UK Justice Forum 🇬🇧
Disappeared and Abducted Children and Young Adults => Madeleine McCann (3) disappeared from her parent's holiday apartment at Ocean Club, Praia da Luz, Portugal on 3 May 2007. No trace of her has ever been found. => Topic started by: carlymichelle on September 08, 2015, 11:42:21 PM
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http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/463742/Madeline-McCann-Ben-Needham-police-probe
Ben Needham's mum blasts police over £11m spent on hunt for Madeleine McCann
THE mum of missing tot Ben Needham has blasted the £11million police hunt for Madeleine McCann.
By Matthew Young / Published 8th September 2015
Ben and Madeline PA/GETTY
LOST: Ben Needham went missing on holiday in 1991 and Madeline went missing in 2007
Investigators have spent the whopping amount searching for Maddie, who disappeared in Portugal aged three in 2007.
But Kerry Needham, whose son Ben vanished 24 years ago in Greece, says it is unfair the huge sum has been splurged – while just £800,000 has been spent on trying to find her missing lad.
"My heart goes out to the McCanns – having a child go missing is an indescribable pain," said Kerry, 43.
"There is no closure and you miss them every day. But I don’t understand why the investigation has received so much – £11m is unprecedented.
"It seems unfair when other missing children aren’t getting as much attention."
Little Ben vanished in 1991 outside a farmhouse his grandparents were renovating on the island of Kos, while his mum was at work.
His family searched the area for the toddler, aged 20 months, but he was never found.
“I don’t understand why the investigation has received so much - £11m is unprecedented”
Kerry Needham
Kerry says she has pleaded with the Government for more help in finding her boy.
She said: "I’ve come up against so much resistance from the Home Office when I've asked for help finding Ben.
"Kate and Gerry will never want to give up searching for Maddie, but there have been no arrests and there don’t seem to be any leads.
"It seems the police have done all they can - which isn’t the case with Ben.
"There is still hope for Ben. Even this year, police have uncovered information that has led to new lines of inquiry."
She claims at the time of his disappearance nobody from the British Embassy met her and no UK cops were flown to the Greek island.
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And she is quite right
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And she is quite right
exactly no offence to little maddie but she is no more inportant then other missing children is she??
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No she is not obviously...it doesn't need to be said
Kerry must feel like she's been slapped in the face, then again, her family being given 800k might come up with something whereas the humongous 11 million might come up with nothing at all
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No she is not obviously...it doesn't need to be said
Kerry must feel like she's been slapped in the face, then again, her family being given 800k might come up with something whereas the humongous 11 million might come up with nothing at all
its brave for kerry to speak out imo
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its brave for kerry to speak out imo
maybe but you don't really need much when you're it's your child you're fighting for
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Good to see Kerry being so supportive of the mccanns
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I feel sad for Kerry it's true she didn't get the support the McCann's have got.
Though there wasn't the same media output when Ben went missing. No facebook, no twitter etc.
Kerry said herself that she welcomed a reporter with open arms when one finally appeared.
Kerry said in her book that she would have done exactly the same as the McCann's if she had been in their position, she holds no grudge against them.
Thing is no one knows how the investigation is going, so to say the investigation is going no where is wrong.
I hope this gets her more money in the search for Ben.
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exactly no offence to little maddie but she is no more inportant then other missing children is she??
Let's change names for a minute.
no offence to little Carly but she is no more inportant then other missing children is she??
If you had gone missing and still hadn't been found, I assume that you would agree that finding you wasn't that important.
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Let's change names for a minute.
no offence to little Carly but she is no more inportant then other missing children is she??
If you had gone missing and still hadn't been found, I assume that you would agree that finding you wasn't that important.
was there any particular reason you had to be patronising and make this personal? ignoring for the moment that the the pointwas not whether either child should be looked for but the dis balance of monies given by government for each case
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was there any particular reason you had to be patronising and make this personal? ignoring for the moment that the the pointwas not whether either child should be looked for but the dis balance of monies given by government for each case
There isn't just the Madeleine case - the Met is also attempting to investigate the potentially related assaults on UK victims.
"These offences are very serious and no one has been charged in connection with them. We also need to eliminate this man from our inquiries and ascertain whether these offences are linked to Madeleine's disappearance," he said.
"If you have been a victim of a similar crime please come forward even if you reported the incident to police in Portugal, or anywhere else, please do not assume we have been made aware of it."
There was also a "very close resonance" to some features of Madeleine's disappearance, said Redwood.
"We really need to identify the offender, to bring to a close the trauma and the tragedy that these families have suffered, and then seek to establish whether this is connected to Madeleine's disappearance."
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/mar/19/madeleine-mccann-police-intruder-girls-algarve
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I feel sad for Kerry it's true she didn't get the support the McCann's have got.
Though there wasn't the same media output when Ben went missing. No facebook, no twitter etc.
Kerry said herself that she welcomed a reporter with open arms when one finally appeared.
Kerry said in her book that she would have done exactly the same as the McCann's if she had been in their position, she holds no grudge against them.
Thing is no one knows how the investigation is going, so to say the investigation is going no where is wrong.
I hope this gets her more money in the search for Ben.
Each grant is hopefully based on the funds envisaged to cover what can be done in realistic terms, based on substantiated reports.
