KATE I JUST HAD TO GIVE THEM OUR MORTGAGE MONEY OR WE GET LOCKED UP..please forgive me hun xMaddie case: GNR suspected of receiving 120 thousand eurosHe was one of the first agents to arrive in Praia da Luz. PJ is already investigating the handover of “live” moneyOne of the Guarda Nacional Republicana agents who was first to arrive at the resort in Praia da Luz and at the McCann couple’s apartment is suspected of having received over 120 thousand euros of “live” money, a short time after Maddie’s disappearance. This GNR officer is essential to the entire investigation, given the fact that he was among the first to arrive at the location where the little girl disappeared, and also one of the first people to get into contact with the parents.TVI has established that the case of the sudden 120 thousand euros in the GNR officer’s hands is being investigated by the Polícia Judiciária (PJ).On the night that Maddie McCann disappeared, the first authorities to arrive on location were the GNR officers. It was their task to search the apartment, to perform the initial searches, to speak with the McCann couple, and to direct the searches on the beach and in the village, namely the open areas where sewer and piping works were under way, only tens of metres away from the resort that the British family had booked for their holidays.Gerry’s suspicious walkAccording to depositions that were made within the process, the GNR agents even witnessed a walk by Gerry McCann, late in the night, near the church in Praia da Luz. All fundamental moments to understand what happened to the missing child.TVI knows that one of the first agents that took care of the event is being targeted by an inquiry. The issue is an amount of over 120 thousand euros that were received in cash, on two bank accounts under his name, one of which at Caixa Geral de Depósitos. The most serious coincidence is that the money started being deposited, on those accounts, only a short time after the disappearance of little Madeleine McCann.This amount is much higher than that of a GNR officer’s salary and was deposited on “live” money, according to investigation sources, in parts of over 10 thousand euros.Officer denies depositsThe investigation into these deposits is being carried out by DCICCEF [Central Directory for the Investigation of Corruption and Economical and Financial Crime], which tries to understand the reasons for these payments. Even if their illegality is proved, a connection to the Maddie case may not exist, despite the strong temporal coincidence and the high amount of money.Contacted by TVI, the officer denied the existence of said deposits, having offered the possibility that his name was unduly used to open those accounts. Police sources in the area manifested their strangeness concerning the possibility that this officer, whom they consider of honest reputation, could be involved in illegal actions.source: IOL Diário, 19.06.2009Last edited by astro on Fri Jun 19, 2009 8:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Portuguese police 'don't have enough evidence to charge Madeleine's parents' Last updated at 22:52pm on 14.09.07
Add your view
• Police admit there's 'nothing concrete' for prosecution
• 'Madeleine died from an overdose of sedatives'
• Kate's diary says 'she struggled with hyperactive children'
• Holiday friends to be interrogated by detectives again
Portuguese police do not have enough evidence yet to charge Kate and Gerry McCann over the disappearance of their daughter Madeleine.
Senior sources admitted there was "nothing concrete" to bring a prosecution.
A source at the Policia Judiciara said today: "There are lots of indications but without more elements it is impossible to determine what has happened in the almost four hours vital to the case from 6pm [on 3 May, when Madeleine vanished].
Scroll down for more ...
Kate (with Madeleine's toy Cuddle Cat) and Gerry McCann were today driven for talks with their lawyer at a secret location
"Even if we confirm the blood and other remains taken from the car or the apartment correspond 100 per cent to the girl's DNA that does not prove anything.
"These elements would only just about confirm that the girl was in the apartment, which is obvious, and in the car.
"In either of these two cases that would not prove homicide, just that the body of the girl had been transported in the car.
We don't know if Maddy is dead and if she is how it happened. We have nothing concrete."
Scroll down for more ...
Hire car: A senior source has said even if 'evidence' found in the car corresponds to Madeleine's DNA 'that does not prove anything'
Police in Portugal are still awaiting vital test results from the Forensic Science Service in Birmingham on blood stains found at another apartment.
The Mail's sister paper, the Evening Standard, has been told the apartment being scrutinised is next door to the one from which Madeleine disappeared, (THE APT OF RACHEL AND MAT OLDFIELD) and police believe it may hold the key to where her body could have been stored in the hours afterwards.
Today's development came after reports that Madeleine died from an overdose of sedatives.
Police are working on the theory that she was repeatedly drugged by her parents, the Evening Standard reveals.
