Biggest break yet in search for Madeleine
German sex offender is prime suspect as police hail new inquiries as ‘significant’
SCOTLAND YARD has identified a prime suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine Mccann, senior officers disclosed last night.
In the biggest breakthrough in the 13-year investigation, police said a 43-year-old German who is in jail in his homeland for child sexual offences was now suspected of involvement in the little girl’s disappearance.
The man, whom they did not name, was in Praia da Luz on the day of Madeleine’s disappearance and received a telephone call in the area an hour before the girl vanished.
Officers said he had lived in Portugal between 1995 and 2007 and released images of two vehicles belonging to the man who is now their main suspect.
Senior police officers described the line of inquiry as “significant” as they appealed for information over the whereabouts of the German at the time Madeleine went missing aged just three in May 2007. Friends of Kate and Gerry Mccann said it was the biggest development in the case since their daughter went missing and the first time that two separate forces – in Britain and in Germany – had publicly identified a suspect.
In a moving statement, the girl’s parents, both doctors from Rothley, Leics, said: “All we have ever wanted is to find her, uncover the truth and bring those responsible to justice. We will never give up hope of finding Madeleine alive but whatever the outcome may be, we need to know, as we need to find peace.” They said they welcomed a renewed call made jointly by British, German and Portuguese police to find Madeleine and trace the movements of the suspect.
In a coordinated appeal for information, broadcast on German television, authorities there said the man was suspected of Madeleine’s murder.
He was described as a “multiple” child sex offender serving a lengthy jail term. During his time in the Algarve, he did odd jobs but is also thought to be implicated in hotel and holiday home burglaries and drug dealing.
The suspect first came to the attention of the Metropolitan Police’s Operation Grange unit after an appeal was made marking the 10th anniversary of Madeleine’s disappearance in 2017. The Met asked for help from their German counterparts, the Bundeskriminalamt, six months later in November 2017. It is unclear why it has taken almost three years for officers to go public.
Last night it was reported in Germany that police there had first been tipped off about the suspect back in 2013. The German Crimewatch programme also suggested the police there had reason to believe that Madeleine had been murdered.
In a statement issued last night, German police said: “There is reason to assume that there are other persons, apart from the suspect, who have concrete knowledge of the course of the crime and maybe also of the place where the body was left. We explicitly ask these persons to contact us and provide information.”
They said detectives were honing in on two properties near where the Mccanns were staying. Scotland Yard has always insisted there is no evidence to prove that she was killed. In a statement, Scotland Yard said: “Met detectives working with German authorities have identified a man currently imprisoned in Germany as a suspect in Madeleine’s disappearance.”
Police insisted the case remained a “missing persons” inquiry but the public identification of the suspect suggests they believe she was abducted.
Detectives tracing the suspect’s mobile phone calls at the time have established the German national was in Praia da Luz an hour before Madeleine went missing. He received a call on his mobile phone that lasted half an hour from 7.32pm to 8.02pm. Madeleine went missing at some time after 9pm.
The suspect, who was 30 at the time, was then living in a distinctive VW T3 Westfalia camper van with a white upper body and yellow skirting. Police described the man as an “itinerant” who had lived on and off in the area from 1995 until 2007.
Police forces are also seeking information on a second car, owned by the suspect, which he kept in the Algarve. The car, a 1993 Jaguar saloon with German number plates, was registered in his name, but the registration changed to somebody else on May 4 2007, the day after Madeleine vanished.
Police said: “To re-register the car in Germany you don’t have to have the car in the country or region. We believe the car was still in Portugal and would like information if you saw it.”
The Metropolitan Police also took the unusual step last night of releasing the mobile phone number the suspect was using at the time and the number of the person who called him. Police are trying to discover who called the man. “Investigators believe the person who made this call is a highly significant witness,” said the Met.
It is understood that police in the UK and Germany have interviewed the suspect in jail but he has declined to help with their inquiries.
Forensic testing has been carried out on both vehicles. Scotland Yard said the man was “white and in 2007 is believed to have had short blond hair, possibly fair. He was about 6ft … with a slim build. He is 43 years old, but in 2007 may have looked between 25 to early 30s.
“He is connected to the area of Praia da Luz and spent some short spells in Germany. This individual, who we will not identify, is currently in prison in Germany for an unrelated matter.” Christian Hoppe, of Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office, told the media the suspect has two previous convictions for “sexual contact with girls.”
It was reported the suspect had lived on farm land connected to a beach frequented by the Mccanns by a footpath. Months before Madeleine’s disappearance he is said to have moved from the property to the campervan.
A neighbour who spoke to Sky News described him as ‘a bit angry” adding that in 2006 “he just disappeared without a word”.
‘All we have ever wanted is to find her and bring those responsible to justice. We will never give up hope’
TEN years after Madeleine Mccann’s disappearance, her parents Kate and Gerry made a fresh appeal for information which perhaps elicited more sympathy than hope from those watching.
They told the public they would do “whatever it takes, for as long as it takes” to find their daughter, who was last seen on May 3 2007 in the Portuguese resort of Praia da Luz.
“There is still hope that we can find Madeleine,” said Mrs Mccann, though with only four Scotland Yard detectives working on the case – rather than the 30 originally in the incident room – it seemed like a lost cause.
Last night, however, the Metropolitan Police revealed that the 2017 appeal had paid dividends, resulting in a tipoff about a German man who was known to have been in Praia da Luz at the relevant time.
For the past three years, the Met has been working secretly with Germany’s Bundeskriminalamt (BKA) and Portugal’s Policia Judiciaria to track the movements of the 43-year-old drifter who has now become the first person publicly described by the Met as: “A suspect in Madeleine’s disappearance.”
