Madeleine McCann suspect bombshells - 'abduction, vile fantasy and prison cell brag'

Sex offender Christian Brueckner, who is serving a seven-year sentence for raping a pensioner, confessed to abducting a child in Portugal, his former cell mate claims. Here we look at the biggest bombshells from his trial

More and more shocking claims have come to light about Christian Brueckner, the prime suspect in the tragic disappearance of Madeleine McCann.

The convicted sex offender, 48, is the main person of interest in the famous missing person's case, however he has never been charged and denies any involvement. Maddie was just three when she vanished without a trace during a family holiday in Pria Da Luz on May 3, 2007.

Her parents, Gerry and Kate, who had been out for dinner at a nearby restaurant with three other couples, returned to their holiday let later that night to find their little girl nowhere to be seen. Ever since, they have been campaigning to find their beloved daughter, who would now be 20.

The German native, who is currently serving a seven-year prison sentence for raping a pensioner in Portugal in 2005, has had his name linked to the disappearance on several occasions. So far, the Metropolitan Police has spent more than £13million in an investigation dubbed Operation Grange in a bid to find out what happened to the toddler.

In 2020, German investigators identified Brueckner, and two years later, he was made a formal suspect by the Portuguese police. Investigator Hans Christian Wolters said in 2022: "We are sure he is the murderer of Madeleine McCann".

Born in 1976, Brueckner moved to Portugal in his late teens. It is believed he lived in the country between 1995 and 2007 in a campervan located not far from the holiday resort where Madeleine was abducted. He is described as being around 6ft tall and slim, with short blonde hair.

Brueckner has more than a dozen previous convictions for burglary, theft and sex offences, including serving an 18-month sentence in Germany for a sex attack on a youth when he was a teen. He is currently locked up for raping an American pensioner in Praia da Luz and drug trafficking.

He is now on trial accused of a string of sex offences in Portugal between 2000 and 2017, unrelated to Madeleine's case. He is charged with raping an Irish tour rep, a teenage girl and an elderly woman in her holiday apartment. He also faces a child sex charge for allegedly exposing himself to a German girl on a beach in Salema in 2017 - and he denies all charges against him.

Here, the Mirror takes a look at the biggest bombshells in Brueckner's trial so far...

'Prison cell confession'

On Wednesday, Brueckner's former cellmate, Laurentiu Codin, told the court that the German confessed to abducting a child in Portugal. Codin, 50, said: "He told me that in Portugal, he had stolen there. He was in a region where there are hotels and rich people live. He said there was somewhere with an open window, he told me this."

Codin continued: "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."

Email discovery

In June of this year, a senior detective said they discovered emails on Brueckner's Hotmail account that linked him to the McCann case. Titus Stampa told the court he had no clearance to discuss the contents of the emails because it was "related to the killing" of the tot. He referred to it as the "murder" account but refused to say if the emails contained videos or photos.

The detective said cops found a second account where he had swapped sickening child abuse videos with fellow paedophiles. Brueckner deleted all emails in that Hotmail account from the first half of 2007 - when Madeleine vanished, the court heard.

Mr Stampa revealed details of Brueckner's email accounts as he gave evidence at Braunschweig regional court. He told the court that he found vile images on a secret email address used by the German. Prosecutors got access to the inbox after making an application to US software giant Microsoft in 2019.

Brueckner opened the Hotmail account in January 2007, just four months before Madeleine vanished in Praia da Luz. He was living in a ramshackle farmhouse on the edge of the popular Portuguese resort at the time. Mr Stamper said the German drifter had attempted to delete "many emails" which he shared with other paedophiles. He said the emails contained "numerous" videos which showed horrific abuse of "three or four-year-old" children.

Brueckner also used the email account to write a vile fantasy about raping a mother and her young daughter, the court heard. "It was a very detailed story about a five-year-old girl and her mother who are kidnapped and taken away in a van," he said. "It was about violence and brutality and them being abused sexually - one is raped in front of the other." A copy of the sickening fantasy story was found on a laptop Brueckner used in Portugal in 2017, the court heard.

Buried child abuse images

Back in 2020, authorities announced that they had found a collection of USB sticks linked to Brueckner, that were filled with child pornography and buried next to a dead dog in a rubbish dump, in the woods of Saxony Anhalt, Germany. The disturbing stash was found when police searched the site of an abandoned box factory where it is believed Brueckner once lived.