Murat denies joining the search for Madeleine on May 3, when she went missing
Detectives in the Algarve have asked British forensic experts to look for evidence that the toddler was given pills on the night of her disappearance and on earlier occasions.
The aim is to show that an alleged overdose that police appear to believe killed Madeleine was not a "one-off" accident or caused by the child mistakenly taking the drugs.
Instead, police want to show that use of drugs on the four-year-old was part of a pattern of behaviour that would have ended with her death.
Today's revelation follows the claim by a French newspaper that forensic results show Madeleine died after taking a "large quantity" of sleeping pills.
It would also explain why detectives this week applied to seize Kate McCann's diary, which is understood to describe how she struggled to cope with her "hyperactive" children.
Alleged extracts from the diary, published in two Portuguese newspapers, say the 39-year-old GP found it difficult to control Madeleine and her twin siblings, and the effort sapped her strength and emotions.
The McCanns have always denied sedating Madeleine and have described such claims as "ludicrous".
Police have asked scientists who have been testing samples from the McCanns' Renault Scenic hire car, rented 25 days after she went missing, to check for traces of drugs.
The samples allegedly include Madeleine's bodily fluids and hair, and the test can be done by examining strands of hair which absorb drug traces.
As they grow, the hairs create a "timeline" of consumption that can date back weeks or months.
Sources close to the investigation expressed caution about the claim that forensic tests "proved" Madeleine died from an overdose.
Preliminary tests carried out at the Forensic Science Service laboratory in Birmingham, sent to Portugal last week, are understood to give "indications" that Madeleine had ingested drugs.
Further results have been sent to Portugal this week.
Today the McCanns were driven from their home in Rothley, Leicestershire, for talks with their lawyer at a secret location.
They left in a silver BMW driven by solicitor Angus McBride.(ONE OF THE SEVEN HUNDREND POUNDS AN HOUR LONDON LAWYERS WHO IT WOULD SEEM THEY CAN NO LONGER AFFORD, ED SMETHURST IS INSTEAD QUOTED AS THEIR SOLICITOR BUT HE WORKS FOR BRIAN KENNEDY AS A COMMERCIAL/COMPANY LAWYER AND HAS NO EXPERIENCE IN CRIMINAL/FAMILY LAW ETC OR LIBEL FOR THAT MATTER) Mrs McCann's parents Brian and Susan Healy followed in another car. (I WONDER WHY!!)
Immediately afterwards Gerry's sister Trish Cameron drove the couple's two-year-old twins Sean and Amelie away.
Earlier it emerged that close friends of the McCanns will be interrogated by detectives in coming days.
Senior police sources say officers want to question further at least some of the seven friends who were holidaying with the McCanns when Madeleine vanished from the family's apartment on 3 May.
It is thought Russell O'Brien and his partner Jane Tanner are among those who will be quizzed.
Questions will be asked on alleged confusion over timings as the party sat down for dinner at a tapas bar, yards from where Madeleine was sleeping in the Mark Warner complex in Praia da Luz.
Ms Tanner has already told police she saw a man carry a child from the apartment wrapped in a blanket. (she no longer mentions this blanket which the police found still in the flat)
Mr O'Brien said he left the dining table at one point to look after his young daughter, who was ill.
The friends could be asked to return to Portugal early next week.
Police are also looking at either travelling to Britain, or using British officers to carry out the interviews.
However, it is understood nothing has emerged in recent days to shift the focus of the inquiry from Madeleine's parents.
There is growing anger among those close to the McCanns. They claim police have bungled, are making Madeleine's parents "scapegoats", and are determined to find the couple guilty at all costs of killing Madeleine.
Today they accused detectives of failing to investigate fully the only other formal suspect in the case, Robert Murat.
Close friends of the McCanns remain convinced Mr Murat is still the most likely suspect, although he denies any involvement and the police investigation into him appears to have drawn a blank.
(yes, yes and now they are convinced it is the dying Mr Hewlett after they have done their extensive paedo search of any in Portugal at the time to hang the blame on_
Robert Murat was named as an arguido - an official suspect - early in the investigation
Like the McCanns, Mr Murat has been named an arguido - a formal suspect. Sources close to the couple insist he lied about his whereabouts on 3 May.
Mr O'Brien, Fiona Payne and Rachael Oldfield - all friends of the McCanns - and a Portuguese local have testified they saw Mr Murat helping the search for Madeleine on 3 May.
