Madeleine McCann inquiry: police should work together, says Met chief

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/nov/27/madeleine-mccann-inquiry-police-work-together-met

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British and Portuguese police should join together as one team in their investigations into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, the Metropolitan police commissioner has said.

Scotland Yard is running one inquiry into what happened to the girl, who vanished while on holiday with her parents in Praia da Luz in 2007, while the Portuguese authorities have their own investigation.

The Portuguese shelved their inquiry into her disappearance in 2008, but last month said a review had uncovered enough new information to justify reopening the case.

On Wednesday, Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe said: "One thing we'd like to see in the future is a joint investigation team which comes under the European community. It is a possibility legally, and we're working together at a political level and at a police and judicial level to see how we can construct that.

"There are two separate inquiries with a different focus – we've got one particular set of lines of inquiry and they have a different one. But it's important that we work together on what is clearly a common problem.

"It's a formal arrangement, it allows officers from each country to work in the other country, it gives them powers associated with that, and it's an efficient way of doing it.

"If you're not careful, you end up doing things on an ad-hoc basis, and for us it would be better to have that type of arrangement. So that's what we're trying to get agreement between the two governments and the two police services."

British police received hundreds of calls and emails after recent renewed television appeals for information in the UK, the Netherlands and Germany.

They appealed for help trying to trace a man who was seen carrying a child towards the sea, and a number of fair-haired men who were lurking around the holiday apartments where Madeleine was staying.

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