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At Scotland Yard, Detective Chief Inspector
Andy Redwood met with us at the outset,
spoke frankly, but made it clear that he
and his colleagues could not favour us –
or any part of the media community –
over any other parties.
- A Note on Sources in 'Looking for
Madeleine' by Anthony Summers & Robbyn
Swan
According to a Metropolitan Police
document seen by this blog, DCI Andy
Redwood and another unnamed MPS
Detective Inspector met with Anthony
Summers and Rubby (sic) Swan at 1200 on
Friday 15th February 2013.
The Incident Message notes that the
authors:
".. are researching a book on Madeleine with the knowledge of Mr
and Mrs MCCANN and our contact details
were supplied by them."
The message states, in bold type:
"It was made absolutely clear that any
approach to nominals in this case would
be detrimental to our objective of
building up a productive working
relationship with the Portuguese. Our
clear priority is to find out what
happened to Madeleine and nothing should
distract from that."
It goes on to say:
"Absolutely no “off the record” comments
or other information were made/given.
They were politely advised that all the
information is in the public domain via
the PJ files on the internet, and whilst
we understood the interest and value in
such a book that would extend to telling
the story of this investigative review,
their time would be best spent getting
up to speed on the available files and
forming their own opinion on it."
The internal message, for Officers
Information and classified as Low
Priority, was revealed under the Freedom
of Information Act.
The message also states:
"It was explained that despite agreeing
to meet them, we were unable to assist
in anyway re their project, even as far
as giving them timescale’s for the
review’s completion. (This was requested
in order that they could tie in the
publication of the book to that of our
process’s end result.)"
In their book, Summers & Swan write, in
July 2014:
"The authors wish to make clear at the outset that, after more
than two years studying this
controversial case, they have seen not a
shred of evidence to indicate that Gerry
and Kate McCann, any member of their
holiday group, or Robert Murat were at
any stage – in May 2007 or subsequently
– guilty of malfeasance of any kind in
connection with Madeleine McCann’s
disappearance or the repercussions that
followed."
Three years and three months after they
launched their review, now a
fully-fledged investigation, a 37 strong
team of Met officers have yet to draw
their own final conclusion.
The Met, it seems, were unable to fall
in line with the publisher’s marketing
plans.
Can it be that Summers and Swan’s book ,
described as ‘the definitive account of
the Madeleine McCann case’, came rather
too soon? |
