MADDIE: SUSPECT IS IN A GERMAN JAIL
43-year-old was living in a camper van near where she went missing
A GERMAN child sex offender may have kidnapped Madeleine Mccann in Portugal, police have said.
The unnamed male suspect, in jail for an unrelated crime, would have been 30 when she vanished in 2007 and had been living in his van nearby.
Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office said police now have “almost enough” to charge him with her murder.
PROSECUTORS in Germany have already begun building a strong case against the main suspect in the Madeleine Mccann case, a drifter with a record of burglary and offences against young girls.
The man, now 43, had been living a “transient” life in a camper van, and working in and around Praia da Luz at the time of Madeleine’s disappearance from a holiday flat in the Algarve resort on May 3, 2007.
In the documentary Case Files XY Unsolved on German TV last night, Christian Hoppe, director of the National Crime Agency, said German police believed they had almost enough evidence to charge him with Madeleine’s abduction and murder.
Herr Hoppe said that there may be some people associated with the suspect who were aware of his movements on the night Madeleine disappeared, and he appealed to them to come forward and “clear their conscience” now.
BURGLARY
Police appealed to anyone in the resort at the time to fill “the final gaps” in the case, releasing photos of the man’s camper van and Jaguar car and details of a phone call he made on the night the three-year-old vanished.
Police had been aware of his presence in the resort and had been building up a case against him since parents Kate and Gerry Mccann made an appeal for information on German TV in October, 2013.
The suspect had faced sexual and drug-dealing charges in Germany before he arrived in Portugal.
He had also been involved in theft and burglary in the country, where he lived from 1995 to 2007, when he returned to Germany.
Police are unclear if the suspected motive was a simple burglary and he had found Madeleine in the flat after he had broken in, or if he went with the intention to abduct her.
Police revealed the man’s Portuguese-registered phone was in the resort the night Madeleine vanished. He received a half-hour phone call from another Portuguese number an hour before Madeleine was last seen. His number, +351 912730680, and the caller’s number, +351 916510683, were released. The caller is not a suspect but is a “crucial witness” police now want to trace.
The programme revealed details of properties the suspect used in the area, one an apartment between Praia da Luz and Lagos, the other an empty property around 15km from Lagos. Viewers were asked to send police any holiday snaps or video which could help their inquiries. In a reconstruction, Kate and Gerry Mccann relived the moment they realised Madeleine was gone.
Kate told the programme, a version of Crimewatch, how they had returned from a tapas restaurant to find Madeleine’s bed empty.
She said: “It just seemed a very calm and peaceful place when we arrived there. When I went into her bedroom, I could not see her.
“I thought she was in our bedroom but she was not there either. The curtain went ‘pssh’ and I just remember seeing that the window had been opened.” Gerry said from that moment they knew the “worst thing imaginable” had happened.
Scotland Yard Detective Chief Insp Mark Cranwell said the suspect had lived a “transient lifestyle” living in his camper van for “days on end”.
Police released photos of the man’s 1980s VW camper and Jaguar XJR-6, both were in Praia da Luz in 2007.
The Jaguar was re-registered in Germany to another person the day after Madeleine disappeared.
The vehicles have since been seized in Germany and checked for forensic clues linking them to Madeleine.
The suspect had rented a ramshackle farm building from a British man two miles from the resort and had made money selling cars.
Former neighbours told Sky News he “disappeared without a word” from the Algarve farmhouse in 2006.
One said: “He arrived in the mid-90s and rented the place from the English owner. He went back to Germany at one stage and moved another German guy in to look after it, then came back and threw him out on the street.
“He was always a bit angry, driving fast up and down the lane. And then one day, around 2006, he just disappeared without a word. I think he left
All we want is to find her, to uncover the truth. We need to find peace
KATE AND GERRY MCCANN ON HUNT FOR MADELEINE
some rent unpaid. About six months later I was asked to help clean up the place and it was disgusting, absolutely vile.
“We found a bin bag and inside were wigs and exotic clothing.”
German authorities are treating their investigation as a murder inquiry, while Scotland Yard say it is still a missing person case. Met Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner Stuart Cundy said: “It’s now 13 years since Madeleine went missing. Today is a significant point in time for the Met’s investigation.”
Kate and Gerry welcomed the breakthrough, saying: “All we have ever wanted is to find her, uncover the truth and bring those responsible to justice. We need to find peace.”
Scotland Yard said they were “aware” of the man before getting a tip-off in May 2017, but he had never previously been a suspect. They worked alone on the tip for four months before agreeing to liaise with German colleagues.
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Cundy said since then “a huge amount of work” had been done by the Met and German police.
“The outcome of that is that he is a suspect in the Met’s investigation. We will not be giving the name or the identity of this man, but I do recognise that some people will know this suspect. Somebody called his phone. We don’t know who that caller was.”
Det Chief Insp Mark Cranwell, who is leading Operation Grange, issued a description of the suspect. He said: “He is white, has short blond hair, possibly fair, about six foot in height with a slim build. In 2007 he was 30 and may have looked somewhere between 25 and early 30s.”
Appealing to anyone who personally knows the man, he added: “This individual is in prison and we are conscious that some people may have been concerned about contacting police in the past.
“Now is the time to come forward.”