A MET police officer who was involved in the £13million investigation to find Madeleine McCann will now give evidence in DEFENSE of prime kidnapping suspect Christian Brueckner.
Detective Mark Draycott was instrumental in Scotland Yard’s Maddie investigation after she transferred to UK police in 2011.
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In a surprise twist, the man who spent 13 years trying to bring his kidnapper to justice will now be called to testify in defense of prime suspect Christian Brueckner.
A court today confirmed that DC Draycott will be taken to Germany as part of a defense attempt to find holes in Helge Busching’s witness testimony.
The move is designed to help exonerate rapist Brueckner of the current charges, but also to discredit Busching, 52, ahead of Maddie’s trial next year.
Busching maintains that he watched two rape videos after taking them from Brueckner’s lair in Praia da Luz, crimes that are currently being prosecuted.
READ MORE ABOUT MADDIE MCCANN
The witness’ Maddie’s evidence centers on claims that Brueckner, 47, told her “she didn’t scream” while they talked about the death, in 2008, a year after she disappeared.
DC Draycott was the Scotland Yard officer who took a statement from McCann’s main witness in 2017 when Busching came forward to report him.
He has worked on the Met’s Maddie investigation, Operation Grange, since it was launched at the request of David Cameron in 2011.
Defense attorneys believe they can highlight alleged inconsistencies in Busching’s testimony.
The prosecution has insisted that the police officer should only be questioned in relation to the current allegations, which do not include the McCann case.
Busching was the first person to report Brueckner to the police.
As a key witness in the ongoing Brueckner rape case, he has called the convicted rapist “really dangerous.”
Busching committed crimes with him in Portugal in the early 2000s before coming forward in 2020 to claim Brueckner had taken Maddie.
Maddie, then three years old, disappeared from her family’s holiday villa in the resort town of Praia da Luz in May 2007.
He recently told a court that he took videos from Brueckner’s lair that showed the offender raping an 80-year-old woman and a girl as young as 13.
And he admitted that not having reported Brueckner sooner was the “biggest failure” of his life.
Lawyers have also requested that McCann’s private investigator Dave Edgar, who pocketed £100,000 searching for Maddie, be called.
Brueckner is accused of a series of rapes and indecent exposure allegations uncovered during the investigation into Maddie.
He denies the accusations against him and the trial continues.
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