Scrubland search for Madeleine called off

The father of Madeleine McCann today condemned a Dutch newspaper as 'insensitive and cruel' after it published a letter claiming to identify the spot where his daughter was buried. The scrubland search for Madeleine was been called off, following no trace of the four-year-old. Police officers searched the area after Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf published an anonymous letter, purporting to contain the location of the girl's body. Gerry McCann said he was upset by De Telegraaf publishing the letter, saying it should have been passed on to Portuguese police before publication. However, nothing was found and Portuguese police said today there were "no further plans" to revisit the area. The letter received by the newspaper contained a claim that Madeleine's body could be found "under branches or stones" nine miles from the Algarve resort where she disappeared from her bedroom on May 3. Seven police officers searched the area mentioned in the letter, near the town of Odiaxere, on Wednesday.

"For now, we have no concrete plans to enter the terrain again," police chief inspector Olegario de Sousa. (Daily Mail)


The letter appears therefore to be a hoax. But the questions which now need to be answered are ... 'who permitted this letter to be taken seriously?' 'Who made the decision to let the media run with this story' and put the McCann's through unnecessary heartache? and more importantly why?