The investigation into the Madeleine McCann disappearance has received more funding from the UK government, meaning it will stretch on until at least March next year.
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In the evening of May 3, 2007, the 3-year-old was abducted from her bed at a holiday apartment complex in Praia da Luz, a resort village in the Algarve region of Portugal. She had been left in her room with her then two-year-old twin siblings Sean and Amelie, while her parents, Gerry and Kate McCann, dined with friends at the complex’s tapas restaurant.
Madeleine was never seen again.
The UK’s Metropolitan Police launched their own review — named Operation Grange — in 2011 after the initial Portuguese investigation failed to turn up any real leads. Operation Grange originally consisted of 29 detectives and eight civilians, which has since been scaled back to just four detectives as of 2015.
The squad assigned to the case have been applying every 6 months for more funding.
According to BBC News, The Met this week received £150,000 (around AUD$270,000) to fund the inquiry up until March 31, 2019, with Operation Grange costing around £11.75m (over AUD$21.1m) to date.
The outlet reports that as of last year, 40,000 documents had been reviewed and more than 600 individuals had been investigated. With 2017 marking the 10-year anniversary of Madeleine’s disappearance, Met Police Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley said in a public statement:
I know we have a significant line of inquiry which is worth pursuing, and because it’s worth pursuing it could provide an answer, but until we’ve gone through it I won’t know whether we are going to get there or not.
The latest injection of funds comes after a period of uncertainty, with 9 News reporting that the UK Home office had “noticeably deviated from its usual routine by making no firm commitment as to whether they would provide further tax payer funds to Operation Grange.”
Madeleine would be 15 years old as of May 12 this year.
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