WHY HE’S IN FRAME

NOT GIVING UP Kate and Gerry

Christian Brueckner allegedly told pal Helge Busching in 2008 that he was involved in Madeleine Mccann’s disappearance. He gave Brueckner’s name to Scotland Yard detectives in 2017 after being arrested in Greece.

Brueckner knew Praia da Luz well. He used to live less than half a mile from the Ocean Club in a ramshackle farmhouse and was living in a camper van around the time she vanished.

Brueckner has previous convictions for breaking into holiday apartments and villas in the Algarve. In 2005 he broke into a wealthy pensioner’s house in Praia da Luz and raped her. He was jailed for seven years.

In 1994, before he moved to the Algarve, Brueckner was convicted of sexually assaulting a six-year-old girl in his native Germany. Portuguese police were aware of his background but did not quiz him after Madeleine’s disappearance. He was later convicted in 2014 of assaulting a five-year-old girl in a park in Braunschweig, Germany.

Brueckner broke into his British ex-girlfriend’s Algarve apartment and hid under her bed after attacking her. He terrorised the mum-of-two when they dated in 2004 and 2005.

A mobile Brueckner was using at the time of Madeleine’s disappearance “pinged” in the area around the Ocean Club resort, where she was snatched from in May 2007. It was called by a mystery number around an hour before she went

missing.

PAEDOPHILE Brueckner is in a German prison