Mr Murat, who was born in Britain but grew up in Portugal, lives with his mother in a villa in Praia da Luz near the McCanns' apartment.
He is said to have introduced himself to the three friends on the night of the search, saying: "I'm Robert. Can I help?"
But he has denied this and insisted he spent the evening with his mother and girlfriend.
"I cannot believe Murat is no longer being investigated," said a source close to the McCanns.
"He is lying about being there on the night. They cannot understand why it hasn't been followed up why Murat lied. Kate and Gerry are being scapegoated."
Mr Murat, 33, insists he is the victim of a smear campaign.
He acted as a translator in the early days of the inquiry until suspicions about his behaviour began to grow.
No forensic evidence has linked him to the girl's disappearance.
Friends of the McCanns also cast doubt on the ability of Portuguese officers to carry out proper forensics work.
Today, a source suggested to the Standard that labels for findings from Mr Murat's vehicles may have got confused with labels from the McCanns' car. "They could easily have got the labels mixed up," said the source. (such a ridiculous allegation by "sources close to the McCanns just fairly beggars belief and does indicate they know they are guilty IMO, otherwise they would not make such an outrageous claim to try and frame Murat)
Smirking, scheming Gerry McCann, the only major suspect, along with his wife, the Police have ever been interested in for the disappearance of the daughter they chose to repeatedly neglect and leave to cry, no matter what she said.
Add your view
• Police admit there's 'nothing concrete' for prosecution
• 'Madeleine died from an overdose of sedatives'
• Kate's diary says 'she struggled with hyperactive children'
• Holiday friends to be interrogated by detectives again
Portuguese police do not have enough evidence yet to charge Kate and Gerry McCann over the disappearance of their daughter Madeleine.
Senior sources admitted there was "nothing concrete" to bring a prosecution.
A source at the Policia Judiciara said today: "There are lots of indications but without more elements it is impossible to determine what has happened in the almost four hours vital to the case from 6pm [on 3 May, when Madeleine vanished].
Scroll down for more ...
Kate (with Madeleine's toy Cuddle Cat) and Gerry McCann were today driven for talks with their lawyer at a secret location
"Even if we confirm the blood and other remains taken from the car or the apartment correspond 100 per cent to the girl's DNA that does not prove anything.
"These elements would only just about confirm that the girl was in the apartment, which is obvious, and in the car.
"In either of these two cases that would not prove homicide, just that the body of the girl had been transported in the car.
We don't know if Maddy is dead and if she is how it happened. We have nothing concrete."
Scroll down for more ...
Hire car: A senior source has said even if 'evidence' found in the car corresponds to Madeleine's DNA 'that does not prove anything'
Police in Portugal are still awaiting vital test results from the Forensic Science Service in Birmingham on blood stains found at another apartment.
The Mail's sister paper, the Evening Standard, has been told the apartment being scrutinised is next door to the one from which Madeleine disappeared, (THE APT OF RACHEL AND MAT OLDFIELD) and police believe it may hold the key to where her body could have been stored in the hours afterwards.
Today's development came after reports that Madeleine died from an overdose of sedatives.
Police are working on the theory that she was repeatedly drugged by her parents, the Evening Standard reveals.
Murat denies joining the search for Madeleine on May 3, when she went missing
Detectives in the Algarve have asked British forensic experts to look for evidence that the toddler was given pills on the night of her disappearance and on earlier occasions.
The aim is to show that an alleged overdose that police appear to believe killed Madeleine was not a "one-off" accident or caused by the child mistakenly taking the drugs.
Instead, police want to show that use of drugs on the four-year-old was part of a pattern of behaviour that would have ended with her death.
Today's revelation follows the claim by a French newspaper that forensic results show Madeleine died after taking a "large quantity" of sleeping pills.
It would also explain why detectives this week applied to seize Kate McCann's diary, which is understood to describe how she struggled to cope with her "hyperactive" children.
Alleged extracts from the diary, published in two Portuguese newspapers, say the 39-year-old GP found it difficult to control Madeleine and her twin siblings, and the effort sapped her strength and emotions.
The McCanns have always denied sedating Madeleine and have described such claims as "ludicrous".
Police have asked scientists who have been testing samples from the McCanns' Renault Scenic hire car, rented 25 days after she went missing, to check for traces of drugs.
The samples allegedly include Madeleine's bodily fluids and hair, and the test can be done by examining strands of hair which absorb drug traces.
