The Prime Minister has said he is willing to step in if the British investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann is held up by delays in the Portuguese legal system.
David Cameron's official spokesman confirmed that the premier would be prepared to "make further representations" to the government there if it would help Scotland Yard's inquiry.
He said: "The Prime Minister and the Home Secretary and others have always been clear that they very much support the work that the British police authorities are doing in this and are always prepared to consider whether there is more that can be done and, as part of that, always stand by to make further representations to the Portuguese government for example if that would be helpful.
"Investigations are rightly for police authorities but if there is more that the Government can do to help facilitate, we would certainly consider that and look to do as much as we could to help."
Yesterday, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Martin Hewitt expressed frustration at the speed of the legal system through which UK police have to ask for Portuguese assistance with their inquiry. He said: "That's causing us frustration because we know what we want to do and we are ready to go with that. But the process is the process."
Scotland Yard has so far written three international letters of request to the Portuguese, covering 41 priority areas and including 287 separate requests.
Yesterday, Detective Chief Inspector Andy Redwood revealed that the force were looking for a lone intruder who sexually abused five British girls during a series of break-ins in the Algarve .
The tanned, dark-haired man is suspected of breaking in to 12 properties where British families were staying, between 2004 and 2010.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article