Madeleine McCann cops to start digging up resort where she vanished 7 years agoWhile the search for missing Maddie continues the McCanns must also consider the possibility that her body will be found in police digs.
Kate and Gerry McCann have never given up hope their missing daughter Madeleine is alive – but they are now bracing themselves for the heartbreak of a police search for her body.
Scotland Yard detectives are preparing to go to Portugal to launch extensive digs in and around the holiday area where the youngster vanished seven years ago at the age of three. The tormented couple have been briefed by officers about their plans to search three sites near the Praia da Luz resort they were staying at.
It is understood a team of highly-skilled forensic officers will use radar equipment to look underground in the grim hunt for clues.
A source close to the McCann’s said: “Kate and Gerry have been told police will be conducting the searches in and around Praia da Luz as soon as they get the green light from Portuguese authorities.
“There will be earth diggers everywhere and it will look very dramatic and it will be a heartbreaking and hugely emotional time for Madeleine’s poor parents.
“They don’t believe police are acting on any new tip off. They just need to carry out their own digs, looking for any possible clues that Portuguese authorities may have missed on their previous searches.
“It will not be a mere fingertip search of certain areas, it will be full ground searches, using radar and other equipment. It is such a sensitive part of their investigation but it has to be done"
“Police have assured Kate and Gerry that it does not mean they are specifically searching for her body. They are doing searches as much as to rule scenarios out as much as rule them in. They will be concentrating on several different places at different phases.
“Certain areas should have been searched properly way back by the Portuguese authorities but were not.”
Kate and Gerry will not be going to Portugal but will be kept updated throughout.
The source revealed the dig will form a routine part of the Met’s cold case review into Madeleine.
It comes after a Crimewatch TV appeal resulted in new information coming to light. The source added: “They have been tasked with the painstaking job of going through every single detail the Portuguese police have already done, plus following up any new leads that have come in. They are looking into it with fresh eyes. New information has come in following Crimewatch but it is not known if any of it is linked to these searches.”
Police will dig two areas of land surrounding the Ocean Club’s Apartment 5A, where Madeleine vanished on May 3 2007, and an area on the nearby beach
Saturday was the anniversary of the youngster’s disappearance and prayers were said for her at her village church in Rothley, Leics. Heart doctor Gerry, 45, told wellwishers: “The Met are going back out to Portugal very soon. They are chipping away and there is new evidence. We are going to continue hoping we get a happy outcome and one day we will know what’s happening.” Kate has admitted the pair could not be blinkered to “a worst case scenario” but they are said to have been buoyed by the new development. They previously raised concerns about the pace of progress in the new investigation after tensions were revealed between British and Portuguese investigators.
The Met had said they were confident of being able to start “operational activity” in Portugal soon but their hopes have so far failed to materialise. The latest news is a sign Portuguese detectives could be willing to grant full access to files and evidence their British counterparts on Operation Grange have been requesting for months. Sources say a team could be in place even by the end of the week to fly to Portugal to try to find what happened to Madeleine, whose 11th birthday is next Monday.
Kate, 46, said recently: “The passing of further weeks and months as a result of unnecessary delays and barriers are not only frustrating, they are distressing.
“Each day without Madeline and each day of not knowing is another day too many. I just want to know if she’s alive or dead.” The former GP told last week how she secretly returns to the resort to feel close to her daughter and “to walk those streets” and “look for answers”. But she has not been back since April last year.
Madeleine’s great uncle, Brian Kennedy, 75, said: “We would just like to know something, whatever news that may because not having any idea where Madeleine is, is so difficult.”
Police are trying to identify a serial sex beast who may have struck at least 18 times in Algarve resorts from 2004 to 2010, assaulting British girls as young as 10 as they slept in their beds. In some attacks he wearing a burgundy, long-sleeved top. It may have had a white circle on the back.
Around six weeks after Madeleine vanished, police unearthed a potential burial site in the village of village of Arao, nine miles from Praia da Luz following a tip-off from a Dutch newspaper. But the search found nothing and that part of the probe was dropped.
The McCann’s official spokesperson Clarence Mitchell last night refused to comment on the latest planned digs. Scotland Yard said: “We do not provide a running commentary on ongoing investigations.”
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