Tied, raped and filmed in my home by a blond German – just like Brueckner victim
Woman in sex attack reveals chilling parallels... even down to birthmark
A FORMER holiday rep who was raped in the Algarve believes the prime suspect in the Madeleine McCann investigation is her attacker.
Hazel Behan has demanded that police reopen her case after discovering her four-hour ordeal in 2004 had striking similarities with the rape of an American woman for which Christian Brueckner was convicted last year.
In 2005, a court heard, the German drifter bound, gagged and tortured a 72-year-old tourist in her villa in Praia da Luz – the same Portuguese resort from where Madeleine would go missing two years later.
Mrs Behan contacted Scotland Yard last week after discovering that the attack on her had all the hallmarks of Brueckner’s rape in 2005.
Waiving her right to anonymity, she said she was physically sick after reading about the rape of the tourist, such were the similarities.
The prosecutor investigating Maddie’s disappearance, which German authorities are treating as murder, said on Monday he was convinced there were other Brueckner victims over the years, including Britons, and he urged them to come forward.
‘My mind was blown when I read how he had attacked a woman in 2005, both the tactics and the methods he used, the tools he had with him, how well he had planned it out,’ Mrs Behan, 36, said.
‘I puked, to be honest with you, as reading about it took me right back to my experience.’
In a moving interview, the mother- of-two from Dublin criticised the Portuguese police investigation and said she previously had ‘little hope’ that her attacker would be caught.
Mrs Behan added: ‘I was told at the time that I should just be quiet, that if I talked about what had happened, I would bring bad publicity to the resort and put off the tourists.
‘Then I read about the poor American woman who was raped in September 2005 – who I would love to talk to – and the possible link that was being made between her attack and the person who abducted Madeleine McCann, and I was so full of anger.
‘I knew in my gut it was the right thing to do to speak out.
‘I think if the police had done their job investigating what happened to me, if this is indeed the same man that attacked the American and abducted Madeleine McCann, they might have prevented the attack on her, and Madeleine would now be at home with her parents.’
Mrs Behan was working as a guest rep at a resort in Praia da Rocha – 20 miles from where Madeleine was abducted – when she was viciously assaulted by a stranger in her apartment two weeks before her 21st birthday.
On the night of the attack, she fell asleep fully clothed on her bed after an evening out with friends. She was woken up at 1am by someone calling her name.
She turned around and saw a masked man dressed in tights and what resembled a leotard. He was holding a machete with a 12-inch blade, spoke English with a German accent and was about 6ft 1in.
Although he wore a mask that covered his whole head, the victim could see he had blond eyebrows and ‘piercing blue eyes’. She also recalled a distinctive mark on the top of his right thigh, which she described as ‘a pull in the tights, a birthmark or a tattoo’.
Brueckner, 43, is a tall, fair-haired German who is said to have birthmarks on his upper right thigh.
He also kept a bag of wigs and fancy dress costumes at his rundown Portuguese farmhouse, according to a neighbour.
And the details of the attack mirror the modus operandi used by Brueckner during the attack on the American woman a year later.
In both cases, the attacker carried a long blade, wore a mask, gagged his victims, tied them up and stole from their apartments. Both attacks were filmed.
Mrs Behan said the rapist removed his shoes at the door, set up a video camera in the room, and told her not to scream.
The attacker dragged her into the living area and tied her to the breakfast bar, before producing a bag of whips and chains.
Using scissors to remove her clothes, he gagged her with a cloth so she could not scream, and proceeded to beat and rape her.
‘It seemed to me he had worked everything out, he had a plan and was very deliberate,’ she said.
‘This went on, I guess, for around four or five hours. When he was finished, he took me down from the counter, but I could not stand up because of the ropes digging into the backs of my legs.’
After she refused to partake in one of his sexual demands, the attacker became angry and picked up a machete, ordering her to go into the bathroom.
‘I was convinced he was going to kill me, and I threatened to scream and said I would not go in there,’ she said. ‘My hands were still tied behind my back and he leaned me over a small bench and put a sheet over my head.
‘I thought that was it, my life was over. But underneath the sheet I watched as he backed out of the door, put on his shoes and ran away down the street.’ Naked, and with her hands still tied, Mrs Behan ran from her apartment and was helped by a group of men returning from a night out. They gave her their clothes so she could cover herself.
About 30 policemen arrived minutes later and asked her to ‘strip off and stand in a star jump-like stance’ while they took photos of her in the apartment.
‘That was one of the most humiliating aspects of the whole ordeal,’ she said, adding she does not believe any forensic evidence was taken. In the weeks running up to the attack, Mrs Behan said she had noticed that someone had been in her room.
‘At first I thought I was just being paranoid, but bits of money went missing, and things had been moved around, she said. ‘I now know my attacker had entered the room and been stalking me in the period leading up to the attack.’
Mrs Behan, who lives with her husband and two children and stood in her local elections last year, has given a statement to the Met Police. ‘It’s the first time in 16 years that I’ve been offered any
‘I was convinced he was going to kill me’
help from an official,’ she added. ‘I live in hope of finally getting closure on an extremely difficult chapter in my life.
The Met and Portuguese police declined to comment.
Brueckner was convicted of the rape of the American tourist last year and jailed for seven years, but he is appealing. His victim told the FBI she was ‘grabbed by a very strong and tall man by the neck in the dark’. According to court papers, she said: ‘I was briefly able to recognise a masked figure. Eyes looked out of slits and he had held a long, curved knife, which looked like a sabre.
‘He gagged me, tied my arms behind my back and... put bedclothes and other material on the windows so no one could look inside. I remember thinking, “I hope he won’t kill me”. Eventually, he tore my clothes down with a jerk. When I was naked, he threw me through the room and repeatedly slapped me all over the body with a metal object.’
A DnA sample taken from a hair at the scene helped to convict Brueckner 14 years later.