Information wants to be free

... as @winnower1 sensibly pointed out earlier today on twitter.

It's hard to disagree with that sentiment when applied to information received as a result of a Freedom of Information Act request.

Readers will note no difference between the information recorded in the previous blogpost from the redacted document seen by this blog and the images now posted here.

Premature Ejaculation?

At Scotland Yard, Detective Chief Inspector Andy Redwood met with us at the outset, spoke frankly, but made it clear that he and his colleagues could not favour us – or any part of the media community – over any other parties.

- A Note on Sources in 'Looking for Madeleine' by Anthony Summers & Robbyn Swan

According to a Metropolitan Police document seen by this blog, DCI Andy Redwood and another unnamed MPS Detective Inspector met with Anthony Summers and Rubby (sic) Swan at 1200 on Friday 15^th February 2013.

The Incident Message notes that the authors:

".. are researching a book on Madeleine with the knowledge of Mr and Mrs MCCANN and our contact details were supplied by them."

The message states, in bold type:

"It was made absolutely clear that any approach to nominals in this case would be detrimental to our objective of building up a productive working relationship with the Portuguese. Our clear priority is to find out what happened to Madeleine and nothing should distract from that."

It goes on to say:

"Absolutely no “off the record” comments or other information were made/given. They were politely advised that all the information is in the public domain via the PJ files on the internet, and whilst we understood the interest and value in such a book that would extend to telling the story of this investigative review, their time would be best spent getting up to speed on the available files and forming their own opinion on it."

The internal message, for Officers Information and classified as Low Priority, was revealed under the Freedom of Information Act.

The message also states:

"It was explained that despite agreeing to meet them, we were unable to assist in anyway re their project, even as far as giving them timescale’s for the review’s completion. (This was requested in order that they could tie in the publication of the book to that of our process’s end result.)"

In their book, Summers & Swan write, in July 2014:

"The authors wish to make clear at the outset that, after more than two years studying this controversial case, they have seen not a shred of evidence to indicate that Gerry and Kate McCann, any member of their holiday group, or Robert Murat were at any stage – in May 2007 or subsequently – guilty of malfeasance of any kind in connection with Madeleine McCann’s disappearance or the repercussions that followed."

Three years and three months after they launched their review, now a fully-fledged investigation,  a 37 strong team of Met officers have yet to draw their own final conclusion.

The Met, it seems,  were unable to fall in line with the publisher’s marketing plans.

Can it be that Summers and Swan’s book , described as ‘the definitive account of the Madeleine McCann case’,  came rather too soon?

Looking for Madeleine

Looking for Madeleine, the new book from Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan, is released today.

'This book redefines investigative journalism' - asaucesaid