Police in the United Kingdom have requested more funding to investigate the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, which has baffled investigators since 2007.
The Daily Mirror reported that the Metropolitan Police, which is in charge of police activity across London, approached the U.K. Home Office for more money. The Home Office confirmed that more funding is being considered.
In March, funding for the investigation is slated to run out, the report noted.
McCann, who was 3, disappeared in Paia da Luz in Portugal in May of 2007. So far, about $15 million has been spent on the investigation into the girl’s disappearance.
Photo of missing Madeleine McCann released September 16, 2007. (Handout/Getty Images)
Parents of missing girl Madeleine McCann, Kate and Gerry McCann pose with an artist’s impression of how their daughter might look now at the age of nine ahead of a press conference in central London on May 2, 2012, five years after Madeleine’s disappearance while on a family holiday in Portugal. (AFP/Getty Images)A Home Office spokesperson told The Guardian, “The Home Office has provided funding to the Metropolitan Police for Operation Grange and the resources required are reviewed regularly with careful consideration given before any new funding is allocated.”
A spokesperson for the family also released a statement.
Clarence Mitchell, the McCann family spokesman, told the Mirror: “The Met Police will put in a further request for funds if they feel work still needs to be done. Money in the Madeleine Fund gives Kate and Gerry the option to pick up their own inquiries again, if they choose, with private investigators.”
Kate and Gerry McCann, the girl’s parents, said they haven’t given up hope of finding Madeleine, who would now be a teenager.
“Right now we are committed to taking the current inquiry as far as we possibly can and we are confident that will happen. Ultimately this, and the previous work, gives all of us the very best chance of getting the answers – although we must, of course, remember that no investigation can guarantee to provide a definitive conclusion,” the Met police said last year, according to The Guardian.
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