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Post by Admin on Feb 13, 2015 16:58:15 GMT
 British police searching for missing Madeleine McCann spent £16,000 on 67 return flights to Portugal last year, helping the cost of the investigation to soar to nearly £9million. The trips, which cost more than £1,300 per month, came as the Met Police carried out the biggest ever search undertaken by a team of British police overseas, in a bid to find clues about the young girl's disappearance. In June, police flew to the Algarve to carry out forensic searches around Praia da Luz, focusing on scrubland a few hundred metres from the apartment block where Madeleine was last seen alive. But, despite an intensive eight-day search operation involving scores of officers carrying out ground excavations, police failed to find any clues. According to figures released under a Freedom of Information act request, officers and staff made 48 return flights in the nine months between January and October. A further 19 were made to the end of December. The cost for the flights was £15,945, an average of £238 per return flight. As well as flights for the search, the trips involved several journeys made by officers to liaise with the Portuguese authorities prior to the excavations.  And in December, detectives DCI Nicola Wall and DCI Andy Redwood also travelled to Faro Police Station to question 'key witnesses' in the case. The three days involved overseeing the questioning of four British people and seven Portuguese citizens. During the search, which was said to have been carried out to the ‘highest possible standards’, police combed an area of scrubland equal in size to around nine football pitches. This included checking water pipes, drainage channels and derelict buildings around the Ocean Club resort in Praia da Luz on the Algarve. Police also searched a horseshoe-shaped piece of waste ground that was specifically identified as an area of interest by the latest inquiry. In total, a Met spokesman said 41 ‘ground anomalies’ – areas where the earth had been disturbed – were discovered by aerial surveys and ground-penetrating radar equipment. These sites, which included three outside the original area, were then painstakingly checked by search teams. But they said no evidence relating to Madeleine McCann had been identified. Scotland Yard abandoned their search of land close to where Madeleine vanished in 2007, but said the multi-million-pound inquiry would continue. The Home Office, which has spent around £2m per year on the investigation since 2011, said this year's spend was likely to be 'broadly in line' with previous years. It means the bill is likely to top £9m. But despite the increased police activity in Portugal, other figures show the number of detectives on the investigation has reduced. There are also nine police support staff and four agency staff - all ex police officers - on the 34-strong team, which is led by Detective Chief Inspector Nicola Wall. Madeleine was just three when she went missing from her family's rented holiday apartment in the resort in May 2007, while her parents ate dinner nearby. There have been no positive sightings. Operation Grange, the special investigation unit into the young girl's disappearance, was set up in 2011 by David Cameron. He set a provisional budget for £5million for the investigation. In its first year, the unit cost close to £2million, with the vast majority of expenses attributed to police officer and staff pay. Between 2012 and 2013, the most expensive leg of the investigation to date, £2.8million was spent on transport, salaries, overtime and premises cost. The following year, through to 2014, the Home Office spent £2.6m. Kate and Gerry McCann, both 46, from Rothley, Leicester, have fought a tireless campaign to find their missing daughter since, regularly appealing to police to keep the investigation into her disappearance active. Portuguese police closed their investigation into her disappearance in 2008 and it took a further three years of campaigning by the McCanns to force the Scotland Yard investigation. Months after the three-year-old vanished, Leicestershire Constabulary was awarded two grants by the Home Office to help fund their efforts. |
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Post by Admin on Feb 15, 2015 13:49:33 GMT
