‘one piece of work to do’, you are saying something
different?
MR: We have a small number of lines of enquiry, that is what we are pursuing today.

[stephen25000]

The PJ only concentrated on abduction for the first 3 months in Portugal and got nowhere. If OG is only concentrating on abduction after these all years and they have gotten nowhere, then perhaps they should look elsewhere.

Quite right.

The PJ could jot find evidence of abduction,  because it did not exist.

Nothing has changed.

Madeleine disappeared that night.

Cause unknown.

Fate undetermined.

[Heriberto Janosch]

STATEMENT

[Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley]
As an investigation team we are only too aware of the significance of dates and anniversaries. Whatever the inquiry, we want to get answers for everyone involved.
The disappearance of Madeleine McCann is no different in that respect but of course the circumstances and the huge public interest, make this a unique case for us as police officers to deal with. In a missing child inquiry every day is agony and an anniversary brings this into sharp focus. Our thoughts are with Madeleine's family at this time - as it is with any family in a missing person’s inquiry - and that drives our commitment to do everything we can for her.
On 3rd May 2017, it will be 10 years since Madeleine vanished from her apartment in Praia Da Luz, a small town on the Algarve. In the immediate hours following her disappearance, an extensive search commenced involving the local police, community and tourists. This led to an investigation that has involved police services across Europe and beyond, experts in many fields, the world’s media and the public, which continues to this day. The image of Madeleine remains instantly recognisable in many countries across the world.
The Met’s dedicated team of four detectives, continues to work closely on the outstanding enquiries along with colleagues of the Portuguese Policia Judiciária. Our relationship with the Policia Judiciária is good. We continue to work together and this is helping us to move forward the investigation.
We don't have evidence telling us if Madeleine is alive or dead. It is a missing person’s inquiry but as a team we are realistic about what we might be dealing with - especially as months turn to years.
Now is a time we can reflect on an investigation which captured an unprecedented amount of media coverage and interest. The enormity of scale and the complexity of such a case brings along its own challenges, not least learning to work with colleagues who operate under a very different legal system. The inquiry has been, and continues to be helped and supported by many organisations and individuals. We acknowledge the difference these contributions have made to the investigation and would like it known that we appreciate all the support we have and continue to receive.
Since the Met was instructed by the Home Office to review the case in 2011, we have reviewed all the material gathered from multiple sources since 2007. This amounted to over 40,000 documents out of which thousands of enquiries were generated. We continue to receive information on a daily basis, all of which is assessed and actioned for enquiries to be conducted.
We have appealed on four BBC Crimewatch programmes since April 2012. This included an age progression image which resulted in hundreds of calls about alleged sightings of Madeleine; an appeal for the identity of possibly relevant individuals through description or Efit; and information sought relating to suspicious behaviour or offences of burglary. These programmes collectively produced a fantastic response from the public. The thousands of calls and information enabled detectives to progress a number of enquiries. This was in addition to over 3,000 holiday photographs from the public in response to an earlier appeal.
The team has looked at in excess of 600 individuals who were identified as being potentially significant to the disappearance. In 2013 the team identified four individuals they declared to be suspects in the case. This led to interviews at a police station in Faro facilitated by the local Policia Judiciária and the search of a large area of wasteland which is close to Madeleine's apartment in Praia Da Luz. The enquiries did not find any evidence to further implicate the individuals in the disappearance and so they are no longer subject of further investigation.
We will not comment on other parts of our investigation - it does not help the teams investigating to give a commentary on those aspects. I am pleased to say that our relationship with the Portuguese investigators is better than ever and this is paying dividends in the progress all of us are making.
We are often asked about funding and you can see that we are now a much smaller team. We know we have the funding to look at the focused enquiry we are pursuing.
Of course we always want information and we can't rule out making new appeals if that is required. However, right now, new appeals or prompts to the public are not in the interest of what we are trying to achieve.
As detectives, we will always be extremely disappointed when we are unable to provide an explanation of what happened. However the work carried out by Portuguese and Met officers in reviewing material and reopening the investigation has been successful in taking a number of lines of interest to their conclusion. That work has provided important answers.
Right now we are committed to taking the current inquiry as far as we possibly can and we are confident that will happen. Ultimately this, and the previous work, gives all of us the very best chance of getting the answers – although we must, of course, remember that no investigation can guarantee to provide a definitive conclusion.
However the Met, jointly with colleagues from the Policia Judiciária continue the investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann with focus and determination.

[G-Unit]

I don't understand why Operation Grange decided to speak at this moment. All they have to say is more of what they have said before, so why bother?

[pathfinder73]

Im saying...he said maddie was abducted...the aprents are not being investigated...he said taht has been dealt with ...tehy ahve seen all the evidence and they are haooy with it....hes saying that not me...if you dont like it tell him

The parents were investigated in 2007 but all they got in the suspect interview was no comment by Kate. I wonder if the 4 new suspects in this case answered no comment like Kate  &%+((£  Doubt it if they've been cleared 

[stephen25000]

I don't understand why Operation Grange decided to speak at this moment. All they have to say is more of what they have said before, so why bother?

Absolutely no need at all.

They haven't found a thing.

Mind you, they seem to have employed someone to type out a list of clichés.

[barrier]

youve looked now and you are trying to spin...he stated catagorically Maddie was abduted......he has contradicted the SC judgement as i have already posted

Maybe that is why its still unresolved,they set their stall with a review and a remit to investigate an abduction,they are still sure of an abduction but no matter what they still can't find any one to fit the bill.

[stephen25000]

The parents were investigated in 2007 but all they got in the suspect interview was no comment by Kate. I wonder if the 4 new suspects in this case answered no comment like Kate  &%+((£  Doubt it if they've been cleared 

I wonder if they were asked 48 questions ?

Perhaps they even launched 48 balloons afterward at a party in the West End.

[carlymichelle]

I wonder if they were asked 48 questions ?

Perhaps they even launched 48 balloons afterward at a party in the West End.

so the long and short of it maddie is sitll missing no proof of abduction or anything.   so nothing has changed

[stephen25000]

so the long and short of it maddie is sitll missing no proof of abduction or anything.   so nothing has changed

It was abundantly clear reading through today's 'announcement', for want of a better term, that this case is no closer to bring solved, than it was in the original investigation.

[Mr Gray]

It was abundantly clear reading through today's 'announcement', for want of a better term, that this case is no closer to bring solved, than it was in the original investigation.

I think it is...we dont know

[Montclair]

Do any of you believe that SY would say when asked that the parents were part of the investigation? They would never say that, it would cause a huge media frenzy and ruin their investigation.

If in fact SY had never interviewed the parents at the beginning, that is really poor police work. Even if they believed they were not involved, the parents could provide important information.

[Mr Gray]

Do any of you believe that SY would say when asked that the parents were part of the investigation? They would never say that, it would cause a huge media frenzy and ruin their investigation.

If in fact SY had never interviewed the parents at the beginning, that is really poor police work. Even if they believed they were not involved, the parents could provide important information.

That's why SY would have interviewed the McCanns
Rowley didn't have to mention the McCanns
He chose to

[Brietta]

I don't understand why Operation Grange decided to speak at this moment. All they have to say is more of what they have said before, so why bother?

They said a lot more than that ... which it  why it is an on-going investigation following active investigative leads with cooperation affirmed between the Policia Judiciaria and Scotland Yard.