Latest Madeleine McCann search fund boost could be £150,000 of taxpayers’ cash and is being kept secret
THE Government has approved a fresh cash grant for the Madeleine McCann search fund - but the amount is being kept secret amid fears of a public backlash.
Scotland Yard has applied for the funding, which is believed to be as much as £150,000 - the equivalent of four London Police officers - as the hunt for the missing youngster continues.
As Home Office cuts to police are being linked to the increase of violent crime across the capital, ex-detectives and taxpayers’ are questioning why a seven-year investigation into the missing girl is still ongoing.
Home Secretary Amber Rudd is understood to have blocked the amount earmarked for Operation Grange being revealed.
This came after a document leaked from her department last week linked cuts to policing with a rise in stabbings, shootings and acid attacks.
Madeleine's parents Kate and Gerry McCann face the painful 11th anniversary of their daughter’s disappearance in just over a fortnight.
The three-year-old vanished from a Portuguese holiday apartment in May 2007 while her parents were dining with pals in a nearby tapas restaurant.
She had been left sleeping alone with her younger twin siblings.
A Home Office spokesperson said: “We are not publicising the figure applied for by the Metropolitan Police and the amount given this time.
“There is a lot of sensitivity surrounding this case and it is a challenging time for the Government.
“We remain committed to the investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine and advised the MPS last month that an application for Special Grant funding is being granted.”
A Scotland Yard spokesperson said: “You couldn’t get a more emotive case than this and there is still work left to do.
"We asked for more funding for a final line of inquiry that is still being investigated.
";We can never say how close we really are for operational reasons, which could alert a suspect we are closing in.
“But a request for more money would never have been made if there was nothing left to chase.
“We are grateful to the Home Office for approving our special grant request but we are not divulging how much we have been given.”
The police are also declining to say if the “final line of inquiry” is the same lead they have been chasing for the past three years and if any arrests are imminent.
Former GP Kate, 50, and heart doctor Gerry, 49, of Rothley, Leics, are kept informed by police of any slightest development.
They believe Madeleine - who would now be 14 nearly 15 - could still be alive.
Family spokesperson Clarence Mitchell said today: “They have been told not to discuss any work detectives are carrying out but there are told on a regular basis what is happening.”
The Operation Grange inquiry, launched in May 2011, has so far cost the taxpayer nearly £11.5 million.
The past six months’ funding of £154,000 ran out two weeks ago.
Mr Mitchell said: “They are very encouraged that police still believe there is work left to be done and they are incredibly grateful to the Home Office for providing an extra budget for the investigation.
“It gives them hope that one day they may finally find out what happened to their daughter.”
The Sun Online recently told how Madeline's parents had defended the new cash boost to help find their daughter and urged critics who say she’ll never be found to “stop being armchair detectives”.
Kate and Gerry hit back after a top ex-cop said solving the Madeleine riddle was “almost impossible” and the parents of two missing children slammed the Government for handing over more money for the high-profile hunt.
A close pal of the couple said: “Kate and Gerry do not feel their daughter’s case should be given any more priority than any other missing child but there is an active police investigation ongoing and officers still feel there is important work left to be done.
“It’s not helpful and is very hurtful for retired police officers and in the past so called crime experts and other families to say the investigation should be wound up and is a waste of public money.
“Kate and Gerry believe there is a chance their daughter could still be found alive, as detectives do.
“They have enough to deal with and don’t need people with no idea about the case being armchair detectives and hopes the criticism stops.
“It undermines the work of one of the best police forces in the world.”
Former detective Colin Sutton, who turned down the chance of leading the missing Madeleine inquiry, believes she is dead and her body buried in one of many ancient wells near Praia da Luz, Portugal, from where she vanished in May 2007.
He told an Australian documentary that investigators faced a “thankless task” and insisted: “It’s almost impossible without specific intelligence that would allow you to focus on a specific area.”
The McCann’s were also criticised by the parents of two missing kids.
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Ben Needham's mum said on TV’s Loose Women that his missing persons case had not received the same “magnitude” of support as Madeleine's parents.
Kerry, 43, from South Yorks, whose son disappeared during a family holiday to the Greek island of Kos in 1991, said: "I’m not taking anything away from it at all – she deserves to be found but so does Ben and we haven’t had a fraction of that help. It hurts."
Dad Paul Whinham whose son has been missing for over two years also hit out, saying: “There’s people like me all over the country being told there’s no more the police can do and yet this one case gets all the money and attention.
"If that’s not preferential treatment, I don’t know what is.”
Paul from Wallsend, Tyneside, whose son Michael disappeared from his home in Newcastle in November 2015, aged 31 has written a letter of complaint to the PM.
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