Raymond Hewlett: 2009

Paedophile Gives DNA Sample To Cops

0 comments 12/27/2009 Posted by Winnower

Labels: DNA, FSS, Madeleine McCann, paedophiles, Raymond Hewlett

Convicted Paedophile Raymond Hewlett (Sky News)

0 comments 12/27/2009 Posted by Winnower

Labels: Madeleine McCann, paedophiles, Raymond Hewlett

McCann Private Detectives "He is not a suspect"

0 comments 12/27/2009 Posted by Winnower

Labels: Madeleine McCann, Raymond Hewlett

Raymond Hewlett British Paedophile - New Suspect

0 comments 12/27/2009 Posted by Winnower

Labels: Madeleine McCann, paedophiles, Raymond Hewlett

Tell all before you die, Maddie suspect urged

0 comments 12/09/2009 Posted by Winnower

9 December 2009
The Daily Express
Alan Hall

A convicted paedophile wanted for questioning by detectives working for Madeleine McCann's parents is close to death, it was revealed yesterday. Sex fiend Raymond Hewlett, 64, can no longer speak because of throat cancer and lives in a council flat he shares with his partner in Aachen, Germany. Hewlett's lawyer, Detlev Wagner, said: "He could not talk to them even if he wanted to. "He is gravely ill. He does not have long for this world."

Labels: Lesley Molseed, Madeleine McCann, paedophiles, Raymond Hewlett

Maddie suspect on verge of death

0 comments 12/09/2009 Posted by Winnower

9 December 2009
The Sun
Allan Hall

A convicted paedophile who could hold the key to what happened to Maddie McCann is close to death. Private detectives acting for her family want to quiz Raymond Hewlett, 64, who lives in Aachen, Germany. But Hewlett's lawyer says he is in the final throes of throat cancer and can no longer speak. Detlev Wagner said: "He could not talk to them even if he wanted to. He does not have long for this world."

Labels: Madeleine McCann, Raymond Hewlett

KEY EVENTS IN THE HUNT FOR MADELEINE

0 comments 11/02/2009 Posted by Winnower

2 November 2009
Press Association

Here is a timeline of the key events since Madeleine McCann's disappearance.

Labels: Madeleine McCann, paedophiles, Polícia Judiciária, Raymond Hewlett

IS THE NET CLOSING IN ON A MONSTER?

0 comments 11/02/2009 Posted by Winnower

23 May 2009
Daily Mail
Michael Seamark

PAEDOPHILE NAMED IN SEARCH FOR MADDIE FACES QUIZ ON SECOND CASE

DETECTIVES are waiting to fly to Germany to question Raymond Hewlett, the predatory paedophile named yesterday as a possible suspect in Madeleine McCann's disappearance. West Yorkshire Police confirmed that they are 'actively seeking' the 64-year-old former soldier - who was in the Algarve when three-year-old Madeleine vanished.

Labels: Alan Thompson, Cindy Thompson, Clarence Mitchell, DNA, FSS, Lesley Molseed, Madeleine McCann, Polícia Judiciária, Raymond Hewlett, West Yorkshire Police

Violent paedophile was murder suspect

0 comments 11/01/2009 Posted by Winnower

22 May 2009
Yorkshire Post
Rob Preece

THE violent child sex attacker being investigated in connection with Madeleine McCann's disappearance was the prime suspect in a shocking murder case which took 32 years to solve and saw an innocent man jailed. Raymond Hewlett, 64, was interviewed by police hunting the killer of 11-year-old schoolgirl Lesley Molseed, whose body was found on moorland near Ripponden in 1975.

Labels: Alan Thompson, Cindy Thompson, DNA, FSS, Lesley Molseed, Madeleine McCann, Raymond Hewlett, Rochdale, Ronald Castree, Stefan Kiszko, West Yorkshire Police

Molseed killer's son: I nearly killed myself

0 comments 10/23/2009 Posted by Winnower

October 23, 2009
Simon Coyle
Nick Castree is campaigning to give more support to the families of convicted murderers

The son of a man who killed a schoolgirl is urging the police to provide more support to the families of convicted murderers. Nick Castree, from Rawtenstall, is the son of Ronald Castree who kidnapped and murdered Lesley Molseed in 1975.

Labels: DNA, FSS, Lesley Molseed, Ronald Castree, Stefan Kiszko

Rawtenstall man: Killers' families need help too

0 comments 10/20/2009 Posted by Winnower

20 October 2009
Lancashire Telegraph
Peter Magill

The son of a notorious child killer who has made a fresh start in Rossendale has called for more support for the families of murderers. Nick Tighe has previously branded his father Ronald Castree, who kidnapped and murdered Rochdale schoolgirl Lesley Molseed in 1975, as “sick and evil”.

Labels: Lesley Molseed, Manchester Police, Nick Tighe, Rochdale, Ronald Castree

Child killer's son campaigns for more help for families of criminals

0 comments 10/19/2009 Posted by Winnower

19 October 2009
M2 Presswire

The son of a convicted child killer is calling for more help and support for the families of murderers. Nick Castree, whose father Ron abducted and murdered 11-year-old Rochdale schoolgirl Lesley Moleseed (SIC) in 1975, has told BBC One's Inside Out North West of his campaign to gain a better understanding for the families of criminals. His campaign has been spurred on not only by his own experience but also by that of Bobbie Louise Wilkinson, whose father is convicted killer Levi Bellfield. Bellfield is serving three life sentences for abduction and murder.

Labels: Lesley Molseed, paedophiles, Rochdale, Ronald Castree

Molseed murder verdict

0 comments 9/07/2009 Posted by Winnower

7 September 2009
Manchester News
Ben Bland

Labels: Lesley Molseed, Max McLean, West Yorkshire Police

Lesley Molseed case

0 comments 9/07/2009 Posted by Winnower

Lesley Molseed Murder

Manchester News
Ben Bland traces her final footsteps and the case history

Labels: Lesley Molseed, Ronald Castree, Stefan Kiszko

0 comments 9/04/2009 Posted by Winnower

4 September 2009
Manchester News

Labels: Lesley Molseed, Raymond Hewlett, Ronald Castree, West Yorkshire Police

Murderer’s son has turned life around

0 comments 8/28/2009 Posted by Winnower

Rossendale Free Press
August 28, 2009

A Rawtenstall man who has turned his life around after his father was convicted of murder, is helping others come to terms with their own tragic experiences. Nick Castree’s father Ronald, of Shaw, Oldham, is serving life for killing schoolgirl Lesley Molseed in October 1975.

Labels: Lesley Molseed, Rochdale, Ronald Castree, Stefan Kiszko

Maddy's mother photographed boat she believes snatched girl

0 comments 8/09/2009 Posted by Winnower

Maddy's mother photographed boat she believes snatched girl
9 August 2009
The Express on Sunday
James Murray

Kate McCann went to see a boat she believes was used in the abduction of their daughter, the Sunday Express can reveal today. Just a few days after Madeleine was snatched from the family's holiday apartment, a family friend had a "strong vision" that the child was on a boat moored in a nearby marina. Kate went to Lagos marina, a few miles along the coast from Praia da Luz where her daughter vanished on May 3, 2007, and photographed the boat and the man on board, a hand-written note in police files reveals.

Labels: Arthur Cowley, David Edgar, DNA, FSS, Madeleine McCann, paedophiles, Polícia Judiciária, Raymond Hewlett

Are you delivering my new daughter?

0 comments 8/08/2009 Posted by Winnower

8 August 2009
Daily Telegraph
Charles Miranda

``ARE you here to deliver my new daughter?'' This was the compelling question that sparked a dramatic new twist in the hunt for missing British toddler Madeleine McCann -- one that could bring investigators to Australia. Yesterday detectives revealed the precise words spoken by a woman with an Aussie accent to a British man in Barcelona three days after then four-year-old Maddie disappeared -- apparently having been snatched from a holiday apartment in Portugal in May 2007. Earlier it had emerged the mystery Australian woman -- who detectives are now trying to find -- was approached by a British businessman outside a bar in the marina area of Barcelona in Spain, 72 hours after Madeleine disappeared.

Labels: David Edgar, DNA, FSS, Madeleine McCann, paedophiles, Polícia Judiciária, Raymond Hewlett

Has this woman the answer to what happened to Madeleine?

0 comments 8/07/2009 Posted by Winnower

Aug 7, 2009
Daily Mail
Tom Kelly

This is the woman private detectives want to speak in the latest part of their twoyear search for Madeleine McCann. She was seen by two men outside a bar in Barcelona looking agitated three days after the youngster disappeared. 'Glamorous and well turned out' and described by the two British men as a 'bit of a Victoria Beckham lookalike', she spoke to one of the men, telling him something that investigators believe indicates she may know what happened to Madeleine.

Labels: Clarence Mitchell, David Edgar, Madeleine McCann, Polícia Judiciária, Raymond Hewlett

KEY EVENTS IN MADELEINE CASE

0 comments 8/05/2009 Posted by Winnower

5 August 2009
Press Association National Newswire

Here is a timeline of the key events since Madeleine McCann's disappearance.

Labels: Arthur Cowley, David Edgar, DNA, FSS, Madeleine McCann, paedophiles, Polícia Judiciária, Raymond Hewlett, West Yorkshire Police

DNA clues delay in Maddie probe

0 comments 7/21/2009 Posted by Winnower

Paul Fielding
21 July 2009
The Gazette

A former Blackpool soldier, linked to the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, is unlikely to face charges over a sex attack 30 years ago.

Labels: Alan Thompson, Arthur Cowley, Cindy Thompson, Crown Prosecution Service, David Edgar, DNA, FSS, Lesley Molseed, Madeleine McCann, Peter Verran, Polícia Judiciária, Raymond Hewlett, West Yorkshire Police

Maddie paedo gets off

0 comments 7/19/2009 Posted by Winnower

19 July 2009
News of the World

Convicted paedophile Raymond Hewlett who has been linked to the disappearance of Madeleine McCann will not be charged in connection with a sex attack in Britain 30 years ago. West Yorkshire cops flew to Germany to question Hewlett, 64, over the assault on an eight-year-old girl and took a DNA sample. He is unlikely to face any charges because he is dying of cancer. McCann detectives have not named him as a suspect, But they want him to account for his movements at the time the youngster vanished. He has not provided an alibi and has refused to speak to private detectives.

Labels: DNA, FSS, Madeleine McCann, Raymond Hewlett, West Yorkshire Police

British monster off the hook in Maddie case

0 comments 7/05/2009 Posted by Winnower

5 July 2009
Daily Star
Jonathan Corke
Dying Hewlett is ruled out by detectives

Child sex beast Raymond Hewlett has been ruled out as a suspect in the Madeleine McCann case. But we can reveal investigators working for Maddie's parents are still looking at other British sex offenders. Top of the list is a paedophile who was living on the Algarve around the time she disappeared. Others were staying near the Praia da Luz resort she vanished from. A "local" Portuguese man is also being considered. A source said: "There were still a number of names put forward that are being looked at."

Labels: Arthur Cowley, David Edgar, Madeleine McCann, paedophiles, Raymond Hewlett

Forensic checks on Maddie perv's van

0 comments 6/27/2009 Posted by Winnower

27 June 2009
The Sun
Simon Hughes and Antonella Lazzeri

A van used by Maddie McCann suspect Raymond Hewlett will be "ripped apart" in a hunt for clues. Private detectives believe forensic checks could provide crucial evidence about the toddler's disappearance. The battered blue Dodge has been seized by cops in Germany, where paedo Hewlett, 64, is being treated for cancer. A source close to the probe added: "It will be ripped apart to look for a trace of Maddie."

Labels: Clarence Mitchell, FSS, Madeleine McCann, Raymond Hewlett

Maddie cop in riddle of bank £100k

0 comments 6/21/2009 Posted by Winnower

21 June 2009
Matthew Drake
The News of the World

One of the first Portuguese cops at the scene the night Madeleine McCann vanished is under investigation after £100,000 appeared in his bank account days after she went missing. He has been suspended while senior detectives probe his finances. Kate and Gerry McCann are aware of the new turn of events. Suspicions were raised after a corruption inquiry uncovered 12 large cash amounts being paid into two accounts under the cop's name. The payments began shortly after Madeleine disappeared from Praia da Luz on May 3, 2007. The cop claims his name was used to open accounts without his knowledge. The corruption probe began into alleged criminal and drugs offences by Algarve police. Kate McCann last night attacked convicted paedophile Raymond Hewlett for refusing to talk to investigators because they were unwilling to pay. He denies any connection with Madeleine.

