“Gaping” expenditure of resources by the Portuguese State
in the search of Madeleine Beth McCann, May 2007.
in the search of Madeleine Beth McCann, May 2007.
By Lucy Panton , 11/04/2010
BRITISH police are to launch a new probe into missing Madeleine McCann after massive failures were found in the Portuguese investigation.
Our top child protection cop Jim Gamble has completed a fresh look at the three-year-old investigation for the Home Office.
He told ministers there were huge holes in the original inquiry that need to be revisited if they want to "come close" to reaching UK standards.
It will come as a bitter pill for Portuguese investigators who have fended off criticism since Maddie disappeared in 2007.
Portuguese police left 'gaping' holes
But parents Kate and Gerry McCann, both 41 and both doctors, are "delighted" at the move.
Failures in the original investigation are said to be "so gaping" that British authorities feel it is their duty to look at it again.
This time police will review all the leads using technology and standards expected in a homicide or kidnap case in the UK.
Mr Gamble, head of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, found a basic failure to collate information and join up links that should have been made.
Telephone records were not properly analysed, missing early opportunities for leads.
And Kate and Gerry McCann were named as Arguidos, or formal suspects, by Portuguese police - something that the review says would not have happened if the probe had been carried out in the UK.
Mr Gamble found no evidence sufficient to make them suspects. His findings have now been formally submitted to the Home Office with recommendations to re-investigate.
The damning review has now set the Association of Chief Police Officers the difficult task of trying to decide who takes on the mammoth task. It is already predicted to be "an extremely costly" investigation that, even if done properly, will probably never be solved.
Damning: Jim Gamble
A source said: "It is something that has to be reviewed. It is only right that the McCanns are given the satisfaction that everything that could be done has been done. It now comes down to who is up to the job."
The Home Secretary Alan Johnson is expected to announce that the new probe will NOT be carried out by Leicestershire police, the McCanns' local force. The review has highlighted failures within their handling of the case and ruled them out of the review.
Instead ACPO are now asking around their top cops to see who could take on the very difficult and complex investigation.
The source added: "It will be extremely costly and sadly is unlikely to result in a positive outcome.
"As much as we would all like this to end with good news for the McCanns, the fact is there have been a lot of missed opportunities and no-one will ever be able to reclaim the time and evidence lost."
Two thousand pages of evidence released earlier claimed Portuguese detectives failed to follow up leads.
Home Secretary Alan Johnson ordered officials to examine the "feasibility" of British detectives having a fresh look at all the evidence back in March.
Kate and Gerry McCann, of Rothley, met Mr Johnson to plead for help in their search for their daughter who vanished aged three from a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal.
Sidenote from Blog: Why “vanished” instead of “abducted”? Didn’t they read the files well AGAIN, this time round?
BRITISH police are to launch a new probe into missing Madeleine McCann after massive failures were found in the Portuguese investigation.
Our top child protection cop Jim Gamble has completed a fresh look at the three-year-old investigation for the Home Office.
He told ministers there were huge holes in the original inquiry that need to be revisited if they want to "come close" to reaching UK standards.
It will come as a bitter pill for Portuguese investigators who have fended off criticism since Maddie disappeared in 2007.
Portuguese police left 'gaping' holes
But parents Kate and Gerry McCann, both 41 and both doctors, are "delighted" at the move.
Failures in the original investigation are said to be "so gaping" that British authorities feel it is their duty to look at it again.
This time police will review all the leads using technology and standards expected in a homicide or kidnap case in the UK.
Mr Gamble, head of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, found a basic failure to collate information and join up links that should have been made.
Telephone records were not properly analysed, missing early opportunities for leads.
And Kate and Gerry McCann were named as Arguidos, or formal suspects, by Portuguese police - something that the review says would not have happened if the probe had been carried out in the UK.
Mr Gamble found no evidence sufficient to make them suspects. His findings have now been formally submitted to the Home Office with recommendations to re-investigate.
