STILL SEARCHING
Why is the Madeleine McCann case famous, how much money has been spent on finding her and is the investigation still open?
THE disappearance of three-year-old Madeleine McCann is a case which shocked the world.
The little girl vanished from her holiday flat in Portugal on May 3, 2007 while her parents Kate and Gerry McCann dined in a nearby restaurant and 12 years on her whereabouts remains a mystery.
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Why is the case famous?
In the Netflix documentary The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann, it is claimed that parents Kate and Gerry, who are both doctors, had contacts within the UK media and used them to publicise the case.
However, interest in the story took on an unprecedented momentum when British man Robert Murat and then Kate and Gerry were made suspects.
Maddie’s parents and Mr Murat have always strongly denied any involvement in the child’s disappearance and were cleared of any wrongdoing by Portuguese investigators.
The little girl, who would now be aged 16, has never been found and interest in the case remains strong.
However, Kate and Gerry have said that the latest images of Maddie's age progression are bogus.
They are warning the new fake images were neither "commissioned nor endorsed" by them or Scotland Yard’s Operation Grange team.
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How much money has been spent on the investigation?
The Metropolitan Police launched a probe into the case in 2011 – after Portuguese cops failed to make any progress.
So far £11.75 million has been spent on the investigation by UK authorities.
The last piece of funding for the probe, £150,000, was awarded in November, 2018, and was set to run out on March 31, 2019.
On May 2, Commissioner Cressida Dick confirmed the Metropolitan Police had applied for more Home Office funding.
She said: "We have active lines of inquiries and I think the public would expect us to see those through.
"A very small team continues to work on this case with Portuguese colleagues and we have put in an application to the Home Office for further funding."
On June 5, it was believed an additional £300,000 of funding was granted to continue the probe for another year.
A German paedophile Martin Ney, 48, emerged as a key suspect in May 2019.
He was jailed for life in 2012 for abducting and murdering three children and sexually abusing dozens more.
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It is believed he was in Portugal when Maddie went missing.
Goncalo Amaral, the Portuguese cop who first led the hunt for Madeleine, revealed last week that police were probing a “German paedophile who is in prison”.
Ney was working for an evangelical church on a project for the homeless in Portugal when Madeleine disappeared, it's claimed.
Ney also looks like a photofit of a man, who was seen acting suspiciously before Madeleine vanished from her Portuguese holiday apartment 12 years ago.
Is the investigation still open?
The probe, named Operation Grange, is still open and involves dozens of police officers and other staff members from Scotland Yard.
Who are Kate and Gerry McCann?
Madeleine's parents Kate and Gerry are both practising Catholics who met in Glasgow in 1993.
Kate became a GP after studying medicine at the University of Dundee while Gerry has been a consultant cardiologist since 2005.
The couple got married in 1998 before having their first child, Madeleine, in 2003.
They also have two other twin children, a boy and a girl, who were born in 2005.
Kate and Gerry had been married for nine years when Madeleine disappeared on the night of May 3, 2007.
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Madeleine McCann - Astonishing amount of reported Maddie 'sightings' thousands of miles apart
Are Kate and Gerry still together?
Shortly after Madeleine vanished, Kate said their marriage nearly broke down as she withdrew into herself.
She stopped reading, playing music or even having sex with her husband Gerry.
And the couple were gripped by the fear that a paedophile may have taken their daughter.
Writing about that period in her autobiography, Kate said: "Tortured as I was by these images, it's not surprising that even the thought of sex repulsed me.
"I worried about Gerry and me.
"I worried that if I didn't get our sex life on track our whole relationship would break down."
Kate went on to credit Gerry's understanding and the couple's resilience for the endurance of their marriage.
They remain together to this day, despite the stresses of intense media scrutiny on their lives.
Why did they become the centre of scrutiny?
When three-year-old Maddie vanished from the family's Pria da Luz holiday apartment on the Algarve, Gerry and Kate were dining with friends in a nearby restaurant.
Within 24 hours of their child's disappearance, they held a press conference to make the first in a string of public appeals to help find Madeleine.
In the intervening years, the couple have constantly kept the search alive for their daughter.
Over the course of the investigation, they have both been considered "persons of interest".
A new Netflix documentary called The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann is currently drawing the couple back into public attention, despite their refusal to be involved in or with the film.
What are the latest developments in the hunt for Maddie?
There have been more than 8,000 potential sightings of the Brit three-year-old since her disappearance, but police have so far failed to locate her.
Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley said there are "significant investigative avenues" that are of "great interest" to both the UK and Portuguese teams pursuing the case.
Met cops believe she was stolen by child traffickers or sex fiends, or during a burglary gone wrong.
Meanwhile, cops are now hunting a "person of significance" in a shock new development.
A source close to Scotland Yard's search Operation Grange said the person is now a "critical line of inquiry" in the £12million investigation, according to The Times.
And a former Met police chief has called for a fresh interview with Maddie's parents and the Tapas Seven - who have never been quizzed by British cops.
Cops moved the search to Bulgaria as they tried to find a "woman in purple" they wanted to speak to.
On May 3, 2019, it emerged that Portuguese police were hunting a sex fiend who speaks English and wears a surgical mask in relation to Maddie's suspected kidnapping.
In one of his previous cases, he broke into a British family's home and loomed over a seven-year-old girl who woke up and asked "Is that you Daddy?" and he replied "Yes" in a foreign accent, author Anthony Summers said in the Netflix doc.
Detectives have discovered a creep carried out nearly 30 attacks within a 40-mile radius of the holiday apartment in Praia da Luz where Maddie vanished from 12 years ago today.
He crept into Algarve properties rented by families and many victims were British.
More on Maddie McCann
And a judicial source is reported to have confirmed the unnamed man was definitely in Portugal at the time the three-year-old suddenly disappeared.
And the insider also alleged he was KNOWN to local cops and had previously been investigated on suspicion of involvement in paedophile cases.
A chilling reconstruction features in the final episode of Netflix's recently released eight-part documentary The Disappearance Of Madeleine McCann.
Paedo gang 'may have stolen Maddie on order from Belgian crime network'
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