The Metropolitan Police has been given additional funding of £154,000 to extend the search for missing toddler Madeleine McCann.

Scotland Yard had requested the extra cash to continue its investigation into the three-year-old’s disappearance in 2007.

The force said it was investigating “significant” leads, which the Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley described as “very worthwhile”

.A Home Office spokesman said that: “Following an application from the Metropolitan Police, the Home Office has confirmed funding for Operation Grange until the end of March 2018. 

“As with all applications, the resources required are reviewed regularly and careful consideration is given before any funding is allocated.”

The Met had previously suggested that it would ask for further funds to investigate one final line of enquiry in the £11m Operation Grange.

Funding was previously only been guaranteed for the investigation to last until the end of September.

In August the Home Office said that it would consider providing additional funding for the investigation, but at that point had not received a request from the Met.

“The level of funding provided is a reflection of the wide-ranging and complex nature of the investigation which the police have deemed necessary to undertake,” a spokesperson confirmed.

Three-year-old Madeleine had vanished from the family’s holiday apartment in Praia da Luz in Portugal on 3 May, 2007.

Her disappearance had sparked one of the most high-profile, and expensive, police investigations ever.

Scotland Yard’s investigation has been active since 2011, however, the number of detectives working on the case was cut from 29 to four in 2015.

College Girl Escapes Her Kidnapper Thanks To Her Mom`s Advice

As a Mom, I am completely terrified of what might potentially happen to my children as they get older.

This crazy world is full of people who make the wrong decisions, all of the time. This is why as parents it’s our job to not only protect our children from danger, but to also equipt them from the worst possible scenarios. That means we need to talk, we need to prepare, and we need our children to listen so that they know what to do when they face difficult situations.

This is the exact reason why everyone is talking about this young college girl and how her Mom’s advice (along with her quick-thinking skills and her ability to drive a stick shift) potentially saved her life from a group of attackers.

Jordan Dinsmore, 20, attends Midlands Technical College in Columbia. She hopes to become an FBI agent and left her job at a local Buffalo Wild Wings at about 12:30 a.m and pulled into a parking lot outside her housing complex.

Then things got terrifying: three men suddenly approached and pushed her to the ground — one pointing a gun and threatening to pull the trigger if Jordan kept screaming.

After robbing Jordan of her phone and purse, the men threatened to rape her and forced her into her car.

Then the men realized they didn’t know how to operate the car because it was a stick shift. This is when they forced Jordan into the driver’s seat and instructed her to drive to the nearest ATM machine and then their cousin’s house.

When the suspect in the front passenger’s seat, who allegedly had the gun, “was looking to the side where I was going to pull over, I threw it into neutral and fell out,” she recalled.

The car was traveling at about 35 miles per hour when she jumped out. ”I got up and I started running towards the gas station,” she explained. A woman drove by and Jordan told her to call 911.

Jordan sustained bruises and scrapes, but no serious injuries during her ordeal.

She said she did not see what happened to her attackers, however, believed they fled on foot after the car crashed into a brush.

A 15-year-old and 17-year-old Raquan Green were later arrested for their alleged involvement in the crime. The teens are reportedly responsible for a number of crimes in July targeting Columbia-area college student, according to local law enforcement.

I thought back to my mom,” Jordan told reporters. “She was almost a victim of sexual assault when she was in college, and she fought back and fought the man off, and I thought that I am going to be strong like my mom, and I’m going to get myself out of this. She added, “My mom always told me, you know, ‘Don’t let them get you alone, because then you have no help, you have no hope for passerby’s to see you or hear you, and you have no help to get out.”