Post by Admin on Nov 27, 2013 15:01:22 GMT
British and Portuguese police should join together as one team in their investigations into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner has said.
Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe said: "One thing we'd like to see in the future is a joint investigation team which comes under the European community. It is a possibility legally, and we're working together at a political level, and at a police and judicial level, to see how we can construct that.
"There are two separate inquiries with a different focus - we've got one particular set of lines of inquiry and they have a different one. But it's important that we work together on what is clearly a common problem. It's a formal arrangement, it allows officers from each country to work in the other country, it gives them powers associated with that, and it's an efficient way of doing it. If you're not careful, you end up doing things on an ad-hoc basis, and for us it would be better to have that type of arrangement. So that's what we're trying to get agreement between the two governments and the two police services."
Scotland Yard began a review of the case in May 2011 and opened a formal investigation in July this year
The senior investigating officer of the British inquiry, Det Ch Insp Andy Redwood, is due to provide an update on the programme on Thursday night. But BBC home affairs correspondent Danny Shaw said Det Ch Insp Redwood was not expected to release any major new information. In the appeal, detectives released two e-fits of a man seen carrying a child in Praia da Luz at 22:00 on the night Madeleine, from Rothley, Leicestershire, went missing.
Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe said: "One thing we'd like to see in the future is a joint investigation team which comes under the European community. It is a possibility legally, and we're working together at a political level, and at a police and judicial level, to see how we can construct that.
"There are two separate inquiries with a different focus - we've got one particular set of lines of inquiry and they have a different one. But it's important that we work together on what is clearly a common problem. It's a formal arrangement, it allows officers from each country to work in the other country, it gives them powers associated with that, and it's an efficient way of doing it. If you're not careful, you end up doing things on an ad-hoc basis, and for us it would be better to have that type of arrangement. So that's what we're trying to get agreement between the two governments and the two police services."
Scotland Yard began a review of the case in May 2011 and opened a formal investigation in July this year
The senior investigating officer of the British inquiry, Det Ch Insp Andy Redwood, is due to provide an update on the programme on Thursday night. But BBC home affairs correspondent Danny Shaw said Det Ch Insp Redwood was not expected to release any major new information. In the appeal, detectives released two e-fits of a man seen carrying a child in Praia da Luz at 22:00 on the night Madeleine, from Rothley, Leicestershire, went missing.