As they grow, the hairs create a "timeline" of consumption that can date back weeks or months.
Sources close to the investigation expressed caution about the claim that forensic tests "proved" Madeleine died from an overdose.
Preliminary tests carried out at the Forensic Science Service laboratory in Birmingham, sent to Portugal last week, are understood to give "indications" that Madeleine had ingested drugs.
Further results have been sent to Portugal this week.
Today the McCanns were driven from their home in Rothley, Leicestershire, for talks with their lawyer at a secret location.
They left in a silver BMW driven by solicitor Angus McBride.(ONE OF THE SEVEN HUNDREND POUNDS AN HOUR LONDON LAWYERS WHO IT WOULD SEEM THEY CAN NO LONGER AFFORD, ED SMETHURST IS INSTEAD QUOTED AS THEIR SOLICITOR BUT HE WORKS FOR BRIAN KENNEDY AS A COMMERCIAL/COMPANY LAWYER AND HAS NO EXPERIENCE IN CRIMINAL/FAMILY LAW ETC OR LIBEL FOR THAT MATTER) Mrs McCann's parents Brian and Susan Healy followed in another car. (I WONDER WHY!!)
Immediately afterwards Gerry's sister Trish Cameron drove the couple's two-year-old twins Sean and Amelie away.
Earlier it emerged that close friends of the McCanns will be interrogated by detectives in coming days.
Senior police sources say officers want to question further at least some of the seven friends who were holidaying with the McCanns when Madeleine vanished from the family's apartment on 3 May.
It is thought Russell O'Brien and his partner Jane Tanner are among those who will be quizzed.
Questions will be asked on alleged confusion over timings as the party sat down for dinner at a tapas bar, yards from where Madeleine was sleeping in the Mark Warner complex in Praia da Luz.
Ms Tanner has already told police she saw a man carry a child from the apartment wrapped in a blanket. (she no longer mentions this blanket which the police found still in the flat)
Mr O'Brien said he left the dining table at one point to look after his young daughter, who was ill.
The friends could be asked to return to Portugal early next week.
Police are also looking at either travelling to Britain, or using British officers to carry out the interviews.
However, it is understood nothing has emerged in recent days to shift the focus of the inquiry from Madeleine's parents.
There is growing anger among those close to the McCanns. They claim police have bungled, are making Madeleine's parents "scapegoats", and are determined to find the couple guilty at all costs of killing Madeleine.
Today they accused detectives of failing to investigate fully the only other formal suspect in the case, Robert Murat.
Close friends of the McCanns remain convinced Mr Murat is still the most likely suspect, although he denies any involvement and the police investigation into him appears to have drawn a blank.
(yes, yes and now they are convinced it is the dying Mr Hewlett after they have done their extensive paedo search of any in Portugal at the time to hang the blame on_
Robert Murat was named as an arguido - an official suspect - early in the investigation
Like the McCanns, Mr Murat has been named an arguido - a formal suspect. Sources close to the couple insist he lied about his whereabouts on 3 May.
Mr O'Brien, Fiona Payne and Rachael Oldfield - all friends of the McCanns - and a Portuguese local have testified they saw Mr Murat helping the search for Madeleine on 3 May.
Mr Murat, who was born in Britain but grew up in Portugal, lives with his mother in a villa in Praia da Luz near the McCanns' apartment.
He is said to have introduced himself to the three friends on the night of the search, saying: "I'm Robert. Can I help?"
But he has denied this and insisted he spent the evening with his mother and girlfriend.
"I cannot believe Murat is no longer being investigated," said a source close to the McCanns.
"He is lying about being there on the night. They cannot understand why it hasn't been followed up why Murat lied. Kate and Gerry are being scapegoated."
Mr Murat, 33, insists he is the victim of a smear campaign.
He acted as a translator in the early days of the inquiry until suspicions about his behaviour began to grow.
No forensic evidence has linked him to the girl's disappearance.
Friends of the McCanns also cast doubt on the ability of Portuguese officers to carry out proper forensics work.
Today, a source suggested to the Standard that labels for findings from Mr Murat's vehicles may have got confused with labels from the McCanns' car. "They could easily have got the labels mixed up," said the source. (such a ridiculous allegation by "sources close to the McCanns just fairly beggars belief and does indicate they know they are guilty IMO, otherwise they would not make such an outrageous claim to try and frame Murat)
Smirking, scheming Gerry McCann, the only major suspect, along with his wife, the Police have ever been interested in for the disappearance of the daughter they chose to repeatedly neglect and leave to cry, no matter what she said.
