Paedo ‘plied kids with free sweets’
MADELEINE Mccann suspect Christian Bruckner allegedly showered school pupils with cuddly toys and sweets as they walked past a shop he ran.
Former primary school caretaker Peter Erdmann, 64, told the Sunday People that police should investigate whether Bruckner was grooming children from his store, 300 yards from a school in Braunschweig.
And another witness claimed the convicted rapist beat his girlfriend and left his two dogs to starve to death when he left to return to Portugal.
Mr Erdmann said: “He was mainly giving the presents to boys aged seven to ten, but also some girls.
“He was giving them presents nearly every day and it went on for a couple of years.
“I asked him if he gave gifts to the kids and he told me he had a little box full of such gifts in the kiosk.
“At the time I thought nothing of it and just thought he was a friendly man. I used to go into the kiosk and he’d give me free shots of Jagermeister.
“He knew I was the school caretaker. It turns my stomach to think of what his intentions may have been.”
As well as the disappearance of Maddie in Praia da Luz in 2007, Bruckner has been linked to two German children, Inga Gehricke, five, who went missing in 2015, and René Hasee, six, missing since 1996.
Detectives are also re-examining the murder of German teenager, Carola Titze, in 1996.
Mr Erdmann, who worked at the school from 1999 until 2016, said he regretted not reporting Bruckner.
He said: “The kids would come to school holding ponies and teddy bears they had got on their way in. They said
Christian at the kiosk gave them to them for free and that he always had a big bag of them in the store room.
“He would walk past the school at least once a day while walking his dogs.
“I wish I had raised what was going on with my bosses at the time. I am disgusted by what I read about him.”
There is no suggestion Bruckner abused any of the school’s pupils or the children in the kiosk – but Mr Erdmann vowed to tell police what he witnessed.
Local resident Norbert, who asked me not to use his second name, was brought up in the area and moved into Bruckner’s former home.
He said he had seen him let children aged around nine stand behind the till and in the storeroom.
Norbert showed me the building, which he said was left in a state.
He told me: “There was rubbish everywhere, the floors and bottom of the walls were black and there was vomit and insects everywhere.
“The pest control had to come and disinfect everything. There were broken windows. The bedroom was wrecked. Everything was damaged.
“He held parties here and neighbours complained to the police. There were parties the whole night. Who knows if the children got involved? It wouldn’t surprise me.”
Norbert also claimed Bruckner’s dogs were found dead after he deserted the building.
He said: “He had a big dog and a little dog and they died of thirst after he left them to go to Portugal.
“He left the kiosk because he was not earning any money in the shop.
“He had two girlfriends when he lived here. The first one I never saw, the second girl was from Albania.
“I saw her in the street one day when she had strangle marks on her neck. She is now safe inside her family group and is living in hiding.”