Mirror: Maddie cops to start digging in PDL

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/madeleine-mccann-latest-news-cops-3496784

Madeleine McCann cops to start digging up resort where she vanished 7 years ago
May 04, 2014 22:49 By Tracey Kandohla, Russell Myers
While the search for missing Maddie continues the McCanns must also consider the possibility that her body will be found in police digs

Kate and Gerry McCann have never given up hope their missing daughter Madeleine is alive – but they are now bracing themselves for the heartbreak of a police search for her body.

Scotland Yard detectives are preparing to go to Portugal to launch extensive digs in and around the holiday area where the youngster vanished seven years ago at the age of three. The tormented couple have been briefed by officers about their plans to search three sites near the Praia da Luz resort they were staying at.

It is understood a team of highly-skilled forensic officers will use radar equipment to look ­underground in the grim hunt for clues.

A source close to the McCann’s said: “Kate and Gerry have been told police will be conducting the searches in and around Praia da Luz as soon as they get the green light from Portuguese authorities.

“There will be earth diggers everywhere and it will look very dramatic and it will be a heartbreaking and hugely emotional time for Madeleine’s poor parents.

“They don’t believe police are acting on any new tip off. They just need to carry out their own digs, looking for any possible clues that Portuguese authorities may have missed on their previous searches.

“It will not be a mere fingertip search of certain areas, it will be full ground searches, using radar and other equipment. It is such a sensitive part of their investigation but it has to be done.

“Police have assured Kate and Gerry that it does not mean they are specifically searching for her body. They are doing searches as much as to rule scenarios out as much as rule them in. They will be concentrating on several different places at different phases.

“Certain areas should have been searched properly way back by the Portuguese authorities but were not.”

Kate and Gerry will not be going to Portugal but will be kept updated throughout.

The source revealed the dig will form a routine part of the Met’s cold case review into Madeleine.

It comes after a ­Crimewatch TV appeal resulted in new information coming to light. The source added: “They have been tasked with the painstaking job of going through every single detail the Portuguese police have already done, plus following up any new leads that have come in. They are looking into it with fresh eyes. New ­information has come in following Crimewatch but it is not known if any of it is linked to these searches.”

Police will dig two areas of land surrounding the Ocean Club’s Apartment 5A, where Madeleine vanished on May 3 2007, and an area on the nearby beach.

Saturday was the anniversary of the ­youngster’s disappearance and prayers were said for her at her village church in Rothley, Leics. Heart doctor Gerry, 45, told wellwishers: “The Met are going back out to Portugal very soon. They are chipping away and there is new evidence. We are going to continue hoping we get a happy outcome and one day we will know what’s happening.” Kate has admitted the pair could not be blinkered to “a worst case scenario” but they are said to have been buoyed by the new development. They previously raised concerns about the pace of progress in the new ­investigation after tensions were revealed between British and Portuguese investigators.

The Met had said they were confident of being able to start “operational activity” in Portugal soon but their hopes have so far failed to materialise. The latest news is a sign Portuguese ­detectives could be willing to grant full access to files and evidence their British ­counterparts on Operation Grange have been requesting for months. Sources say a team could be in place even by the end of the week to fly to Portugal to try to find what happened to Madeleine, whose 11th birthday is next Monday.

Kate, 46, said recently: “The passing of further weeks and months as a result of ­unnecessary delays and barriers are not only frustrating, they are distressing.

“Each day without Madeline and each day of not knowing is another day too many. I just want to know if she’s alive or dead.” The former GP told last week how she secretly returns to the resort to feel close to her daughter and “to walk those streets” and “look for answers”. But she has not been back since April last year.

Madeleine’s great uncle, Brian Kennedy, 75, said: “We would just like to know something, whatever news that may because not having any idea where Madeleine is, is so difficult.”
Police are trying to identify a serial sex beast who may have struck at least 18 times in Algarve resorts from 2004 to 2010, assaulting British girls as young as 10 as they slept in their beds. In some attacks he wearing a burgundy, long-sleeved top. It may have had a white circle on the back.

Around six weeks after Madeleine vanished, police unearthed a potential burial site in the village of village of Arao, nine miles from Praia da Luz following a tip-off from a Dutch newspaper. But the search found nothing and that part of the probe was dropped.

The McCann’s official spokesperson Clarence Mitchell last night refused to comment on the latest planned digs. Scotland Yard said: “We do not provide a running ­commentary on ongoing investigations.”



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No doubt that bit of ghoulery will send the McCann-haters into a frenzy of tick-tocking, and they will go to bed with sicko smiles on their faces.

Birch is bound to try to insert himself in this.

wonder if they are going to be digging up a certain dual nationality garden?

Possible, I guess rhodes.

reading between the lines, I think the police have possibly told the McCann's it's likely she won't be found alive. I can't even imagine the details the police will be privvy to in regards to some of the freaks they are looking at   

That is a distinct possibility rhodes, and it always was. Kate and Gerry want to find their child alive and we all can understand that as it's what we want that for them too.

more speculation from the Portuguese newspaper.

big true:

"Kate and Gerry want to find their child alive and we all can understand that as it's what we want that for them too."

“Police have assured Kate and Gerry that it does not mean they are specifically searching for her body. They are doing searches as much as to rule scenarios out as much as rule them in. They will be concentrating on several different places at different phases."

rhodes wrote:wonder if they are going to be digging up a certain dual nationality garden?

Just what I've been wondering, Rhodes.

