I would [have] thought if, as some think, that OG is a complete farce, then asking those questions is exactly helping Madeleine imo. Whether the answers will be forthcoming is a different matter. Or even the answers that he would like.
Thank you @ 'barrier' for (more or less) answering 'misty's question for me.
As everyone on this forum will be aware, the Metropolitan Police has given two wholly contradictory answers as to when Operation Grange first received these two highly controversial efits:
(a) August 2011 and
(b) September 2008.
This is probably the most infamous 'missing child' case in the history of the world, yet it seems that a police force, allegedly the finest in the world, cannot give us straight and honest answers to the simplest of questions.
Let us recall that these efits were the centerpiece of a Crimewatch programme that took over six months to prepare, cost over £2 million. and was watched by an estimated 7 million viewers. The head honcho on this case, DCI Redwood, said on that programme that these efits were, quote: "The centre of our focus". Now, it seems, they have been quietly discarded.
The public has invested a lot in this case. Thousands have given money, probably totaling millions, to the McCanns to 'find Madeleine'. British taxpayers have shelled out £13 million on this case (Met & Leics police) although I think the real figure is a lot higher. The Portuguese police together with dozens of police forces around the world following up alleged 'sightings' have spent millions more.
'barrier' referred to 'the answers I would like'. All I want is the truth about these efits, given what appears to be a series of evasions about their provenance and when they were passed to various police forces.
Don't forget the public was asked to look for 'Smithman'. At the same time we were asked to believe by the Met that a bloke had just come forward after six years who was the man actually seen by Jane Tanner.
Remarkably, he was walking completely the wrong way from the night crèche, he was carrying his toddler home on a cold early May night at 10pm dressed only in pyjamas, he had actually and very conveniently preserved these pyjamas for six years in a drawer somewhere, and he was wearing, well, exactly the same sort of clothes that Wojcek Krokowski was wearing on his holiday (Krokowski clearly being the 'template' for the 'sightings' of both Jane Tanner and Nuno Lourenco - a device which fooled Goncalo Amaral and his team on Day Two of the investigation (Saturday 5 May) - see Amaral's book).
The Met Police will not release any information that compromises their investigation - the FoI Act clearly allows them to withhold information.
But I do not see that honest answers to these questions can possibly now hinder the investigation:
On what date, and by whom, were these two efits first drawn up?
On what date or dates did the private investigators release these two efits released and to whom?
On what date (if any) were these efits handed to \Leicestershire Police?
On what date (if any) were these efits handed to the Portuguese Police?
On what date were these efits first supplied to Operation Grange, and by whom?
On what date did Operation Grange first receive these two efits, and from whom?
If the Metropolitan Police first received these efits before Operation Grange was set up, on what date were they received and by which department of the MPS were they received?
The recent MPS Freedom of Information Act reply refers specifically to the ‘final’ version of the private investigators’ report. Therefore, in the interests of clarity, and having regard (a) to the public interest and (b) assurances by both the McCanns and the Met Police that the investigations into Madeleine’s disappearance would be conducted with maximum openness and transparency, please state:
(i) On what date was the ‘final’ private investigators’ report compiled.
(ii) How many interim reports were there before the ‘final report’ and when was each of them compiled?
Has the man in the efits been identified?
If Yes, has he been positively ruled out as Madeleine’s abductor?
If No, is the Met Policer still searching for him?
If No, is the Met Police still searching for someone else as the likely abductor?
The efits still appear on the McCanns’ ‘Find Madeleine’ website despite the MPS ‘no longer using them as part of its appeal’.
Has the MPS advised the McCanns to remove these efits from their website?
If Yes, on what date please. Will the answers to these questions help Madeleine?
ANSWER: YES. The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about ANY aspect of this case will ALWAYS help Madeleine.