Labels: Madeleine McCann, paedophiles, Polícia Judiciária, Raymond Hewlett

Maddie suspect lied to cops

0 comments 6/21/2009 Posted by Winnower

21 June 2009
Weekend Argus
Judy Gorman

POLICE investigating the disappearance of Madeleine McCann are racing against time to probe the lies told by convicted paedophile Raymond Hewlett. Hewlett, 64, who is terminally ill with throat cancer, lied about significant aspects of the case, including whether he had seen the three-year-old before she went missing from the Praia da Luz holiday resort in Portugal in May 2007. He served three jail terms in the UK for sex crimes involving children before he took up a nomadic existence criss-crossing Europe with his wife and seven children.

Labels: Madeleine McCann, paedophiles, Peter Verran, Raymond Hewlett, Scots Guard

Paedophile told lies about Maddie

0 comments 6/21/2009 Posted by Winnower

21 June 2009
Sunday Tribune
Vivian Attwood

POLICE investigating the disappearance of missing Madeleine McCann are involved in a race against time to probe the lies told by convicted paedophile Raymond Hewlett. It emerged this week that Hewlett, 64, who is terminally ill with throat cancer, had lied to police on significant aspects of the case, including whether he had seen the three-year-old prior to her disappearance from the Praia da Luz holiday resort in Portugal in May 2007.

Labels: DNA, FSS, Madeleine McCann, paedophiles, Peter Verran, Polícia Judiciária, Raymond Hewlett

No one can give him an alibi

0 comments 6/21/2009 Posted by Winnower

21 June 2009
Maddie suspect's wife: no one can give him an alibi; Female friend 'can't remember where he was'.
Sunday Mirror
Simon Wright

THE wife of Madeleine McCann suspect Raymond Hewlett yesterday admitted that NO ONE can give him an alibi. German-born Mariana, 33, confessed that a female friend Hewlett insisted could vouch for him on the day Madeleine vanished cannot remember where he was. Convicted paedophile Hewlett, 64, won't name the woman.

Labels: Madeleine McCann, paedophiles, Peter Verran, Polícia Judiciária, Raymond Hewlett, Scots Guard

Maddie suspect lied to police

0 comments 6/21/2009 Posted by Winnower

21 June 2009
Sunday Independent
Vivian Attwood

POLICE investigating the disappearance of Madeleine McCann are in a race against time to probe the lies told by convicted paedophile Raymond Hewlett. It emerged this week that Hewlett, 64, who is terminally ill with throat cancer, had lied to police on significant aspects of the case, including whether he had seen the three-year-old before her disappearance from the Praia da Luz holiday resort in Portugal in May 2007. Hewlett served three jail terms in the UK for sex crimes involving children before he took up a nomadic existence criss-crossing Europe with his wife and children. He has been on the run since his release from jail after serving six years for a sex attack on a 12-year-old girl in 1988. It has been established that he was in the vicinity of Praia de Luz when Maddie vanished.

Labels: Madeleine McCann, Peter Verran, Raymond Hewlett

MADDY MAN'S LIE

0 comments 6/19/2009 Posted by Winnower

19 June 2009
Mirror
Stephen Moyes
Paedo's story falling apart

Madeleine McCann suspect Raymond Hewlett is today sensationally back in the frame after being caught lying. The paedophile insisted he drove only a distinctive blue truck at the time the youngster vanished. But former pal Peter Verran, 46, says Hewlett, 64, had a white Mercedes van - similar to one seen near the McCanns' apartment. A source close to the investigation said: "This could be very significant."

(Blogger Note: Source for information Peter Verran. The blue van was the only vehicle Hewlett owned at the time Madeleine disappeared, and it was home to himself, 6 children and his wife.)

Labels: Madeleine McCann, paedophiles, Peter Verran, Raymond Hewlett

Madeleine sight denial

0 comments 6/19/2009 Posted by Winnower

19 June 2009
Loughborough Echo

A convicted British paedophile has insisted he has only seen missing Rothley girl Madeleine McCann on posters and television. Suspect Raymond Hewlett, believed to have been in the area when Madeleine went missing, said: "I'd take a lie-detector test. I'll take any test you like. The only time I've seen Madeleine McCann is on missing posters. And I saw her on TV in a bar once. But I've never seen her in real life."

Labels: Arthur Cowley, David Edgar, Madeleine McCann, paedophiles, Raymond Hewlett

Maddy paedo said this was only vehicle he had

0 comments 6/19/2009 Posted by Winnower

Maddy paedo said this was only vehicle he had;
But really he was driving a van similar to this.
19 June 2009
Daily Mirror
Stephen Moyes

PERVERT Raymond Hewlett's lies were unravelling last night as he faced renewed questioning over missing Madeleine McCann. The convicted paedophile rekindled suspicion after it was revealed he tried to mislead detectives over the vehicle he was driving at the time the youngster vanished.

Labels: Alan Thompson, Arthur Cowley, Cindy Thompson, David Edgar, Ireland, Madeleine McCann, paedophiles, Peter Verran, Raymond Hewlett, Scots Guard, West Yorkshire Police

Maddie man issues denial

0 comments 6/15/2009 Posted by Winnower

15 June 2009
Daily Post

A convicted British paedophile has insisted he had never seen missing Madeleine McCann other than in posters and on television. Raymond Hewlett, whom detectives working for the McCann family have tried and failed to interview, told a Sunday newspaper:

"I'd take a lie-detector test. The only time I've seen Madeleine McCann is on missing posters. And I saw her on TV in a bar once. But I've never seen her in real life."

Labels: Arthur Cowley, David Edgar, Madeleine McCann, paedophiles, Polícia Judiciária, Raymond Hewlett

Hewlett: I have never even met Maddie

0 comments 6/15/2009 Posted by Winnower

15 June 2009
Metro

A convicted British paedophile has insisted he has never seen Madeleine McCann in person and had nothing to do with her disappearance. Raymond Hewlett, who admits being in Portugal when Maddie went missing in May 2007, said he had only ever seen her in publicity photographs. 'I'd take a lie detector test, I'll take any test you like,' he said. 'The only time I've seen her is on missing posters. And I saw her on TV in a bar once - but I've never seen her in real life.'

Labels: David Edgar, Madeleine McCann, paedophiles, Raymond Hewlett

I only saw Maddie on TV says pervert

0 comments 6/15/2009 Posted by Winnower

15 June 2009
Belfast Telegraph
Tom Moynihan

A convicted British paedophile has insisted he has never seen missing Madeleine McCann other than in posters and on television. Raymond Hewlett, whom detectives working for the McCann family have tried and failed to interview, said: “I’d take a lie detector test. “I’ll take any test you like. The only time I’ve seen Madeleine McCann is on missing posters. And I saw her on TV in a bar once. But I’ve never seen her in real life.”

Labels: Arthur Cowley, David Edgar, Madeleine McCann, No. Ireland, paedophiles, Polícia Judiciária, Raymond Hewlett, West Yorkshire Police

‘I didn’t kill the McCann girl ... it’s the truth’

0 comments 6/15/2009 Posted by Winnower

15 June 2009
Evening Express
Albert Innes

A sex beast who lived in the North-east has denied any involvement in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. Raymond Hewlett, 64, was said to have been living in the Algarve in Portugal when Madeleine, 3, went missing from her holiday apartment two years ago. The Evening Express revealed that Hewlett lived in Aberdeen and Moray in the late 1990s after he had been jailed for a string of sex attacks.

Labels: Madeleine McCann, Raymond Hewlett

Pervert: I didn't kill Maddie

0 comments 6/15/2009 Posted by Winnower

15 June 2009
Yorkshire Evening Post

A convicted paedophile with West Yorkshire links has denied any involvement in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. Raymond Hewlett, who is originally from Todmorden, was jailed for a number of sex attacks on children in the 1970s in Yorkshire and Wales. He has recently been named in connection with the Madeleine case, and was interviewed earlier this month by the head of West Yorkshire's CID in connection with another unsolved abduction and assault in 1975.

Labels: Madeleine McCann, paedophiles, Raymond Hewlett, West Yorkshire Police

McCann detectives criticise pervert's lawyer

0 comments 6/15/2009 Posted by Winnower

15 June 2009
Leicester Mercury

Detectives hunting for missing Madeleine McCann have criticised a lawyer acting for a convicted paedophile they want to question. Pervert Raymond Hewlett, who is not a suspect but has been jailed three times for assaulting young girls, spoke instead to the Sunday Mirror. He said: "I'd take a lie-detector test. I'll take any test you like. The only time I've seen Madeleine McCann is on missing posters. And I saw her on TV in a bar once. But I've never seen her in real life." He also claimed to have an alibi for the day Madeleine vanished - but refused to say what it was.

Labels: Arthur Cowley, Clarence Mitchell, David Edgar, Madeleine McCann, paedophiles, Polícia Judiciária, Raymond Hewlett

I didn't kill her says paedophile

0 comments 6/15/2009 Posted by Winnower

15 June 2009
Daily Express
Cyril Dixon
CONVICTED paedophile Raymond Hewlett broke his silence over missing Madeleine McCann yesterday, claiming: "I've never seen her in real life." The 64-year-old Briton, who was living in Portugal's Algarve when the youngster disappeared, had previously refused to talk about the case. But Hewlett, a former soldier who has served jail terms for sexually assaulting young girls, vowed to prove his innocence. "I'd take a lie-detector test. I'll take any test you like, " he said. "The only time I've seen Madeleine McCann is on missing posters. And I saw her on TV in a bar once. But I've never seen her in real life."

Labels: Clarence Mitchell, David Edgar, DNA, FSS, Madeleine McCann, paedophiles, Peter Verran, Polícia Judiciária, Raymond Hewlett, Scots Guard, West Yorkshire Police

I've never seen Maddie, says paedophile

0 comments 6/14/2009 Posted by Winnower

14 June 2009
Sunday Mercury
A convicted Midland paedophile last night insisted he had never seen missing Madeleine McCann other than in posters and on TV. Raymond Hewlett, 64, has refused to be questioned by private detectives working for the Leicestershire parents of the tragic youngster. But the sex attacker, previously from Telford but now living in Germany, said: ''The only time I've seen Madeleine McCann is on missing posters. And I saw her on TV in a bar once. But I've never seen her in real life."

Labels: Madeleine McCann, paedophiles, Raymond Hewlett

Madeleine McCann suspect: I didn't kill her

0 comments 6/14/2009 Posted by Winnower

14 June 2009
Madeleine McCann suspect: I didn't kill her
Liverpool Click
John Harkin

The prime suspect in the Madeleine McCann case has today denied he was involved in her disappearance.

Raymond Hewlett, who has been in hiding ever since he was named in connection with the case, admits he was in the Algarve at the time Madeleine was snatched.

And five weeks after she disappeared, he left Portugal for Morocco for a two-month-long "business trip".

Hewlett is also REFUSING to give an alibi for the night Madeleine,three, vanished.

Speaking to the Sunday Mirror, he said "I have an alibi but why should I share it?" he says, struggling for air with each syllable.

"There is a person who can say where I was that day, but why should I bring them into this? I've done nothing wrong.

"Why should I have to prove it?

"My life's been made a misery for something I know nothing about and a crime I have not committed.

"I'd take a lie-detector test.

"I'll take any test you like. The only time I've seen Madeleine McCann is on missing posters.

"And I saw her on TV in a bar once. But I've never seen her in real life. Yes I've been to Praia da Luz, but not since 2002."

But those claims contradict what former Scots Guard Mr Verran, 46, says Hewlett told him - that he was in and around Praia da Luz at the time Madeleine disappeared in May 2007.

The McCanns private detectives first became aware of father-of-six Hewlett in February this year when his name was given to them during local door-to-door inquiries.

Portuguese detectives told UK officers they were unaware of his existence until the McCann team uncovered his name.

But bizarrely, Hewlett tells the Sunday Mirror he was visited twice by Portuguese police over the Maddie case and gave detectives a DNA swab and fingerprints, although he was never arrested or quizzed.

