Kerry Needham blasts the £11m spent on Maddie search!

[Mr Gray]

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

[jassi]

All this evidence, but no sign of either child or culprit.

[Lace]

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?

[ShiningInLuz]

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.

[Carana]

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.

[John]

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.

[G-Unit]

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.

[misty]

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.