TIMELINE of events 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015

2011


March
Polícia Judiciária in Portugal begin a case review.

May 3
The fourth anniversary of Madeleine’s disappearance.

May 12
In an open letter in The Sun, the McCanns ask the Prime Minister to launch an “independent,
transparent and comprehensive” review of all information relating to
Madeleine’s disappearance.
They publish a book entitled Madeleine, which they hope will prompt people
holding vital information about what happened to Madeleine to come forward.
Sale proceeds will go towards the Find Madeleine fund.

May 13
David Cameron writes to the McCanns telling them the Home Secretary will be in
touch to set out “new action” involving the Metropolitan Police.

May 22
Jerry and Kate McCann return to Portugal to make a fresh appeal.

May
Operation Grange launched with a team of 29 detectives and eight civilians

July 28
British and American tourists reportedly saw a young girl resembling Maddie
with a French/Belgian couple in Leh, India, who claimed that the child was
theirs.
Although reports suggested DNA tests had been conducted, the chief of police
in Leh, Vivek Gupta, denied the reports and stated that no DNA test had been
undertaken by the police.
September 9

British detectives reviewing the search for Madeleine hold their first
face-to-face meetings with Portuguese police chiefs.

2012


March 27
Stephen Birch, a South African real estate developer and self-styled
investigator, says he has found what could be a burial site below the
surface using a ground-penetrating radar. Birch, who has invested $50,000 of
his own money investigating the case, asks Portugese authorities to excavate
the area,

April 24
The detective leading the UK review of Madeleine’s disappearance says they
have the “best opportunity” yet to find her. Det Ch Insp Andy
Redwood tells BBC’s Panorama his team are “seeking to bring closure to
the case”
.
April 25
Scotland Yard release new image of what Maddie may look like age nine and
detectives say she could still be alive.
A sighting of Maddie in Costa del Sol is reported.

April 26
Portuguese police say they have found no new material that will allow them to
reopen their investigation.

May 3
The fifth anniversary of Madeleine’s disappearance.

July 10
Kate McCann launches a nationwide campaign to find missing people. Mrs McCann,
a new ambassador for the charity Missing People, launches a network of
billboards which will publicise the cases of individuals whose whereabouts
are no longer known.

December 21
In a Christmas message on the Find Madeleine website, Kate and Gerry McCann
say the festive season will “never be as it should”.

December 31
New Zealand police are informed of a possible sighting in Queenstown. The
informant said the girl she had seen had the same coloboma of the iris as
Madeleine. After investigation, police identified the girl and stated that
they were “absolutely satisfied” she was not Madeleine.

2013






February 6
A DNA sample from a girl in New Zealand is sent to British police to quash the
suggestion that she could be Madeleine McCann.

Februay 21
Tony Bennett, a man who ran a website devoted to criticizing the McCanns
receives a three-month suspended sentence after leafleting their village
with his allegations.

May 1
The McCanna say they have not given up hope in the search for their daughter,
nearly six years after she vanished. Kate tells the Press Association she
believes Scotland Yard officers are “more determined than ever” to
find what happened to her daughter.

May 3
The sixth anniversary of Madeleine’s disappearance.

May 17
UK detectives reviewing the case say they have identified “a number of
persons of interest”.

June 21
Prosecutors confirm London’s chief crown prosecutor Alison Saunders and her
deputy Jenny Hopkins flew to Portugal with Scotland Yard detectives in April
to discuss the case with their Portuguese counterparts.

July 4
The Metropolitan Police says it has new evidence and has opened a formal
investigation. It says it is investigating 38 “persons of interest”,
including 12 Brits.

September 12
A £1m libel case against former Portuguese police chief Goncalo Amaral begins
in Lisbon.

October 4
Scotland Yard detectives say mobile phone records may hold the key to solving
the case. There are 41 potential suspects, they say.

October 14
Scotland Yard releases e-fit images of men they want to trace, including one
of a man seen carrying a child toward the beach that night
A British holidaymaker who was returning to his apartment after collecting his
daughter from the Ocean Club night crèche is identified as the man Tanner
had seen in 2007.
The pyjamas his daughter had been wearing matched Tanner’s report and Scotland
Yard say they are “almost certain” the Tanner sighting was not
related to the abduction.

