Police urged to shelve Maddie hunt as cops needed in UK to battle terrorism

 EXCLUSIVE: Police urged to shelve Maddie hunt as cops needed in UK to battle terrorism

POLICE were last night urged to shelve the hunt for Madeleine McCann as detectives battle terrorism and a wave of murders.

By Jerry Lawton / Published 18th March 2015


Officers reeling from £600million of police cuts are struggling to probe 14 unconnected killings across the capital since Christmas while fighting a war on terror.

Meanwhile, a specialist team of 31 detectives continues to work exclusively on the hunt for Madeleine, who vanished eight years ago from her parents’ holiday fl at in Portugal.

Though the mystery has no connection with London, the Metropolitan Police was assigned to investigate four years ago after Madeleine’s parents Kate, 47, and Gerry, 46, made a personal plea to David Cameron.

Despite dozens of trips by offi cers from the UK to Portugal, no one has been arrested and the original probe officer Det Chief Insp Andy Redwood has retired.

But the Operation Grange inquiry, which has so far cost around £10m, is continuing.

Now officers are baffl ed why they are working round the clock investigating a spate of murders and combating the threat posed by Islamic State while 31 Grange detectives who could ease their workloads are barred from helping them.

Spike That is because police chiefs have “ring-fenced” the Madeleine inquiry to prevent the officers involved working on other cases.

Last night police union chiefs called for the probe to be shelved, with detectives assigned to it deployed on other inquiries. Metropolitan Police Federation chairman John Tully told the Daily Star: “It is time to re-focus on what we need to do to keep London safe.

We no longer have the resources to conduct specialist inquiries all over the world which have nothing to do with London.

“The Met has long been seen as the last resort for investigations others have struggled with elsewhere.
“But we have made £600m of cuts. We have closed 63 police stations across London. Another £800m of cutbacks are anticipated over the next four years.

It is surprising to see an inquiry like the McCann investigation ringfenced. I have heard a few rumblings of discontent about it from lots of sources.

“When the force is facing a spike in murder investigations it is not surprising there is resentment of signifi cant resources diverted to a case that has no apparent connection with London.”

Operation Grange was set up to review the original Portuguese police probe into Madeleine’s disappearance aged three from her family’s holiday apartment in the Algarve resort of Praia da Luz on May 3, 2007.

After the Portuguese inquiry was shelved as “unsolved” the McCanns, from Rothley, Leics, successfully appealed to the PM to get the Met to re-examine the case.

Last night a Met Police spokesman confirmed the 31 offi cers assigned to Operation Grange work solely on that investigation and are not involved with other inquiries.

http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/431325/Police-working-Madeleine-McCann-case-need-back-Britain

Re: Front page of daily star: Police urged to shelve Maddie hunt as cops needed in UK to battle terrorism
Post plebgate Today at 4:51 am

As the police are so strapped for cash, I think it would be a good gesture for the parents to give the remaining money in the Fund back to the taxpayers.

John Tully @Zedvictor4 · 2 hrs 2 hours ago
@veniviedivici no criticism of the officers, just the pressure on officers carrying high number of investigations, it's like spinning plates

John Tully @Zedvictor4 · 2 hrs 2 hours ago
@veniviedivici I've no problems with the content of the article, although I didn't say what the headline suggests -Inference taken I suppose

http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/407697/Asylum-seekers-cost-1-5m-a-day

Asylum seekers cost £1.5m a day

BRITAIN’S SHAMBOLIC asylum system set taxpayers back more than £1.5million a day last year.

By ANIL DAWAR
PUBLISHED: 00:00, Sat, Jun 15, 2013

The Home Office had to fork out £583million on 37,000 asylum claims, the Daily Express can reveal.

Two out of three cases of people trying to stay in the UK were more than a year old and nearly 14,000 had waited at least three years, according to official figures.

The money went on housing, cash support, legal bills and paperwork.

But the total does not include asylum seekers’ legal aid bills, the cash spent on them by councils or the cost of a backlog of hundreds of thousands of other migration cases.

scoobydoo » Wed Mar 18, 2015 12:15 pm

I see the trolls are in raptures that the star has a front page calling on the police to stop looking for a missing toddler. Funny way of wanting truth and justice for a child, being gleeful that police might not bother looking. Apparently head of a police union is saying police are facing cuts and need to concentrate on London based matters such as a terrorist group in Syria, rather than a British toddler who went missing whilst on holiday in another EU country whilst permenantly domiciled in the UK. I am sorry but a missing child and other child victims of crimes in the algarve come first over crimes against adults and t@ssers trying to get themselves to Syria. Let's face it if someone wants to go to Syria I'd rather they were there than here.
How much have British police spent over the years on the Julie ward case, Helen smith, Isabelle Peake, Caroline Dickinson, Ben needham, katrice lee, to name just a few British citizens who were victims of crimes or suspected crimes abroad? What is the price limit for solving a crime against a child?