The McCanns' investigators are unsure whether to believe him or the detectives in Portugal.

Hewlett says that Portuguese police, acting on unknown information, swooped on his truck while he had throat cancer treatment across the border in Spain in August 2008.

He says:"They checked that all the children living with us were ours.

"Our youngest girl looks a bit like her. But they saw everything was OK and they left.

"The police came again in August last year and told Mariana it was about the McCann girl.

They asked for me and Mariana told them I was in hospital. They came to see me and asked permission to take DNA and fingerprints. I was very sick and barely able to speak to them. They asked where we parked in the Algarve in the first half of 2007.

"I told them, "You know where we've been because you know us round there.' "I knew why they were asking, because I'd seen the TV and newspapers.

"I was miles from the UK but it didn't make any difference. I'd tried hard to build a new life. But the reality for me is that my past convictions will never go away.

I have to put up with it because it's always going to be this way.

"I gave them their DNA and fingerprints. I knew they were just doing their job but I was angry. I had enough to cope with. I had cancer and no money."

Hewlett says he was 60 miles away - in Vila Real de Santo Antonio - when Maddie was taken.

Crucially, he says he cannot specifically remember being there that day.

"May 3 was a Thursday and I was always in Vila Real Santo Antonio on Thursdays."

"My routine never altered. That's 100km from Praia da Luz.

"If you asked people there if we were there on that day, I don't know what they'd say.

"Maybe they can't remember.

"If you ask them if we were normally there, they'd say yes. If it wasn't for the fact that we were living the way we were, I wouldn't be able to say so clearly that that was where I was.

He also claims that a female friend who shot a home video of him and his family on May 5 - two days after Maddie vanished - could vouch for his whereabouts on May 3.

His youngest daughter Yanina bears a striking resemblance to missing Maddie.

He says: "The friend who made the video would remember where I was two days earlier. She could tell anyone where I was. But I haven't asked her and I don't intend to.

"Why should I ask her? I don't think I should involve anybody.

"Why should I keep dragging people in to this?

"I don't like being in it, so why should I keep putting people's names forward so that they get bothered with it too?

"I could ask her, but if she says no, then sorry, the answer is no. Then people will just have to carry on speculating."

Today as he wastes away on the fourth floor of a tower block, Hewlett is close to death.

Doctors discharged him from hospital, telling him there is nothing more they can do for him, and his weight has plummeted to just 45kg.

Instead of expressing sympathy for Kate and Gerry McCann, he insists people should feel sorry for him.

"I've been through hell and now I have got another hell which I don't deserve."

Shaking with pain, he repeats: "I didn't kill the McCann girl."

Labels: DNA, Madeleine McCann, Peter Verran, Polícia Judiciária, Raymond Hewlett

But I didn't kill Maddie

0 comments 6/14/2009 Posted by Winnower

14 June 2009
Madeleine: Key suspect talks for first time.
Sunday Mirror
Simon Wright

YES I'm a convicted paedophile YES I lived near Praia Da Luz YES I look like police drawing YES I did flee area to Morocco

BROKEN, frail, with only weeks to live, Raymond Hewlett is the man the McCanns fear could take the secrets of their daughter's disappearance to the grave. The convicted child rapist - who has been catapulted into the frame over the hunt for Madeleine - sits hunched up in a squalid German flat, gasping for breath as he finally breaks his silence.

Labels: DNA, FSS, Madeleine McCann, paedophiles, Peter Verran, Polícia Judiciária, Raymond Hewlett, Scots Guard

Maddy team's bid to quiz paedophile fails

0 comments 6/11/2009 Posted by Winnower

11 June 2009
Belfast Telegraph
Sam Marsden

Final attempts by private detectives searching for Madeleine McCann to interview a convicted British paedophile about her disappearance have failed. Retired police officers Dave Edgar, who served in Northern Ireland, and Arthur Cowley flew to Germany on Tuesday hoping to speak to Raymond Hewlett, who is said to have been staying an hour's drive from the McCann's Portuguese holiday flat when the little girl vanished. But negotiations between the private investigators and Hewlett's German lawyer broke down yesterday.

Labels: David Edgar, Madeleine McCann, No. Ireland, Polícia Judiciária, Raymond Hewlett

Maddie search inquiry setback

0 comments 6/11/2009 Posted by Winnower

11 June 2009
Daily Post

Final attempts by private detectives searching for Madeleine McCann to interview a convicted British paedophile about her disappearance failed last night. Retired UK policemen Dave Edgar and Arthur Cowley flew to Germany yesterday hoping to speak to Raymond Hewlett, who is said to have been staying an hour's drive from the McCanns' Portuguese holiday flat when the little girl vanished. But negotiations between the private investigators and Hewlett's German lawyer broke down.

Mr Edgar, who has been employed by Madeleine's parents, Liverpool-born Kate and Gerry McCann to look for their daughter, said he was "very disappointed" with the lawyer's behaviour. He went on: "I have been attempting to speak with Raymond Hewlett to eliminate him from our investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. "He is not a suspect but I was keen to interview him."

Labels: Arthur Cowley, David Edgar, Madeleine McCann, Polícia Judiciária, Raymond Hewlett

Interview fails

0 comments 6/11/2009 Posted by Winnower

11 June 2009
Leicester Mercury

Final attempts by private detectives searching for Madeleine McCann to interview a convicted British paedophile about her disappearance have failed. Retired UK policemen Dave Edgar and Arthur Cowley flew to Germany hoping to speak to Raymond Hewlett, who is said to have been near the Rothley family's Portuguese holiday flat when the little girl vanished. But negotiations with Hewlett's German lawyer over access have broken down.

Labels: Arthur Cowley, David Edgar, Madeleine McCann, paedophiles, Polícia Judiciária, Raymond Hewlett

Ex-RUC man in Maddie setback

0 comments 6/11/2009 Posted by Winnower

11 June 2009
Belfast News Letter

A former RUC detective who is leading the hunt for Madeline McCann failed yesterday in his final attempt to interview a convicted British paedophile about her disappearance. Dave Edgar and his colleague Arthur Cowley flew to Germany to speak to Raymond Hewlett who is said to have been staying an hour's drive from the McCann's Portuguese holiday flat when the little girl vanished. But negotiations between the private investigators and Hewlett's German lawyer broke down.

Labels: Arthur Cowley, David Edgar, Madeleine McCann, No. Ireland, paedophiles, Raymond Hewlett

DETECTIVES FAIL TO QUIZ PAEDOPHILE

0 comments 6/11/2009 Posted by Winnower

11 June 2009
Liverpool Echo

FINAL attempts to question a convicted British paedophile about missing Madeleine McCann have failed. Retired UK policemen Dave Edgar and Arthur Cowley flew to Germany this week hoping to speak to Raymond Hewlett. He was reportedly staying an hour's drive from the McCann's Portuguese holiday flat. But negotiations between the private investigators and Hewlett's German lawyer broke down yesterday. Mr Edgar, employed by Madeleine's mum and dad Kate and Gerry, said he was "very disappointed" with the lawyer's behaviour...

Labels: Arthur Cowley, David Edgar, Madeleine McCann, paedophiles, Polícia Judiciária, Raymond Hewlett

Is this the man who snatched Maddie?

2 comments 6/07/2009 Posted by Winnower

7 June 2009
Sunday Independent
Andrew Walker

This paedophile’s likeness to the sketch of a Maddie suspect is uncanny – and he admits being just an hour away on the day that she disappeared. He protests his innocence, but he has a horrifying past. David Jones reports.

Labels: Alan Thompson, Cindy Thompson, Clarence Mitchell, David Edgar, DNA, FSS, Ireland, Lesley Molseed, Madeleine McCann, Peter Verran, Polícia Judiciária, Raymond Hewlett, Ronald Castree, Stefan Kiszko, Wayne Hewlett

Crunch-hit tycoon scales down cash aid for McCanns

0 comments 6/07/2009 Posted by Winnower

7 June 2009
The Mail on Sunday
Daniel Boffey

The multi-millionaire tycoon backing Kate and Gerry McCann in their search for their daughter has cut back his financial support after losing an estimated £50 million from his fortune. Brian Kennedy, who pledged to support the McCanns until Madeleine was found, has stopped paying for the couple's media campaign after the credit crunch hit his business interests. The Madeleine Fund - which is down to £500,000 and expected to be empty by the end of the year - is now paying for the media relations work of former BBC reporter Clarence Mitchell, although at a reduced rate.

Labels: Clarence Mitchell, Madeleine McCann, paedophiles, Polícia Judiciária, Raymond Hewlett, West Yorkshire Police

I saw Maddie twice, admits paedophile

0 comments 6/06/2009 Posted by Winnower

June 06 2009
Herald
Conor Feehan

Convicted paedophile Raymond Hewlett has told detectives that he saw missing Madeleine McCann twice before she disappeared.Hewlett (64) had previously denied being near the resort of Praia da Luz in Portugal, from where Madeleine was snatched. It has been reported that Hewlett told detectives he was so close to the little girl, he was able to see the distinctive marking in her right eye.

Labels: Donegal, Ireland, Madeleine McCann, paedophiles, Raymond Hewlett, West Yorkshire Police

I saw Madeleine twice on holiday says paedophile

0 comments 6/06/2009 Posted by Winnower

6 June 2009
The Daily Express
Martyn Brown and Paul Jeeves

Paedophile Raymond Hewlett has confessed that he saw Madeleine McCann twice weeks before she disappeared, it was claimed last night. He said: "It's obvious why they're interested in me. But they can all think what they like. I didn't kill the McCann girl. It's the truth and it's never going to change. "There is a person who can say where I was that day, but why should I bring them into this? I've done nothing wrong."

Labels: Clarence Mitchell, DNA, FSS, Lesley Molseed, Madeleine McCann, Max McLean, paedophiles, Polícia Judiciária, Raymond Hewlett, West Yorkshire Police

I saw Maddie twice, admits paedo suspect; sensational confession to cops

0 comments 6/06/2009 Posted by Winnower

6 June 2009
The Sun
Antonella Lazzeri

[ NOTE: This information appears come solely from McCann spokesman CLARENCE MITCHELL. Can it be assumed that when the information is attributed to "a SOURCE" it is actually CLARENCE MITCHELL speaking "OFF THE RECORD"? ]

Child-sex fiend Raymond Hewlett has sensationally admitted he TWICE saw Madeleine McCann before she vanished. Hewlett, 64, claimed he was at the holiday resort where Maddie was kidnapped — and got so close to her that he could see the distinctive flaw in her right eye.

[ NOTE: Raymond Hewlett did NOT confess to having been in Praia da Luz or to seeing Madeleine in person. He said he'd seen her image on posters etc. and that he had not been in Praia da Luz since he first arrived in Portugal with his wife and children in 2002 - 5 years prior to Madeleine's disappearance. ]

The pervert — who has a string of convictions for sexually assaulting young girls — is said to have made his confession to police who questioned him about a 1975 attack on an eight-year-old.

[ NOTE: Max McLean, investigator in the Lesley Molseed murder was one of those officers. ]

That is a dramatic U-turn after Hewlett previously claimed he had never been near the Ocean Club holiday complex in Praia da Luz, Portugal — where Maddie disappeared days before her fourth birthday in May 2007.

Two senior officers from West Yorkshire Police travelled to Germany, where Hewlett is in hospital being treated for throat cancer. A SOURCE close to the investigation said Hewlett told the cops he had been to the Ocean Club and seen Maddie.

The SOURCE added:

    "He said he had seen her at least two times and had wandered around the complex several times. "He said he had been so close to Maddie he was able to see the distinctive mark in her right eye. "He didn't say why he had previously denied ever being in Praia da Luz. It's obviously a disturbing development."

Last night CLARENCE MITCHELL, official spokesman for Maddie's parents Gerry and Kate, said it was vital Hewlett now spoke to private investigators employed by the family to find Maddie.

He [CLARENCE MITCHELL] said:

    "If Mr Hewlett has any credible information about Madeleine it is absolutely imperative that he should speak to the investigators as a priority. Mr Hewlett and his representatives must do the right thing and allow the private investigators to do their work."

Hewlett, originally from Todmorden, England, refused to see the McCanns' investigators when they flew to Germany two weeks ago. He now says he will talk to them — if he is paid.

