Madeleine McCann investigation gets another £300,000 from Home Office

The Home Office has agreed to give £300,000 for the investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.

The search for Maddie, who was three years old when she was vanished while on holiday with her parents, has cost £11,750,000 so far.

The funding was previously reported to have run out, but the Home Office has now agreed to fund the hunt until March next year.

An application was made by the Met Police for another £300,000 to keep the investigation going throughout 2019/20.

On Wednesday, the Home Office said that while a final decision on figures would not be made until October, it had reassured force chiefs that a ‘similar’ level of funding would be granted for this year as in 2018/19, when £300,000 was given.

The Home Office said: ‘We have received a request from the MPS to extend funding for Operation Grange until March 31, 2020.

‘Funding for the investigation is provided by the Home Office through Special Grant funding which is usually available to police forces when they face significant or exceptional costs.

‘All applications for Special Grant funding are considered carefully on their individual merits, however, decisions are made in batches to allow us to better consider the impact on the overall policing budget.

‘Due to this, the next round of Special Grant funding will not be decided until October, however we have written to Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime in the meantime with assurance that the Metropolitan Police Service will receive a similar level of funding for Operation Grange for 2019/20 as it did for the previous year.’

Scotland Yard launched its own investigation, dubbed Operation Grange, into her disappearance in 2013 after a Portuguese inquiry failed to make any headway.

Last month Met Police asked for more money to pursue ‘active lines of inquires’.

She disappeared in May 2007 while on holiday in Praia da Luz, a resort in the Algarve region of Portugal.

There has not been any significant clues to what happened to Maddie.

No arrests have been made during the investigation.

However, a prolific German child killer has been named as the latest suspect in the disappearance.

Martin Ney, 48, is currently serving life in prison for the murders of three boys while they were on holiday with their families.