A Home Office report into the events subsequent to Madeleine McCann’s disappearance and the police investigations both in the UK and in Portugal has been leaked to the press.
The report criticises the competition between the British police forces involved in the search for Madeleine McCann, competition which managed to derail the investigation into her disappearance, has had a long lasting negative influence on the investigation.
The report was commissioned by the former Home Secretary Alan Johnson in 2009 and goes a long way to explain the tension between the Portuguese and British police forces.
Delivered to the Home Office in 2010, the report has remained secret. It was written by Jim Gamble who is a former head of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre in the UK.
The report, instrumental into the decision that led to the case being reopened by the Metropolitan Police, condemned the intervention of multiple UK police forces and other agencies which created frustration and resentment in the Portuguese police force assigned to the case.
In the weeks after Madeleine's disappeared in May 2007 the Portuguese police authorities were given advice by the Metropolitan Police, the Serious Organised Crime Agency, Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre and the National Police Improvement Agency.
Crimestoppers published its own appeal hotline and various Government ministers from Downing Street, the Home Office and the Foreign Office demanded briefings from the various agencies.
Another criticism was of the Association of Chief Police Officers’ decision to put Leicestershire Police (Leicestershire being the home county of the McCanns) in charge of the McCann operation as this force was not equipped to deal an investigation of this type or scale.
The Portuguese police ended up criticising Britain for acting as 'a colonial power' as chaos and confusion characterise their efforts amid advice from foreigners willing to help but without coordination.
The Portuguese police response to Madeleine's disappearance was said to have been haphazard and potentially crucial information was not followed up.
The Home Office declined to release the report at the time and has not commented on its sudden revelation, coinciding as it does with the launch of a new pro-McCann book which is receiving much media attention in the month that Operation Grange detectives from Scotland Yard are due back in Portugal for what may be their last attempt at solving the McCann riddle.