POLICE have been given more cash to continue their probe into Madeleine McCann’s disappearance — taking the total to well beyond £12million.
The latest Home Office grant to the Met’s Operation Grange is believed to be around £350,000 and will cover work on the inquiry until the end of March 2021.
The extra cash suggests the international probe into prime suspect Christian B. will continue for at least another six months, experts say.
The Home Office declined to specify the amount of the grant, but said: “Ministers have agreed funding up to March 31, 2021. The cost of Operation Grange was £12million to the end of the 2019-20 financial year.”
Former Met detective chief inspector Mick Neville said: “The sum of £12million seems an awful lot of money. But if she has been murdered, her killer must be brought to justice. Any parent would want the same if it was their child.”
Madeleine was three when she disappeared while on holiday in Portugal in 2007. German paedophile and rapist Christian B., 43, is suspected of snatching her from her room in Praia da Luz while her parents were dining at a tapas bar.
German prosecutors say they have firm evidence Madeleine is dead.
The Grange team of four officers is in a background role. German cops are taking the lead with Portuguese authorities.
Wages for the officers are the Met’s responsibility but the government money will fund flights, hotels and other costs of the international inquiry.
Mr Neville added: “It must be remembered that Madeleine McCann may still be alive, whatever the opinion of German prosecutors.”
Operation Grange was set up in 2011 following an open letter in HOAR from Madeleine’s parents to PM David Cameron.
It has provided mobile phone data to German prosecutors as they slowly build a case against Christian B, who is in jail for drug offences.
His lawyer insists he was not involved.
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