Police chief: We have best chance of finding Maddy
SCOTLAND Yard detectives now have the “best chance” of solving the mystery of missing Madeleine McCann, Britain’s top policeman said yesterday.
Sir Bernard Hogan- Howe said it was possible she is alive and in the hands of child snatchers.
The Yard Commissioner was speaking after a blonde girl was found living with a gypsy family in Greece.
Sir Bernard said the discovery has no “direct impact” on the quest for Madeleine.
But he told Nick Ferrari on London radio station LBC 97.3: “It looks like there’s the possibility that there is, around the world, occasions when people steal children and keep them.
“I’m sure in one sense that’s what the McCanns must be hoping, that at least their child is alive.”
Sir Bernard, 55, told listeners to the phone- in show that officers investigating Madeleine’s disappearance must also consider the possibility the little girl is dead.
“Either way we want to try and end the torture that they are going through,” he said.
A special team of Scotland Yard detectives has been sifting through a mass of evidence for more than two years in an inquiry codenamed Operation Grange.
Last week, major televised appeals were broadcast in Britain, Holland and Germany focusing on e- fit images of the potential prime suspect for Madeleine’s kidnap in Portugal. The three programmes sparked a massive public response and police are now sifting through fresh leads from more than 3,000 calls, e- mails and text messages.
Several callers identified a dark- haired man in one e- fit using the same name.
Sir Bernard added: “We’ve got some definite lines of inquiry, we hope we can make some good progress and we’ve got our best chance by working together with the Portuguese.” The Commissioner said there was good co- operation between Scotland Yard and the authorities in Portugal and refused to criticise the Portuguese investigation.
He said: “Sometimes these things at the beginning can be very difficult to deal with, you don’t know exactly if the child just wandered off, are they just nearby, it can be very difficult to know whether you’ve got a very serious crime or just a child has gone missing.”
“I think what we’re determined to do is to work together to make sure that we’ve got the best chance now of trying to get to the bottom of this terrible tragedy.
“You have got a poor family there who have got the torture of not knowing whether their daughter is alive or not.”
Sir Bernard added: “I can’t be absolutely confident we will resolve it – 100 per cent, I am confident we’ve got some really good officers involved, we’ve made some really good progress on the lines of inquiry.
“But I think we’ve got a really good chance.”
Madeleine was three when she disappeared from the family holiday apartment in Praia da Luz in May 2007. A man was seen carrying a girl about Madeleine’s age towards the beach.
Scotland Yard is offering a £ 20,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of her kidnapper.
Madeleine ‘ may be in the hands of child- snatchers’