No leads: Police shut down first Madeleine McCann search area

Detectives are abandoning the first search area and are preparing to start work in new sites of Praia da Luz after failing to get new evidence.

17:10 09 June 2014

Police investigating the disappearance of Madeleine McCann closed down the first area they searched after failing to get new evidence, despite an extensive search that employed victim recovery dogs and radar equipment. 

 

On Sunday evening, the team officially removed the cordons from the scrubland site in Praia da Luz which is just five minute walk away from the holiday complex where the McCanns stayed in May 2007. 

 

Paul Luckman, publisher of the Portugal News, said: "Nothing has been found that the Portuguese police missed at the time.

 

"People really feel that enough is enough.

 

"(It's) not that they don't have sympathy for the parents or that they don't want the child found but (we have to) be realistic - we're seven years down the road."

 

Luckman also raised concern over the expense of the investigation. "£7m in, heading towards eight, and with all the resources the Met have got ... we're just in the same situation.

 

"People ask, 'When is this ever going to end?'"