Just like they did with Robert Murat and many others, but this time it would seem they intend the mud to stick as the latest McCann Patsy is close to death. Good move Gerry? I hardly think so. It would seem this man was investigated and eliminated from supsicion by Portuguese detectives, unlike you!
I think Gerry becomes increasingly desperate to try and shake off the horror of what he did to his own little girl.
xx
Maddie suspect Raymond Hewlett admits he doesn't have an alibi for night she disappeared
EXCLUSIVE from Simon Wright in Aachen, Germany 14/06/2009
Convicted paedophile talks for the first time about Maddie investigation, but says he did not kill her.
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.
“It’s obvious why they’re interested in me,” croaks Hewlett, 64. “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.”
The man jailed three times for sex attacks on girls today speaks out for the first time in a bid to clear his name amid the mountain of circumstantial evidence against him.
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, as our pictures show, that he looks strikingly similar to a sketch of a suspect with a pock-marked face seen lurking around the apartment.
And five weeks after she disappeared, he left Portugal for Morocco for a two-month-long “business trip”.
There, he told Peter Verran, a tourist he had befriended, that he’d become obsessed with the case and he admitted being outside the McCanns’ holiday flat in Praia da Luz “many times” and parking his van close to the complex.
What’s more he is refusing to give an alibi for the night Madeleine, three, vanished.
“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’ve 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.
His distinctive live-in Dodge truck, large family and bizarre nomad lifestyle singled him out.
Further checks into his past revealed his previous convictions in Britain, including the rape of a 12-year-old girl he lured into his car and then drugged with paint stripper, an attempted rape of a 14-year-old girl he snatched from a fair and threatened with a fake gun and the abduction of a 14-year-old newspaper delivery girl.
The McCanns’ investigators began searching for him, keen to eliminate him from 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 was had throat cancer treatment across the border in Spain in August 2008.
He also says that local police helping in the search for Maddie visited him, wife Mariana and their children in the summer of 2007.
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. By then, that McCann kid’s photo was in every shop and supermarket you went in to. I’ve got previous convictions for child-sex crimes so my heart sank. I thought, ‘Oh no, here we go again.’
"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.”
At the time Madeleine vanished, Hewlett and his family were moving between three towns in the Algarve – Vila Real de Santo Antonio, Fuzeta and Tavira – all within 60 miles of Praia da Luz. They scraped money together by picking up unwanted jumble and old car parts, then selling it on.
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Hewlett, originally from Todmorden, West Yorks, and Mariana first arrived in Portugal from her native Germany in the summer of 2002. They had been together five years after meeting in Italy. He was a mechanic on a tourist boat and Mariana worked as a cleaner for the boat’s owners on the Mediterranean island of Elba.
They embarked on a tour of Europe in the converted Dodge truck. He had installed beds for their children, a sink, cooker and shower.
At that point the couple had four children – David, 10, who died when he fell from their moving truck in December last year, Michael, nine, Anya, eight, and Jobe, seven, who were all born in Germany. Yanina, six, and Paul, three, were born during their travels across the Algarve, and the youngest Daniel, now six-and-a-half months, was born in Spain.
“We’d stop in various places and decide whether to hang around there,” he says. “It would depend on the weather and how easy it was to make money. I used to busk on the street, playing guitar. I can’t really play but people would give me money anyway.”
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,” he says. “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.
“It’s only because of the way we live that I can say it. As far as I’m concerned, I don’t have to prove anything.
“Our truck was our only vehicle. I didn’t have another vehicle to go anywhere in. It’s a high-profile vehicle. Once you see it, you never forget it. It was like that purposefully because I wanted people to see us. I didn’t want to be hiding.”
But he 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.
The 30-minute video – seen by the Sunday Mirror – shows Hewlett, Mariana and their seven children laughing at the camera and playing games with each other at a market they regularly attended in the Portuguese town of Fuzeta every Sunday, less than 40 miles from Praia da Luz.
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.”
A month later, on June 10, Hewlett left Portugal and took his family to Morocco.
He said: “A friend gave me a broken old Mercedes and I stripped it down into parts.
“I knew they were worth a fortune in Morocco because I’d been there for a couple of months in 2005. You can even get good money for Mercedes nuts and bolts there.