 A sick pensioner claimed he only trawled through hundreds of vile child porn images because he was looking for Madeleine McCann. Police caught David Brinkman, 68, with 694 indecent pictures and 88 video clips of children, the Daily Record reports. The former engineer had shared images with paedophiles, and also had 46 extreme pictures and 19 videos involving adult women and dogs. But he insisted he was not a pervert – and had only collected the paedophile material because he was on a “crusade” to find Madeleine.  He was convinced the tot, who vanished from her family’s holiday home in Portugal in 2007, was the prisoner of a paedophile ring. And as a result, he became “immersed” in looking at child pornography. Mr Monro said Brinkman hoped to spot Madeleine in one of the pictures and videos he hoarded, and believed he would recognise her because of a distinctive defect in her eye. The lawyer told Aberdeen Sheriff Court: “He finds it sickening to look at these things but he thought his crusade was such that he had to go through it.”  Police seized a copy of Kate’s book from Brinkman’s Aberdeen home as well as his stash of child and adult pornography. Brinkman pled guilty last month to possessing the child porn, collected between April 2013 and January 2014, and to hoarding the extreme pornography involving women and dogs. But Sheriff Graeme Napier yesterday said he needed a report from a psychologist before he passed sentence. He said he wanted the report for two reasons – “to explain what appears to be an obsession” and to “provide me with an insight to the risk you pose, if any, to children”. Sheriff Napier told Brinkman: “You’re not an obvious and immediate risk to members of the public. But that does not mean that there could not be the possibility of a custodial sentence.” |
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Post by Admin on Mar 12, 2015 13:13:02 GMT
A father reunited with his kidnapped daughter after 17 years in South Africa has sent a message to the parents of missing Madeleine McCann parents telling them never to give up hope. The girl - named as Zephany - was snatched from her mother’s bedside in a Cape Town hospital at just three days old. But her father, Morne Nurse, told how they had never given up hope their daughter was alive, and researched the case of missing Madeleine, who vanished from her parents’ holiday villa in Portugal’s Praia da Luz, a few days short of her fourth birthday in 2007.  Mr Nurse said in Cape Town: “I’m trying to get a hold of (Maddie’s) mother. What we want to tell them is, never give up.” “ The girl’s biological mother, Celeste Nurse, said: “All they have to do is just believe and pray and have hope.” The two parents found their daughter last month, after their second daughter befriended a girl at school who looked remarkably like her. But by a miracle her new pal turned out to be her big sister who was kidnapped in 1997.  The girl's biological mother, Celeste Nurse, said "All they have to do is just believe and pray and have hope." The Nurses found their daughter last month, after their second daughter befriended a girl at school who looked remarkably like her. That friend turned out to be her big sister who was kidnapped in 1997. The girl, not named because she is a minor, was taken from her mother's bedside in a Cape Town hospital at just three days old. Celeste and Morne Nurse kept their daughter's memory alive, celebrating her birthday every year. Their three younger children blew out the candles on the birthday cake of a sister they had never met.  Police officer Mike Barkhuizen also refused to let the case go. He told the Beeld newspaper that he had been looking for the girl for the past five years, and knew the moment's he saw the teenager, that she was the baby kidnapped all those years ago. In 2013, British police reopened an investigation into the girl's disappearance, believing that she was still alive, after they discovered new leads. In the years following the South African kidnapping, Morne and Celeste Nurse were tormented by stories of children found murdered or trafficked to foreign countries. "That killed us," said Morne, but they said they always felt their first child was alive. Their marriage, however, took strain and the Nurses are now separated. |
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Post by Admin on Mar 19, 2015 13:42:53 GMT
 As 31 detectives continue to work exclusively on the disappearance of Madeleine - who vanished eight years ago in Portugal - officers in the capital are battling terrorism and a wave of murders. They have also been left facing £600 million worth of cuts, as well as the closure of 63 police stations in London. The Metropolitan Police were assigned to investigate the case of Madeleine four years ago after her parents - Kate, 47, and Gerry, 46 - appealed to Prime Minister David Cameron. The mystery has since remained unsolved with zero arrests - despite dozens of police trips from the UK to Portugal - and the original probe officer Detective Chief Inspector Andy Redwood having retired. But the inquiry - which has so far cost around £10 million - is continuing and other officers are now baffled as to why the 31 Operation Grange detectives are barred from helping to ease their workload. This is reportedly because the Madeleine McCann inquiry has been "ring-fenced" to prevent officers involved working on other cases.  