• e-mail

A witness claimed to have spotted Madeleine McCann getting into a German-owned VW van with a man just weeks after her disappearance, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

A police file unearthed by this paper details how the witness saw Madeleine emerging from a restaurant in the Spanish seaside town of Alcossebre before climbing into the van with an unidentified man.

The sighting, one of dozens in the early weeks of the investigation, has taken on new significance since German paedophile Christian Brueckner was identified last week as a key suspect in the case.

A witness claimed to see Madeline McCann (pictured) with an 'unidentified man' in a German-owned VW van just weeks after her disappearance 

British detectives believe the 43-year-old was living out of a battered VW T3 Westerfalia campervan in the Portuguese resort of Praia da Luz at the time of Madeleine’s disappearance.

According to the witness, Madeleine was seen at 11am on May 28, 2007 – three weeks after she vanished – coming out of popular local restaurant Tunnels in Alcossebre, some 600 miles from Praia da Luz. 

At the time, Leicestershire Police Detective Constable John Hughes issued an international Interpol alert with a ‘risk to life missing person’ warning demanding that Spanish and German police investigate.

He urged Spanish police to check the location for CCTV and witnesses and asked for the German vehicle keeper details. It is unclear what checks were made.

The police report, issued as part of Operation Task, says: ‘A caller has reported a possible sighting of Madeleine McCann, 11am, 28th May 2007.

Detectives believe Christian Brueckner, the latest main suspect in the McCann case, was living out of a German campervan in 2007

‘Location given as a restaurant called Tunnels, in an old castle at an area called Cap Y Corp, Alcossebre, Spain. She was seen to leave with a man in a Volkswagen van.

‘We request the Spanish police check the location for any CCTV or witnesses. We request German vehicle details. Can the vehicle be circulated for a stop and check to be carried out if seen.’

It emerged last week that Brueckner was living just two miles from the holiday apartment where Madeleine vanished in May 2007. Former neighbours said he often slept in his van, which had a distinctive white upper body and yellow skirting.

German police said there were indications that he could have used either the van or a Jaguar model XJR 6 with a German number plate to commit the crime and appealed for help tracking where they were parked.

Detectives say that the day after Madeleine’s disappearance, Brueckner re-registered the Jaguar in the name of Alexander Bischof, who lives in Augsburg, Germany, despite the vehicle never having left Portugal. 

It also emerged that Brueckner sold the VW van for £5,000 in 2015 to a German compatriot running an unofficial scrapyard in the Silves area of the Algarve. Portuguese police officers seized the vehicle in 2019.

The owner of the yard said: ‘The police said they needed the van as part of the investigation. It was all very sudden – there had been nothing on the TV or in the papers about the case at that time.

‘I’m not sure I’d ever get it back, but if it turns out Christian had something to do with Madeleine’s disappearance, then I don’t want it back. It wouldn’t be right.’

Scotland Yard said Brueckner’s Volkswagen van had a Portuguese registration plate. It is not known whether he changed the registration plate at any time. 

As part of the appeal for information, the Met Police said in a statement that the suspect had ‘access to this van from at least April 2007 until sometime after May 2007’.

A witness said they saw Madeleine McCann with the unidentifiable man at Tunnels restaurant (pictured) in Alcossebre, some 600 miles from Praia da Luz on May 28 2007

It added: ‘We believe he was living in this van for days, possibly weeks, and may have been using it on 3 May 2007.

‘We are appealing for anyone who may have seen it in or around Praia da Luz on 3 May, the night Madeleine went missing, the days before, or weeks following the disappearance.’

Last night, The Mail on Sunday asked Scotland Yard whether the van’s registration was the same as the one identified in the 2007 sighting, but the force said it was not revealing those details.

Suspect's secret lair that could lead police to Maddie: Christian Brueckner regularly visited run-down house in Portuguese countryside in the months after she disappeared

Paedophile Christian Brueckner regularly visited a rundown house hidden away in the Portuguese countryside in the months after the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

The property – pictured exclusively and never before linked to Brueckner – could now become a focal point in the investigation into whether the German kidnapped and murdered Madeleine.

An investigation by this newspaper has established that Brueckner often stayed at the villa in the village of Foral in 2007 and 2008. He reportedly parked his distinctive Volkswagen Westfalia campervan, which was subsequently seized by German police, in the car park of a nearby restaurant.

Christian Brueckner, the German paedophile who is the chief suspect in the Madeleine McCann disappearance, stayed in this house in Foral, Portucal between 2007 and 2008

Brueckner is believed to have parked his distinctive VW T3 Westfalia camper van, pictured, outside the property

German prosecutors believe Christian Brueckner, right, is responsible for abducting Madeleine McCann, left, in a case they are treating as a murder investigation 

The villa is about 40 miles from the Ocean Club in Praia da Luz, the holiday resort where three-year-old Madeleine disappeared in May 2007.

