goon Had a read about on the matter and I don't think this is quite right. Had they come to the 'end' of their investigation and felt a lack of evidence would not result in a conviction it would most likely have been treated as 'no further action' with the individual being told the police are no longer currently investigating the crime and freeing him of any obligations. In this instance it is 'released under investigation' - indicating the police are still actively looking at this case.
You can see the difference where one of the earlier allegations was NFA'd when they realised the legislation did not cover the offence, so could never been taken forward past that point.
I may be wrong but it appears the distinction is in no longer being subject to bail conditions. This might be for any number of reasons. Once initially bailed it has to be extended, as we have seen, and on each occasion further justified as to why he must remain on bail. Bail extensions have gone on long enough that they would be at the will of a Magistrate, and it may be that the Magistrate disagrees with bail or the defence solicitor has made a persuasive argument that either the police accepted or failed to challenge successfully. Bail is generally to ensure a suspect doesn't flee or contact witnesses/complainants, and it gives a date when the suspect must return to the police station. He's been abroad numerous times so there aren't concerns about failure to appear, and they'll have plenty of indication whether unwanted contact is likely or not.
It might also be that they don't want to tie themselves to a certain date that bail would bring. It wouldn't surprise me at all that whilst we're all thinking it might have come to the end of the investigation without finding a smoking gun, that it's a case of them not even having been able to uncover some pretty crucial and seemingly easy/available evidence yet due to things like backlogs with phone data extraction.
In short, I certainly don't think we've seen the end of this.
