Madeleine McCann’s parents may launch a new privately funded search for their daughter after the Metropolitan Police announced in October that Operation Grange is to be scaled down.
Kate and Gerry McCann have £750,000 remaining in their ‘No Stone Unturned’ appeal fund and may use it to hire private detectives to follow leads and get answers to pending questions.
The fund has remained healthy due recently to royalties from Kate McCann’s book, Madeleine.
Operation Grange was launched in 2011 and has cost the UK taxpayer in excess of £10 million. The Met’s top brass recently reduced the number of officers working on the case 29 to four and a spokesman for Scotland Yard said while are still some lines of inquiry, the majority of work had been completed.
Detectives have taken more than 1,300 statements and have collected over a thousand exhibits, but appear no closer to discovering the truth of Madeleine‘s disappearance from Praia da Luz in 2007 just before her 4th birthday.
A ‘source close to the family' said the McCanns were set to fund private detective work from the remainder of the fund.
“They have always said they will do anything they can to keep going. That commitment remains.”
Operation Grange was launched in 2011 after the Portuguese authorities shelved the investigation into Madeleine’s disappearance.
In October when Scotland Yard announced the reduction in the number of officers working full time on the case, Kate and Gerry McCann said they felt reassured that significant progress had been made and that they had a clearer picture of the events leading up to their daughter’s abduction (although it is not certain the Madeleine was abducted).
The couple added: “Whilst we do not know what happened to Madeleine, we remain hopeful that she may still be found given the ongoing lines of inquiry.”
The McCann case at first was managed by Detective Chief Inspector Andy Redwood who handed over to DCI Nicola Wall in December 2014 from whom results were expected.
DI Wall seems to have made as little progress as Redwood and the case has ground to a halt. Not one shred of evidence as to what happened to Madeleine has been released and is thought unlikely to have been discovered.
Much of the money raised by the McCanns has been spent on private investigators as well as on PR management. The remaining £750,000 if spent is unlikely suddenly to produce results, but there seems little else the McCanns can do.