Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
MADDIE CASH PLEA
Scotland Yard request to Home Office to keep probe going
DETECTIVES investigating the disappearance of Madeleine Mccann have asked for more funding.
Scotland Yard applied to the Home Office on Tuesday for extra cash to extend Operation Grange for another six months.
Madeleine vanished from her parents’ holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal, aged three, in 2007. A probe by Portuguese police ended in 2008.
Scotland Yard launched Operation Grange in 2011 and nearly £12million has been spent. The Government granted the Met an extra £154,000 in March to extend it for a further six months.
The Home Office said: “We... are considering a request to SCHOOLCHILDREN escaped injury after a brick was thrown through the back window of their bus, it emerged yesterday.
Pupils from the Belfast Boys’ Model School and Belfast Model School for Girls, in North Belfast, were left shaken when their bus was targeted on the Oldpark Road.
It is understood the incident happened on Monday afternoon.
One mum said she is now having to send her two sons to school in a taxi as extend funding for Operation Grange until the end of March 2019.” But it denied reports the probe would end this month if funding is not granted. Parents Kate and Gerry, both 50, of Rothley, Leics, said earlier this month that “the search will go on” regardless. they are afraid to get the bus again. The unnamed parent addded: “We pay for that coach otherwise the boys would have to get two separate buses home.
“It is put on by the school and we pay £10 a week for each of them. But now my boys are now afraid to get on.
“It is awful you get things like this happening, it is stupid. You like to think your children are safe going to and from school.”
A PSNI spokesman said: “There were no reports of injuries and enquiries into this incident are ongoing.”