Almost a year to the day that former PJ detective Gonçalo Amaral learnt that the parents of missing Madeleine McCann had successfully sued him over his book “The Truth of the Lie”, three appeal court judges have ruled that there is essentially no case to answer.
Kate McCann believes her daughter Madeleine was not taken far from Praia da Luz after she disappeared shortly before her fourth birthday in May 2007 and vowed that she and her husband would never give up hope of finding their daughter
The 47-year-old, who now is an ambassador for the Missing People charity, said that her research suggested that children were not usually taken far from the place they were abducted.
The UK's Metropolian Police confirmed today that the number of officers engaged full time on Operation Grange will be reduced from 29 to four.
The search for Madeleine McCann, missing since May 2007, has cost the British taxpayer an estimated £11 million to date, with 37 officers working on the case at its height.
Madeleine McCann's parents have denied having a spat with the Ben Needham campaign and say they support it.
Spokesman Clarence Mitchell today confirmed that the official Twitter account publicising the search for missing Madeleine McCann has been suspended due to the abusive comments that had been posted.
Police in UK and Australia have been at odds all week over the possible identity of the skeletal remains of a murdered child found dumped by the roadside in the Southern Australian bush three weeks ago.
While Australian police have repeatedly dismissed suggestions that the bones could be those of Madeleine McCann, a source from Scotland Yard told the UK’s Daily Mirror “we cannot rule it out”.
Joining the millions of words already written about this century’s most famous missing person comes news that “the skeletal remains of a toddler closely resembling Madeleine McCann in age and other aspects has been found in an abandoned suitcase” in South Australia.
Florida-based website Crime Magazine runs the story saying police “believe the child was murdered and her body kept in the suitcase for up to eight years before finally being deposited at the side of a highway”.
Former detective Gonçalo Amaral has responded defiantly to the outcome of the civil action brought against him by Kate and Gerry McCann over his book about the investigation into their daughter’s disappearance.
The McCanns were awarded €500,000 plus interest in damages, but Amaral is adamant the book was not defamatory and was within his rights to freedom of expression. His views on the case are contained in an interview published in the Portuguese weekly magazine Nova Gente and reproduced on the website of Projecto Justiça Gonçalo Amaral.
One of the key players in the Madeleine McCann affair has been proposed as a candidate in the coming British general election in the first week of May.
The person in question is Clarence Eden Mitchell and his candidature has been confirmed by Heather Newberry-Martin, an election agent at the Conservative Party office in Brighton and Hove.
