MADDIE SUSPECT RAPE FEAR
Irish woman attacked in Algarve wants case reviewed
an Irish woman has asked police to review her case to find out if she was raped by the man suspected of killing Madeleine Mccann.
Hazel Behan was attacked by a masked and machete-wielding brute in Praia da Rocha in 2004, 15 miles from where Maddie vanished three years later.
She said she felt sick when she learned last week the Mccann suspect Christian Brueckner raped a US pensioner in Praia da Luz in 2005.
Ms Behan added: “My mind was blown when I read how he had
attacked a woman. Both the tactics and the methods he used, the tools he had with him, how well he had planned it.
“Reading about it took me right back to my experience.”
Ms Behan, then 20, was working in the Algarve when she was raped in her flat in 2004 by a man who spoke English with a German accent and was about 6ft 1in. The attacker filmed the assault.
She believes if Portuguese police had investigated her case properly they might have caught him, prevented the attack on the US woman, which was also filmed, and three-year-old Madeleine’s disappearance.
She told the Guardian: “I was awoken by someone calling my name. Standing there was a masked man dressed in tights and what resembled a leotard and a machete. He got angry. I was convinced he was going to kill me.”
Ms Behan added through the holes in his mask she could see his blond eyebrows and blue eyes.
There was a distinctive mark on the top of his right thigh. German media said Brueckner, 43, now in jail, has birthmarks on his upper right thigh. Neighbours in Praia da Luz said he fled his ramshackle home in 2006, leaving behind wigs, fancy dress and exotic clothing.
Ms Behan had been losing hope her attacker would be caught until she learned of Brueckner’s past crimes.
When she gave a statement to the Metropolitan Police she was told they were taking her case seriously.