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

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.

Kidnap

In the weeks after Maddie's disappearance he is said to have made comments implying he had knowledge of child trafficking.

He was quizzed by Portuguese cops but was given an alibi by a girl of 15.

British police also hope to question him about a sexual assault on an eight-year-old girl in Manchester in 1975.

The child molestor has already served time for rape, attempted rape and kidnap.

Originally from Yorkshire, he has cropped up across Europe and in Morocco. In May 2007 he was on the Algarve, an hour away from the resort of Praia da Luz where Maddie, of Rothley, Leics, was snatched.

An 11-year-old British girl, who moved to the resort with her parents as a baby, spotted a man "staring" at the McCanns' holiday apartment, which once belonged to her family. She told police she first saw him on April 30.

She noticed him again on May 2 — the day before Maddie, then three, vanished.

The girl said at the time the man was not Portuguese but "could have been British". She described him as being 30 to 35, with a large forehead and ears, thin lips and up-turned chin.

Inquiry team boss Dave Edgar, an ex cop, carefully questioned the girl, now 13, at her home on Thursday.

He said of Hewlett: "He is just one of a number of lines of inquiry we are pursuing."

DISGRACED Goncalo Amaral, 49 — the former head of the Maddie police probe — was yesterday given an 18-month suspended jail term for falsifying evidence in another missing child case.

LESLEY MURDER 'LINK'

HEWLETT is a suspect in the murder of Lesley Molseed.

The 11-year-old was raped and stabbed on the Yorkshire Moors in 1975.

Hewlett was arrested on suspicion of her murder but another man, Ronald Castree, is now in jail for the killing. Claims that Hewlett was the killer were made at his trial. Castree has since been given leave to appeal. Stefan Kiszko wrongly served 16 years for the murder.