'Some evidence' Madeleine McCann is dead, say German authorities

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Chippy_Tea

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While i feel sorry for the McCanns losing their daughter it must be upsetting for people who have lost their own kids seeing this in the papers and on the news sites every 6 months when i bet their loss never made the news.




German authorities have said they have “some evidence” that Madeleine McCann is dead but are appealing for more information in order to bring a suspect to court.

The investigation into Madeleine’s disappearance in Praia da Luz, Portugal, in 2007 has attracted renewed attention after authorities announced they were investigating a 43-year-old convicted German child *** offender.

The suspect, who is reportedly serving a seven-year prison sentence for the **** of a 72-year-old American woman in 2005, has been named in reports as Christian Brückner.

Brückner is known to have lived on the Algarve coast and his Portuguese mobile phone received a half-hour phone call in Praia da Luz about an hour before Madeleine, then three, went missing on 3 May 2007.

German authorities have previously said they believe Madeleine is dead and are investigating the suspect on suspicion of murder.

Hans Christian Wolters, a spokesman for the Braunschweig public prosecutor’s office, said on Monday it had evidence that Madeleine was dead but not enough for a trial.

Wolters told Sky News: “The hard evidence we don’t have, we don’t have the crucial evidence of Madeleine McCann’s body. We expect that she is dead, but we don’t have enough evidence that we can get a warrant for our suspect in Germany for the murder of Madeleine McCann.

“At the moment, we also don’t have enough proof for a trial at court, but we have some evidence that the suspect has done the deed. That’s why we need more information from people, especially places he has lived, so we can target these places especially and search there for Madeleine.”

Wolters called on British tourists who visited Praia da Luz between 1995 and 2007, when the suspect is thought to have lived in the area, to come forward with any information about him.

Meanwhile, German prosecutors are reportedly examining any possible links to the disappearance of two other children, and Wolters said he believed there were victims of related *** crimes who had not come forward.

Following publicity around the Madeleine case, the father of a student nurse who went missing in Germany in 2001 has called on German police to question Brückner in relation to her case.

Phil Kerton, from Kent, whose daughter Louise disappeared, said: “Certainly the German police seemed confident they are on to something there. It gives one some sort of hope that the truth is out there to be found.”

An Irish woman ***** in Portugal in 2004 has asked detectives to review her case after learning that the sexual assault for which Brückner was convicted bore a similarity to her own experience.

In the days since the renewed appeal around Madeleine’s disappearance, Scotland Yard said it received nearly 400 tips to its Operation Grange team.

Operation Grange refers to the force’s active investigation, which a spokesman said was still considered a missing person inquiry because there was no “definitive evidence whether Madeleine is alive or dead”.

The Metropolitan police’s investigation has identified more than 600 people as potentially significant and was tipped off about the German national, already known to detectives, following a 2017 appeal 10 years after she went missing.

Madeleine, who vanished shortly before her fourth birthday while her parents were eating dinner with friends at a nearby tapas restaurant, would have turned 17 last month.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...deleine-mccann-is-dead-say-german-authorities
 
I remember this awfull case and the enormous publicity around it well,
I hope there is a conclusion and that justice is finally done
 
Not sure that prosecuting for neglect was/is in the public interest though really is it? I'm not sure of the law but I think what they've gone through is punishment enough.

Unless of course you think they accidentally overdosed her with sedatives and had her buried somewhere, or any of the other outlandish theories there are circulating out there.
 
That said though, if for example, she had got out of the flat by herself and wandered off and fallen in the pool and drowned then they probably would have been prosecuted wouldn't they.
 
Why were they never prosecuted for neglect?

There was a lot of suspicion around them at the time I seem to remember.

The reality is that they've had to live with the fact that their selfish and frankly foolish behavior led to their child going missing for the past 13 or years. I imagine that kind of guilt seeps in around the edges in the dead of night and the press are very good at picking the scab of it all every six months or so.
 
Why were they never prosecuted for neglect?
Because they are an upper-middle class family from some leafy village in Leicestershire. If they were a bin man and a dinner lady from a Leicester council estate, they would have been charged.

It’s like all these “what’s classy if you’re rich and trashy if you’re poor?” Ranker pages that come up in my Facebook timeline constantly.
 
I'm not sure of the law but I think what they've gone through is punishment enough

I am not sure of the law either but I am fairly sure leaving a kid of her age alone is not legal, if you left a kid her age at home and went to the pub and it was abducted would our police prosecute?
 
