PAA ‘critical’ new development has unfolded in the investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.
According to reports, police are said to be hunting a ‘person of significance’.
A source close to Scotland Yard’s six year search, Operation Grange, said the person is now a ‘critical line of inquiry’ in their £12million investigation.
PAAccording to The Sunday Times, the source continues:
It is as much to rule out the person out of the inquiry as anything else.
Madeleine vanished in May 2007, while on holiday with her family in Praia de Luz, in Portugal.
Madeline, at just three-years-old, was left sleeping in an apartment with her two siblings after her parents went for dinner nearby with a group of friends.
GettyKate and Gerry McCann, Madeline’s parents, have vowed ever since to never give up on trying to find their daughter.
Madeline would now be 14-years-old.
Mother Kate said:
We will go on, try our hardest, never give up and make the best of the life we have.
The latest development comes just days after police received £154,000 to keep the investigation going.
GettyThe extra cash injection means the the search for Madeline will be able to continue into March next year.
Kate and Gerry’s spokesman, Clarence Mitchell said:
[The couple are] extremely thankful to both the Home Office and Scotland Yard for the continued funding.
Operation Grange was launched in 2011 after the Portuguese-led investigation was shelved in 2008.
GettySince Madeline’s disappearance, there have been more than 8,000 potential sightings of her.
The one regarded as most serious was back in 2008 in Amsterdam, where shopkeeper Anna Maria Stam told police, a three or four-year-old girl who resembled Madeleine, told her she was with a ‘stranger’ who had taken her ‘away from mummy’.
According to the Telegraph, Madeline’s parents were only told of the sighting a year later, with their spokesman saying:
If it was Madeleine, it was a disgrace that it was not passed on. We need to know what happened with this.
PAIt’s been 10 years since Madeline’s disappearance. Let’s hope she’s eventually found.