Police were looking for clues relating to the disappearance of five-year-old Inga Gehricke - who was last seen while on an outing with her family in 2015 - when they made the grim discovery. Investigators found 8,000 pieces of potential evidence, including a cache of child abuse images on USB sticks that were found under a pile of animal bones.

Brueckner was prosecuted in relation to the images. Police then started their search of Barragem do Arade reservoir, which is around 31 miles from the Praia da Luz in Portugal, where the McCann family was on holiday when Maddie was last seen in May 2007. The reservoir is said to be a favourite spot of Brueckner, who allegedly referred to it as his "little paradise".

Investigators searched the remote reservoir last June, after receiving evidence from a "very credible" police informer. They examined soil samples alongside Brueckner's VW campervan in a bid to confirm he was in the area at the time. However, officers were left 'disappointed' by the search as the evidence did not prove to be of 'any use' in the case.

'Maddie tip-off'

In May, a Met Police detective shared details of a voicemail about Brueckner left on a Scotland Yard answer machine in May 2017. Det Con Mark Draycott answered questions in court about the youngster's disappearance. He has worked on Operation Grange since it was launched in 2011.

DC Draycott, 49, told the court that Brueckner's former friend, Helge Busching, who knew him in the Algarve in the mid-2000s, gave officers a tip-off. Busching claimed the German told him during a conversation that "she did not scream" when the pair discussed Maddie.

"Back then we still had a public phone number which was publicised around the world," DC Draycott said. "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 18 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, sparking the probe into Brueckner. He met with Busching in Athens and questioned him in top secrecy in a hotel - after bugging equipment was brought in to check for listening devices.

"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 later flew to London in February 2018 to give a formal statement to British police.

'Burglary boasts'

Brueckner's ex-girlfriend told the court he cheated on her and boasted about breaking into Algarve holiday apartments. Marina Flache, who is nearly 20 years older than the paedophile, said she had a 19-month fling with the German after meeting him in a bar in Lagos in late 2005. She was a regular visitor to his ramshackle farmhouse in the Portuguese resort, where Madeleine vanished in May 2007.

In April, Flache gave evidence in court, as part of Brueckner's trial, and described him as "very friendly and orderly". "He was very approachable," the travel agent said. "We met in 2005, around October or November. He spoke to me when I was with friends in a bar. He was polite, he had money, he was independent. He worked in restaurants and he painted.

"But at some point, I found out from him that he also financed himself from burglaries. His house was full of rubbish, car parts and various electric things. Everything was lying around. It was just an old house. I was often in the house. I stayed over just once, on New Year's Eve in 2005. I encouraged him to get a job, because he is not a stupid person, he was kind, nice, and approachable. He had little to drink and didn't take any drugs."

Asked by the judge if they had sex, Flache replied: "Yes, in the living room." She later visited him in prison in Portimao while he was serving an eight-month sentence for stealing diesel from lorries. Flache said they split up in March 2007, just six weeks before Madeleine vanished from her parents' holiday apartment in the Algarve resort. "It was clear to me that we were not really a pair, he had met someone, and he introduced me to her, and yeah, that was it," she said.

'Kidnap plot'

Ken Ralphs, who was part of the same nomadic community in the resort, previously claimed Brueckner told him how he was plotting to kidnap a child just a week before Madeleine's abduction. The 59-year-old told Sky News in February that Christian had made an offer to a friend of his, who was desperate for money.

"We were sitting around the fire one night after a meal, we had a few beers and during the early hours of the morning my friend began to cry," he said. "I asked him what the matter was and, eventually, he confessed to me he was getting involved with Christian to steal a child from Praia da Luz from a rich family." Ken claims he went on to report the conversation to police back in England.

'Snatched young girls'

Brueckner allegedly confessed in 2020 that he had previously snatched young girls and raped them on a bus he owned. His former cellmate Codin claimed in court that the German 'confided' in him while they were both on remand in the same prison.

He said: "There was talk of a girl, I don't know if what he said was true or not. He said that he had a bus and that he had taken her with it. He said he kept some of them, but not others, but he never said that he had killed them. We're talking about girls, not boys. Not all at once, always one at a time. He told me about two. He said that he had taken someone, had sex with her but he didn't kill her."

Asked by the judge how old his victim was, Codin said: "I don't want to get it wrong, but it was very young, tiny. I mean young. Each time when we were together he spoke about it because he was convinced that I was a paedophile."