Wandering Off Topic

[Brietta]

I don't know how responses to FOI requests are funded, but it's difficult to see how the response to the request quoted would affect the costs of Operation Grange. It was addressed to and answered by the Home Office.

Is it relevant to the opinions held by Cameron, May and Stephenson? Possibly. They may have been influenced by the report produced by Jim Gamble, but that was also the opinions of one person.

Whatdotheyknow.com is a website which helps members of the public to submit FOI requests and saves them and the answers in it's database. They need donations because they volunteer their services.

Freedom of Information is a statutory service and as such is paid for by the public purse.

Operational personnel costs for responding to organised FOI campaigns don't just swirl around somewhere in the vacuum in some outer ether. 
There is cost.

It is rich that individuals who grudge every farthing spent on a missing child case and who require "funding" for "volunteering" their services disregard the dichotomy.

[Brietta]

I don't know how responses to FOI requests are funded, but it's difficult to see how the response to the request quoted would affect the costs of Operation Grange. It was addressed to and answered by the Home Office.

Is it relevant to the opinions held by Cameron, May and Stephenson? Possibly. They may have been influenced by the report produced by Jim Gamble, but that was also the opinions of one person.

Whatdotheyknow.com is a website which helps members of the public to submit FOI requests and saves them and the answers in it's database. They need donations because they volunteer their services.

With reference to the scoping report carried out by Jim Gamble and which you appear to think should have been consigned to Paiva's "not relevant" section of the botched Portuguese 'investigation' despite being commissioned and a lot of investigative time devoted to it as a result ~
Phil Schofield quizzes former detective on why Maddie McCann update took 13 years
This Morning guest Jim Gamble, a child protection officer when Madeleine went missing, said the initial investigation was "bungled"
By Verity Sulway
11:48, 4 Jun 2020

This Morning host Phillip Schofield asked probing questions on Thursday's show as he and co host Holly Willoughby spoke to Jim Gamble, who was the UK's most senior child protection police officer when Madeleine McCann went missing.

It comes as a new suspect has been named in the case, 13 years after Madeleine, then three years old, went missing in Portugal.

Former detective Jim is also the former chief executive of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre.

Jim explained that the new suspect, an unnamed 43-year-old German man who is currently in prison, is a "very very significant person of interest", with several factors pointing to him being present on the night Maddie disappeared.

Phil asked: "This is substantial stuff here, how come it's taken so long

Jim replied: "The truth is, the beginning of this investigation in my opinion, was bungled.

That's not a direct criticism of the Portuguese police, it's a reflection of the fact these cases are very rare."

He added: "Lots of pieces of information in the beginning, I discovered from the review I carried out, weren't kept together."

Jim said they should have used a different software system to collate the information together, and said "cell dumps", or telephone information, were not properly interrogated at the time.

He said people of interest and leads were not all followed through at the time either.

"Thirteen years, and this is millions and millions of pounds, it's still a missing persons inquiry but it looks like the crucial piece of evidence took place to and pro in a chatroom?" asked Phil.

Jim would not confirm if this was the case, and said it was up to the police to disclose.

"It's the most hopeful I've been in 13 years," said Jim.

Jim said the suspect had committed similar offences, was in proximity at the time, his phone pinged off a cell tower near where Maddie disappeared, and he received a call an hour before Maddie is thought to have vanished.

Shortly after her disappearance, he changed his car registration.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/phil-schofield-quizzes-former-detective-22136928

[Lace]

She certainly was. When police budgets as well as budgets for every other government department were being slashed OG has been a shocking waste of money.

A government who can be threatened into investigating a case that not even the police believed was their responsibility is not real government at all.

Waste of money?   If it were your child I doubt very much if you would say that.   They were given money to pursue their findings.   They had leads to investigate.   If they hadn't had any leads they wouldn't have got the money.  Simple as.

[Lace]

There is evidence that suggests Cameron wasn't considering the possibility of parental involvement.

