Transcript

By Nigel Moore

Nicky Campbell: Errm... Adeal in London... no, I tell you what, we'll go to Christine in Cardiff. Brief points please because there's only eight minutes left, so make your questions as... as, errr... well edited as you can. Hi, Christine.

Christine: (phone in) Good morning. Good morning, Sir Bernard.

Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe: Good morning, Christine.

Christine: I'd like to ask you, errr... on the progress of Operation Grange.

Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe: Right, we have a lots of Op... Operations, so you're going to have...

Nicky Campbell: Operation Grange, just...?

Christine: Operation Grange.

Nicky Campbell: Which is?

Christine: It's the investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.

Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe: Ahh, right, thank you for helping...

Christine: That's okay.

Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe: ...but we do have a lot of Operations in London, so I'm sorry if I didn't recognise it immediately.

Nicky Campbell: The Portuguese police really mess... really messed up, didn't they?

Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe: Yes. [spoken in acknowledgment of the reference to the 'Portuguese police' and before Nicky Campbell has finished his sentence]

Christine: Yes... no [seemingly spoken in echo of Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe's 'yes' but then realises it could be misconstrued and makes an attempt to change it to 'no'. See her next comment]

Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe: Errm... I'm not going to respond to Nicky's comments.

Christine: (in background) Did they Nicky?

Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe: I'm just going to... Let me just... let me just help. Where we are at the moment: We've sent three letters of request for international assistance to the Portuguese, errr... Judiciary, because that's the way their system works, and also with the police - we are working closely with them. Errm... obviously the Portuguese police have got a line of inquiry which is different to the Metropolitan Police's but we're working together to try and resolve that. Errm... we're trying our best to keep the family informed and I think in the middle of all this, quite often their torment gets lost. Have they lost a child or, errr... by being murdered or... sadly... or have they lost a child by someone else stealing them.

Nicky Campbell: Awful.

Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe: Either way, errr... they've got that terrible uncertainty, so we're all trying our best to help resolve that. We...

Nicky Campbell: Do you have suspects?

Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe: Errr... yes, we've said very clearly that, you know, we've got lines of inquiry that, errm... are different to the Portuguese police and we're working with them to try and resolve that and I'm only going to... you know, that comment you made at the beginning, about, you know, what they did or didn't do. We've got to work together on this and I don't mean that as a naïve thing; I just think, generally. We've generally got to work together. We can't police Portugal, they can't do everything over here; we must work together. So, we're insist... you know, we really can work in genuine partnership on this. We're making some progress, errm... let's see how it comes over the next few months.

Nicky Campbell: If you'd been involved at the outset, do you think we might have got further with this investigation?

Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe: Errr... I think that's a bit unf... that would be unfair. I mean there's been inquiries in, errm... in the UK, where we know that the police could have done better. I think to be too judgmental in these cases is... is wrong and I wasn't there and I'm not going to judge them. The main thing we're all committed to is trying to find that little girl.

Nicky Campbell: And you have lines of inquiry, you have 'suspects' lines of inquiry; you have names.

Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe: That's right.

Nicky Campbell: Errm... and I appreciate how you can't, at this stage, go any further, errr... and have you spoken to those people?

Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe: Errm... I'm not going to go any further, really. Because that's what you just said you didn't want!

Nicky Campbell: I'm sure when you were interviewing people in that... in that little room you'd try and sneak one in like that, Sir Bernard. I bet you have in your time.

Adeal's in London...