The golden hour as referred to earlier in this thread means exactly that ie a period of an hour or less.
Timewise the 'golden hour' in Madeleine McCann's case was more than half gone before her absence was discovered by her mother.
Which was possibly all the more reason for a sense of urgency to be engendered in the police response to the event.
In consideration of the urgency of the situation the PJ should have had boots on the ground at first light rather than waiting for the start of the day shift before taking over from the GNR.
**snip
Inspector Phil Shakeshess, Child Rescue Alert project manager, said there was a short but crucial window of time to find a child before he or she was likely to be harmed.
"All the research nationally suggests that when a child is abducted, on one of the rare occasions a child is abducted,
three to six hours afterwards is when they are most likely to be harmed or killed," he said.
"It is crucial to get information out as soon as possible so that the public acts as the eyes and ears of the investigation."
He said
the figures on this golden hour were very reliable, based on historical investigations of abductions.
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Police+could+have+missed+%27golden+hour%27+in+Maddy+hunt.-a0163842705