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Detectives investigating the disappearance of Madeline McCann are set to get hundreds of thousands of pounds more funding to help their search for the missing child. It is thought that the Metropolitan Police’s request to the Home Office is likely to be approved.

So far the investigation into missing Maddie, Operation Grange, has cost an estimated £13million since 2011.

Just over £300,000 funding was approved this year, but it had been feared that the money could be cut.

A source close to the investigation told The Sun: “This is excellent news. Maddie’s parents Kate and Gerry will be delighted. It gives fresh hope.”

Madeleine vanished from her family’s holiday villa in Praia la Luz, Portugal, in May 2007.

There were initially 40 Met officers working on the case but this is down to four detectives.

Former Met detective Peter Bleksley said: “As long as there are unanswered questions I can see why there is a case.

“But, in this time of squeezed budgets, I can also see why eyebrows would be raised at further funding.

“I understand the frustrations of families that have missing children who do not have the luxury of such ongoing funding.”

The Met said its missing person investigation was continuing but would not discuss costs.

There have been extensive searches and police investigations since the day of her disappearance, but her body has never been found.

And despite naming Brueckner as their prime suspect more than three years ago, it appears they are no closer to charging him.

Maddie’s younger brother and sister Sean and Amelie were in the same room as their sister, then three, when she vanished.

Born on February 1, 2005, the twins – who were just two and a quarter at the time – recently turned 18.

Maddie disappeared from her bed in the holiday villa while her parents Gerry and Kate, from Rothley in Leicestershire, were having dinner with friends at a nearby tapas restaurant just 55 metres away.

Mrs McCann checked the children at 10pm on May 3, 2007, to find Maddie had disappeared but the twins were still fast asleep.

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