Evil Incarnate

23 May 2009
The Sun
Rhodri Phillips

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, three, was snatched — and how investigators working for her parents Kate and Gerry had tracked him to Germany. Last night he was said to be critically ill with lung cancer in hospital in Aschen, on the Belgian border.

Bette, 49, below, said: "I don't care if he's ill. I don't care if he's dying. He deserves to be brought to justice if there are crimes he still hasn't been punished for."

Hewlett, 64, was a neighbour and friend of Bette's father in Todmorden, North Yorks. In 1972 he lured her in to his car, telling her his mother was ill, drugged her with paint thinner and assaulted her on a moor. Detectives have shown a photograph of Hewlett to a schoolgirl who twice saw a man loitering near the family's holiday apartment.