The villa, which is understood to have never been searched by police, was rented between 2002 and 2009 by a German woman called Nicole who is said to have used it for a rehabilitation programme for troubled teenagers.

A German couple who have lived in the village for more than 20 years said they immediately recognised Brueckner when he was named last week as the prime suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine and his image appeared in the media.

‘I said, “That’s Christian” before I even read what his name was,’ said the husband, who asked not to be named.

‘The first time I met him he was hosting a party at the restaurant.

‘He had two dogs, one medium-sized, one small. The name of the small one I even remember, it was called Frau Muller and was always rummaging around the bins.

‘The female tenant was German and had a young daughter. She also had a young teenage girl living with her who was not her daughter. The woman would fly kids over from Germany and was supposedly running a rehabilitation programme for troubled youths.’

Brueckner’s visits to the property could form a key part of police attempts to piece together his movements after Madeleine vanished. He is thought to have left Portugal shortly after and returned to Germany, reportedly telling friends that he had stolen a lot of cash during a burglary on the Algarve.

Brueckner’s visits to the property could form a key part of police attempts to piece together his movements after Madeleine vanished. He is thought to have left Portugal shortly after and returned to Germany, reportedly telling friends that he had stolen a lot of cash during a burglary on the Algarve

He first moved to the German of city of Dresden for a few weeks and then to Augsburg in Bavaria, staying in the attic of a home owned by landlord Alexander Bischoff, 64, for two or three weeks at a time. But according to Mr Bischoff, Brueckner was often away, including on trips back to Portugal.

In 2015 he sold the VW T3 Westfalia to the German owner of a scrapyard in the town of Silves, 14 miles from Foral. Meanwhile, Brueckner’s German police file lists one of his ‘abodes’ as ‘Portugal. Messines’. The village of Sao Bartolomeu de Messines is just six miles from Foral.

Lia Silva, the owner of the property in Foral, said an intimidating German man would visit the villa and visit Nicole. At one point it is claimed he helped track down one of the German teenagers who had run away.

‘Suddenly a German guy turned up, and the rumours were that he was a private detective of some nature,’ said Ms Silva. ‘Some people were afraid of him when he used to go to the restaurant.

‘Eventually, the guy found the runaway girl … and it turns out she was pregnant. It was a major problem. It was then that Nicole was no longer allowed to receive kids from Germany, so she lost all her income.’

When Ms Silva was shown a photograph of Brueckner, she said: ‘Yeah that looks like him, it could be him.’

She added that Nicole abandoned the villa in 2009, allegedly owing 10,000 euros in rent.

‘I found syringes and used needles and a spoon and bricks of hashish in a shoebox,’ Ms Silva added. ‘I was devastated to find that in my house.’

Name of new Madeleine McCann suspect Christian Brueckner was passed to police SEVEN years ago by an acquaintance who remembered him from Praia da Luiz

The new Madeleine McCann suspect was identified as her possible abductor seven years ago – after Scotland Yard e-fits of a man seen around the time she vanished were shown on a German television appeal.

The Mail on Sunday can reveal that paedophile Christian Brueckner’s name was passed to police by an acquaintance who saw the programme and remembered him from the Portuguese resort where Madeleine was snatched from.

But even though Kate and Gerry McCann were flanked by a British detective during the October 2013 appeal, which was watched by millions, it is unclear whether the crucial tip-off ever reached the Metropolitan Police.

The programme featured two computer generated images of a suspect – a clean shaven, possible German speaker, aged 20 to 40 – whom Scotland Yard detectives described as of ‘vital importance’ to the investigation.

Paedophile Christian Brueckner, the new Madeleine McCann suspect, was identified as her possible abductor seven years ago after Scotland Yard e-fits of a man seen around the time she vanished were shown on a German television appeal. Kate and Gerry McCann were flanked by a British detective during the October 2013 appeal (above)

‘Of vital importance’: The e-fits produced for the German Euro News TV appeal for Madeleine McCann on October 17, 2013

They hoped the images would lead to a breakthrough and Gerry told the programme: ‘It’s great the police are working so hard but we need the support of the public.’

At the time, Brueckner, now 43, already had a history of sex crimes.

Sources in Germany have told this newspaper that the acquaintance detailed his suspicions in an online police form which was sent to the country’s Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), that collated the 500 witness reports and tip-offs resulting from the programme.

But it is claimed detectives failed to act on the information even after being told by officers in Brueckner’s home town of Braunschweig that he was a sex offender. 

Paedophile Christian Brueckner (left), who is suspected of abducting Madeleine McCann (right), had only been released from a Portuguese prison just months before her disappearance from a family villa in 2007

Seven years on, Brueckner is now the prime suspect and is also being linked to three other child abductions.

BKA investigators made further inquiries about Brueckner in 2013 and contacted Braunschweig police for a second time, only to be reminded that they had already passed on what they knew of the suspect’s criminal history.

Scotland Yard last night declined to answer questions about the claims, saying only that Brueckner became a suspect in 2017 when an appeal ‘provided the details of this man’.

