Portuguese authorities are said to have received a chilling tip-off from a British woman who believed her own brother – and his German wife – may be hiding the truth behind Madeleine McCann’s disappearance
The British man at the centre of a new bombshell theory surrounding Madeleine McCann’s disappearance was reportedly overheard saying five chilling words.
Today it was reported that German prosecutors refused to investigate a couple claimed to have hit Madeleine in a drink-driving accident. According to Portuguese newspaper Correio da Manhã, Portuguese authorities demanded action after receiving a chilling tip-off from a British woman who believed her own brother and his German wife may be hiding the truth about Madeleine’s disappearance. The woman told police she feared her brother was covering up a secret.
Investigators in Portugal asked German officials for permission to deploy an undercover officer with a fake identity to get close to the wife – suspected of being behind the wheel of the car that allegedly struck Madeleine. German authorities reportedly shut the request down.
The newspaper said the British sister of the unnamed man at the centre of the new theory tipped off police in the UK in 2018. “German prosecutors were asked to authorise a covert police operation with someone posing as a friend of the woman’s and trying to get her to confess, but the courts refused,” it added. “It was decided to continue solely with the investigation into suspect Christian Brueckner, rejecting other possibilities.”
Describing the mystery couple as “alcoholics” and placing the British man’s wife in a café near the Ocean Club where she had been “drinking” the night Madeleine went missing from the Algarve resort, Correio da Manha also reported another witness described as the couple’s neighbour told police separately she heard the couple rowing the day after the three-year-old disappeared. She said she heard the man repeatedly yelling: “Why did you bring her?”
Portuguese police claim they were shut down by the Germans after urging them to look more closely into the possibility the woman had driven home “drunk” with Madeleine after hitting her.
Correio said the unnamed British man had now died, but did not say whether his German wife was still alive. In a front page report today, the newspaper claimed: “The German police refused to co-operate with Portugal’s Policia Judiciaria in the investigation of a clue that pointed towards Madeleine McCann being run over.
“In 2018 a British woman went to police in the UK to say she suspected her brother had been involved in the disappearance of the youngster. She said her brother was an alcoholic and since the day Madeleine vanished had appeared to hide a painful secret.
“When British police exchanged information with the PJ, a coincidence was discovered. On May 4 2007 a woman told police she had heard her neighbours arguing. They were both alcoholics, he was English and she was German, and she heard the man shouting repeatedly: ‘Why did you bring her?’
“The neighbour discovered afterwards it was the man whose sister had reported him to police and was married to the woman who had been drinking in a café next to the Ocean Club where little Madeleine was staying with her parents and twin siblings.
“Another report the police had indicated that in an identical car to the one the woman was then using, around the time of Madeleine’s disappearance, a female and little girl had been seen inside. The PJ concluded she could have run Madeleine over and panicked.”
The newspaper also claimed the mystery British man had always “refused to tell his sister if he had been involved in Madeleine’s death” before she alerted the authorities.
Portuguese police are yet to respond to the Correio da Manha newspaper report. German police yesterday wrapped up a three-day search on the ground near prime suspect Christian Brueckner’s old cottage home close to Praia da Luz where Madeleine disappeared on May 3, 2007.