[ NOTE: No credible source has been found to support this allegation. ]

But Mr [CLARENCE] MITCHELL said:

    "No payment will be made for any such interview."

Hewlett has also employed a lawyer to try to sell his story to newspapers for thousands of pounds.

[ NOTE: No credible source has been found to support this allegation and the alleged lawyer has never been named. ]

The SOURCE said:

    "There are fears he's trying to cash in on Maddie, and it may be that he has made these claims to get more money. Whatever his motives, he needs to be seen by the investigators because he may have vital information."

Hewlett emerged as a suspect in Maddie's abduction after it was revealed he was living at a campsite nearby in May 2007. British tourists who spoke to him said he was "obsessed" with the case.

[ NOTE: BRITISH TOURISTS: PETER VERRAN, ALAN THOMPSON AND CINDY THOMPSON ]

Police wanting to quiz Hewlett over the 1975 assault had been unable to trace him as he travelled around Europe and Morocco after being released from prison. His lawyer in Germany says he only has weeks to live.

Hewlett has now provided cops with a DNA sample which will be compared to evidence from 1975.

[ NOTE: Hewlett was eliminated from the Molseed investigation based on the claim by the police that his DNA did not match the DNA found on Lesley Molseed's clothing. They were, therefore, already in possession of Hewlett's DNA. ]

Hewlett has viewed Ireland as a safe haven for years and has taken refuge here many times. He fled here after sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl in the 1980s but was brought back to Britain to face trial. After he was released he returned in 1993, living in a commune in County Donegal. But the sicko was eventually asked to leave by worried parents.

Labels: Alan Thompson, Cindy Thompson, Clarence Mitchell, DNA, Donegal, FSS, Ireland, Lesley Molseed, Madeleine McCann, Max McLean, paedophiles, Peter Verran, Raymond Hewlett, Ronald Castree, West Yorkshire Police

I saw Maddie twice claims dying child molester

0 comments 6/06/2009 Posted by Winnower

6 June 2009
Daily Mail

Paedophile Raymond Hewlett has allegedly said he saw Madeleine McCann twice before she vanished. The Briton, 62, has previously insisted he was miles from Praia da Luz in the Portuguese Algarve when the three-year-old went missing in May 2007. But yesterday he reportedly implied he had been close enough to see Maddie's distinctive flaw in her right eye.

Labels: Madeleine McCann, paedophiles, Polícia Judiciária, Raymond Hewlett

Yorks paedophile quizzed over 1975 sex attack

2 comments 6/05/2009 Posted by Winnower

5 June 2009
Yorkshire Evening Post
Bruce Smith

THE head of West Yorkshire's CID has interviewed a Yorkshire paedophile linked to the Madeleine McCann inquiry about an unsolved 1975 sex attack. Det Chief Supt Max McLean, travelled with Det Chief Insp Mark Ridley, to Germany to speak to cancer stricken Raymond Hewlett.

Labels: Lesley Molseed, Madeleine McCann, Max McLean, paedophiles, Polícia Judiciária, Raymond Hewlett, West Yorkshire Police

Paedophile Raymond Hewlett demands thousands to answer Maddie questions

0 comments 6/04/2009 Posted by Winnower

4th June 2009
Daily Mail

Paedophile Raymond Hewlett has issued a brazen demand to be paid thousands of pounds to answer questions about the night Madeleine McCann went missing. The child molester refused to speak to detectives hired by Kate and Gerry McCann unless they gave him a vast slice of the Madeleine Fund. Hewlett, 62, who has a lifelong history of sexually abusing little girls, was in the Algarve when the three-year-old was snatched from her bed. He is now in hospital in Germany recovering from throat cancer surgery, and has so far rebuffed efforts by the McCanns' investigators to interview him.

Labels: Arthur Cowley, Clarence Mitchell, David Edgar, Madeleine McCann, Max McLean, Raymond Hewlett, West Yorkshire Police

Paedophile who lived in Carlingford will speak to Maddie detectives

0 comments 6/03/2009 Posted by Winnower

3 June 2009
Dundalk Democrat
Tamara O'Connell

A PAEDOPHILE who lived in Carlingford has agreed to speak to detectives investigating the disappearance of British toddler Madeleine McCann. Serial sex offender, Raymond Hewlett has said he will answer the questions of two British ex-policemen employed by the little girl's family. The father-of-eight, who has convictions for kidnapping and raping or molesting four young girls in England, has lived on and off in Ireland for the past two decades.

Labels: DNA, Donegal, Dundalk, FSS, Ireland, Madeleine McCann, Raymond Hewlett

Detectives to meet paedophile

0 comments 6/01/2009 Posted by Winnower

1 June 2009
Leicester Mercury

Private detectives investigating the disappearance of Madeleine McCann hope to meet with convicted paedophile Raymond Hewlett this week. Hewlett has said he was prepared to meet with them.

Labels: Arthur Cowley, Clarence Mitchell, David Edgar, Madeleine McCann, paedophiles, Peter Verran, Raymond Hewlett, Scots Guard

Man wanted for Madeleine McCann disappearance linked to Prestwich indecent assault

0 comments 6/01/2009 Posted by Winnower

1 June 2009
Bury Times

A CONVICTED paedophile, wanted in connection with the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, is also being linked to the indecent assault of a young girl in Prestwich nearly 35 years ago.

West Yorkshire Police have confirmed they want to speak with Raymond Hewlett about an incident in the town in 1975.

The 64-year-old, who is currently in hospital in Germany, has been jailed several times for sexual offences against young girls.

Retired police investigating Madeleine’s disappearance have also said they wish to speak to Hewlett, who was staying near Praia da Luz, in Portugal, when the three-year-old went missing in April 2007.

Hewlett has denied having any involvement in Madeleine's disappearance but has said he will speak to the McCanns' private detectives.

The former soldier, who previously lived in Blackpool and Telford, is reportedly being treated for throat cancer in Aachen, Germany.

He was jailed several times in the UK for sexually assaulting young girls, including an attack in 1978 where he put a gun to his victim's back.

In 1988 he also kidnapped and indecently assaulted a 14-year-old girl in Mold, North Wales.

He was questioned over the 1975 murder of 11-year-old Lesley Molseed but another man was eventually convicted of the crime in 2007.

A spokesman for the McCann family said investigators were pleased Hewlett had agreed to speak to them.

Clarence Mitchell added: “An interview with him will be arranged and will take place in due course.

"Mr Hewlett has again denied any involvement in Madeleine's abduction, and if it helps to eliminate him from the private investigation then he has done the right thing by indicating that he will speak to the investigators."

A spokesman for West Yorkshire Police said: “We wish to speak to Mr Hewlett regarding the indecent assault of a young girl in the Greater Manchester area in 1975.”

Greater Manchester Police confirmed the incident took place in Prestwich.

Labels: Madeleine McCann, Raymond Hewlett, West Yorkshire Police

Cops probe Maddie pervert's quick escape from Portugal

0 comments 5/31/2009 Posted by Winnower

31 May 2009
Sunday Mirror
Justin Penrose

British police probing the disappearance of Madeleine McCann want to know why paedophile Raymond Hewlett left Portugal so quickly after she vanished. They have quizzed a witness who says sex attacker Hewlett told of being outside the apartment where Maddie was snatched "several times".

Labels: Madeleine McCann, paedophiles, Peter Verran, Raymond Hewlett

Maddie cops: 5 to quiz

0 comments 5/31/2009 Posted by Winnower

31 May 2009
The News of the World

Investigators hired by Kate and Gerry McCann last night revealed they have uncovered FIVE vital new witnesses in the hunt for missing Madeleine. The cold case sleuths are working through them, checking their alibis. All were living near Praia da Luz at the time Maddie disappeared on May 3, 2007. They have already secured an interview with paedophile Raymond Hewlett in hospital in Germany. And they also want to quiz Michael Green, 48, who has an alibi, and three unnamed men on the list. Our own investigation uncovered Barrington Norton, 58, who lives in a van, but was quizzed at the time. A source said: "There is no evidence they have involvement in Madeleine's abduction but could hold crucial clues about others they know in the area."

Labels: Madeleine McCann, paedophiles, Raymond Hewlett

Lair of a monster

0 comments 5/31/2009 Posted by Winnower

31 May 2009
The Sunday Life
EXCLUSIVE ON THE TRAIL OF NO.1 SUSPECT IN MYSTERY OF THE DECADE
Rodney Edwards
This is the Ulster flat where Maddie suspect and convicted paedophile Raymond Hewlett lived in the ’90s

A convicted paedophile who is a suspect in the disappearance of Madeline McCann previously lived in this Fermanagh block of flats. Raymond Hewlett (62) resided in a small apartment above a chip shop on Enniskillen’s Belmore Street and made several friends in the town. Hewlett is now the main suspect in the Maddie case after it emerged he lived near Praia da Luz at the time Maddie went missing from the Portuguese resort in May 2007, days before her fourth birthday.

Labels: DNA, Donegal, FSS, Ireland, Lesley Molseed, Madeleine McCann, paedophiles, Polícia Judiciária, Raymond Hewlett

DNA test for paedophile

0 comments 5/30/2009 Posted by Winnower

30 May 2009
Weekend Post

Madeleine McCann suspect Raymond Hewlett has given a sample of his DNA to police in Germany. The convicted paedophile, 62 – under treatment for throat cancer – provided a saliva swab from his hospital bed in Aachen. It followed a request from police in West Yorkshire investigating a sexual assault in 1975. Private investigators acting for Maddie’s parents could then ask for it to be compared with DNA found in the holiday flat from which their daughter was snatched in 2007.

Labels: DNA, FSS, Madeleine McCann, paedophiles, Raymond Hewlett, West Yorkshire Police

So did he snatch Maddie? This British paedophile's likeness to the sketch of a Maddie suspect

5/30/2009 Posted by Winnower

30 May 2009
Daily Mail
David Jones

The British paedophile's likeness to the sketch of a Maddie suspect is uncanny - and he admits being just an hour away on the day that she disappeared. He furiously protests his innocence. But as this chilling dispatch reveals, he has a truly horrifying past... and some disturbing questions to answer

Addressed to an internet agency which peddles stories to low-brow media outlets, the email seemed absurdly far-fetched.

During a road-trip through Pakistan a decade ago, the woman informant wrote, she and her husband had stumbled upon the secret lair of Osama bin Laden.

When they tried to report their sensational discovery to U.S. authorities, nobody would listen.

Oh yes, she added almost as an afterthought, and while travelling through southern Portugal more recently, the couple had become friendly with a British man whom they later discovered to be a serial child sex attacker.

What's more, they now suspected him to be the monster who abducted Madeleine McCann.

Quite whether the tipsters (a down-to-earth, middle-aged couple named Alan and Cindy Thompson, who spend their summers in East Anglia and their winters abroad in a camper van) really did have a close encounter with the Al-Qaeda leader is open to question.

Extraordinarily, however, when their claims about the McCann case were closely checked, it turned out that they were telling the truth.

Thus, a few days ago, began the latest twist in a seemingly interminable saga that never fails to astonish and perplex; and which, until then, seemed to be rapidly running out of steam, for all the best efforts of Madeleine's parents Gerry and Kate McCann and their team.

It has shone an unwelcome torch on the activities of the man the Thompsons met on their trek through Portugal, 64-year-old Raymond Hewlett - a thoroughly vile character with a record of serious paedophile offences dating back to the Seventies.

Despite the somewhat haphazard manner in which his name comes to be in the frame, detectives retained by the McCanns are taking his possible involvement in her disappearance seriously.

Last Monday, the former British police officers, Dave Edgar and Arthur Crowley, attempted to interview him in a German hospital, where he is recovering from an operation to remove a tumour on his oesophagus.
Artist's impression: The McCanns recently released a picture of what Madeleine could look like today

Looking haggard and screaming obscenities at waiting journalists, the wheelchair-bound Hewlett refused to be questioned by the McCann team, changing his mind only after they had flown home to Britain. The police officers plan to return to Germany.

As Mr Edgar remarked, this is the first time since they took over the inquiry from the Spanish investigations agency Metodo 3 last autumn that they have felt the necessity to confront a suspect.

'It looked at one stage like he might die,' Mr Edgar, a former RUC officer, explained.

