Timeline of events since Madeleine McCann disappeared
As searches begin in and around a reservoir in Portugal, here is a timeline of the main events since the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.
2007
– May 3: Kate and Gerry McCann, from Rothley, Leicestershire, leave their children asleep in their holiday apartment in Praia da Luz in southern Portugal while they dine with friends at a nearby tapas restaurant.
Jane Tanner, one of the friends dining with the McCanns, reports having seen a man carrying a child earlier that night.
– May 14: Detectives take Anglo-Portuguese property developer Robert Murat in for questioning and make him an “arguido”, or formal suspect, but this is later withdrawn.
– August 11: Exactly 100 days after Madeleine disappeared, investigating officers publicly acknowledge for the first time that she could be dead.
– September 7: During questioning of Mr and Mrs McCann, detectives make them both “arguidos” in their daughter’s disappearance.
– September 9: The McCanns fly back to England with their two-year-old twins Sean and Amelie.
2008
2011
– May 12: Mrs McCann publishes a book about her daughter’s disappearance, on Madeleine’s eighth birthday.
Scotland Yard launches a review of the case after a request from Home Secretary Theresa May, supported by then-prime minister David Cameron.
2012
– April 25: Scotland Yard detectives say they believe Madeleine could still be alive, release an age-progression picture of how she might look as a nine-year-old, and call on the Portuguese authorities to reopen the case, but Portuguese police say they have found no new material.
2013
– July 4: Scotland Yard confirms it has launched its own investigation, Operation Grange, into Madeleine’s disappearance two years into a review of the case. It has “genuinely new” lines of inquiry and has identified 38 people of interest, including 12 Britons.
2014
– January 29: British detectives fly to Portugal amid claims they are planning to make arrests.
– June 3: Sniffer dogs and specialist teams are used to search an area of scrubland close to where Madeleine went missing.
– December 12: Detectives begin questioning 11 people who it is thought may have information on the case.
2015
– September 16: The Government discloses that the investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine has cost more than £10 million.
– October 28: Scotland Yard cuts the number of officers working on the inquiry from 29 to four.
2017
2019
– May 3: Local media reports say Portuguese detectives are investigating a foreign paedophile as a suspect in the abduction of Madeleine.
2020
– June 3: Police reveal that a 43-year-old German prisoner, later named as Christian Brueckner, has been identified as a suspect in Madeleine’s disappearance.
– June 4: Scotland Yard’s Operation Grange, which had received £12.3 million in funding up to April 2020, is still a missing person inquiry as detectives have no “definitive evidence whether Madeleine is alive or dead”.
2021
2022
– April 21: Christian Brueckner is made an “arguido”, a formal suspect, by Portuguese authorities.
– May 3: The McCann family say it is “essential” they learn the truth of what happened to their daughter on the 15th anniversary of her disappearance.
– October 11: Brueckner, now 45, is charged with three counts of rape and two charges of child sex abuse, unrelated to Madeleine’s disappearance.
2023
– May 3: Kate and Gerry McCann mark the 16th anniversary of Madeleine’s disappearance by saying she is “still very much missed” and that they “await a breakthrough”.
– May 22: An area near the Barragem do Arade reservoir, about 30 miles from Praia da Luz, is sealed off as police prepare to start searching on May 23.
– May 23: Searches begin with police divers in the water, and teams including officers with sniffer dogs and rakes and metal poles seen working on the banks. Media and onlookers are kept a mile away from the main search area and a no fly zone is imposed over the water.