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Post by Admin on Feb 13, 2014 22:44:29 GMT
Detectives investigating the disappearance of Madeleine McCann have issued a new request for help to the Portuguese authorities. The development came as a senior Scotland Yard officer said the “tempo” of the inquiry into the missing toddler was “moving forward.” Deputy Assistant Commissioner Martin Hewitt, who is overseeing the operation, said the Yard had sent a third international letter of request to Portuguese officials linked to their inquiries. He said: “Clearly the investigative tempo is moving forward as we are progressing the investigation and the work we are asking the Portuguese to undertake for us. We are carrying on our liaison at all levels.” Members of the inquiry team, including Detective Chief Inspector Andy Redwood, were in Portugal again today on a “routine visit” to meet counterparts from Portugal’s Policia Judiciaria. Madeleine was nearly four when she disappeared from her room in the Ocean Club complex in Praia da Luz where she was staying with her family in 2007. Scotland Yard launched a fresh investigation into the girl 's disappearance last July – two years into a review of the case – and made renewed appeals on television in the UK, the Netherlands and Germany. Detectives in the UK must submit International Letters of Request to their counterparts overseas in order to get action undertaken in a foreign country. Recent discussions between the two forces are believed to have centred on a burglary gang who had targeted homes in the resort at the time Madeleine vanished. Mobile phone records are said to have revealed that three suspected burglars repeatedly called each other in the hours after Madeleine disappeared. Mr Hewitt said so far the Yard had not asked the Portugese authorities to interview or arrest any suspects. Scotland Yard has played down speculation of imminent arrests in the case saying they are pursuing several lines of inquiry. Met officers have been to Portugal more than 20 times in the past 18 months. In October, Portuguese authorities said a review had uncovered information prompting them to reopen their own inquiry.
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Post by Admin on Feb 15, 2014 1:51:32 GMT
BRITISH police are closing in on three burglars identified as prime suspects in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. They are stepping up pressure on their Portuguese counterparts to help gather evidence against the gang. Detective Chief Inspector Andy Redwood, who is leading the UK hunt for Madeleine, was in Portugal last night discussing the next move with senior local officers. So far the process has been caught up in red tape, causing frustrating delays. It was revealed yesterday that Scotland Yard have sent a third letter to Portugal asking police there to make further inquiries. Metropolitan Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner Martin Hewitt revealed yesterday that the “tempo” of the Yard investigation was increasing. And he said further letters requesting more inquiries would now be fired off to Portugal “routinely” as the investigation gathers pace. “We sent a further detailed letter of request which went out from the Crown Prosecution Service on Friday,” he said. “There have been three letters so far. This is the process we are working with. Mr Hewitt admitted the letter sending, which started in July, created a delay but he said it was a judicial process the force had to stick to. “At the moment we are not in a formal joint investigation in a legal sense,” he said. “We are working with the Portuguese. They are doing the inquiries on our behalf.” Analysis of the three burglars’ mobiles showed they made an unusually high number of calls to each other in the hours that followed Madeleine’s disappearance.
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Post by Admin on Mar 23, 2014 13:58:43 GMT
SCOTLAND Yard’s hunt for Madeleine McCann is in jeopardy because of foot-dragging by Portuguese police who think they know who was responsible for her disappearance. High-ranking officers in Portugal are convinced African thief Euclides Monteiro took Madeleine and was responsible for sex attacks on five other British girls before being killed in a tractor accident in 2009. However, the frustrated Yard team believes there is insufficient evidence. One attack believed to be significant to the Madeleine inquiry took place the year after Monteiro died. The clash is threatening to stall the Yard probe at a crucial time, with detectives here having made 287 requests for leads to be pursued in Portugal. Last week Deputy Assistant Commissioner Martin Hewitt admitted he was “frustrated” with the pace of the investigation. The Yard is interested in Monteiro but pointedly declined to name him during a briefing for journalists last week when it made a fresh appeal for help from the public. The ex-junkie was sacked as a waiter at an Ocean Club restaurant in Praia da Luz for stealing a year before Madeleine vanished from a holiday apartment there in May 2007. Portuguese police have been interested in the volume of calls on his mobile phone on the night she vanished, which indicate he was near the scene. Yard officers want to know if he acted alone as a thief or was part of a wider, more sinister paedophile ring which could still pose a risk to British children holidaying on the Algarve. They also want to investigate possible links with burglars operating in Praia da Luz whom he was known to associate with. Last week the Yard revealed it was focusing on 12 “potentially” linked break-ins between 2004 and 2010 on the western Algarve. In four cases between 2004 and 2006 a man sexually assaulted five white girls aged between seven and 10 in their beds. Two were assaulted in one villa. Two break-ins occurred in Praia da Luz in 2006 and 2010 but children were not assaulted in those incidents. As Monteiro died in 2009 he could not have been responsible for the last break-in in 2010. In most of the 12 cases nothing was taken and there was no sign of forced entry, suggesting access to holiday apartment keys. All were within about an hour’s drive. The Yard said: “Witnesses describe the man as having dark, as in tanned, skin with short dark unkempt hair. He spoke English with a foreign accent. His voice was described as slow or possibly slurred.”
