Madeleine McCann suspect had a year-long relationship with a British woman while living in Praia da Luz in 2004
- Christian Brueckner, 43, was with English girlfriend from 2004 to 2005
- 43-year-old German paedophile had relationship with her in Praia da Luz
- Three-year-old Madeleine vanished from resort in same area in May 2007
- Brueckner also had underage Kosovan girlfriend he lived with in Germany
- ** Do you know Brueckner’s English girlfriend? Email: [email protected] **
The new prime suspect in the Madeleine McCann case had a year-long relationship with a British woman two years before the girl disappeared, it was claimed today.
German paedophile Christian Brueckner, 43, was together with his unidentified English girlfriend from 2004 to 2005 while living near Praia da Luz in Portugal.
Two years later three-year-old Madeleine vanished from a resort in the area in May 2007 – and Brueckner has now been identified as the main suspect 13 years later.
Christian Brueckner (left), 43, is now the prime suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann (right), who vanished from her family’s holiday apartment in Portugal on May 3, 2007
This map shows where 43-year-old Brueckner lived on the Algarve in relation to Praia da Luz
Brueckner also had an underage Kosovan former girlfriend whom he lived with in Braunschweig after returning to Germany following Madeleine’s disappearance.
Police want to speak to this Kosovan woman whom police believe he may have returned to Portugal with on his most recent trip around five years ago.
The Kosovan is thought to have left the area before Madeleine vanished, while Brueckner is said to have stayed in Praia da Luz, possibly sleeping in a campervan.
One neighbour said Brueckner lived with a girlfriend at a farmhouse above Praia da Luz but ‘kept to himself’ and allowed the property to fall into disrepair.
When Brueckner lived in the farmhouse above Praia da Luz (pictured) on the Algarve in Portugal, he seldom mixed with his neighbours and allowed the property to fall into disrepair
Another neighbour told how he moved into the home in the mid-1990s with a German girlfriend who left around a year and a half later.
They said: ‘They seemed to have a tempestuous relationship. I would hear them arguing. I knew very little about his life but he seemed to me to be a choleric man.’
The German drifter spent 12 years pursuing a bohemian lifestyle – but not long after Madeleine vanished in 2007, he left Portugal and returned to his homeland.
It was in a German bar exactly ten years later – on the anniversary of the three-year-old’s disappearance – that Becks-drinking Brueckner turned the spotlight on himself.
The Ocean Club in Praia Da Luz, where Madeleine disappeared during a family holiday in 2007
As Madeleine’s face flashed up on the bar’s television screen, he reportedly turned to his drinking partner and claimed he ‘knew all about’ the case.
He is alleged to have said something to suggest he knew what had happened to Maddie, according to a report on Sky News.
Later, it is claimed, he showed his companion a video of himself raping an elderly American widow in Portugal in 2005. The friend contacted German police.
Brueckner swiftly became of interest to the detectives probing Madeleine’s disappearance. It was three more years before his name became public.
The last photograph taken of Madeleine shows her smiling next to her little sister Amelie and their father Gerry at 1.30pm on May 3, 2007 in Portugal, the day she went missing
One friend told the Mail that Brueckner’s ‘life situation’ was ‘a bit chaotic’, but added that ‘if everything is true then he was indeed a master of illusion’.
Born in 1976, Brueckner was said to have been raised ‘in a home’ and committed his first burglary in his home town of Wuerzburg in Bavaria when he was just 15.
Within two years, he was convicted of sexually abusing a child, earning him a two-year youth sentence in 1994. A report claimed he served only part of this term.
Brueckner went on to notch up convictions for drug dealing, driving under the influence and without a licence – before taking off to the Algarve after turning 18.
** Do you know Brueckner’s English girlfriend? Email: [email protected] **