(I only lament those files weren't sent to the PJ when Joana disappeared), but it seems to me this diary issue, inter alia, deserve to be cleared up, even if money seems to have resolved the issue.
Interesting comment, Anne. Are you not entirely convinced that she was murdered by her family?
The PJ could have gone through Europol to check on any known or suspected foreign sex offenders in the area. Did the PJ check their own criminal records?
Carana, the only thing I know about this case is that it was related by some to the Madeleine one, the common point being that the police, in both cases, suspected the parents to be involved in the disappearance.
I found it revealing, in an EU point of view vs a nationalist one, that the UK sends to Portugal a list of potentially dangerous British citizens only when a child of the same nationality is missing.
But you could answer me that it doesn't make any difference since no child was abducted (by a stranger) since Madeleine disappeared.
Perhaps we're at cross-purposes.
Not all paedophiles are from the UK, Anne. ;)
The LP offered their help because it was indeed a UK citizen who had disappeared, as no doubt the authorities in many other countries would have done if one of their own citizens had been missing in a foreign country.
However, Joana was a Portuguese citizen, as we know. The PJ could have appealed to Europol for assistance, but I haven't found anything to suggest that they had, possibly because they didn't have a description of a potential abductor with which to request concrete assistance, or possibly because they were convinced from an early stage that the family was involved.
It might have been different if someone had witnessed, and had been able to give an accurate description, of a suspicious person with an English / French / Spanish /German accent, or a car screetching off with identifiable licence plates, for example.