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Post by Admin on Mar 26, 2014 2:27:02 GMT
A British paedophile jailed in the UK for sick sex attacks on children was hiding out on the Algarve when Madeleine McCann vanished. David Reid fled his home and moved near Praia da Luz where she was snatched in 2007. One of Reid’s victims had warned the pervert would not be able to contain his sick urges if allowed anywhere near children and could strike again. The paedophile was hiding out on the Algarve at the time Madeleine McCann was snatched from Praia da Luz in 2007. He had fled his home in Northern Ireland in a bid to hide his sordid past after being jailed for sexually abusing a string of young girls and a boy. Speaking in 2006, one of his victims chillingly warned: “He’s a paedophile who will offend again. It’s part of his being. He’ll never change. “Get your kids and family away from him. Never put temptation in front of him. He just won’t be able to resist it.” Reid moved to the seaside resort of Carvoeiro, 30 miles from Praia da Luz, in 2004 after being freed from jail. The same year the sleepy town was targeted by a lone child sex attacker who broke into apartments belonging to British holidaymakers, often abusing young girls in their beds. Reid was completely unmonitored by the authorities while in Portugal because he was released from prison before the Sex Offenders’ Register was set up. Detective Chief Inspector Andy Redwood, who is spearheading the new UK police search for the missing youngster, said the sex attacks in Carvoeiro were at the “high end” in terms of seriousness. The officer added that the man they are hunting “has a very unhealthy interest in young, white girls who he attacks whilst they are on holiday in their beds”. Reid’s girl victims in the UK were white. The pervert died last year of cancer at the age of 61 or 62, according to locals in Carvoeiro – where he had been attacked in a bar after his sick past was exposed. In most of the cases, as with the Madeleine kidnap, there was no sign of a forced entry and nothing was taken. It is believed he could be on a list of 38 potential suspects currently being probed by British police. A Scotland Yard spokesman said: “No comment can be made on this ongoing investigation.” Vile Reid got three years in 1995 for indecent assault and gross indecency in Belfast. After fleeing to Carvoeiro, which is popular with British ex-pats, he took up casual bar work and became a singer. His lack of police monitoring meant he could roam the area without arousing suspicion. When a Mirror reporter recently questioned local police, an officer denied any knowledge of the sex attacker, despite him living just five minutes’ walk from their headquarters. But Reid’s history finally caught up with him in 2006 when news of his convictions broke amongst the ex-pats. He suddenly became an outcast, with only the regulars at one bar willing to mix with him.
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Post by Admin on Mar 27, 2014 5:47:07 GMT
A convicted British paedophile was living in the same area on the Portuguese coast at the time of Madeleine McCann's disappearance seven years ago, it has been revealed. David Reid moved to Carvoeiro on the Algarve in 2004, after he was released from prison for sexually abusing young girls. He was still living in the area in 2007, when three-year-old Maddie was snatched from her family's holiday apartment while her parents were having dinner nearby. The same year Reid arrived on the Algarve, several British families on holiday suffered break-ins and five young girls were abused in their beds. Chillingly, just months before Maddie McCann's disappearance, one of his victims had warned that Reid remained a threat to young girls and would offend again. Reid, who died last year, moved from Belfast to Portugal after he was released from prison where he had served time for sexually assaulting young girls and a boy According to locals in Carvoeiro, Reid died last year aged 61 or 62, but his family in Britain has not been informed of his death, The Mirror reports. The police investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann took a step forward last week when detective announced that they are looking for a prolific paedophile who sexually abused five girls at holiday homes in the Algarve before the British toddler went missing. The man, described as tanned, dark-haired and speaking English with an accent, is suspected of breaking into holiday properties where British families were staying and sexually abusing five white British girls aged between seven and ten, David Reid's apartment on the cliffs in Carvoeiro, just 30 miles from Praia da Luz where the McCanns holidayed in 2007 The sex attacks took place between 2004-2006, shortly before Madeleine vanished in 2007, and are among a series of 12 break-ins to holiday homes in the Algarve that police believe were committed by the same man. In six of the break-ins, the man sat on or got into bed with young girls. On one occasion, he abused two young girls in the same villa. Two of the attacks were in the resort of Praia da Luz, where Madeleine was staying in a holiday apartment with her family when she was taken. There were also four in Carvoeiro, where Reid was living, and six in the Vale da Parra, Praia da Gale district. Most of the attacks took place in low season, police said.
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