More interesting details here
Madeleine McCann: Thirteen years of false hope
Fiona HamiltonJune 04 2020, 12.01am
Even when DNA tests were carried out on a girl’s body found in a suitcase in Adelaide, Australia, they constantly kept the search alive for their daughter. The Portuguese investigation, which was closed in 2008 and reviewed by Scotland Yard in 2011, ran to 30,000 pages of files. There have been nearly 9,000 potential sightings across 101 countries.
These include a “sad-looking” girl standing at a petrol station in Marrakesh days after the disappearance, a young girl with a French or Belgian couple holidaying in India, and a possible sighting in Queenstown, New Zealand, of the girl with the same coloboma of the iris as Madeleine. In February 2008 a parish councillor in Dorset said that Madeleine was brought to his home by a Portuguese couple looking to buy garden furniture.
Most of the sightings have been examined and dismissed by detectives in Operation Grange, the Met’s inquiry into the disappearance. Sparked by then David Cameron’s request in 2011 that police review the case, it has since cost nearly £12 million.
In 2013 the Met said that it had “genuinely new” lines of inquiry and had identified 38 people of interest, including 12 Britons. A Crimewatch appeal that year, in which two e-fit images of a man described as having “vital importance” were released, resulted in more than 1,000 responses. The white man, aged between 20 and 40, was seen walking towards the sea carrying a child of a similar age to Madeleine on the night she vanished in Praia da Luz.
In January 2014 British police were reported to be investigating three burglars in the area when Madeleine disappeared. Detectives had previously highlighted sightings of men who said they were collecting money for a bogus orphanage on the day. Two months later, in March 2014, police sought a lone intruder who had sexually assaulted five girls aged between the ages of seven and ten in the Algarve between 2004 and 2006. Sites were excavated in Praia da Luz that year after a request by the Met, but nothing was found.
In 2017 Mark Rowley, the assistant commissioner in charge of the inquiry, said that police had a “significant line of inquiry” but would not elaborate further. He added that a burglar who panicked or a sexual attacker were among the theories being explored.
Last year, on the 12th anniversary of Madeleine’s disappearance, the Portguese tabloid Correio da Manha revealed there was a new suspect flagged by Scotland Yard. A former Portuguese police chief ruled out Martin Ney, a German paedophile jailed for life in 2012 for the abduction of three children, after speculation in the British tabloids.
In a statement yesterday the McCanns said: “All we have ever wanted is to find her, uncover the truth and bring those responsible to justice. We will never give up hope of finding Madeleine alive but whatever the outcome may be, we need to know, as we need to find peace.”