I am not sure of the law either but I am fairly sure leaving a kid of her age alone is not legal, if you left a kid her age at home and went to the pub and it was abducted would our police prosecute?

If I went to the pub yes I'm sure they would, if I went had a beer in the paddock 50m from the house I'm not sure. Look, I'm not saying that they weren't in the wrong, far from it, but I'm not sure it's in the public interest.
 
While it would be an offense to have left children of that age alone in the UK. This happened in Portugal and crimes commited abroad generally fall outside the jurisdiction of UK Courts. The chances are that the outcome would have been deportation if the authorities had decided to pursue it. It does look like Portugal's law makers are taking a dimmer view of this sort of thing in recent years, probably in light of the McCanns.

In the UK the law is clearer, Children under 12 shouldn't be left alone, Children under 16 shouldn't be left overnight and babies and toddlers should never be left alone.
 
Wolters told Sky News: “The hard evidence we don’t have, we don’t have the crucial evidence of Madeleine McCann’s body. We expect that she is dead, but we don’t have enough evidence that we can get a warrant for our suspect in Germany for the murder of Madeleine McCann.

“At the moment, we also don’t have enough proof for a trial at court, but we have some evidence that the suspect has done the deed. That’s why we need more information from people, especially places he has lived, so we can target these places especially and search there for Madeleine.”

Is it just me, that is all a bit confusing.
Makes me wonder if they actually have anything or if it's making a story out of nothing like they do every year or so.
 
Is it just me, that is all a bit confusing.
Makes me wonder if they actually have anything or if it's making a story out of nothing like they do every year or so.

Suggests to me they've obtained evidence they can't use in court either by fair means or foul so now they have to play the game until they get something they can present to a judge.
 
I was there when this happened and all those saying they should be prosecuted for neglect should hold their judgement. We were in a slightly different part of the complex, but I can well understand how they felt safe leaving their children alone in the apartment a stone's throw away from them. If we had been in the same flat we might well have done the same. I remember as a child holiday at Butlins where we would be left in our chalet and Red Coats would patrol the camp and post notices in the theatres with a sign saying "Baby crying in chalet number" and then a list of numbers underneath.

I am saying they damnwell weren't in the wrong and the only one in the wrong was the evil ******* who did this.
 
While it would be an offense to have left children of that age alone in the UK. This happened in Portugal and crimes commited abroad generally fall outside the jurisdiction of UK Courts. The chances are that the outcome would have been deportation if the authorities had decided to pursue it. It does look like Portugal's law makers are taking a dimmer view of this sort of thing in recent years, probably in light of the McCanns.

In the UK the law is clearer, Children under 12 shouldn't be left alone, Children under 16 shouldn't be left overnight and babies and toddlers should never be left alone.
This is also incorrect. UK law makes no such stipulation.
 
This is also incorrect. UK law makes no such stipulation.

Yes, sorry you are absolutely right.

The law actually states that you must not leave a child alone if it places them at risk. The Government advice on this quotes NSPCC guidance I quoted. I asked the Missus who has had to deal with more than her fair share of child neglect and abuse cases having taught in many ****** schools over the years and she has found the social services quote the NSPCC as their benchmark.

I completely agree with you that the only criminal here was the person that took that little girl.

Would I personally have left my kids in an apartment/hotel room while went for dinner, most likely not. We paid the premium for resorts which operated a baby sitting service so that we could have a couple of evenings to ourselves when we went away.

That doesn't mean I think the McCanns did anything wrong btw

Thinking back I don't even think our holiday had Redcoats, we just got left.
 
I was there when this happened and all those saying they should be prosecuted for neglect should hold their judgement. We were in a slightly different part of the complex, but I can well understand how they felt safe leaving their children alone in the apartment a stone's throw away from them. If we had been in the same flat we might well have done the same. I remember as a child holiday at Butlins where we would be left in our chalet and Red Coats would patrol the camp and post notices in the theatres with a sign saying "Baby crying in chalet number" and then a list of numbers underneath.

I am saying they damnwell weren't in the wrong and the only one in the wrong was the evil ******* who did this.
Whether or not they were in a complex at the end of the day they left not 1 but 3 small children alone. My Mrs would and rightly so tore a strip off me, not that I would do such a thing anyway. I can't see how they did not contribute towards her going missing. You rightly point out that the main culprit is the one that did it. I think part of their punishment is telling the other 2 where their sister went and how it happened.
 
I am afraid to say its water under bridge. Too much money spent on this case when similar cases were forgotten years ago. Time to move on and remove our police's funding and their holiday home
 
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