The Operation Grange investigation by the Metropolitan Police into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann is said to be “upbeat” and set to continue despite mounting costs, a top resignation and apparently still no breakthrough in sight.
The latest episode in this extraordinary case, with Scotland Yard detectives questioning ten people in Faro, does not seem to have resulted in any meaningful progress.
The previous high point in the investigation featured British police searching across three sites next to Praia da Luz in the summer. Scorned by sceptics as a ‘whitewash’ and a ‘circus,’ the searches produced no new evidence and gave rise not only to exasperation among local citizens, but also speculation that the investigation was nearing its endgame.
The speculation heightened with news that the cost of the inquiry was approaching £10 million at a time of stringent budget cuts that could have disastrous consequences for police forces across the UK.
The announcement that Detective Chief Inspector Andy Redwood was retiring from the Met as the head of Operation Grange further invigorated the notion that the case was going nowhere.
“After careful consideration and a full and rewarding career in the Met, the time is right for me to move on,” Redwood said.
A headline in the Mirror declared: “Madeleine McCann top cop quits: This does send a certain kind of message.”
The paper reported that with Redwood’s resignation, “the inquiry into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann suffered a blow.” It went on to quote a source close to the inquiry: “The investigation has gone on for three and a half years now. However a lead detective would not typically stand down if they can see a result in the pipeline.”
If this did indeed send “a certain kind of message,” it was somewhat confused by the simultaneous announcement that DCI Nicola Wall was to replace Redwood as leader of the Operation Grange team.
This left some observers wondering if the latest questioning in Faro was a last ditch effort that might soon lead to a formal wrapping up of the investigation.
Not so, apparently.
Anthony Summers, co-author with his wife Robbyn Swan of the book Looking for Madeleine, told the BBC Breakfast programme that, according to his sources, the Operation Grange team is “upbeat and believes the case is solvable.”
There is said to be no political pressure, no hidden agenda and no pressure or problem about expenditure.
The team still comprises about 30 officers and support staff, essentially the same number as earlier in the investigation.
The expectation is that they will continue ploughing methodically though a vast amount of information.
So, the indications are that although the investigation is taking a very long time with apparently little success, this should not be interpreted as meaning that detectives are pessimistic about the case or about to give up.
It has been known by insiders for some months that Redwood was going to retire. But immediately after the announcement, the Mirror quoted a senior Labour MP as saying: “There are times when public duty must override personal circumstances, and this is one of them. If senior officers were aware of the DCI’s retirement plans, why was he put on to this case in the first place?”
Interesting question, but this is a side issue.
The main thrust is that Nicola Wall has now met the senior Portuguese officials she will be collaborating with after formally taking command of Operation Grange on 22 December.
When Inês Sequeira was appointed Portimão’s new public prosecutor in October she was quoted in the press as being “utterly determined” to crack the case.
She has the backing of Portugal’s first woman attorney general, Joana Marques Vidal, Portimão’s PJ chief, Ana Paula Rito, and the Oporto-based PJ detective in charge of the Portuguese investigation, Helena Monteiro.
Nicola Wall has served at the Met for 26 years, most recently as head of the Murder Investigation Team in West London. Hitherto she has not had much media coverage, but that’s about to change.
Vogue magazine last year reported that she prided herself on her investigative speed; that she was only partially joking when she attributed her low media profile to the fact “we solve cases so quickly nobody gets involved.”
An omen perhaps?
© Len Port, Portugal Newswatch 2014
About Len Port
Len Port has been a journalist for 50 years, working as a staff reporter, broadcaster and freelance correspondent for many leading news organisations. He covered events in the Far East in the Sixties, and in Northern Ireland and South Africa in the Seventies. Since moving to Portugal in the early Eighties, he has edited regional magazines, contributed to national dailies in Britain and written several books, two of which are currently available as ebooks with Amazon.
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Comments
Vital for British to understand what ordinary Portuguese think of their police and how even today's police officers attitudes to their job differ to a longer established police force.
Reading it helps explain why the Portuguese Police reacted in the way they did - as in doing nothing effective - when Madeleine was first reported missing.
Their history is about controlling the 'great unwashed'. Protecting the elite and the system that has always run Portugal. No concept at all even now of society or citizenship. Missing children and pensioners ... ?
And explains why, when we all heard that Amaral's team of PJ detectives were being investigated themselves for beating up a local mother complaining about their non-investigation of her own missing child 1 year before the McCann's- no NAMED Portuguese rose up to express disgust at this shameful behaviour. Or query the delay in her complaint until the McCanns.
The only feedback we got was an obvious reluctance to express an opinion. At best a 'This is Portugal' or 'She should not have complained -she knew the risk!'.
Not far from the references in i that they give is this one - to an article discussing unintentionally the gulf in understanding between a modern, advanced society with centuries of steady social development and .... Portugal.
If this is the ponderings of a Portuguese intellectual about Britains attitude to the EU it is stunningly weak. Clearly 'Portuguese Intellectual' is an oxymoron.
He describes the UK's opinions of the EU as it is now and yet makes no mention, as it is clearly beyond his intellectual grasp, of what the UK wants the EU to progress into. A dynamo for progress.
The writer entirely fails to point out that the Latino / Portuguese 'ducking out' of implementing or enforcing laws they have agreed to - is entirely different to the UK's 'opt out'.
In which the UK enforce ALL THE LAWS we agree to! Regardless of whose cousin is caught out.
http://www.ionline.pt/iopiniao/impaciente-ingles/pag/-1
http://www.ionline.pt/artigos/portugal/quando-se-fala-tortura-fala-se-da-pide-justica-adiada/pag/-1
Keep circulating it.
As the 4 examples - all Portuguese trying to rebuild their lives today - refer to thousands of others who disappeared, were known to have been killed and the many more tortured by their Police !
Yet 2 of these unfortunates make it clear they were mistaken for others !
So reminding us that this country was (and still is?) awash with informers. With serious or even fatal consequences when passing on wrong information.
Yet, following the non-Revolution, all this mistreatment was decided to be a taboo non-subject by the Portuguese elite . With absolutely no restitution. No making good. The physical and psychological pain left for the sufferer to live with.
And ex-Pres Mario Soares (Socrates buddy) was a 'lawyer' for 30 years during this horrendous period. What 'rights' can he have been defending ?
Just on this subject - Why is there still an estimated 5 infants a day 'trafficked' through or in Portugal EACH DAY ? And as a previous poster pointed out - if there is good money to be made 'stealing' fair haired white children from parents - how much goes to the local Police 'to look the other way' ?
As an idea of just how backward Portugal still is read this from the current i ... about Portuguese police torture of their own citizens.
Describing torture of just 40 years ago! And realise that that is why today's citizens are so terrified to protest about police standards and activity ... who knows how many torturers and informers are still living amongst them ?
http://www.ionline.pt/artigos/portugal/quando-se-fala-tortura-fala-se-da-pide-justica-adiada/pag/-1
Nothing remotely like the UK's Police Complaints procedure here!
Oh yes there is, oh yes there is and there damn well should be.