Madeleine McCann suspect Christian Brueckner cleared of rape charges in Germany

The 47-year-old has been on trial accused of raping women and exposing himself to children in the Algarve

A convicted rapist has been cleared of all new charges at his latest trial in Germany. Christian Brueckner was accused of raping women and exposing himself to children in the Algarve.

The 47-year-old had previously been named as a suspect in the Madeleine McCann case. The three-year-old went missing from Praia da Luz in 2007.

The German paedophile denies any involvement in the case which remains unsolved. Prosecutors previously claimed to know the British youngster is dead but have never revealed what evidence they have.

Get breaking news on BirminghamLive WhatsApp

Helge Busching, Brueckner's former friend, rang Scotland Yard claiming that he told him “she didn’t scream” when the pair discussed the case in a Spanish bar in 2008. Busching left a voicemail for the Operation Grange team, who have been investigating the Madeleine case since 2011.

Giving evidence in court, Det Con Mark Draycott recalled how he rang him back the following day. He said: "Back then we still had a public phone number which was publicised around the world.

“Members of the public could ring in information in relation to Operation Grange, the Madeleine McCann investigation. One of my jobs was to check the answer phone messages. On May 18th I checked the answer phone and there was a message.

“It was from a male by the sound of his voice, he spoke good English and he asked to speak to David Edgar (private investigator). He said he had information and he left a Greek mobile number.

“I then rang this Greek mobile number and spoke to a male I now know to be Helge Lars Busching. He referred to himself as Lars and he gave information in relation to the Madeleine McCann investigation.”

DC Draycott shared the information with German and Portuguese authorities which sparked the probe into Brueckner. He was part of a Scotland Yard team which flew to Athens three months later to question Busching in top secrecy, The Mirror reports.

The interview took place in August 2017 in a hotel after bugging equipment was brought in to check for listening devices. Busching had been released from a Greek jail weeks earlier and was on parole at the time.

DC Draycott said: “We spoke to him over two days and he gave us information in relation to the Madeleine McCann case. He was scared, he had a distrust in the police. He was scared of giving a statement in such a high-profile case.

"He said he had a conversation with Christian at the Orgiva Festival in 2008. That conversation was in relation to Operation Grange. I can’t talk about that."

DC Draycott said Busching flew to London in February 2018 to give a formal statement at Scotland Yard. The detective was asked repeatedly by Brueckner’s lawyers about the Madeleine McCann case but DC Draycott said he had been ordered by his Scotland Yard superiors not to discuss the ongoing case.

Busching told detectives about other alleged crimes carried out by Brueckner in Portugal. He claimed to have found videos in his Praia da Luz home of the convicted paedophile raping women.

His story was backed up by Manfred Siefirth, a fellow friend in Portugal, who said he had watched the footage. Detectives then linked him to two incidents of indecent exposure against children in the Algarve in 2007 and 2017.

Hazel Behan, a former tour rep, came forward in 2020 saying she believed he was the masked man who raped her in her Portuguese apartment in 2004. Brueckner was eventually charged in September last year.

Busching, who is suffering from terminal cancer, was the star witness in the case at Braunschweig regional court. He was pals with the paedophile in Praia da Luz in the early 2000s and described him in court as “really dangerous”.

He said: “He must be brought to justice and he must be punished. We were not good friends back then and we will certainly never be good friends in the future.”

Fellow German drifter Siefirth, 66, backed up much of what his pal Busching said. He told the court how he saw videos of Brueckner abusing a pensioner and a young girl. Seyferth said the first alleged victim was an Italian woman in her 60s, who was naked and tied to a table.

He said he recognised Brueckner's voice, telling the court: "It was clearly him." Seyferth said the second alleged victim was a teenage German girl aged roughly 16 who was tied to a post in Brueckner's farmhouse. He said Brueckner “danced” around his victim before forcing her to perform a sex act on him.

Neither of the women in the videos were ever traced. Irish tour rep Hazel was the only alleged rape victim to be identified and give evidence in court. She described in harrowing detail how she was raped in her Algarve apartment in June 2004.

Hazel looked at Brueckner in court and told the judges: “This man is the attacker.” She described how his distinctive blue eyes “bored into my skull” as he brutally raped her at knifepoint.

The 40-year-old was working in an Algarve resort when she was sexually assaulted by an intruder inside her apartment. Her rapist was dressed in a pair of black tights, black leotard and mask with only his eyes exposed.

Hazel told the court she will never forget his blues eyes - and said she was certain Brueckner was the rapist. At the end of her evidence, and with him sitting just feet away from her, she said: “I believe this man is the attacker.”

She told the court how she recognised Brueckner when she saw a photo of him years later and she alerted Scotland Yard in 2020 after he was named as the prime suspect in the Madeleine case.

She noticed chilling similarities between the attack on her in Praia da Rocha and a rape he carried out in nearby Praia da Luz in 2005. Another witness, Laurentiu Codin, said Brueckner bragged of breaking into homes in Portugal and raping women.

He befriended the German while they were both on remand in prison and was approached by detectives who heard they were close. During his evidence the Romanian ex-con claimed Brueckner confessed to snatching a girl from her Algarve holiday apartment.

He said the German confessed to a near-identical crime to Madeleine’s abduction when they were on remand together in 2019. Codin said: “He told me that in Portugal, he had stolen there.

"He said there was somewhere with an open window. He was looking for money. He said he didn’t find any money but found a kid and took the child. He said that two hours later, there were police and dogs all over the place, so he then went away, out of the area.

"I am just saying what he told me. He told me that a person was with him, who he had had an argument with, allegedly it was his woman. He said he took the child in Portugal in his car, and in the time when the police and dogs were at the house, he drove away and he was gone. He asked me if the DNA from a child can be taken from bones under the ground. I took it seriously."

He later added: “He asked if the dogs could track down and could smell where human remains could be found.” Codin, a locksmith, said Brueckner also confessed to abducting and raping young girls in the city of Hannover. Brueckner’s lawyer Friedrich Fuelscher dismissed him as a “fantasist”.

Brueckner is currently serving a seven-year prison term for raping an American pensioner in Praia da Luz. Detectives appear no closer to proving he was behind Madeleine's disappearance despite claiming they have proof she is dead.

Birmingham: A Child Poverty Emergency

Child poverty is soaring in Birmingham and without urgent change, will only get worse. Having worked with charities and community groups, BirminghamLive is campaigning for the following changes to start to turn the tide:

1. End the two-child benefit cap
2. Provide free school meals to every child in poverty
3. Create a city “aid bank” for baby and child essentials
4. Protect children’s and youth services
5. Create permanent, multi year Household Support Fund and give more Discretionary Housing grants
6. Set up child health and wellbeing hubs in our most deprived neighbourhoods
7. Appoint a Birmingham child poverty tsar
8. Provide free public travel for young people

You can see why in more detail here.

Read our full report Birmingham: A Child Poverty Emergency here.

What you can do to help.