'The last thing we want is for the speculation to continue and for people to say he has taken the secret (of Madeleine's abduction) to the grave.'

Meanwhile, Hewlett's emergence has prompted West Yorkshire police to seek leave from the German authorities to quiz him about an unsolved attack on an eight-year-old girl in 1975.

Hewlett's defiant response this week was to supply a DNA sample which, he insists, will clear him of that assault.

Unfortunately it is unlikely to be of use in the Madeleine inquiry, for the Portuguese judicial police are not thought to have gathered any unidentified genetic material from the McCanns' apartment, against which it might be matched.

In any case, the inept 'PJ' - as the Portuguese police are known - are unlikely to be joining the queue to interview Hewlett in hospital, for they are clearly uninterested in him, or any other new suspect, for that matter.

In recent days, they have reportedly rebuffed several other new informants, informing them that they are wasting their time because the little girl is dead.

Furthermore, I am told the PJ ignore clues passed to them by Messrs Edgar and Crowley, and when the private detectives visit Portugal they are tailed as if they were the criminals.

The question is, by failing to investigate Hewlett (who has served three prison sentences for sexual assaults on children, once rendering his victim unconscious by smothering her with a rag soaked in paint-thinner; a method which some surmise might have been used to subdue Madeleine), could they be missing an opportunity to solve the McCann mystery once and for all?

Understandably, given all the false dawns they have endured over the past two years, the McCann camp remain cautious when discussing Hewlett's possible involvement.

However, spokesman Clarence Mitchell speaks of the 'eerie similarities' between the former Scots Guardsman and an artist's sketch of the gaunt suspect with lank, shoulder-length hair, who was seen near the McCanns' holiday apartment in Praia da Luz on and around May 3, 2007, when Madeleine was snatched from her bed.

Mr Edgar says: 'From the information I've seen, he wouldn't be at the top of our list, but he is definitely of interest to us and we need to eliminate him.'

There are huge blanks in Hewlett's story, but he seems to have started wandering during the early Nineties after being released from his last jail term, for abducting and assaulting a 14-year-old girl in Cheshire.

After a period in Ireland (where he is suspected of attacking at least one other child), he journeyed overland through France and Spain to southern Portugal.

Home was a battered blue Dodge truck, which Hewlett, a dextrous mechanic, converted into a camper using parts he cannibalised from other vehicles.

He shared it with his pony-tailed German girlfriend, Marianne Schmucker, who, at 33, is half his age.

Significantly, perhaps, the Mail has learned that he sold the Dodge to Portuguese travellers for 300 euros, not long after Madeleine vanished, and replaced it with a white Iveco model.

If traced, his old camper could contain valuable forensic evidence.

Hewlett has at least two grown-up children from his first marriage - a daughter named Gina, 41, to whom he wrote self-pitying letters from prison, and a son Wayne, 40, who this week described his father as a 'monster' who beat him savagely when he was a boy.

On the road, however, he sired six more offspring by Marianne, who, one friend recalls, 'always seemed to be pregnant'.

The oldest, David, was killed last December, apparently falling out of the van as the family drove through Spain en route to Germany.

The Spanish authorities are investigating the incident and may charge Hewlett with negligence.

According to the friend, the family preferred the Costa del Sol to Portugal, but Hewlett grew tired of dodging Spain's 'social police', who asked questions about the children's welfare and wanted to know why the older ones didn't go to school (Marianne taught them herself).

By 2006, the family had decamped to the Algarve, basing themselves in a car park beside a supermarket in Tavira, a former fishing town between Faro and the Spanish border.

It was one of the few places where they weren't chased away by the authorities. They were allowed to wash in the supermarket toilets.

Since Hewlett and Marianne had so many blonde, blue-eyed children, their circle of bohemian friends were keen to help them, and one English woman gave them hundreds of pounds to buy their new mobile home.

In return for such favours, Hewlett would mend their vehicles while Marianne would don a pink bunny suit and play the flute on the town's Roman bridge, instructing her children to collect money from tourists.

But Hewlett was no easygoing hippy. Friends recall him as an overbearing 'control freak' who never let Marianne and the children out of his sight.

He was also furtive and 'never let one hand know what the other was doing'. Nor did he socialise much, preferring to chain-smoke cigarettes, and sometimes cannabis.

One friend says his children were 'immaculately' turned out and well-behaved. But another says they were 'cowed and mute', and now fears Hewlett may have abused them, too.

None of his close circle in Tavira had any idea about his sordid past - nor that he was wanted by police in England.

Rumours began to circulate only last summer, when he sneaked back to Britain because he needed documents to obtain free overseas hospital treatment and claim his old age pension, due next year.

One source says: 'He was driven by a friend and the police must have learned he was in Britain, because they raided the house he was staying in during the night.'

It is unclear whether the police arrived too late and Hewlett had fled, or whether they let him go.

Hewlett's partner, Marianne Schmucker, is reported to have had no idea about the paedophile's past.

But he hastily returned to Portugal, where the friend he'd driven with to Britain typed Hewlett's name into Google and learned the truth about his past.

The news then reached Alan and Cindy Thompson, who had met Hewlett a few months before Madeleine's abduction and remained loosely in touch after returning to East Anglia.

Their internet searches would have revealed that his name came up in November 2007 during a notorious 'cold case' trial - in which new evidence causes an old case to be reopened - when Ronald Castree was convicted of the frenzied sex murder of 11-year-old schoolgirl Lesley Molseed, more than 30 years ago.

After the murder in 1975, loner Stefan Kiszko was wrongfully convicted. He had served 16 years for murder before his conviction was overturned, and modern DNA testing techniques proved that Castree's semen was on Lesley's underwear.

However, Castree's barrister had maintained he did not kill her. He said there was 'overwhelming evidence' that Hewlett - whose car was allegedly parked close to the murder scene in the Pennines - was the 'probable' culprit.

Marianne knew nothing of Hewlett's past convictions until this week, I am told, and discovered the truth only when the McCann detectives descended on Aachen, where she and Hewlett have settled with their five surviving children in a council flat.

'She is absolutely beside herself,' one friend says.

Gullibly, one might think, this friend believes Hewlett and remains convinced he had nothing to do with Madeleine's disappearance.

So what is the evidence? We know Hewlett was within easy driving distance of Praia da Luz on May 3, 2007, for he admits to being on the Algarve on that date, and nowhere on the coast is more than 90 minutes' drive from the McCanns' resort.

We know he looks like the 'hairy man' with a zapata moustache in the sketch.

We know, too, that he frequently took the sea crossing from Spain to Morroco, where there have been reported sightings of a girl resembling Madeleine and where some fear she has been sold to paedophiles.

Moreover, according to one source, Hewlett was adept at smuggling his children aboard the ferry to Tangier.

And as the source remarked: 'Would one more little girl have made that much difference?'

Others among Hewlett's old travelling circle have also emerged to incriminate him. The most compelling of these is Cornwall-based antiques dealer Peter Ferran (SIC-Peter Verran), 46, who recalls meeting him in a Morocco campsite just after Madeleine was snatched.

He says Hewlett told him he was worried that people might think one of his daughters was Madeleine, because she bore such a strong resemblance to her, and added: 'Madeleine's not in Morocco.'

Hewlett had readily admitted having been in Praia da Luz 'many times'. He said he knew the layout of the Ocean Club, where the McCanns stayed, and was adamant Madeleine couldn't have been taken without her parents seeing.

Yet there are convincing clues that point to Hewlett's innocence. He maintains he has an alibi for May 3, 2007 - he and his family were trading at a flea market.

According to reports this week, Hewlett must have been mistaken - or lying - because the Fuzeta market is held only on the first Sunday of each month, and Madeleine was taken on a Thursday.

However, the Mail has established that there is also a sale at this site on the first Thursday of the month, though it usually attracts only gipsies.

Whatever the truth, he does seem to have been at the market three days after the abduction.

For the Mail has spoken to an English expat who keeps a detailed daily diary and says he logged the fact that he parked his camper near Hewlett's blue Dodge on Sunday, May 6, 2007.

He also noted a meeting with Hewlett and his family at another market at Mertola, 30 miles along the coast, on May 18, 2007.

These diary entries don't account for his movements on May 3, of course, and certainly not between 9pm and 10pm that evening, when the abductor is believed to have struck.

Yet as the source - who did not much like Hewlett and is no apologist for him - asks: 'Is it really possible that he drove into a small, out-of-season resort like Praia da Luz in a big blue truck that stood out like a sore thumb without being seen?

'If he did go there, maybe in another vehicle, could he have taken Madeleine without his family knowing?

'Marianne may be devoted to him, but I can't believe that if she did know he had done something so terrible she wouldn't have told someone.'

Any number of experts would question this bold assertion, for the evidence suggests that serial child molesters such as Hewlett rarely change their spots.

That doesn't make him guilty, of course, just as it doesn't prove the culpability of the 38 other convicted child sex attackers known to have been lurking in the Algarve when this terrible crime was perpetrated.

Labels: Clarence Mitchell, Madeleine McCann, paedophiles, Peter Verran, Raymond Hewlett, Stefan Kiszko, Wayne Hewlett

Hewlett gives DNA sample

0 comments 5/29/2009 Posted by Winnower

29 May 2009
The Daily Express

Madeleine McCann suspect Raymond Hewlett has given a DNA sample to police from his hospital bed. Paedophile predator Hewlett delivered the saliva sample after a request from British police, who have linked him to two child abuse cases in Britain in 1975.

Hewlett, 64, who has a string of convictions for sex attacks on children, is being treated for cancer in Germany. He became a suspect in Madeleine's case after a couple revealed he bragged of knowing the layout of the McCanns' apartment in Praia de Luz, Portugal. At the time he was living at a campsite an hour away. He has now agreed to speak to investigators hired by Kate and Gerry McCann.

Labels: DNA, FSS, Madeleine McCann, paedophiles, Raymond Hewlett

Hewlett gave DNA sample to German police

0 comments 5/29/2009 Posted by Winnower

29 May 2009
Metro

A convicted paedophile has voluntarily given a sample of his DNA to German police after a request from detectives. Briton Raymond Hewlett was living in Tavira, a coastal town an hour's drive from Praia da Luz, when Madeleine McCann disappeared on May 3, 2007 while on holiday with her family in Portugal. He has apparently given the sample to police in Aachen, where he is being treated in hospital for cancer. But it is thought to be connected with an indecent assault allegation being investigated by West Yorkshire Police and not with the disappearance of Madeleine.

Labels: DNA, FSS, Madeleine McCann, paedophiles, Raymond Hewlett, West Yorkshire Police

McCann-link paedophile agrees to DNA test

0 comments 5/29/2009 Posted by Winnower

29 May 2009
Yorkshire Post
John Roberts

A CONVICTED paedophile linked to the investigation into Madeleine McCann's disappearance has agreed to give a sample of his DNA to German police in connection with another case, it was reported last night.

Raymond Hewlett is believed to be giving the sample voluntarily to police in Aachen, in connection with an indecent assault 34 years ago being investigated by West Yorkshire Police.

He is a suspect in an attack on an eight-year-old girl in Manchester, in 1975, and detectives in Yorkshire have already written to German authorities seeking permission to speak to him.

The ex-soldier has also been linked to the Madeleine McCann case after it emerged that Hewlett was staying about an hour from the McCann's holiday flat in Praia da Luz in Portugal on the night their daughter vanished.

Hewlett, who formerly lived in Todmorden, has been jailed for sex crimes in Yorkshire. He is currently being treated for throat cancer in hospital in Germany.

The McCann's private investigators Dave Edgar and Arthur Cowley have named him as a "person of interest" but have so far failed to secure an interview with him.

However the McCann's spokesman Clarence Mitchell said an interview will be arranged after Hewlett declared that he had "nothing to hide" and was willing to speak to the investigators.

Hewlett has been a suspect in the indecent assault case in Manchester since 1999.

Detectives from West Yorkshire applied for permission to interview him three weeks ago and are set to fly to Germany as soon as permission is granted. The victim in this case, who is now 42, has been kept informed on the progress of the investigation.

Hewlett was also suspected of murdering Lesley Molseed, 11, whose body was found on moorland, near Ripponden, in 1975, but was cleared when DNA evidence revealed her killer was Oldham man Ronald Castree.