But a source in Germany familiar with the case said: ‘The guy that came forward after the 2013 TV appeal provided really valuable information. 

Brueckner, pictured in a German bar in 2011, is also alleged to have confided in a friend that he 'knew all about' what had happened to Madeleine

He said the e-fits reminded him of a strange guy he knew who he hung out with or worked with in Portugal some years earlier and named Brueckner, currently behind bars in northern Germany on drugs offences.

‘The BKA is responsible for liaising with foreign police forces and, it must be said, I cannot understand why they wouldn’t pass the information on, especially since the programme featured the McCanns and the Met officer so prominently.’

Jim Dickie, a former Met detective chief inspector who led kidnap investigations, told The Mail on Sunday: ‘I have dealt with the German authorities on several occasions in the past and they are very strict about the sharing of information. 

'It may be that they held on to it and didn’t follow it up properly or that they simply weren’t expected to pass it on to the Met.

‘Intelligence like this can lead to evidence and be vitally important. Did the Met just forget to chase up with the German police and ask what they had? That’s possible too.’

The two images featured on the show differ but each shows a man with an intense stare and a hint of a smile. The programme also showed a reconstruction of the events leading up to Madeleine’s abduction on Thursday, May 3, 2007. 

The e-fits were the first to be issued in relation to the Home Office-funded inquiry into the case.

By the time Madeleine was snatched, Brueckner had long been on the radars of police in his own country and Portugal, having been convicted of sex offences and theft. 

Madeleine's parents Kate and Gerry of Rothley, Leicestershire, 'continue to hope she is alive until they can be shown incontrovertible evidence which proves that she is dead,' family spokesman Clarence Mitchell said on Saturday

But the Portuguese police investigation into her disappearance, described as ‘chaotic’ by a senior officer, disintegrated into farce.

The family’s apartment was not sealed off for almost 24 hours, leading to contamination by up to 50 people and cleaners washing bed sheets, while ash from officers’ cigarettes was found in samples.

Within five days, police are said to have shown a nanny who looked after Madeleine in Praia a picture of Brueckner, naming him as a possible suspect, but that notion was soon ‘discarded’ and Brueckner returned to Germany in the summer of 2007 and continued his life of crime, in drug trafficking.

By 2012, he had settled in Braunschweig where he ran a kiosk bar in an apartment block but his life spiralled ‘out of control’.

The German suspect had lived in a warehouse outside Praia da Luz for several years but moved into a campervan just before Madeleine vanished

One report stated that he ‘constantly collected criminal charges. For theft, bodily injury, drunkenness in traffic, forged papers. 

The number of procedures is difficult to calculate.’ He is also said to have abused his young Albanian girlfriend who was often seen with bruises and marks on her neck.

At this time Scotland Yard was completing its review into the disappearance of Madeleine, sparked by pressure from the then Prime Minister David Cameron.

The 2011 Met Police review, which lasted two years, followed a 2009 Home Office-commissioned report which criticised the Portuguese investigation over a number of failures, including the naming of Gerry and Kate McCann as suspects and a lack of analysis of mobile phone data.

German Federal Police have released a photo of a Volkswagen camper van, used by a suspect who may be connected to the disappearance of Madeleine 13 years ago

Police have also released a picture of a Jaguar which was used by Brueckner in Praia da Luz, Portugal, by a suspect who may be involved in the disappearance of Madeleine

As part of Scotland Yard’s review, they are understood to have received from Portuguese police a list of 600 names who were persons of interest. 

Brueckner’s was among them but the Met Police’s review, led by Detective Chief Inspector Andy Redwood, settled on a list of 38 other potential suspects.

In 2013, Scotland Yard officially launched Operation Grange and officers took part in a TV appeal alongside the McCanns for information which was broadcast across Europe, including Germany. 

That led to Brueckner’s acquaintance coming forward with his name. Last night German police were unavailable for comment. 

A Met Police spokesman said: ‘Following a request from the then Home Secretary, in 2011 the MPS started its review of the previous investigations into Madeleine’s disappearance. 

Christian Brueckner, left, the new key suspect in the Madeleine McCann, right, case, whose identity is protected in Germany despite being in jail for raping a US tourist in Praia da Luz in the months before Madeleine vanished

'In 2013, the Met made a decision that the review would progress to a full investigation.

‘(Former) Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley, for the ten- year anniversary in 2017, put out a statement and as a direct result of that appeal we received information which provided details of this man. 

'Our subsequent enquiries led to us to decide that he was a suspect for our investigation.

‘We will not go into the details of what those enquiries are or what the evidence is against him, and that’s to ensure that we are doing the best we can to protect the integrity of our investigation. 

'We can confirm that the name of this man that we were provided with, we were aware of within the investigation, but he was not a suspect.’

Last night, Braunschweig state prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters told German newspaper BILD: ‘At the moment the criminal suspicion is based on clues. We haven’t interrogated the suspect yet regarding this case.’