Following on from concerns raised last month that Operation Grange “may have been wound up a long time ago”, campaigners for ‘a wider remit’ in the probe into what happened to Madeleine McCann have flagged new signs that Metropolitan Police may have dropped their inquiries altogether.
An Australian journalist who has produced a series of podcasts on the mystery has spoken to a purported DNA expert in the United States who has offered to retest results “using modern technology that wasn’t available” at the time Madeleine went missing.
The expert has stressed that he does not require payment for the testing.
But when journalist Mark Saunokonoko telephoned Scotland Yard with the offer he was met with a stone wall.
“It’s not that they have said they are not interested”, said a source. “It’s that they have simply not even returned his calls.
“He has been told by the switchboard meantime that there is no one available to answer the phone.
“What on earth are Grange doing for their €12 million, if they can’t answer the phone or follow up on important information from a DNA expert? Quite frankly it’s shocking.”
Veteran campaigner – often dismissed by mainstream papers as a conspiracy theorist – Jill Havern, formerly attached to RAF military police at USAFE, Alconbury airbase in the UK, has written to Grange informing them of Mark Saunokonoko’s relevant podcast (click here), but has also received no reply.
She is pushing now for a reaction from Portugal’s PJ police as she suggests they “still hold supremacy over this case”.
But as to Grange and its perceived lack of interest, Havern believes it simply compounds the theory that the investigation has stopped in everything but name only (click here).
UPDATE SUNDAY
By coincidence, the Daily Mail this weekend has carried a story which is being widely repeated elsewhere to the effect that Metropolitan Police could be about to abandon the Maddie inquiry because detectives have turned up no new leads or suspects “after spending eight years and £12 million on the investigation, with money running out”.
The recent request by Grange for a new £300,000 tranche of funding has not, apparently, received an answer either way yet.
