Christian Brueckner is accused of three cases of aggravated rape and two cases of sexual abuse of children in Portugal (Picture: Julian Stratenschulte/DPA/Cover)
A police officer in the Madeleine McCann case revealed in court today how a bombshell tip-off led them to identify Christian Brueckne as a suspect.
Madeleine disappeared nearly 17 years ago at the age of three from a holiday apartment in the Algarve region of Portugal.
Det Con Mark Draycott appeared in a German court today to give evidence in the trial of convicted paedophile and German national Brueckner.
The trial has no connection to Madeleine’s vanishing but the defendant’s lawyers requested the Metropolitan Police officer testify.
Draycott worked on Operation Grange, the £13 million investigation hoping to answer what happened to Madeline on the night of May 3, 2007.
He told the court about how witness Helge Busching told Draycott of his fears Brueckner was involved in Madeleine’s case some 10 years later.
Madeleine McCann vanished in 2007 while on holiday with her parents (Picture: PA)
He told the court how Busching left a voicemail on a hotline that he was answering the phones for on May 18, 2017.
‘It was from a male by the sound of his voice, he spoke good English, and he asked to speak to Dave Edgar, 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, within that conversation he referred to himself as Lars, and he gave information in relation to the McCann investigation.
‘As a result of that information, we conducted other inquiries and searches and this became a line of enquiry.’
Draycott said Busching travelled to London in 2018 to give a statement to police, in which he claimed to have seen Brucekener at a 2008 festival.
Brueckner has never been charged in connection with the McCann case (Picture; Reuters)
Busching told detectives Brueckner said to him: ‘It was strange she didn’t scream when she was taken.’
‘He complained of not feeling well. He said he had eaten something dodgy,’ added Draycott.
‘But he was happy for the statement to be taken. He was only with us for a matter of a couple of hours. He had travelled a long way and still wanted to help police.’
Draycott said that the statement was then shared with German and Portuguese authorities.
Two years later, German prosecutors named Brueckner as their top suspect in the toddler’s disappearance – Brueckner has long denied wrongdoing.
Busching had been jailed only days before calling the Met for people smuggling in Greece.
More Trending
His criminal record, Draycott added, had ‘nothing to do’ with his statement about Brueckner.
‘We don’t make promises to witnesses. We never pay witnesses for information,’ he told the court.
Bruckener’s team hopes having Draycott in court could work in their favour by discrediting a key witness as their client faces three counts of rape and two of sexual abuse of children.
He allegedly committed the offences in Portugal between 2000 and 2017.
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this, check our news page.