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. But parents Kate and Gerry McCann 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. (News of the World)
