After a three-day search effort drew to a close without any sign of a breakthrough, crime correspondent Amy-Clare Martin reports from Praia da Luz on the latest attempt to give the McCann family answe

Police have concluded their three-day search for Madeleine McCann. German and Portuguese police and firefighters have combed an area on the outskirts of Lagos in Portugal 18 years after the three-year-old British girl disappeared. With officers seen shaking hands and embracing at the end of the search, it closed the book on the £300,000 operation.

The fresh search for Madeleine McCann has ended after investigators spent three days in areas near to where the three-year-old disappeared 18 years ago in Portugal. German investigators left the search area at about 17:15 local time before Portuguese counterparts then removed the outer cordon from the site.