Hewlett abducted a 12-year-old girl in Todmorden in 1972 and attempted to rape a girl, 14, at gunpoint in 1978 – for which he received jail terms of 18 months and four years.

After kidnapping and assaulting another 14-year-old girl in North Wales he fled to Ireland. He was captured in 1989 and jailed for six years.

Labels: Lesley Molseed, Madeleine McCann, Raymond Hewlett, Ronald Castree, West Yorkshire Police

Madeleine suspect's sex attack on girl, 14

0 comments 5/28/2009 Posted by Winnower

28 May 2009
Chester Chronicle
Dave Goodban

Fiend wanted for questioning 21 years after paper round assault

A CONVICTED child molester wanted for questioning in connection with Madeleine McCann's disappearance was jailed for six years for sexually assaulting a Cheshire schoolgirl.

Former soldier Raymond Hewlett, 64, was locked up after grabbing the 14-year-old on her paper round at knifepoint in Cuddington in 1988.

"You know what is going to happen to you now," he told the terrified teenager when they arrived at a quarry 50 miles away in North Wales.

She was subjected to a brutal sex attack before being bundled into the boot of Hewlett's car and dumped a further 50 miles away at another quarry.

Hewlett, who left a hospital in Aachen, Germany, this week after throat cancer surgery, is believed to have been living in the Algarve when Madeleine disappeared in May 2007. He has a history of sex attacks on girls.

He served 12 months for an indecent assault in 1972 and 16 months of a four-year sentence for another in 1978.

He is currently wanted for questioning by British police for the indecent assault of a young girl in Yorkshire more than 30 years ago.

Ex-Cheshire detective Dave Edgar, hired by Kate and Gerry McCann to find Madeleine, has so far failed to secure an interview with Hewlett as he has no legal authority as a private investigator.

But as he left hospital on Monday night, Hewlett said: "I have nothing to hide - I am willing to talk."

Labels: Madeleine McCann, Raymond Hewlett, West Yorkshire Police

Maddie detectives to meet paedophile

0 comments 5/27/2009 Posted by Winnower

27 May 2009
Western Morning News
(excerpt)

Retired British detectives searching for Madeleine McCann have welcomed convicted paedophile Raymond Hewlett's offer to answer their questions. The ex-policemen employed by the little girl's family hope to interview him about her disappearance in the "near future", a source close to them said. Hewlett, 64, is said to have been staying around an hour's drive from the McCanns' holiday flat in Praia da Luz in Portugal when Madeleine vanished in May 2007. He protests his innocence...

Labels: Madeleine McCann, paedophiles, Raymond Hewlett

Maddie cops close in on second paedo Brit

0 comments 5/27/2009 Posted by Winnower

27 May 2009
Daily Star
Jerry Lawton
Is Brit 'spotty man'?

Detectives hunting Madeleine McCann want to quiz a second Brit paedophile living near the apartment where she was snatched. The cops believe the convicted sex offender could be the "spotty'' mystery man seen casing the family's holiday flat in the days leading up to the abduction. The man was investigated by Portuguese police shortly after Maddie disappeared from the Algarve resort of Praia da Luz on May 3 2007, days before her fourth birthday. They cleared him after a 12-year-girl who had seen the prowler was shown the suspect's picture and said it was not the same man. But 100 pages of notes relating to this part of the investigation were withdrawn from 17 volumes of police case files released to the public after a request from British police.

Labels: Clarence Mitchell, Madeleine McCann, paedophiles, Polícia Judiciária, Raymond Hewlett, West Yorkshire Police

Confronted

0 comments 5/27/2009 Posted by Winnower

27 May 2009
The Sun
Alex West

This is the moment The Sun confronted paedophile Raymond Hewlett over Madeleine McCann's disappearance. We stepped in to grill the convicted child abuser after he stonewalled private eyes acting for Maddie's parents Gerry and Kate.

Labels: Arthur Cowley, David Edgar, Madeleine McCann, paedophiles, Polícia Judiciária, Raymond Hewlett, West Yorkshire Police

Maddie - Detectives "clown around" in Germany

0 comments 5/27/2009 Posted by Winnower

27 May 2009
Duarte Levy (also in 24horas)

The two former English policemen that were hired by the McCann couple, returned to England yesterday without having questioned the alleged “suspect” in the disappearance of Madeleine, after the German authorities classified their presence in Aachen as “a clown act”, accusing them of “trying to pressure the local judicial authorities”, using contacts among the British diplomatic representatives in Germany.

Labels: Alan Thompson, Arthur Cowley, Cindy Thompson, David Edgar, Madeleine McCann, Polícia Judiciária, Raymond Hewlett

Journal behind the Madeline McCann 8 Ball

0 comments 5/27/2009 Posted by Winnower

May 27, 2009
northbynorthwestblog

Yesterday’s Derry Journal ‘revealed’ that convicted sex offender, Raymond Hewlett, used to live in Urris, Co. Donegal.The story was already widely reported over the weekend, including the Sunday Tribune, which mentioned the Dunaff link, the Mail and the Times. The Irish Independent shockingly describes how Hewlett is a suspect for the disappearance of young Mary Boyle, 6, who went missing in Ballyshannon, Co. Donegal in 1977. Hewlett was working reportedly working in the county at the time.

Labels: Donegal, Ireland, Lesley Molseed, Madeleine McCann, Raymond Hewlett

Maddie suspect 'hid out' in Forres in '90s

0 comments 5/27/2009 Posted by Winnower

27 May 2009
Forres Gazette
Tanya McLaren

A convicted sex offender who sought refuge in Forres during the late 1990s is wanted for questioning by detectives investigating the the disappearance of Madeleine McCann from her parents' holiday flat in Portugal two years ago. advertising Convicted paedophile Raymond Hewlett (64), is now being treated for cancer in hospital in Germany where he is protesting his innocence. Media reports claim that Hewlett is also wanted by detectives for questioning by UK and Irish police in connection with other offences dating back more than 30 years.

Labels: Madeleine McCann, Raymond Hewlett, Ronald Castree

Docs bar DNA test on Maddie suspect

0 comments 5/26/2009 Posted by Winnower

26 May 2009
Daily Star
Jerry Lawton
Hospital turns away ex-coppers

Detectives were yesterday turned away from a hospital where they want to quiz a paedophile about Madeleine McCann. They hope cancer victim Raymond Hewlett, 64, will take a DNA test to see if he was in the apartment when she was snatched two years ago. (Blogger note: Hewlett had already given DNA swab to the Portuguese police.) Briton Hewlett, who has served jail terms for abducting and sexually assaulting kids, was living near Praia da Luz in Portugal when the McCanns were on holiday there. His description matches a man with a droopy moustache seen carrying off a little blonde girl that night.

Labels: David Edgar, DNA, FSS, Madeleine McCann, paedophiles, Peter Verran, Polícia Judiciária, Raymond Hewlett, West Yorkshire Police

REVEALED: MADELEINE SUSPECT'S INISH HOME

0 comments 5/26/2009 Posted by Winnower

Derry Journal
26 May 2009

Convicted child molester and key suspect in the Madeleine McCann case used to live in Urris, the Journal can reveal. Raymond Hewlett, aged 64, who has been jailed for a string of child sex crimes and assaults in Britain, lived in the peninsula for a period of time.

Labels: Alan Thompson, Cindy Thompson, DNA, FSS, Ireland, Madeleine McCann, paedophiles, Polícia Judiciária, Raymond Hewlett

Portugal police ignore 4 new Madeleine leads

0 comments 5/26/2009 Posted by Winnower

26 May 2009
The Daily Express
Nick Fagge

FOUR potential new leads in the hunt for Madeleine McCann have been dismissed in the past week by Portuguese police, who told the callers: "She is dead."They were told not to bother detectives with any new information about the missing youngster, a source close to the investigation claimed.

Labels: Arthur Cowley, Clarence Mitchell, David Edgar, Madeleine McCann, paedophiles, Peter Verran, Polícia Judiciária, Raymond Hewlett

Paedophile's phone signals checked in Maddie hunt

0 comments 5/26/2009 Posted by Winnower

26 May 2009
Yorkshire Post
Rob Preece

DETECTIVES leading the search for Madeleine McCann are to use mobile phone signals to track the movements of a violent paedophile who was in Portugal when she disappeared.

Raymond Hewlett, who has been jailed for sex attacks on young girls in the Yorkshire region, is said to have been staying near the McCanns' holiday flat when Madeleine went missing in May 2007.

A couple who alerted detectives to Hewlett's whereabouts after meeting him on holiday in Portugal were interviewed for three hours at the weekend by officers from Leicestershire Police.

Alan and Cindy Thompson handed over Hewlett's number, which police hope will enable them to access phone company records dating back to the night Madeleine disappeared.

The records are likely to show where calls on Hewlett's phone were made from, providing clues about his movements.

Hewlett, 64, is undergoing treatment for throat cancer in a German hospital, but police want to question him about a crime which took place in Yorkshire more than 30 years ago.

Officers from West Yorkshire Police are awaiting clearance from German authorities to interview him over an indecent assault from 1975.

Hewlett, who was suspected of murdering schoolgirl Lesley Molseed until DNA evidence trapped her killer, formerly lived in Todmorden, where he carried out some of his most serious attacks.

He was sentenced to 18 months in prison for abducting a 12-year-old girl and taking her on to moors near Todmorden in 1972.

In 1978 Hewlett attacked a 14-year-old girl in her Todmorden home. He was convicted of attempted rape and sentenced to four years in prison, but only served 16 months.

After kidnapping another 14-year-old girl in North Wales and sexually assaulting her, he fled to Ireland. He was captured in 1989 and jailed for six years.

Labels: Alan Thompson, Cindy Thompson, Lesley Molseed, Madeleine McCann, Raymond Hewlett, West Yorkshire Police

Cops ignore new Maddie evidence

0 comments 5/26/2009 Posted by Winnower

26 May 2009
The Sun
Alex West

Police have shunned FOUR potential new leads in the hunt for Madeleine McCann. Officers in Portugal are telling people coming forward with information that Maddie is DEAD - and the case is CLOSED. The shocking revelation came as new suspect Raymond Hewlett, a convicted British paedophile, refused to speak to detectives working for Maddie's parents Kate and Gerry.

Labels: Arthur Cowley, Clarence Mitchell, David Edgar, DNA, FSS, Madeleine McCann, paedophiles, Polícia Judiciária, Raymond Hewlett, West Yorkshire Police

Cops check sex beast’s phone calls

0 comments 5/25/2009 Posted by Winnower

25 May 2009
Evening Express

Police are set to check the mobile phone record of a convicted child sex beast who is being investigated over Madeleine McCann’s disappearance.

Labels: Alan Thompson, Cindy Thompson, Madeleine McCann, Raymond Hewlett

Suspect in Maddy probe knew layout of complex

0 comments 5/25/2009 Posted by Winnower

25 May 2009
Irish Independent

A convicted paedophile who is being investigated over Madeleine McCann's disappearance said he was familiar with the layout of the Portuguese holiday complex where she went missing, it was reported yesterday. Raymond Hewlett is alleged to have been staying an hour's drive from the McCanns' holiday flat in Praia da Luz when she vanished on May 3 2007. The McCanns' investigation team wants to interview the 64-year-old in the next few days in the hope he can shed some light on the little girl's disappearance.

Labels: Clarence Mitchell, Madeleine McCann, paedophiles, Peter Verran, Raymond Hewlett

Police to test the DNA of Madeleine 'suspect'

1 comments 5/25/2009 Posted by Winnower

25 May 2009
The Daily Express
Nick Fagge in Aachen

DNA samples are to be taken from a fugitive British paedophile linked to Madeleine McCann's disappearance. Private detectives hired by Kate and Gerry McCann will today fly to Germany in their hunt for clues. They want to question convicted pervert Raymond Hewlett over his whereabouts at the time Madeleine disappeared in May 2007. And yesterday it was revealed that German authorities want Hewlett, 64, to undergo a DNA test in the next few days.

Labels: Arthur Cowley, Clarence Mitchell, David Edgar, DNA, FSS, Madeleine McCann, paedophiles, Peter Verran, Polícia Judiciária, Raymond Hewlett

Phone check in search for Maddie

0 comments 5/25/2009 Posted by Winnower

25 May 2009
Liverpool Echo

The phone of a convicted paedophile may be checked to discover where he was on the day Madeleine McCann disappeared. Raymond Hewlett is alleged to have been staying around an hour's drive from the McCanns' holiday flat in Praia da Luz when she vanished on May 3 2007. The investigation team of Liverpool-born Kate McCann and husband Gerry wants to interview the 64-year-old in the hope he can shed light on the little girl's disappearance.