The Met’s Operation Grange team, led by Det Chief Insp Mark Cranwell, spent months investigating the tip about the German, before contacting the BKA in November 2017 to ask for their help.
The detectives had established that the suspect lived “on and off ” in the Algarve between 1995 and 2007, and believed he was living in a camper van in the Praia da Luz area on the day Madeleine disappeared.
German police said in a statement: “He had several occasional jobs, among other things in the gastronomy business, in the Lagos area in this time period. In addition there is information suggesting that he also earned his living by committing criminal offences, such as burglaries of hotel complexes and holiday flats as well as trafficking in narcotic drugs.
“Furthermore, the suspect was sentenced on numerous occasions to prison terms for sexual abuse of children in the past. This fact is probably not known to most of the contact persons.” It also said: “There is information suggesting that he may have used one of these vehicles to commit the offence... there is reason to assume that there are other persons, apart from the suspect, who have concrete knowledge of the course of the crime and maybe also of the place where the body was left. We explicitly ask these persons to contact us and provide information.”
The “distinctive” VW T3 Westfalia camper, an early Eighties model with a white body and yellow skirting, is the first of four crucial clues that eventually convinced the police to go public.
They believe the man was living in the Portuguese-registered vehicle for “days, possibly weeks” in 2007 and are now appealing to anyone who might have seen it around the time of Madeleine’s disappearance to contact them.
But, it was a second vehicle owned by the suspect that provided a far more intriguing lead.
The suspect, who is white, 6ft tall, slim and had short blond hair in 2007, owned a 1993 Jaguar XJR6 with a German number plate, which was seen in the Praia da Luz area in 2006 and 2007.
It was originally registered in the suspect’s name, but on May 4 2007 – the day after Madeleine went missing – it was re-registered to someone else in Germany. A Met spokesman explained: “To re-register the car in Germany you don’t have to have the car in the country or region. We believe the car was still in Portugal.” Both of the vehicles were tracked down and seized by German police, where they remain.
Two mobile phone numbers were also unearthed by police. The first number is +351 912 730 680. Extensive enquiries led investigators to believe the suspect was using this number and received a call, starting at 7.32pm and finishing at 8.02pm, on 3 May 2007. The call was received in the area of Praia da Luz. Madeleine was reported missing from the Ocean Club resort at 10.14pm that night.
The number that made the call is +351 916 510 683. Whoever called the suspect was not in the area but could provide pivotal information. The police also established that until a year before Madeleine went missing, the suspect was living in a white-painted bungalow about two miles from the Ocean Club with a girlfriend. One neighbour, who helped clear out the rented property for new occupants, said she found bags of wigs and exotic clothing inside.
The identification of the blondhaired suspect comes seven years after Scotland Yard said it was eager to trace a blond-haired man who had been seen loitering in the area on April 30 and May 2. He was described as “ugly” with a spotty complexion and a large nose.
Two blond-haired men were seen on the balcony of an empty apartment two doors from the Mccanns’ at 2.30pm on the day of the disappearance. Blond men were seen again near the apartment at 4pm and 6pm that day, and at 11pm that night.
Last night, German police broadcast a televised appeal for new information about the suspect, who is currently in prison for child sex offences.
Mr Cranwell said: “There may be people in the past who would be quite fearful of coming forward to the police, and my message to anybody that has information is, did he speak to you in confidence and tell you what happened that night?”
A £20,000 reward remains on the table for information leading to the conviction of the person responsible for Madeleine’s disappearance.
The Met’s £12million investigation has identified more than 600 people as being potentially significant, but the German – who was already known to police – is the first to be publicly identified by them as a suspect. German police are treating Madeleine’s disappearance as a murder investigation, but Operation Grange, launched in 2013, has always considered the case a missing person inquiry. Madeleine, who vanished shortly before her fourth birthday, and would have turned 17 last month, had been left to sleep with her twin siblings Sean and Amelie in the family’s holiday apartment at the Ocean Club as the parents dined at a tapas restaurant on the other side of a swimming pool.
£20,000
The reward which is still being offered for any information leading to the conviction of the person behind the disappearance
Nothing was amiss when Mr Mccann checked the children just after 9pm that night. But, when his wife went back at about 10pm, Madeleine had gone. The first person to become an arguido, or official suspect, was Robert Murat, a local property consultant, whose home was searched 12 days after the disappearance. He was formally cleared of suspicion in 2008.
In September that year, the Mccanns themselves were made arguidos. Mrs Mccann later claimed she was told by the Portuguese police that if she admitted that Madeleine had died in the apartment and she had hidden her body she might only serve a two-year sentence and Mr Mccann would not be charged at all.
Goncalo Amaral, the chief inspector who had been in charge of the case, resigned in 2008 to write a book alleging that Madeleine died in an accident in the apartment, and the Mccanns had faked the abduction. The Mccanns sued him for libel, and won: Amaral was ordered to pay them £394,000 in damages, but in April 2016 that decision was overturned by an appeal court. Both the Mccanns and Mr Murat were cleared of suspicion in 2008.
In July 2013, Operation Grange was launched by Scotland Yard. British detectives, working under the theory that Madeleine may have been killed by a burglar she disturbed, released two photofits of suspects in 2013.
Another suspect was Euclides Monteiro, a convicted burglar with a drug habit, who had been sacked from the Ocean Club in 2006. He died in a tractor accident in 2009. Then, in May 2019, Portuguese media reported that local detectives were investigating a foreign paedophile as a suspect.