Police union chiefs have now called for the probe to be shelved, as well as for Operation Grange detectives to be deployed on other cases in the capital. Metropolitan Police Federation chairman John Tully told the Daily Star: "It is time to re-focus on what we need to do to keep London safe. "We no longer have the resources to conduct specialist inquiries all over the world which have nothing to do with London. The Met has long been seen as the last resort for investigations others have struggled with elsewhere. "But we have made £600m of cuts. We have closed 63 police stations across London. Another £800m of cutbacks are anticipated over the next four years. It is surprising to see an inquiry like the McCann investigation ring-fenced. I have heard a few rumblings of discontent about it from lots of sources. When the force is facing a spike in murder investigations it is not surprising there is resentment of significant resources diverted to a case that has no apparent connection with London." |
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Post by Admin on Mar 21, 2015 11:50:43 GMT
 For the Sky News television crew it was the “fronting-up” necessary to conclude a journalistic investigation. For Brenda Leyland, it was the beginning of a public exposure for distasteful conduct which she could not endure. The mother-of-two had for at least four years been posting anonymous tweets about the disappearance of Madeleine McCann and for much of that time that the messages had included abuse targeted at the missing child’s parents. On 30 September last year, Mrs Leyland’s behaviour, which had seen her sending up to 50 “trolling” Twitter messages a day, caught up with her when she was confronted by Sky News’ crime correspondent Martin Brunt at her Leicestershire home. Mrs Leyland, 63, a divorcee with a history of mental illness, initially appeared defiant, telling Mr Brunt she was “entitled” to use her Twitter account to attack Gerry and Kate McCann. She later told Mr Brunt she had thought of “ending it all” as a result of her exposure. The precise role of the mother-of-two’s public outing as a Twitter troll in a subsequent Sky News report in what happened next cannot be known. But four days after she was doorstepped by the camera crew her body was found in a room in a nearby Marriott Hotel.  In a statement read to the inquest, her younger son Ben said: “My mother had always struggled with depression and was prone to anxiety and physical health issues she had been told were effectively untreatable. There is no doubt in my mind that the Sky News interview was the final straw that pushed her do what she died.” A coroner today ruled that Mrs Leyland had taken her own life by taking an overdose. Catherine Mason, the Coroner for South Leicestershire, said Mrs Leyland had been “recently upset by public exposure in the media” but there had been a number of issues surrounding her death. The coroner added: “I am satisfied that no-one could have known what she was going to do and how she was going to do it.”  The hearing was told that the Sky News team had approached Mrs Leyland twice on 30 September last year after Mr Brunt was passed a dossier containing evidence that she was one of a number of trolls targeting the McCanns with unpleasant messages arising from the disappearance of Madeleine in 2007. In the ten months leading up to her death, Mrs Leyland, from Burton Overy, Leicestershire, sent 400 tweets relating to the couple. One message attributed to her @sweepyface account read: “Q ‘how long must the Mccanns suffer’ answer ‘for the rest of their miserable lives’.”  Mr Brunt approached her after she emerged from her house to get into a waiting car. The journalist said: “I was rather surprised that she did speak to me and did engage with me. The first question was ‘Why are you using your Twitter account to attack the McCanns?’ She didn’t say much but she did say ‘I am entitled to’.” The inquest heard that Ms Leyland declined the offer a more considered interview later that day, insisting that her actions were not unlawful. She then contacted Mr Brunt the following day after he had given her his number and asked her to call if she had any concerns. The journalist said he had explained his plans for his report to her, which showed her face but did not name her or identify her village.  Asked if there was anything in Ms Leyland’s voice which gave rise to “real and immediate” concern for her life, he replied: “No, but when I asked her how she was , she said ‘Oh I have thought about ending it all but I am feeling better - I have had a drink and spoken to my son’.” Sky News said it had pursued the story which it considered to be in the public interest in a “responsible manner”. A spokesman for the channel said: “Brenda Leyland’s tragic death highlights the unforeseeable human impact that the stories we pursue can have, and Sky News would like to extend its sincere condolences to her family.” |
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