Cameron; "my heart goes out to you both...I cannot imagine the pain you must have experienced...you have been so courageous..." He goes on to say actions by the Met "will help boost efforts in the search for Madeleine".
https://www.gerrymccannsblogs.co.uk/press/49may11/SUN2_13_05_2011.htm

It seems very clear that Cameron is an admirer of the McCanns and is acting to help them achieve their stated goals; to search for and find their abducted daughter.

So?  Admirer of the McCann's that is a very silly thing to say.   He had sympathy with them,  he had lost a child too remember.   That had nothing at all to do with what action the Police took.    As they said they went right back to the beginning,  thousands of sheets.    Give me an example of how Cameron interfered with the Assessment.

[Brietta]

Waste of money?   If it were your child I doubt very much if you would say that.   They were given money to pursue their findings.   They had leads to investigate.   If they hadn't had any leads they wouldn't have got the money.  Simple as.

That's a logical conclusion you have reached, Lace.  Unfortunately for them, McCann sceptics don't "do" logic.

[G-Unit]

Jim replied: "The truth is, the beginning of this investigation in my opinion, was bungled.


As I said; one man's opinion.

My conclusion is that there is evidence that the abduction theory wasn't based on evidence, it was opinion.

[G-Unit]

So?  Admirer of the McCann's that is a very silly thing to say.   He had sympathy with them,  he had lost a child too remember.   That had nothing at all to do with what action the Police took.    As they said they went right back to the beginning,  thousands of sheets.    Give me an example of how Cameron interfered with the Assessment.

How could the police begin at the beginning when their remit told them what they were investigating?

[Vertigo Swirl]

Jim replied: "The truth is, the beginning of this investigation in my opinion, was bungled.


As I said; one man's opinion.

My conclusion is that there is evidence that the abduction theory wasn't based on evidence, it was opinion.

Shared by many, and not just McCann supporters but other policing experts.

[Vertigo Swirl]

How could the police begin at the beginning when their remit told them what they were investigating?

Please supply evidence that the police were specifically instructed not to consider any other options but abduction.  Is a remit an order that must not be disobeyed on pain of disciplinary action?  If so please provide evidence of such.

[Eleanor]

Please supply evidence that the police were specifically instructed not to consider any other options but abduction.  Is a remit an order that must not be disobeyed on pain of disciplinary action?  If so please provide evidence of such.

No chance.  There isn't any, because it never happened.

Actually, the whole idea is preposterous.

[Wonderfulspam]

Waste of money?   If it were your child I doubt very much if you would say that.   They were given money to pursue their findings.   They had leads to investigate.   If they hadn't had any leads they wouldn't have got the money.  Simple as.

Yes, a waste of money.

The 'leads' have all lead to total dead-ends.

That's a logical conclusion you have reached, Lace.  Unfortunately for them, McCann sceptics don't "do" logic.

Logic told me 15 years ago that there simply wasn't an abduction. So it's no mystery to me why the 3 investigative forces still haven't caught the abductor really.

Get back to me when they eventually do though aye.

[G-Unit]

Please supply evidence that the police were specifically instructed not to consider any other options but abduction.  Is a remit an order that must not be disobeyed on pain of disciplinary action?  If so please provide evidence of such.

I'd be more impressed if you were able to supply evidence that my conclusion is wrong, rather than asking me to provide more evidence to support my conclusion.

[Eleanor]

I'd be more impressed if you were able to supply evidence that my conclusion is wrong, rather than asking me to provide more evidence to support my conclusion.

How can VS prove a negative?

[Vertigo Swirl]

I'd be more impressed if you were able to supply evidence that my conclusion is wrong, rather than asking me to provide more evidence to support my conclusion.

Have you heard of the celestial teapot argument? 
You make the assertion, you supply the evidence, that's how it works.   You have intimated that the police were constrained by the High Ups from properly investigating the case - now show your evidence. 

[Eleanor]

Have you heard of the celestial teapot argument? 
You make the assertion, you supply the evidence, that's how it works.   You have intimated that the police were constrained by the High Ups from properly investigating the case - now show your evidence.

This didn't happen.  Gunit has no evidence that it did.  Everything has always been pukka.  But she will go on saying otherwise in the vain hope that some fools will believe her.  Although God knows why.

The McCanns are innocent and after fifteen years you might think that this is obvious.