Labels: Clarence Mitchell, Madeleine McCann, paedophiles, Peter Verran, Raymond Hewlett

Paedophile was at Maddie resort

0 comments 5/25/2009 Posted by Winnower

25 May 2009
Daily Telegraph

A convicted paedophile being investigated over the disappearance of Madeleine McCann had visited the Portuguese resort the British girl was abducted from. Raymond Hewlett allegedly admitted he knew the layout of the luxury Ocean Club complex and had often parked outside the McCanns' flat, British newspapers reported. The McCanns' investigation team want to talk to the 64-year-old about Madeleine's disappearance on May 3, 2007. He is also wanted for questioning by British police for an indecent assault in 1975.

Labels: Madeleine McCann, paedophiles, Peter Verran, Polícia Judiciária, Raymond Hewlett

Paedophile 'knew layout of Madeleine complex'

0 comments 5/25/2009 Posted by Winnower

25 May 2009
Yorkshire Post
Mike Waites

A convicted paedophile who is being investigated over Madeleine McCann's disappearance said he was familiar with the layout of the Portuguese holiday complex where she went missing, it was claimed yesterday.
Raymond Hewlett, who is also facing questions over an indecent assault in West Yorkshire three decades ago, is alleged to have been staying around an hour's drive from the McCanns' holiday flat in Praia da Luz when she vanished on May 3 2007. The McCanns' investigation team wants to interview the 64-year-old in the next few days in the hope he can shed some light on the little girl's disappearance.

Labels: DNA, FSS, Lesley Molseed, Madeleine McCann, paedophiles, Peter Verran, Raymond Hewlett, Ronald Castree, West Yorkshire Police

Monster boasted he knew Maddie resort 'very well

0 comments 5/25/2009 Posted by Winnower

25 May 2009
Daily Mail
Sam Greenhill

The wife of paedophile Raymond Hewlett declared him ' innocent' yesterday as it emerged that he was well acquainted with the resort where Madeleine McCann was staying. Marianna Schmuker said her husband had nothing to do with the little girl's disappearance, despite reports he was seen outside the apartment in Praia da Luz 'many times'.

Labels: Madeleine McCann, paedophiles, Peter Verran, Raymond Hewlett, Scots Guard, West Yorkshire Police

McCanns want paedophile interview

0 comments 5/25/2009 Posted by Winnower

25 May 2009
The Herald
Carolyn Churchill
Madeleine's parents hope new lead can help search

A convicted paedophile who is being investigated over Madeleine McCann's disappearance said he was familiar with the layout of the Portuguese holiday complex where she went missing, it has been reported. Raymond Hewlett is alleged to have been staying around an hour's drive from the McCanns' holiday flat in Praia da Luz when she vanished on May 3, 2007. The McCanns' investigation team wants to interview the 64-year-old in the next few days in the hope he can shed some light on the little girl's disappearance.

Labels: Clarence Mitchell, Madeleine McCann, paedophiles, Peter Verran, Polícia Judiciária, Raymond Hewlett, Scots Guard, West Yorkshire Police

Madeleine team want to quiz convicted paedophile

0 comments 5/25/2009 Posted by Winnower

25 May 2009
Belfast Telegraph

A convicted paedophile who is being investigated over Madeleine McCann’s disappearance said he was familiar with the layout of the Portuguese holiday complex where she went missing, it has been reported. Raymond Hewlett is alleged to have been staying around an hour’s drive from the McCanns’ holiday flat in Praia da Luz when she vanished on May 3 2007. The McCanns’ investigation team wants to interview the 64-year-old in the next few days in the hope he can shed some light on the little girl’s disappearance.

Labels: Clarence Mitchell, Madeleine McCann, No. Ireland, paedophiles, Peter Verran, Polícia Judiciária, Raymond Hewlett, West Yorkshire Police

Where was he? Mobile records hold key:

0 comments 5/25/2009 Posted by Winnower

25 May 2009
Daily Mirror
Ryan Parry & Stephen Moyes
He'd been to Maddy resort: Cops want to trace his van.

The couple who raised the alarm about paedophile Ray Hewlett told yesterday how detectives who interviewed them asked: "Do you still have his mobile number." Alan and Cindy Thompson were questioned for three hours at the weekend by officers from Leicestershire Police's Madeleine McCann task force. Cindy, who handed over the foreign number, said yesterday: "The detective who interviewed me asked for Ray's number. He didn't say what they'll do with it, I just hope it helps in some way."

Labels: Alan Thompson, Alvor, Cindy Thompson, DNA, FSS, Leicestershire Police, Madeleine McCann, Peter Verran, Polícia Judiciária, Raymond Hewlett

Madeleine suspect in DNA test

0 comments 5/25/2009 Posted by Winnower

Madeleine suspect in DNA test
25 May 2009
Daily Star

A PAEDOPHILE linked to Madeleine McCann's disappearance will be asked to undergo a DNA test today. Private detectives hired by her parents Kate and Gerry, both 41, have flown to Germany to hunt for clues. They want to question convicted pervert Raymond Hewlett about their daughter.

Labels: Clarence Mitchell, DNA, FSS, Madeleine McCann, paedophiles, Peter Verran, Raymond Hewlett

The whingeing prison letters that sickened pervert's own family

0 comments 5/25/2009 Posted by Winnower

May 25, 2009
Mirror
Richard Smith

Paedophile Raymond Hewlett sent his family sickening letters from his prison cell, in which he whinged that his young victims were to blame. Bemoaning "this wicked evil world" and desperate to convince relatives he was innocent, the wife-beater claimed he was not at fault before he was jailed for a third time for sex attacks.

In a spidery scrawl littered with grammatical errors, Hewlett wrote to his daughter: "I still feel as though I've been singled out to be tramped on and stamped on like some bloody insect." He even tried to say a girl of 14 he attacked "had complete control of the situation, I just went along with it". And the self-pitying sex beast complained he had been made out as "some sort of monster" and moaned about interfering social workers. Son Wayne, 40, one of four children from Hewlett's first marriage, to Susan Ginley, said yesterday: "He was always in denial over what he had done, as if it was somebody else's fault."

Labels: DNA, FSS, Raymond Hewlett, Susan Ginley, Wayne Hewlett

Maddie suspect lived in Donegal

0 comments 5/24/2009 Posted by Winnower

24 May 2009
Donegal On Sunday
Connie Duffy

Investigators want to hear from anyone in Donegal who may have encountered a convicted British paedophile who has sensationally re-emerged as a key suspect in the Madeleine McCann case. Raymond Hewlett, 64, who has been jailed for a catalogue of child sex crimes and assaults in Britain, is known to have lived in Donegal as well as Louth and Kerry and visited at least nine counties, including Fermanagh and Tyrone.

Labels: Alan Thompson, Cindy Thompson, DNA, Donegal, FSS, Ireland, Lesley Molseed, Madeleine McCann, Polícia Judiciária, Raymond Hewlett

FIEND IN THE FRAME

0 comments 5/24/2009 Posted by Winnower

24 May 2009
The News of the World
BY KEITH GLADDIS

Maddie suspect's Irish past fits crime

A COP who interrogated Madeleine McCann suspect Raymond Hewlett says the case carries all the hallmarks of the sick sex beast who struck in Ireland.

Former Detective Superintendent Trevor Wilkinson spent years on the trail of the convicted paedophile, who was in Portugal when Maddie vanished two years ago.

And Mr Wilkinson told the Irish News of the World the snatching of the child from her holiday apartment matches the predator's offending profile.

He said: "He is constantly looking for prey and we know he is prepared to enter a property to get to a child, which he's done."

Hewlett, 64, critically ill with cancer in a German hospital, has been jailed three times for kidnap and molesting young girls and is connected to a string of other attacks on kids.

In 1998 the Irish News of the World found him in an isolated cottage in the remote Cooley mountains in Co Louth. Schoolkids would visit his home where he pretended to be a maths teacher who could help with homework.

He was forced out of Dunaff, Co Donegal, moved near Tralee, Co Kerry, and has spent time in Dublin, Kildare, Laois, Wesmeath, Fermanagh, and Tyrone.

Detectives hired by Kate and Gerry McCann hope to quiz the pervert this week.

They plan to grill him about his whereabouts when Maddie went missing and about other paedos in Portugal. Ex-detective Dave Edgar and his team have just gathered new information in the Algarve.

Labels: Donegal, Madeleine McCann, No. Ireland, Raymond Hewlett

Sex offender linked to Madeleine 'not under suspicion' here – gardaí

0 comments 5/24/2009 Posted by Winnower

May 24, 2009
Tribune
Ali Bracken

Raymond Hewlett: lived in Cork and Donegal

A serial sex offender, whom private detectives are "interested" in speaking to about the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, lived in Ireland on and off between 1997 and 2001 but was never under investigation for committing a crime in this country. Garda sources have hit out at "hysterical stories" in newspapers last week stating that Raymond Hewlett, 64, who is being treated for throat cancer in a German hospital, is wanted for questioning by gardaí for alleged crimes here.

Labels: Clarence Mitchell, Donegal, Ireland, Madeleine McCann, Raymond Hewlett, West Yorkshire Police

McCanns urge paedophile to help search

0 comments 5/24/2009 Posted by Winnower

24 May 2009
Independent On Sunday
Nina Lakhani

A convicted sex offender is thought to have information on events preceding Madeleine's abduction. Gerry and Kate McCann pleaded for a convicted sex offender to "see sense" and co-operate fully with investigators searching for their missing daughter. Raymond Hewlett, 64, has served several jail sentences for sexually assaulting young girls and is also wanted for questioning by British detectives for at least one unresolved sexual offence.

Labels: Alan Thompson, Cindy Thompson, Clarence Mitchell, Leicestershire Police, Madeleine McCann, Polícia Judiciária, Raymond Hewlett, Wayne Hewlett, West Yorkshire Police

British police to question the latest suspect

0 comments 5/24/2009 Posted by Winnower

24 May 2009
The Express on Sunday
Ted Jeory

Madeleine McCann may have been taken to a luxury villa just half-a-mile from where she was abducted, Portuguese detectives were told. Suspicions were raised by the behaviour of the people who rented the £1million house and because video cameras were reportedly seen there along with pictures of children on a wall, the Sunday Express has learned. Our revelations come as West Yorkshire police prepare to fly to Germany to question 64-year-old convicted paedophile Raymond Hewlett over a sex attack on a girl 25 years ago.

Labels: Bette Balfour, David Edgar, Madeleine McCann, paedophiles, Polícia Judiciária, Raymond Hewlett, West Yorkshire Police

Hewlett's brother: our family shame

0 comments 5/24/2009 Posted by Winnower

24 May 2009
The Express on Sunday
David Paul

The brother of paedophile Raymond Hewlett - now the prime suspect in the Madeleine abduction case - says their mother will be "turning in her grave" now he has been linked to the disappearance. Devastated Bernard Hewlett, 59, said the only comfort was that his mother Lois and father Richard will not have to face yet another police inquiry into their eldest son's depraved lust for children which stretches back more than three decades.

Labels: Bette Balfour, Madeleine McCann, paedophiles, Polícia Judiciária, Raymond Hewlett, Scots Guard, West Yorkshire Police

Irish haven of Madeleine suspect

0 comments 5/24/2009 Posted by Winnower

May 24 2009
Sunday Independent
Jim Cusack

Raymond Hewlett, the convicted paedophile who has emerged as a suspect in the Madeleine McCann case, travelled back and forth between Britain and Ireland from the mid-Seventies until 1999.

Labels: DNA, Donegal, FSS, Ireland, Lesley Molseed, Madeleine McCann, paedophiles, Raymond Hewlett, Rochdale, Ronald Castree, Stefan Kiszko, West Yorkshire Police

Maddie suspect: I'll take lie test

0 comments 5/24/2009 Posted by Winnower

24 May 2009
People
Russell Myers

Paedophile Hewlett will prove innocence, wife insists

MADELEINE McCann suspect Raymond Hewlett is ready to take a LIE DETECTOR test to prove his innocence in the case.

