Appel téléphonique de l'administrateur (et auteur) du site "Faked Abduction" au Met à propos de sa prise en charge, après le Leicestershire Constabulary, de l'affaire MC. C'est sous le nom de code Operation Grange que l'équipe d'enquêteurs procède à la re-lecture du dossier.
SM: Hello, I’d like to speak to
someone in connection with Operation Grange please.
Police: I’m not aware of that
Operation…just give me one second.
A minute later the operator returned
and gave me another phone number to call.
SM: Hello, I’m just calling to ask a
few questions about Operation Grange.
Police: What’s the name of that
operation again ?
SM: Operation Grange.
Police: Ok, what was that?
SM: It’s the Madeleine McCann
disappearance.
Police: Oh, alright ok, fine, yeah,
we don’t usually use operation names here, what do you need to
know?
SM: There doesn’t seem to be
anything in the public domain so when did the operation start and
what’s the scope of the operation? I just wondered if you can give
me some background on Operation Grange.
Police: We haven’t very much
talked to the media about the case at all. What we’ve said is we’re
providing expertise to the investigators of the case. The Portuguese
Authorities, the Portuguese Police retain lead. We’ve not made any
suggestion that they’re not capable of investigating but we are
assisting them and we have not given any details on it. It’s
unusual for us to do that as it’s abroad and another police force
is taking the lead on it.
SM: Is there any reason why the Met
took over from Leicestershire Constabulary?
Police: I’m not sure we said
anything about it at the time – for various reasons. We can’t be
seen to criticize any other force. On the 12th of May the Home Office
requested that the Metropolitan Police service bring their expertise
to the case and on that evening we said that we would.
SM: And is this a full time
operation and what size team is working on it?
Police: As I said we wouldn’t
provide a running commentary but at the very beginning we said there
were 30 officers who would be deployed, er, not continually but
various tasks along with workload they have on other cases, er, but
we have deployed 30 officers.
SM: In a normal case in Britain
it’s not unusual for the police to give an ongoing commentary as to
how it’s progressing so what…
Police: …I’ve only worked here
11 years but I would say it’s not common. We give information
whilst it’s appropriate to produce but whilst there’s an
investigation going on and where it’s potentially murder, we say
very little, we say very little. You read a lot in the press but that
doesn’t come from us. We deal with about 250 murders a year and all
of them are dealt with in exactly the same way in terms of how we
deal with the media.
SM also discussed the fact that all FOI
requests made to Leicestershire Constabulary under Operation Task
were coming back with a blanket “no comment” and a wall of
silence. The police officer told him to put in
FOI requests to them and do not assume that they would treat them the
same [as Leicestershire Constabulary].
or anyone wishing to put in new FOI
requests under Operation Grange, email them at:
SCDFOIArequests@met.pnn.police.uk
SM has to say that it was reasonably
reassuring to hear that the Metropolitan Police are treating the case
as “potential murder” instead of the McCanns’ nonsensical talk
of abduction.
It is probably premature to expect
miracles but for the first time in a British Police force we can just
about hear the cops singing in tune with Goncalo Amaral.
