British police continue Madeleine search
British police investigating the disappearance of Madeleine McCann in Portugal are continuing their investigations close to where the youngster vanished seven years ago.
A large area of scrubland in Praia da Luz on the Algarve, where three-year-old Madeleine disappeared in May 2007, has been cordoned off in preparation for an intensive search of the site.
The hilly area is being guarded day and night by armed local police with dogs, with officers expected to use ground-penetrating radar equipment to probe the ground, looking for disturbed earth. The land, which is a few minutes’ walk from the Ocean Club resort apartment where Madeleine was staying with her family, has been searched before.
Scotland Yard, which is carrying out its own investigation into what happened to the youngster, refused to comment on reports that British officers were at the scene and said the force was “not prepared to give a running commentary” about the case.
The apparent development came two weeks after Metropolitan Police assistant commissioner Mark Rowley said officers were working through every credible line of inquiry in the search for the missing girl. He said: “In the forthcoming weeks we are going to be going to a substantial phase of operational activity on the ground in Portugal.
“It’s something that you would expect in any major inquiry. A thorough serious crime investigation works systematically through all the credible possibilities, and often in an investigation you will have more than one credible possibility. Therefore, just because we’re doing a substantial phase of work in the forthcoming week doesn’t mean that it’s going to immediately lead to answers that will explain everything.”
Portuguese police have also reopened their inquiry into Madeleine’s disappearance and while they are working with the UK force, they have refused to set up an official joint investigation.
One line of inquiry for Scotland Yard is a lone male paedophile who staged a series of sex attacks on young British girls while they were on holiday in the Algarve. They are looking at nine sexual assaults and three “near misses” on British girls aged six to 12 between 2004 and 2006, including one in 2005 on a 10-year-old girl in Praia da Luz, where Madeleine vanished two years later.
Hundreds of people have already made contact with police in response to appeals for help to find the attacker.
