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Kate McCann’s open letter in the Sun asking David Cameron to step in prompted PM to contact Scotland Yard Scotland Yard has been ordered to review the disappearance of Madeleine McCann after the child’s mother appealed to the prime minister for help. The Guardian understands that shortly after Kate McCann published an open letter in the Sun newspaper asking David Cameron to step in, Downing Street contacted the commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. It was made clear that the Met should review the abduction of three year old Madeleine, who went missing four years ago from her parents’ apartment in a holiday complex of Praia da Luz, Portugal. Yard detectives will be working alongside the Portuguese police on the review of all the evidence in the case. But they will have to negotiate delicately around the primacy of the inquiry which remains with the Portuguese detectives. A statement from the Home Office announced the intervention of Yard detectives in the disappearance and made clear the government, not the Yard, would be paying. “The government hopes that the MPS [Metropolitan Police Service] can bring a new perspective to the case and the Home Office will be providing the necessary financial support,” the statement said. A spokesman for the Home Office added: “The government’s primary concern has always been, and remains, the safe return of Madeleine. “Although she disappeared in Portugal and the Portuguese retain the lead responsibility in the case, law enforcement agencies here have continued to follow up leads and pass information to the Portuguese authorities as appropriate. “The prime minister and the home secretary have today agreed with Sir Paul Stephenson that the Metropolitan Police will bring its particular expertise to this case. “Clearly the detail of what that will entail will be a matter of operational judgment and it would not be appropriate to discuss at this stage.” Any inquiry into the disappearance of Madeleine is fraught with difficulties. Met detectives will fly to Portugal to work with detectives there and carry out a review of all the paperwork. But with the passage of time the chances of success are vastly reduced. The scene of the crime was never sealed off by the Portuguese detectives and vital evidence is likely to have been contaminated or gone missing as a result of the failure to secure the scene. The Met now face a huge challenge to find something within the paperwork that has been overlooked or misinterpreted. But they have no forensic evidence and no body to help their investigations. Until today the Met were not going to be involved in any review. There had been a suggestion that Scotland Yard would be asked to look at the case by the McCann family in a request timed with the publication this week of Kate McCann’s book. But the Guardian understands that the likelihood of the Metropolitan Police Authority and the Mayor of London approving expenditure on the case was very slim. After Kate McCann published an open letter asking Cameron to carry out a transparent and thorough review of all the evidence held by all police agencies in the case, higher authorities in the form of the prime minister and the home secretary intervened, and crucially made clear the Home Office would pay for the investigation. Yard detectives will fly out to Portugal but it is understood that this is not imminent. Madeleine disappeared from her parents’ apartment while they were eating dinner with friends in a restaurant less than 100m away in the complex. The couple said they made regular checks on the child and her siblings but when Kate McCann went to check later in the evening she found her daughter missing, and the soft toy she used as a comforter in her bed. One witness later described seeing a man carrying a child in his arms in the road next to the apartment. The Portuguese police inquiry was heavily criticised by the family who themselves became official suspects in the disappearance of their daughter. They were transformed overnight from grieving parents to official suspects and vitriolic internet campaigns are still run against them. Kate McCann has spoken in detail for the first time about losing her daughter in her new book Madeleine, published this week. On what would have been their daughter’s eighth birthday they posed for pictures to keep the publicity about her disappearance going. Madeleine McCann Metropolitan police Police Crime Kate McCann Sandra Laville guardian.co.uk