Maddie suspect had been identif ied seven years ago
MADELEINE McCann suspect Christian Brueckner was identified after a Scotland Yard computer e-fit was shown on a TV appeal seven years ago.
The Mail on Sunday can reveal that the paedophile’s name was passed to police by an acquaintance who saw the German TV programme and remembered him from the Portuguese resort where Madeleine vanished.
But even though Kate and Gerry McCann were flanked by a British detective during the May 2013 appeal, which was watched by millions, it is unclear whether the crucial tip-off ever reached the Metropolitan Police.
This newspaper can also reveal that a witness claimed to have spotted Madeleine getting into a German-owned VW van with a man just weeks after her disappearance.
A police file unearthed by this paper details how the witness saw Madeleine emerging from a restaurant in the Spanish seaside town of Alcossebre before climbing into the van with an unidentified man.
The sighting, one of dozens in the early weeks of the investigation, has take non new significance since German Brueckner was identified last week as a key suspect.
In other developments it emerged Brueckner regularly visited a rundown house hidden away in the Portuguese countryside in the months after the little girl’s disappearance.
The property could now become a focal point in the investigation into whether the German kidnapped and murdered Madeleine.
Brueckner often stayed at the villa in the village of Foral in 2007 and 2008.
It also emerged yesterday that he was kicked out of home as a teenager because his adopted mother could no longer cope with his criminal behaviour.
Speaking for the first time, Brueckner’s mother Brigitte said: ‘I don’t want to know anything about it.’