A less-hysterical version of the story:

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/may/05/madeleine-mccann-portugal-forensics-excavations

Madeleine McCann: UK police travel to Portugal resort to oversee excavations
Report says forensics team plan to use radar equipment to look underground for clues to child's disappearance seven years ago

The search for missing child Madeleine McCann is set to enter a new phase as British police prepare to travel to Portugal to oversee excavations in the Portuguese resort where she went missing seven years ago, according to a report.

A team of forensic officers will use radar equipment to look underground for clues to her disappearance, according to a report in the Daily Mirror, which cited police sources.

The child's parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, were said to have been told of the plans to search three sites near the Praia da Lux resort but are not expected to go to Portugal.

Madeleine went missing from her family's rented holiday apartment in Praia da Luz on 3 May 2007, as her parents dined with friends at a nearby tapas bar.

A spokesman for the Metropolitan police said that the force would neither confirm nor deny the report. "We are not going to give a running commentary," he said. "From the beginning of Operation Grange [the UK-led hunt for Madeleine], we have made it clear that speculation has been unhelpful to the investigation and that continues to be the case.

"As we have said from the beginning, we will not be commenting on any speculation surrounding this investigation."

Police said last month that they knew of nine sexual assaults and three "near misses" on British girls between the ages of six and 12 who were on holiday in the Algarve between 2004 and 2006.

Scotland Yard began a review of the case in May 2011 – codenamed Operation Grange – and opened a formal investigation last July.

Five new cases in which young girls were assaulted and one near miss came to light as a result of an appeal in March for information about a lone predator entering rooms of British families on holiday.

The Met said more than 500 people came forward and its officers were cautiously optimistic that they would be soon be working on the ground with Portuguese authorities, who will remain in charge of the investigation despite hopes of a joint operation. Portuguese police last year reopened their investigation after discovering new lines of inquiry.

There is a £20,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of those responsible for Madeleine's disappearance. Anyone with information can call police on 0207 321 9251 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.

Predictably, the McCann-haters are in a frenzy of one-handed typing over this story - nothing turns them on more than speculating about children being dead.

This must be horrendous for the McCanns but it has to be done. They do deserve an end to this nightmare.

Indeed, Lily.

The Gonzo fan club is truly showing itself in its true ghoulish colours this morning.

They would be better employed considering the implications of Madeleine having been kidnapped and killed by some PDL pervert, and a police officer more keen to frame her parents than locate her, spare her poor parents years of false hope, and bring a criminal of the worst kind to justice.

None of which Gonzo did.

If it turns out that that is what, tragically, happened, then it's only going to add to the rumours that Amaral was covering up for someone local all along.

However, decent, normal people will carry on hoping for the best.

big true: "However, decent, normal people will carry on hoping for the best.", which is:

MADELEINE McCANN ALIVE, SAFELY FOUND, SAFELY RETURNED TO HER FAMILY.

Bonkers Birch gets in on the act.

Digging for Madeleine McCann
about an hour ago
NOTICE : This morning at 10am, Stephen D. Birch received a registered letter containing papers from Portugals Ministerio da Justica in which both the state and Robert James Queriol Eveleigh Murat and Jenifer Na Murat are suing Stephen for tresspassing and the state is suing Stephen for unlawfully conducting an investigation under article 57 & 58 section 2,3 and 4 of the penal act... (In July 2012, Stephen entered Robert Murats property and discovered what he believes to be Madeleine McCann remains buried beneath Roberts Murats rear gravel driveway)

Not convinced, personally, this seems like a good time for Murat to keep a very low profile...

Would agree with you there, Bonny. Not a good time for Murat but Bonkers is a big attention seeker. Time will tell on this.....

bb1 wrote:Indeed, Lily.

The Gonzo fan club is truly showing itself in its true ghoulish colours this morning.

They would be better employed considering the implications of Madeleine having been kidnapped and killed by some PDL pervert, and a police officer more keen to frame her parents than  locate her, spare her poor parents years of false hope, and bring a criminal of the worst kind to justice.

None of which Gonzo did.

If it turns out that that is what, tragically, happened, then it's only going to add to the rumours that Amaral was covering up for someone local all along.

However, decent, normal people will carry on hoping for the best.

That might be what happened. We don't know yet.

No matter what happens, the idiots will remain as such.

Joana Morais Murat's mother property was dully investigated and dug up by the proper authorities at the time, nothing was found. What Stephen did was illegal, he trespassed a private property of a 90 year old woman and had no right whatsoever to do what he did . I'm personally very happy to see that the Portuguese state is also suing him, even if it is in his absentia. It's high time charlatans and opportunists like Birch or Krügel stop using the the McCann case in their quest for fame and money.

She'd be the expert on charlatans exploiting the case for fame and money - she's one of the worst.

Bonkers Birch again looking for more publicity with his insanity.

I agree with: "personally, this seems like a good time for Murat to keep a very low profile..."

bb1 wrote:Joana Morais Murat's mother property was dully investigated and dug up by the proper authorities at the time, nothing was found. What Stephen did was illegal, he trespassed a private property of a 90 year old woman and had no right whatsoever to do what he did . I'm personally very happy to see that the Portuguese state is also suing him, even if it is in his absentia. It's high time charlatans and opportunists like Birch or Krügel stop using the the McCann case in their quest for fame and money.

She'd be the expert on charlatans exploiting the case for fame and money - she's one of the worst.

Her and Levy.   

Morais picks the oddest moments to come out from under her rock. She seems to appear every time something happens that makes her beloved Gonzo look even more like a lying, incompetent oaf.

Absolutely, Bonny. Then people like us cannot help but remember the sleaze bags he is connected to.....