No peace for Maddie as ‘prime suspect’ charged with historical sex offences

The latest of so many prime suspects in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann has been charged in Germany with unrelated sex offences. Convicted sex offender 45 year old Christian Brueckner is accused of five offences in Portugal between 2000 and 2017.

The investigation into Madeleine’s disappearance is ongoing. Brueckner was identified as a suspect in the case in June 2020 but until recently denied involvement. He is currently serving a seven-year sentence for a rape committed in 2005, also in Portugal.

A letter has emerged in which Brueckner insists his accusers have no evidence. He writes…

“Perhaps I was a suspect after all they found out about me. Drug dealer, breaking into houses, living in cars and there was something with kids when I was 17. But they had not even one proof I was involved with the McCann case. And they still don’t have it. I know why. Because they have no hairs or anything from Maddie [which] means that nobody can put anything like that in my stuff to find it. I wasn’t kidnapping anybody and of course I wasn’t killing anybody. I wasn’t attacking anybody after I was 18. I made some silly mistakes when I was younger but who hasn’t?”

Law enforcers on the other hand, have said they are certain Brueckner murdered Maddie. Prosecutor Hans Christian Wolter said investigators have enough evidence to bring a charge against the suspect but want to “strengthen their position” first.

The UK press has taken many embarrassing missteps in the past 15 years and is divided on the matter. Regardless of the side they are on – outrage that a monster could have been allowed to walk the streets for 15 years after such a heinous offence, or outrage that after 15 years prosecutors have still failed to make any real headway in the case – media are still happy to emblazon their front pages with a story that they have done very little bring to closure.

Brueckner has now been charged separately with rape and sexual abuse in Portugal over a 17-year period, including the rape of a German-speaking girl believed to have been at least 14 years old in his home in Praia da Luz, sexual abuse of a 10-year-old German girl on a beach in Faro and of an 11-year-old Portuguese girl in a playground.

Investigators believe Brueckner killed Madeleine, after abducting her from her parent’s rented holiday apartment in Algarve on May 3, 2007. Brueckner fled to Portugal in 1995 after completing a two-year sentence for abusing a child in Germany.

From Rothley, Leicestershire, Madeleine McCann was three when she went missing.