If I was the met and facing an inquiry over covering up child abuse I would think very carefully about choosing now to stop looking for a missing child. At best it looks spiteful, at worst people might look at the fact a Portuguese officer is now in prison awaiting trial for arranging kidnappings and home invasions and think the halt in the McCann investigation is to cover up for the PJ. Its unfortunate timing isn't it?

Posted by portugalpress on March 18, 2015
British police ready to drop Maddie probe as London faces increasing terrorist threat

An exclusive news story in the UK today claims British police are “baffled” as to why they are being kept on the seemingly endless Maddie probe, and want ‘out’ so that they can concentrate on the increasing threat from terrorism ‘at home’. “It is time to re-focus on what we need to do to keep London safe,” the Met’s federation chairman John Tully told the Daily Star. Newspapers have spared no space in criticising the “Operation Grange” inquiry set up in 2011, which has so far cost British taxpayers in excess of €12 million.

Not only have no solid leads transpired, officers working on the case have been barred from doing anything else.

Here, criticism has also centred on the fact that the Met “always turns up when the sun starts to shine”.

Thus today’s news will bring sighs of relief from holiday businesses that saw their start to last year’s season marred by battalions of police “digging for clues” at various sites around the Ocean Club in Praia da Luz, from which Madeleine McCann went missing almost eight years ago.

Elaborating on police discomfort over the ‘exclusivity’ forced upon them by the Madeleine inquiry, John Tully told the Daily Star: “The Met has long been seen as the last resort for investigations others have struggled with elsewhere.” But it has been hit by “£600 million of cuts”, he added. “We have closed 63 police stations across London. Another £800 million of cutbacks are anticipated over the next four years” - and meantime the Met is having to cope with “14 unconnected killings across the capital since Christmas while fighting the war on terror”.

It is therefore “surprising to see an inquiry like the McCann investigation ringfenced”, he said. Ringfenced here refers to the 31 officers assigned to it being prohibited from working on any other cases.

“I have heard a few rumblings of discontent about it from lots of sources,” he told the paper.

“When the force is facing a spike in murder investigations it is not surprising there is resentment of significant resources diverted to a case that has no apparent connection with London.”

How much truth is behind this latest “exclusive” about the long-running mystery remains to be seen.

Portuguese media reported last week that the new head of Operation Grange, DCI Nicola Wall, visited Portuguese counterparts in Lisbon last week to “strengthen links” between the two forces.

No mention was made of any plans to shelve the British side of the investigation.

natasha.donn@algarveresident.com (rewritten by a hounder better known as Harry_Lime on the hate forums)
See more at: http://portugalresident.com/british-police-ready-to-drop-maddie-probe-as-london-faces-increasing-terrorist-threat#sthash.AHucQwiP.SHnJWvJ0.dpuf

http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/431523/Madeleine-McCann-s-parents-urged-police-chief-not-give-up-hunt

MADELEINE McCann’s parents last night urged police chiefs to ignore calls from within the force to shelve their search.

By Jerry Lawton / Published 19th March 2015

Kate and Gerry McCann said they are incredibly grateful to every officer working to find Madeleine.

They insisted there is “still a job of work to be done” by the 31-strong Operation Grange team assigned solely to the case.

They spoke out after the London Metropolitan branch of the officers’ union the Police Federation called for the inquiry, which has already cost £10million, to be shelved.

Threat Chairman John Tully said the Met, which has made £600m cuts and faces another £800m by 2020, could no longer afford to take on “last resort” specialist cases others could not crack.

He said the 31 Operation Grange detectives could ease the workloads of colleagues investigating 14 unconnected murders in the capital since Christmas and battling the threat posed by Islamic State terrorists.

A friend of Kate, 47, and Gerry, 46, said: “It is up to the Met, the Prime Minister and the Home Office to decide the longevity of the investigation – not the Police Federation which has its own agenda.”

Madeleine, of Rothley, Leics, was three when she disappeared from a holiday flat in Praia da Luz, Portugal, on May 3, 2007.