MADDIE: PARENTS KEPT INFO FROM COPS
Shock claims on 10th anniversary
MADELEINE McCann’s parents withheld information from police that had been gathered by private investigators hunting for her, says a Home Office report.
The couple believed their treatment by Portuguese police was “inhumane”.
MADELEINE McCann’s parents withheld details gathered by private investigators hunting their daughter from police, according to a leaked Home Office report.
The couple did not trust detectives handling the case after they were declared suspects four months after the then-three-year-old vanished from their Portuguese holiday apartment in 2007.
Though the couple’s “arguido” status was lifted in 2008 and the case archived as unsolved, the McCanns withheld details unearthed by their private eyes from both them and their local Leicestershire force, the report states.
The study, ordered by former Home Secretary Alan Johnson, stated: “The McCanns and private investigators working on their behalf have gathered information during enquiries. This does not appear to have been shared fully with the Leicestershire constabulary or Portuguese authorities.”
Mystery
The report said the McCanns, from Rothley, Leics, felt there was a “lack of clarity on the part of the Portuguese police”.
The McCanns continued to use private eyes for three years until Scotland Yard launched a review in 2011.
The Met later launched Operation Grange which, as we revealed yesterday, identified a mystery “woman in purple”, seen near the McCanns’ apartment 90 minutes before she disappeared, as a prime suspect.
Last night the McCanns’ spokesman Clarence Mitchell said “much has moved on since then”.
Dave Edgar, 60, one of several private eyes hired by the McCanns, told the Daily Star he had handed over all his findings to police.
The McCanns will today mark the 10th anniversary of Maddie’s disappearance.
Both Leicestershire and the Met Police declined to comment on the report. Noone from Portugal’s Policia Judiciaria was available. A flower garden in tribute to 140,000 children a year who go missing in Britain has been opened on the eve of Madeleine’s disappearance at Chiswick House, west London.