In PT, there is Madeleine's disappearance plus 12 cases of assault on British kids.
In Greece, there is missing little Ben.
It's entirely possible that the funds available for the investigation into Madeleine's disappearance may wind down, and other funds made available for Ben, or anyone else, depending on the realistic leads available to still explore.
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Each grant is hopefully based on the funds envisaged to cover what can be done in realistic terms, based on substantiated reports.
In PT, there is Madeleine's disappearance plus 12 cases of assault on British kids.
In Greece, there is missing little Ben.
It's entirely possible that the funds available for the investigation into Madeleine's disappearance may wind down, and other funds made available for Ben, or anyone else, depending on the realistic leads available to still explore.
When SY was asked to look into Madeleine's disappearance there was, as far as we know, no live leads and a reported budget of 5 million. £800000 has been earmarked for, Kerry says, substantive leads. Surely even you can see the disparity in those figures ?
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When SY was asked to look into Madeleine's disappearance there was, as far as we know, no live leads and a reported budget of 5 million. £800000 has been earmarked for, Kerry says, substantive leads. Surely even you can see the disparity in those figures ?
Yes, of course, there is a difference. I find it sad for Kerry that she didn't receive more assistance right at the beginning, but it was a different era.
I see no reason why any assistance to help find Ben would suddenly stop if there still promising leads to explore. A specialised team went out to verify that his remains weren't around the house, but it received less publicity than a similar operation in PdL.
Checking out potential leads is one thing, but there probably isn't the same mass of police files to examine, and certainly no mobile data to wade through.
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Yes, of course, there is a difference. I find it sad for Kerry that she didn't receive more assistance right at the beginning, but it was a different era.
I see no reason why any assistance to help find Ben would suddenly stop if there still promising leads to explore. A specialised team went out to verify that his remains weren't around the house, but it received less publicity than a similar operation in PdL.
Checking out potential leads is one thing, but there probably isn't the same mass of police files to examine, and certainly no mobile data to wade through.
That still doesn't explain why one child seems to be worth £800000 and one £5 million even before a file had been read.
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That still doesn't explain why one child seems to be worth £800000 and one £5 million even before a file had been read.
it is not about putting a value on a child...more likely it is about how much evidence needs to be investigated in each case....simple
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All this evidence, but no sign of either child or culprit.
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I wonder if it has anything to do with age. Ben is in his twenties now and could come forward if he thinks he is Ben Needham, where as Madeleine is still only twelve.
Is there a difference when looking for a child and an adult?
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When SY was asked to look into Madeleine's disappearance there was, as far as we know, no live leads and a reported budget of 5 million. £800000 has been earmarked for, Kerry says, substantive leads. Surely even you can see the disparity in those figures ?
I would think the process was quite different, unless British police use weird project management techniques that other projects do not.
I would expect the SY review (and the Ben review) to sift through the available information, to determine first whether any viable approaches existed. Then it would scope the project and estimate the manpower and costs required.
At that point, someone or more likely several people further up management would look at the proposed project, the estimates, the likelihood of success, and decide to press the go or no-go button.
It is not as simple as a cost per child calculation. I don't know the Ben case, so if anyone wants to summarise the complexity, please feel free to enlighten me.
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I would think the process was quite different, unless British police use weird project management techniques that other projects do not.
I would expect the SY review (and the Ben review) to sift through the available information, to determine first whether any viable approaches existed. Then it would scope the project and estimate the manpower and costs required.
At that point, someone or more likely several people further up management would look at the proposed project, the estimates, the likelihood of success, and decide to press the go or no-go button.
It is not as simple as a cost per child calculation. I don't know the Ben case, so if anyone wants to summarise the complexity, please feel free to enlighten me.
That's my analysis as well.
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It seems the excuse for the difference in the money being spent on the Madeleine disappearance compared to Bens disappearance is down to the number of leads generated if Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe is to be believed. Speaking on the Andrew Pierce show on LBC radio last week he claimed that the sheer number of leads generated justified the public funds being spent over the last eight years.
What he failed to point out however was that it was because of police ineptitude in the first instance which left many leads in Bens disappearance go uninvestigated. A damning indictment for any police force and especially so when it relates to the Met.
We know that through their own efforts the Needham family have found several leads but as private citizens they were powerless to pursue them properly. The Greek police offered little or no help to them, they were treated as nuisance foreigners.
So in the final analysis, BHH's excuse holds no water, it is scandalous that more resources weren't provided in the search for Ben when it counted and that the Needham's were left to scrimp and save every penny to fund their own search.
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I wonder if it has anything to do with age. Ben is in his twenties now and could come forward if he thinks he is Ben Needham, where as Madeleine is still only twelve.
Is there a difference when looking for a child and an adult?
Ben wasn't in his twenties when he disappeared, help was not offered when it would have been most useful.
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Ben wasn't in his twenties when he disappeared, help was not offered when it would have been most useful.
Other than help from the British Consulate in Greece, how much help should the UK police have provide for an ex-pat family at that particular time?. Do you think the Greeks would greeted the "interference" of the UK police in the same fashion the Portuguese did 8 years ago?
I'm fully supportive of Kerry's cause btw & have donated to her fund.