Suspect’s pal: I warned Maddie hunt over ‘really dangerous’ Brueckner
Roofer knew of paedo’s abuse videos
A FRIEND of Christian Brueckner said he rang an investigator working for Madeleine Mccann’s parents to warn about the “really dangerous” paedophile a year after she vanished.
Helge Busching knew the
German – the prime suspect in Maddie’s case – when they both lived in the
Algarve. Busching previously claimed the German told him
“she didn’t scream” when they discussed
Maddie’s case in a
Spanish bar in 2008.
He said he alerted former RUC detective
Dave Edgar that year.
Busching then tipped off
Scotland Yard in 2017, sparking the ongoing international police probe into
47-year-old Brueckner.
It led to German police naming him in
2020 as the man responsible for
Maddie’s “abduction and murder”.
Busching yesterday gave evidence in the rapist’s trial on unrelated sex crimes allegedly carried out in Portugal.
He told judges how he found a video camera in Brueckner’s house showing him raping and sexually assaulting two women.
Busching, who knew the paedophile in
Praia da Luz in the early 2000s, called him
“really dangerous”.
He claimed he gave
Brueckner’s name to
Mr Edgar in 2008, the year after Madeleine vanished from the resort and nine years before police were alerted. The former detective inspector was hired by Kate and Gerry Mccann to look into their daughter’s disappearance. He worked on the case for three years before it was taken over by the Met Police in 2011.
Busching was asked by prosecutor Ute Lindemann if he “turned to someone else” before contacting Scotland Yard in 2017. He claimed he spoke to Mr Edgar in 2008 but did not give any more details about the alleged call.
Contacted by the Mirror last night, the retired detective said: “I have no recollection of him personally speaking to me. I certainly didn’t know the name Christian Brueckner back then.
“If he’d told me the things he is now saying about him it would have set alarm bells ringing.” Busching, a roofer, told Braunschweig regional court yesterday that he took the abuse videos from Brueckner’s home in 2005, but failed to alert police.
He added: “I don’t know why I didn’t. I regret this to the day.” Brueckner’s lawyers earlier failed to have one of the prosecutors thrown off the case. Atilla Aykac slammed Hans Christian Wolters for labelling his client the prime suspect in the Maddie case, saying it was prejudicial. Brueckner is alleged to have attacked women and children in Portugal between 2000 and 2017 – one just weeks before Madeleine vanished in Praia da Luz in May 2007. He was jailed for seven years in 2019 for the 2005 rape of a pensioner in Praia da Luz. His trial continues.
I have no recollection of him. I didn’t know about Brueckner back then
DAVE EDGAR DETECTIVE ON HELGE BUSCHING