The convicted paedophile has carried out a string of vile attacks on children but denies any link to Maddie's disappearance.

But police face a race against time to establish the truth, as last night doctors were battling to keep Hewlett alive after complications following a cancer op.

The fiend, 64, was said to have suffered massive internal bleeding, with a source adding: "His condition might worsen at any time which could end his life."

As Hewlett lay critical in hospital, his German wife Mariana Schmucker, 33 - mum to their six children - challenged Maddie's parents Gerry and Kate to come to see her.

She said: "I know about my Raymond's past and it is forgotten. He is a changed man. I know he didn't take Maddie.

"He is a very sick man and has said to me he will do anything to prove he is innocent - even take a lie detector test.

"Let the parents of Madeleine come here and ask him face-to-face if he had anything to do with their child going missing.

"My husband has nothing to do with little Madeleine. He's an innocent man and he'll prove it not anyone."

Mariana shares a squalid two bedroom flat - overlooking a kindergarten - with Hewlett and their children.

Drifter

It is just a few miles from where the suspect now lies in University Hospital, in Aachen, Germany.

Again denying any link to Maddie's abduction by her husband, Mariana said: "These are lies all lies. I know my husband more than anyone in this world and I will tell you he has done nothing wrong.

"Those police should be looking for the real man who took that little girl and not Raymond, he's a sick man, a very sick man." Former soldier turned drifter Hewlett had been living near Praia de Luz in Portugal when Maddie vanished from her family's holiday apartment in May 2007.

By the time he was tracked to Aachen, near the Belgian border, this month he was already seriously ill with lung cancer.

But British police still want to interview him about a sexual assault on a child in West Yorkshire in 1975, and the murder of 11-year-old Lesley Molseed that same year.

Hewlett served 12 months for abducting a 12-year-old girl, knocking her out with paint stripper and raping her in Todmorden, West Yorkshire, in 1972.

In 1978, he was jailed for four years after holding a 14-year-old girl and putting a gun to her head.

Last night, in a new twist, a British couple who first raised suspicions about Hewlett over missing Maddie a year ago claimed police had not taken them seriously until now.

Alan Thompson, 56, and his wife Cindy, 47, from Peterborough, Cambs, had met Hewlett while on holiday in Portugal.

Cindy told The People: "We cannot talk in detail about the police inquiry, but let's just say we are hoping they take this seriously now.

"We are utterly confused about the delay. It's a worry for us and it must be worse for the McCanns.

Alan said: "I only hope it is not too late." The McCanns' spokesman Clarence Mitchell, said the family's own investigators also wanted to speak to Hewlett, and to the Thompsons.

He said: "Mr Hewlett has denied any involvement in Madeleine's abduction.

"Our investigators hope he will see sense and co-operate by giving them whatever information needed so they can eliminate him from the investigation.

"It's clear the man is ill and it is clear he has information that our investigators need."

***

We Say:

THERE have been too many mistakes in the hunt for Madeleine McCann to allow there to be more.

Holiday couple Alan and Cindy Thompson raised concerns about paedophile Raymond Hewlett more than a year ago and they were ignored.

Now the wife of the cancer-stricken child molester tells The People he is prepared to take a lie detector test to prove his innocence.

Police should now give him the test. Before it is too late.

Labels: Alan Thompson, Cindy Thompson, Clarence Mitchell, Lesley Molseed, Madeleine McCann, Raymond Hewlett

I know Madeleine resort well

0 comments 5/24/2009 Posted by Winnower

24 May 2009
The Sunday Mirror
Simon Wright
Paedo's shock confession to holiday couple

The British paedophile linked to the disappearance of Madeleine McCann has sensationally confessed to being outside her holiday apartment "many times". Convicted pervert Raymond Hewlett, 64, has admitted knowing the resort where the McCanns holidayed "very well" and said he had parked a van close to their complex on several occasions. And last night a man who shared a Morocco campsite with Hewlett and his family for three months described how the drifter was obsessed with the missing youngster.

Labels: Alan Thompson, Cindy Thompson, DNA, FSS, Madeleine McCann, Peter Verran, Polícia Judiciária, Raymond Hewlett

Maddie probe man’s city link

0 comments 5/23/2009 Posted by Winnower

23 May 2009
The Press and Journal
Shona Gossip

A man who was named yesterday as a possible suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann had previously lived in Aberdeen, it has emerged. Raymond Hewlett fled the Moray area in 1997 after it was revealed he was a convicted paedophile.

Labels: Alan Thompson, Cindy Thompson, Madeleine McCann, Raymond Hewlett

Cunning predator and 30 years of depravity

1 comments 5/23/2009 Posted by Winnower

23 May 2009
Daily Mail
Michael Seamark

Compile a profile of Madeleine McCann's possible abductor and there are few more suitable suspects than Raymond Hewlett. He's a convicted predatory paedophile - a man detectives describe as cunning and a danger to children - who flits from country to country.Given that he speaks English and, crucially, was within striking distance of Praia da Luz when three-year- old Madeleine went missing, Hewlitt ticks a a great many boxes.

Labels: Alan Thompson, Cindy Thompson, DNA, Donegal, FSS, Ireland, Lesley Molseed, Madeleine McCann, paedophiles, Raymond Hewlett, Rochdale, Ronald Castree, Scots Guard, Stefan Kiszko, West Yorkshire Police

Paedophile Raymond Hewlett lived life of a traveller

0 comments 5/23/2009 Posted by Winnower

23 May 2009
Daily Mirror
Aidan McGurran; Stephen Moyes
Paedophile Raymond Hewlett stayed in campsite with his family after leaving Portugal

The British convict left the Algarve as police continued to search for missing Madeleine McCann. While at the site, Hewlett eked a living selling items he had found or been given. His wife Mariana played a tin whistle and performed a puppet show. None of their six children are believed to have gone to school. Instead, the family would park at big hotels so tourists would see the kids and give them items. Everything had a value and when the family couldn't use something they would sell it. Hewlett had left the Algarve just as the tourist season was getting into full swing.

Labels: Madeleine McCann, Raymond Hewlett

Madeleine McCann police to quiz holiday couple who raised suspicions about paedophile Raymond Hewlett

0 comments 5/23/2009 Posted by Winnower

23 May 2009
Daily Mirror
Stephen Moyes and Jeremy Armstrong

Convicted paedophile Raymond Hewlett could be at the centre of three police inquiries as he lies in a German hospital recovering from throat cancer surgery.

Detectives from Leicestershire police yesterday said they wanted to question British holidaymakers Alan and Cindy Thompson over their claims that when Madeleine McCann was snatched from the Portuguese resort of Praia da Luz, Hewlett and his family were staying at a campsite in the region.

Labels: Alan Thompson, Cindy Thompson, DNA, FSS, Leicestershire Police, Madeleine McCann, Polícia Judiciária, Raymond Hewlett, West Yorkshire Police

Wanted

0 comments 5/23/2009 Posted by Winnower

23 May 2009
Mirror
Stephen Moyes ; Jeremy Armstrong
Madeleine police to talk to couple who raised their suspicions about Algarve drifter: Detectives keen to interview perv: He is investigated over death of son

Convicted paedophile Raymond Hewlett could be at the centre of three police inquiries as he lies in a German hospital recovering from throat cancer surgery. Detectives from Leicestershire police yesterday said they wanted to question British holidaymakers Alan and Cindy Thompson over their claims that when Madeleine McCann was snatched from the Portuguese resort of Praia da Luz, Hewlett and his family were staying at a campsite in the region.

Labels: Alan Thompson, Cindy Thompson, DNA, FSS, Leicestershire Police, Madeleine McCann, Polícia Judiciária, Raymond Hewlett, Susan Ginley, West Yorkshire Police

Paedophile to be quizzed in Maddy case

0 comments 5/23/2009 Posted by Winnower

23 May 2009
The Irish Examiner

BRITISH police were yesterday preparing to interview a convicted paedophile in Germany who is being investigated over Madeleine McCann’s disappearance. Briton Raymond Hewlett, was staying near Praia da Luz, in Portugal, when the three-year-old went missing in May 2007, according to reports.

Labels: Alan Thompson, Cindy Thompson, Clarence Mitchell, Lesley Molseed, Madeleine McCann, Polícia Judiciária, Raymond Hewlett, Ronald Castree, Stefan Kiszko, West Yorkshire Police

Was it him you saw? McCanns' tecs quiz girl witness over Brit paedo

0 comments 5/23/2009 Posted by Winnower

23 May 2009
The Sun
Mike Sullivan and Antonella Lazzeri

A girl who twice saw a man loitering near Madeleine McCann's apartment has been shown a photograph of a British paedophile and asked: Is this him? Detectives working for parents Kate and Gerry believe Raymond Hewlett — who was in Portugal when Maddie disappeared — could be a major suspect. Snaps of the 64-year-old have also been shown to other witnesses in the case. Yesterday The Sun revealed how the investigators had been trailing Hewlett, now in Germany. Last night he was said to be critically ill with lung cancer in hospital in Aschen, on the Belgian border.

Labels: DNA, FSS, Lesley Molseed, Madeleine McCann, paedophiles, Polícia Judiciária, Raymond Hewlett, Ronald Castree, Stefan Kiszko

He's evil enough to have snatched Maddie

0 comments 5/23/2009 Posted by Winnower

23 May 2009
The Sun
Rhodri Phillips and Robin Perrie

THE latest major suspect in the Madeleine McCann case was branded "evil incarnate" last night — by his first known victim. Bette Balfour, just 12 when Raymond Hewlett abducted and sexually assaulted her, added: "I believe he is quite capable of taking Maddie." Yesterday The Sun revealed convicted paedophile Hewlett had been in Portugal when Maddie was snatched — and how investigators working for her parents Kate and Gerry had tracked him to Germany.

Labels: Bette Balfour, Lesley Molseed, Madeleine McCann, paedophiles, Polícia Judiciária, Raymond Hewlett

Paedophile urged to co-operate with Madeleine investigation

0 comments 5/23/2009 Posted by Winnower

23 May 2009
Press Association
Madeleine detective convicted of perjury

A convicted paedophile should "see sense" and co-operate with private investigators searching for Madeleine McCann, a spokesman for the child's family said today. The McCanns' investigation team wants to interview 64-year-old Raymond Hewlett in the next few days in the hope he can shed some light on the little girl's disappearance.

Labels: Alan Thompson, Cindy Thompson, Clarence Mitchell, Madeleine McCann, Polícia Judiciária, Raymond Hewlett, Wayne Hewlett, West Yorkshire Police

Wanted paedophile investigated in search for missing Madeleine

0 comments 5/23/2009 Posted by Winnower

23 May 2009
The Irish News

A convicted paedophile wanted by British police is being investigated in connection with the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.

Briton Raymond Hewlett, was staying near Praia da Luz, in Portugal, when the three-year-old went missing in May 2007, according to reports.

Hewlett, who grew up in Blackpool, Lancashire, has been jailed several times for sexual offences against young girls.

The former soldier, who also lived in Telford, Shropshire, is wanted for questioning by West Yorkshire police in connection with a case dating back more than 30 years.

Clarence Mitchell, spokesman for Madeleine's parents Kate and Gerry, said Hewlett was being looked at by investigators working for the couple from Rothley in Leicestershire.

"It's my understanding that if you are on the sexual offenders register you are supposed to alert the authorities to your movements," he told reporters.

"I understand that in this case Mr Hewlett's whereabouts weren't known to a number of police forces for some time.

"Now that he is being treated for an illness in Germany it's up to the individual police forces as to what they do with that information."

He said Madeleine's parents were "fully aware" of the development and added the couple's investigators had been in Portugal for the last week.

A spokeswoman for West Yorkshire Police confirmed they want to speak to Mr Hewlett.

"We are actively seeking him in connection with an indecent assault in 1975," she said.

The alarm was raised about Hewlett by a couple who met him while on holiday in Portugal, a newspaper said.

Alan and Cindy Thompson said Hewlett had been travelling from campsite to campsite with his wife and six children in a converted Dodge truck.

Labels: Alan Thompson, Cindy Thompson, Clarence Mitchell, Madeleine McCann, Raymond Hewlett, West Yorkshire Police

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