MOST of the Portuguese police officers who looked for Madeleine McCann after her disappearance had no formal training in searching for missing people, case files revealed yesterday.
Up to 100 personnel spent a week scouring an area more than nine miles around the Algarve resort where the girl vanished on 3 May last year.
But they failed to find any clues to Madeleine's fate, and in July Portuguese detectives called in a lead
ing British expert, Mark Harrison.
Mr Harrison, the national search adviser for all UK police agencies in cases of missing people, homicides and abductions, reviewed the initial operations and he advised on the inquiry's future strategy.
He noted that neither the search co-ordinator, Major Luis Sequeira, nor most of his teams had received any training for the task of looking for the missing girl.
Between 80 and 100 people drawn from the Guarda Nacional Republicana (GNR) local police, civil protection, fire brigade, Red Cross and urban police were involved in the searches.
In his report, dated 23 July last year, Mr Harrison wrote: "Major Sequeira has not benefited from any formal training or accreditation in the management of searching for missing persons. The search officers – with the exception of the search-and-rescue team from Lisbon – had not benefited from any formal training in search procedures."
The report was contained in police files that were made public last week.
The full article contains 241 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
