The police breakthrough that gives family heart

THE McCanns are taking heart from the real progress made by Scotland Yard detectives investigating Madeleine’s disappearance.

Officers revealed last week that they are chasing a crucial lead that could solve the case.

Although neither police nor the couple will discuss the ‘significant line of inquiry’, it is understood to centre on the theory that burglars were involved. Gerry says: ‘No parent is going to give up on their child unless they know for certain their child is dead, and we just don’t have any evidence.’

Kate adds: ‘It might not be as quick as we want, but there’s real progress being made and I think that we need to take heart from that.

‘We just have to go with the process and follow it through – whatever it takes for as long as it takes. There is still hope that we can find Madeleine.’ Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley described the latest lead as of ‘great interest’ and ‘worth pursuing’.

He added: ‘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.

‘We’ve got some critical lines of inquiry – those link to particular hypotheses – but I’m not going to discuss them because it is

very much a live investigation.’ Mr Rowley described the idea of a burglary gone wrong as a sensible hypothesis. But he admitted: ‘We don’t have evidence telling us if Madeleine is alive or dead.

‘It is a missing person’s inquiry, but as a team we are realistic about what we might be dealing with – especially as months turn to years.’

Kate and Gerry were dining with friends at a tapas restaurant in 2007 when their daughter went missing from their holiday apartment in Portugal.

The Scotland Yard investigation was ordered in 2013 by then British prime minister David Cameron. Initially a team of up to 30 officers sifted through 40,000 documents and looked at more than 600 individuals following a review that began two years earlier. But the team has now been reduced to four.