I think there can be very few instances of missing children who have been given up on as quickly and irrevocably by the authorities as was Madeleine McCann.
That Madeleine was given up on in the opening stages of what should have been a search primarily for a living breathing child while keeping all options open comes in the first instance from Jose Manuel Oliveira and in the second instance from Goncalo Amaral.
SnipJOSE MANUEL OLIVEIRACrime reporter, 'Diario de Noticias'
Information started circulating from sources connected to the Portuguese police that the story was full of holes from the side of the McCanns and their friends.
Indeed within two days of Madeleine disappearing, this crime correspondent was filing this piece in the Portuguese Daily: Diario of the Noticias:
"Headline: a badly told story." We started to receive information according to which the police suspected the theory they had apprehensions, didn't believe the theory that she had been kidnapped.
To conclude, the police started to suspect the parents from the word go.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/7106086.stmSnip"The little girl died in that apartment" - Gonçalo Amaral on TVIJP: Exactly. The little girl died in that apartment?
GA: The little girl died in that apartment.
JP: On the evening of the 3rd of May.
GA: And we reached that conclusion with the data that we have.
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21 July 2008: The Portuguese authorities shelve their investigation and lift the "arguido" status of the McCanns and Mr Murat.
https://news.sky.com/story/madeleine-mccanns-disappearance-a-timeline-10803372So the case of a little girl who vanished without trace on 3rd May 2007 was shelved just over a year later by the authorities who appeared to show more interest in building a case against first of all Murat and then her parents.
The priority appeared to be a conviction ... so how exactly did that extend to being to Madeleine McCann's benefit and the possibility that if she had been looked for as she should and not given up on almost immediately that there would have been a better chance of finding her over eleven years ago.