The damning review has now set the Association of Chief Police Officers the difficult task of trying to decide who takes on the mammoth task. It is already predicted to be "an extremely costly" investigation that, even if done properly, will probably never be solved.
Damning: Jim Gamble
A source said: "It is something that has to be reviewed. It is only right that the McCanns are given the satisfaction that everything that could be done has been done. It now comes down to who is up to the job."
The Home Secretary Alan Johnson is expected to announce that the new probe will NOT be carried out by Leicestershire police, the McCanns' local force. The review has highlighted failures within their handling of the case and ruled them out of the review.
Instead ACPO are now asking around their top cops to see who could take on the very difficult and complex investigation.
The source added: "It will be extremely costly and sadly is unlikely to result in a positive outcome.
"As much as we would all like this to end with good news for the McCanns, the fact is there have been a lot of missed opportunities and no-one will ever be able to reclaim the time and evidence lost."
Two thousand pages of evidence released earlier claimed Portuguese detectives failed to follow up leads.
Home Secretary Alan Johnson ordered officials to examine the "feasibility" of British detectives having a fresh look at all the evidence back in March.
Kate and Gerry McCann, of Rothley, met Mr Johnson to plead for help in their search for their daughter who vanished aged three from a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal.
Sidenote from Blog: Why “vanished” instead of “abducted”? Didn’t they read the files well AGAIN, this time round?
9 Comments:
IRONSIDE said...
Let me just remind Jim Gamble as he seems to have a very selective memory exactly WHAT was said in Court.
Portuguese detectives made the McCanns suspects in Maddie’s disappearance after taking advice from British police, it was claimed yesterday.
Cracker-style profiler Lee Rainbow – who worked on the Ipswich Ripper and Shannon Matthews cases – said officers should consider their possible involvement in the case, a court was told.
The National Policing Improvement Agency ( NPIA) expert wrote a report to Algarve police chiefs giving advice.
Details of the confidential report emerged during the final day of a libel trial involving former Portuguese detective Goncalo Amaral, who led the Maddie investigation.
Amaral is trying to overturn a worldwide injunction banning the publication of his book Maddie: The Truth of the Lie. In it he claims Kate and Gerry were involved in Maddie’s death and staged her disappearance. His lawyer, Antonio Cabrita, told the court Rainbow wrote: “It was Madeleine’s father who was the last one to see her alive.
“The family is a lead that should be followed. The contradictions in Gerald McCann’s statements might lead us to suspect a homicide.”
Cabrita added: “This report has never been published before but is part of the investigation.
On June 1st 2007 British police had the theory that Madeleine could be dead and the family could be involved.
“It was British police who said they must consider not only abduction but homicide as well.”
The NPIA provided a checklist of what should be done, advising the Portuguese police to include the McCanns in their inquiry and take new forensics at their holiday apartment in Praia da Luz.
Last night an NPIA spokesman said: “In disappearance cases it is common for the NPIA to advise investigating officers to consider the possibility of the involvement of family and close friends. The NPIA gave similar generic advice to the Portuguese police in the Madeleine McCann case.”
Meanwhile, Kate and Gerry launched criminal proceedings against Portuguese TV station TVI yesterday for repeating Amaral’s claims that Maddie is dead. A ruling in Amaral’s libel case is due to be made on February 18.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news
Apr 11, 2010 8:53:00 AM
IRONSIDE said...
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/2010/02/11/madeliene-mccann-it-was-british-crime-profiling-epxert-who-suggested-parents-could-be-suspects-86908-22034633/
Profiler (BRITISH) said we may be looking at a homicide...
Apr 11, 2010 8:58:00 AM
jkh said...
After reading the sections you've highlighted in BIG red letters it's no wonder the McCanns are "delighted" at the prospect of Jim Gamble's involvement to sweep Maddie under the proverbial carpet.
They know we know what's going on and yet still they do it, right under our noses.
This case stinks of paedophilia more and more every day.
Just what the doctor ordered.
