Former British Police detective Mark Williams-Thomas, who has worked on some of the world’s most high profile missing persons cases, has given his take on the new searches for Madeleine McCann
A former police detective has branded the new search for Madeleine McCann this week a ‘pointless exercise’ based on ‘very sketchy’ information during a fiery online rant.
Madeleine McCann went missing during a family holiday in the resort of Praia da Luz on the Algarve in Portugal on May 3 2007. Fast forward 18 years and there has been no positive sighting and no one has been charged with her abduction, but her parents have never given up hope.
Following the latest search for Madeleine this week which saw German and Portuguese police descended on several properties in an area of southern Portugal close to Praia da Luz several detectives have had their say on the latest developments in the case.
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Former British Police detective Mark Williams-Thomas, who has worked on some of the world’s most high profile missing persons cases, has given his take on the new searches for Madeleine McCann. He started the six-minute rant on X by saying: “So no surprise the search in Portugal has come to nothing. I said it would, the information they were working on was very, very sketchy, nothing concrete at all. That area had been searched previously; it was really a pointless exercise.”
He added: “I do find it very interesting when over the last couple of days I’ve read articles in newspapers and you’ve got certain individuals out there saying this is really strong information, this is the best, yeah this is likely to be the breakthrough. I was very clear from the beginning, I said it’s not going to happen, it’s not going to be a breakthrough.”
Asking himself ‘will we ever solve Madeleine McCann’s disappearance?’ He said: “Well we have to hope we will because working in the field that I do I always keep hope that all cases will be solved one day and of course we have to do that for the families.”
He added: ” I wonder to myself how many other cases would have been solved if the same amount of money had been put to the McCann investigation to those other missing children cases. This is no criticism to the McCann’s because of course they’ll want every penny that’s possible spent on it but it is a reflection on society where some cases just don’t get the attention.”
As predicted by Mr Williams-Thomas earlier this week despite this week’s fresh search for Madeleine, nothing related to the missing girl appeared to have been found during the operation. Police however have not shared an official statement on what could have been discovered.
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