Time for the circus to move on
May 2007. It should have been a routine month for the Algarve Resident, a weekly English-language newspaper.
I’d retired in the autumn of 2006 from my publisher role with a regional newspaper company in the UK (yep, it is really nine years since I found the escape tunnel) and started work from my home office as Publishing Director for southern Portugal publication into which SWMBO and I had invested in 2003.
But it turned out to be anything but a routine month. Now you may not have heard about this before but a little girl called Madeleine McCann disappeared one evening from a holiday apartment in the Algarve while her parents were out for dinner with friends.

As soon as I heard the breaking news on breakfast TV I called the office in Portugal and we instigated an immediate plan – which in a nutshell was to report only the facts, never to give credence to speculation and to play everything to do with the case with a straight bat.
I immediately flew down to the office and we spent a couple of days camped out in Praia de Luz. Oh my, what a circus. Little did any of us know that the main act was to continue for the next nine years.

The circus in action at Praia de Luz in May 2007.

I mention this now as the number of UK police officers investigating the disappearance of Madeleine has been cut from 29 to four says the Met, which has spent more than £10million on trying to find the missing girl.

Madeleine's parents said they "fully understand" the decision and remained "hopeful" their daughter would be found.

Officers have investigated more than 60 persons of interest, the Met said, adding that a total of 650 sex offenders had also been considered as well as reports of 8,685 potential sightings of Madeleine around the world.
Having reviewed all of the documents, "7,154 actions were raised and 560 lines of inquiry identified", the Met said. It said more than 30 requests had been made to "countries across the world asking for work to be undertaken on behalf of the Met".
I have deep sympathy for Gerry and Kate McCann. It’s just not in human nature to give up on one’s child.
But after a nine-year, £10million cabaret featuring soothsayers, clairvoyants, vicious online trolls, massive libel pay outs, endless speculation, alleged police incompetence and more speculation than I can throw a stick at have we not reached the stage where enough is enough?
It’s very definitely time to move on.