Apr 11, 2010 9:13:00 AM
Anonymous said...
hello volks!
they can take money from maddie´s fund or maddie´s reward for it.
How many children did jim find/rescue?
Claudia from Germany
Apr 11, 2010 10:53:00 AM
Textusa said...
This is just the beginning of a PR campaign help Gambo face the upcoming trial. Lets see how courageous Britain really is.
Apr 11, 2010 11:13:00 AM
IRONSIDE said...
Hi Claudia I can find you the FIGURES they CLAIM to have helped...The figure they suggest would be headline news if true, Give me a little time and I will let you know.
Apr 11, 2010 11:23:00 AM
IRONSIDE said...
Claudia here is a comment from the REGISTER...who also keep a very close eye on JIMBO...Here he claims he receives 10.000 hits a month from his panic button. However, these are words he has yet to show the proof..
A comment from an article by El Reg
Bluster & Hyperbole
I, too, heard Mr Gamble on the Radio this morning (BBC Radio4). He sounded quite bullying himself - but that tends to be his calling card. Implicit in his comments was a suggestion that if any site refuses to host a CEOP 'panic button' they are failing in their duty of care to the young and there must, therefore, be something 'wrong' with them. It's no surprise to hear such attitudes from an organisation like CEOP, which has grown so powerful on the back of the current paedohysteria - and an almost wholly uncritical media.
Mr. Gamble, who's fondness for dropping 'keywords' into his interview responses ('predator', 'grooming', etc) is a past-master at hyping up the sensationalism - hardly surprising at a time when so many competing 'partner agencies' (another favourite Gambleism) are looking for funds from an ever-dwindling pot.
I was surprised to hear him tell the BBC interviewer that the CEOP panic button receives 10,000 hits a month. Really? 10,000? A month? Naturally, the BBC interviewer let that little gem slip past completely unremarked upon. If it's true - and as ever with CEOP we have no mechanism for establishing that - then surely it represents a headline story of unimaginable proportions?
Ironically, given the context, I have little doubt Facebook will eventually be bullied into having to accept CEOP's unwanted presence on their site: the Paedogeddon will brook no argument, no dissent, after all, and after Mr. Gamble's tirade against them this morning on live radio (and no doubt by now across a more than accommodating media) I suspect they will have no option but to cave in to his demands or risk more name-calling in the future.
In the end, it's worth remembering CEOP is a public/private company (and also part of the UK police service). Yes, it's a company. Mr. Gamble is it's CEO. It receives the bulk of it's funding from the UK government (i.e. taxpayers) and from private sources (step forward Microsoft, BT, O2, Virgin, VISA, etc, etc) which all runs into £millions every year. It makes a bit of cash on the side flogging off training seminars, publications and instructional packs to 'stakeholders' (yes, there's another Gambleism). As a commercial concern, CEOP cannot insist companies like Facebook carry it's marque - but Mr. Gamble seems to think they should be forced to do so. Of course, he knows that by wielding the trusty 'won't someone please think of children?' banner (along with his usual bluster and well-rehearsed hyperbole) wherever he goes he can almost always get his own way.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/18/ceop_button/
Apr 11, 2010 11:33:00 AM
Judge Mental said...
One is sat here today thinking that these newspaper reports are merely a smoke-screen to counter any stories coming out of Portugal regarding impending court cases.
After much consideration, I find it most improper that anybody connected to the Operation Ore investigation should be involved in the case of Madeleine McCann.
From the evidence currently available, it is quite obvious that the Portuguese police coped admirably with their investigations, but were impeded by British authorities.
Apr 11, 2010 6:13:00 PM
IRONSIDE said...
http://www.the3arguidos.info/post26867.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+the3arguidos%2FvCkh+%28The+New+3A%27s%29&utm_content=FeedBurner#p26867
Maybe Jim Gamble would like to read through the recorded interview of David Payne and tell us what is wrong with this picture.
Apr 12, 2010 2:31:00 PM
