Madeleine McCann: Police granted more funds for search

Police investigating the disappearance of Madeleine McCann have been granted more money to continue the search.

More than £11m has been spent on the Metropolitan Police inquiry, known as Operation Grange, but funding was due to run out at the end of the month.

A Home Office spokesman said the government was "committed" to the investigation into the 2007 disappearance of Madeleine in Portugal.

Scotland Yard began its own investigation into the case in 2011.

Madeleine's parents Kate and Gerry McCann, of Rothley, Leicestershire, had appealed for the search to continue for their daughter, who was three when she vanished from the family's holiday apartment in Praia da Luz in Portugal in May 2007.

Detectives investigating the disappearance said last year that a "critical line of inquiry" was still being pursued.

Government funding for the investigation has been agreed every six months, with £154,000 granted from October 2017 until the end of March this year.

The Met's Operation Grange was set up after former Prime Minister David Cameron asked the force to "bring their expertise" to the inquiry following a request from Kate and Gerry McCann.

Four people were identified as suspects in 2013, but no further action was taken after they were interviewed by Portuguese officers and the Met Police, who visited the holiday resort in 2014.

The number of UK officers investigating the case was cut from 29 to four in 2015.

On the 10th anniversary of Madeleine's disappearance in May last year, police said some 40,000 documents had been reviewed and more than 600 individuals had been investigated.

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