October 23
Britain’s most senior police officer Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe defends the way
the Portuguese dealt with the initial investigation into Madeleine’s
disappearance, saying it would have been “very difficult” to
immediately know if they were dealing with a serious crime.
A blonde-haired blue-eyed seven-year-old girl is placed in care after being
found living with a gypsy family in Dublin – days after another
blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl was found living with gypsies in Greece.
October 24
Portuguese police reopen their inquiry into Madeleine’s disappearance, citing “new
lines of inquiry”. The Scotland Yard inquiry will run alongside the
Portuguese investigation.

October 27
Another sighting of a man carrying a child that night is reported by Martin
and Mary Smith, who were on holiday from Ireland. Scotland Yard concludes
the Smith sighting offered the approximate time of Madeleine’s kidnap

November 4
It is claimed a key suspect in the abduction of Madeleine McCann was sacked
from the hotel complex where the youngster disappeared the year
before she and her family holidayed there.
According to a national newspaper, police are investigating the possibility
Euclides Monteiro could have kidnapped Madeleine after being disturbed as he
broke into her family’s apartment. Monteiro, known as Toni, died in an
accident four years ago but phone records place him near the complex at the
time the three-year-old vanished.

2014

January 29
Scotland Yard detectives travel to Portugal following leads in their hunt for
Madeleine McCann. The four officers are believed to be asking Portuguese
Police to sanction the arrest and questioning of three suspects.
March 19
Scotland Yard issue another appeal about a man who entered holiday homes
occupied by British families in 12 incidents in the western Algarve between
2004 and 2010, two of them in Praia da Luz.
On four occasions he had sexually assaulted five white girls, aged 7–10, in
their beds. The man spoke English with a foreign accent, his speech was slow
and perhaps slurred, and he had short, dark unkempt hair, tanned skin, and
in the view of three victims a distinctive smell. He may have worn a
long-sleeved burgundy top, perhaps with a white circle on the back.The
Polícia Judiciária said they believed the intruder was Euclides Monteiro,
the former Ocean Club employee from Cape Verde who died in a 2009 tractor
accident.
March 20
Police investigating the disappearance of Madeleine McCann receive more than
250 calls and emails following their latest appeal.
May 3
The seventh anniversary of Madeleine’s disappearance.
May 6
British detectives are granted permission to excavate two sites at the Algarve
resort where Madeleine vanished seven years ago.
May 8
British detectives arrive in Portugal to meet with Portuguese officers.
May 22
Police investigating the disappearance of Madeleine say they are set for a “substantial
phase of operational activity”.
June 2
A large area of waste land in Praia da Luz, Portugal, is cordoned off in
connection with the Madeleine investigation.
December 5
Detective leading the hunt for Maddie, Andy Redwood, steps down and is
replaced by DCI Nicola Wall
December 10
Scotland Yard and Portuguese police re-interview former suspect Robert Murat.
Eleven men and women were interviewed in December, including Murat, his wife
and her ex-husband; at least one former Ocean Club employee; and another man
who had been interviewed three times previously.

2015


April 28
The McCanns win 500,000 euro libel damages against Goncalo Amaral for his book
The Truth of the Lie.

May 3
The eighth anniversary of Maddie’s disappearance.

June 13

Kate McCann does a 500 mile cycle to raise £10,000 for the Maddie hunt as it
is revealed money given to investigation has hit £10m.

July 29
A girl’s body is found in suitcase in Australia, sparking fears it could be
Maddie. This is soon ruled out by police.

October 25
Officers are scoure dozens of images from the camera of Polish businessman
Wojciech Krokowski.
They focus on those he took while in Praia da Luz around the time Madeleine
went missing.
Krokowski’s flat was searched after the three-year-old vanished. Portuguese
cops later ruled him out.

October 28
Operation Grange’s team is cut from 29 to four after having tens of thousands
of documents translated and released, an updated age-progressed image of
Madeleine made, and investigating 560 lines in inquiry and 8,685 potential
sightings of Madeleine.
By 2015 they had taken 1,338 statements, collected 1,027 exhibits, and
investigated 60 persons of interest, as well as 650 sex offenders

November 2
Scotland Yard monitor a man known as Silvio S after he is arrested over the
disappearance and death over a four-year-old migrant boy. He confesses
killing another child who went missing in July.