Suspect's pal: I warned Maddie hunt over 'really dangerous' Brueckner

Roofer knew of paedo's abuse videos

- MARTIN FRICKER

A FRIEND of Christian Brueckner said he rang an investigator working for Madeleine McCann's parents to warn about the "really dangerous" paedophile a year after she vanished.

Helge Busching knew the German the prime suspect in Maddie's case - when they both lived in the Algarve. Busching previously claimed the German told him "she didn't scream" when they discussed Maddie's case in a Spanish bar in 2008.

He said he alerted former RUC detective Dave Edgar that year.

Busching then tipped off  Scotland Yard in 2017, sparking the ongoing international police probe into 47-year-old Brueckner.

It led to German police naming him in 2020 as the man for responsible Maddie's "abduction and murder".

Busching yesterday gave evidence in the rapist's trial on unrelated sex crimes allegedly carried out in Portugal.