Firstly the speculation.
The Sun - this year's winner of the highly coveted MSM McCann case misinformation award: "Cops on the Madeline McCann probe have been given an extra £150,000 after telling the home office of a new line of inquiry. The funding came as speculation mounted that the investigation into the 2007 disappearance would be shelved."
Moonshine! True to form - The Sun are guessing. I can confirm - with 100% certainty - that The Home Office have told The Sun absolutely nothing of the sort. The figure they have come to is based upon previous funding, and is in no way something they have been told as fact.
The Portugal Resident ran with the headline: "Plug pulled on Maddie funding". Of late, Natasha Donn has thrown together some very bizarre articles with regards to the McCann case. Having written some excellent articles in the past, Natasha has recently started to join the copy and paste crew, with some rather disjointed reporting - taken from blogs and other newspapers. In today's article, she has quoted Correio da Manhã - Portugal's equivalent of The Sun: "...after seven years and over €13 million spent, the investigation by British authorities is approaching its end without producing any result”
Again, this is based upon total guesswork, CdM like The Sun, have no idea what is going on - proven by the fact that absolutely no announcement either confirming or denying that Operation Grange will continue, has been given to the press. Indeed CdM have a long history of printing absolute lies - an example of which when they reported David Payne was a suspect in the case. Four years on, and Payne has never been questioned since his rogatory statement in April 2008.
So to the facts that have been given to the press.
On the 5th September 2013 - shortly before the odious and reprehensible Tracey Kandohla made claims in the The Sun (claims that were in stark contrast to the report in the very same paper yesterday - that Operation Grange was to close), Baroness Williams of Trafford was asked "whether any request had been made by the Metropolitan Police Service to extend the funding for Operation Grange beyond the end of September 2018; and if so, by how much, over what further period, and for what purpose; and what has been the total spent on Operation Grange to date."
On the 13th, the Baroness replied...
"To date no request has been received from the Metropolitan Police Service to extend funding for Operation Grange beyond the end of September 2018. The total cost of Operation Grange is, to date, £11.6m."
Source
...and at the time, she was right.
Then on the 25th, in what was a clear response to the merry-go-round Kandohla had set in motion with her perpetual lies, The Home Office made an announcement:
"There has been media coverage of funding for Operation Grange, the Metropolitan Police Service’s (MPS) operation concerning the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.
Some of the recent coverage has suggested that funding for Operation Grange will expire on 30 September 2018, and that the MPS will be unable to continue the operation thereafter unless additional funds are provided.
We have received and are considering a request from the MPS to extend funding for Operation Grange until the end of March 2019.
Funding for Special Grant applications can be paid retrospectively for operational work already done in the same financial year. It is therefore incorrect to suggest that the MPS would have to discontinue its operational work after 30 September 2018 unless additional funds were provided in advance of this date."
https://homeofficemedia.blog.gov.uk/2018/09/25/home-office-in-the-media/
As things stand there isn't much more to add to that, except to say that today, members of the press have again contacted The Home Office, and have been told that they will neither confirm or deny that Operation Grange has been granted more cash, but that they will announce any figures at the end of the financial year in April.
I'm not going to pass an opinion on that, as it's clearly something that The Home Office don't want to happen.
However, to say Operation Grange is over, is a complete an utter fabrication, as it isn't. Just as it's a complete and utter fabrication to say Operation Grange is a "search for Maddie" with Scotland Yard backing up the view that Madeleine is alive, due to them applying for more money - as reported in The Mirror yesterday.
If The Mirror are so confident Scotland Yard believe Madeleine is alive, then perhaps they'd like to ask the detectives to explain why they took at least two cadaver dogs, and a team of forensic officers over to Portugal in 2014, as part of the investigation into her disappearance.