“I knew people on the docks at Faro and I got the captain of a ferry to take us over for free. We stayed in Morocco for two months and came back in the August. I made 300 euros from the car parts.”
His voice so weak it is at times barely audible, today Hewlett is holed up in his cramped, sparce apartment, with Mariana, 33, and six young children.
The family arrived there six weeks ago as his health deteriorated, and Mariana is able to get state benefits.
Hewlett was last month tracked down by the McCanns’ detectives to a hospital in Aachen, Germany, where he was undergoing treatment. The detectives had hoped to put a series of questions to him but he refused to see them and they were forced to return to the UK empty-handed.
This week, they travelled there for a second time but he was deemed too ill to undergo intensive questioning.
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 would say to the McCanns that I know what it’s like to lose a child because it’s happened to me recently,” he says.
“I’ve been through hell and now I’ve got another hell which I don’t deserve. I know for a fact that I didn’t do anything wrong, but if people aren’t listening, what can you do?”
Shaking with pain, he repeats: “I didn’t kill the McCann girl.”
simon.wright@sundaymirror.co.uk
Maddie suspect Raymond Hewlett admits he doesn't have an alibi for night she disappeared
EXCLUSIVE from Simon Wright in Aachen, Germany 14/06/2009
Convicted paedophile talks for the first time about Maddie investigation, but says he did not kill her.
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.
“It’s obvious why they’re interested in me,” croaks Hewlett, 64. “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.”
The man jailed three times for sex attacks on girls today speaks out for the first time in a bid to clear his name amid the mountain of circumstantial evidence against him.
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, as our pictures show, that he looks strikingly similar to a sketch of a suspect with a pock-marked face seen lurking around the apartment.
And five weeks after she disappeared, he left Portugal for Morocco for a two-month-long “business trip”.
There, he told Peter Verran, a tourist he had befriended, that he’d become obsessed with the case and he admitted being outside the McCanns’ holiday flat in Praia da Luz “many times” and parking his van close to the complex.
What’s more he is refusing to give an alibi for the night Madeleine, three, vanished.
“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’ve 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.
His distinctive live-in Dodge truck, large family and bizarre nomad lifestyle singled him out.
Further checks into his past revealed his previous convictions in Britain, including the rape of a 12-year-old girl he lured into his car and then drugged with paint stripper, an attempted rape of a 14-year-old girl he snatched from a fair and threatened with a fake gun and the abduction of a 14-year-old newspaper delivery girl.
The McCanns’ investigators began searching for him, keen to eliminate him from 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 was had throat cancer treatment across the border in Spain in August 2008.
He also says that local police helping in the search for Maddie visited him, wife Mariana and their children in the summer of 2007.
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. By then, that McCann kid’s photo was in every shop and supermarket you went in to. I’ve got previous convictions for child-sex crimes so my heart sank. I thought, ‘Oh no, here we go again.’
"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.”
At the time Madeleine vanished, Hewlett and his family were moving between three towns in the Algarve – Vila Real de Santo Antonio, Fuzeta and Tavira – all within 60 miles of Praia da Luz. They scraped money together by picking up unwanted jumble and old car parts, then selling it on.
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Hewlett, originally from Todmorden, West Yorks, and Mariana first arrived in Portugal from her native Germany in the summer of 2002. They had been together five years after meeting in Italy. He was a mechanic on a tourist boat and Mariana worked as a cleaner for the boat’s owners on the Mediterranean island of Elba.
They embarked on a tour of Europe in the converted Dodge truck. He had installed beds for their children, a sink, cooker and shower.
At that point the couple had four children – David, 10, who died when he fell from their moving truck in December last year, Michael, nine, Anya, eight, and Jobe, seven, who were all born in Germany. Yanina, six, and Paul, three, were born during their travels across the Algarve, and the youngest Daniel, now six-and-a-half months, was born in Spain.
“We’d stop in various places and decide whether to hang around there,” he says. “It would depend on the weather and how easy it was to make money. I used to busk on the street, playing guitar. I can’t really play but people would give me money anyway.”
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,” he says. “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.
“It’s only because of the way we live that I can say it. As far as I’m concerned, I don’t have to prove anything.
“Our truck was our only vehicle. I didn’t have another vehicle to go anywhere in. It’s a high-profile vehicle. Once you see it, you never forget it. It was like that purposefully because I wanted people to see us. I didn’t want to be hiding.”
But he 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.
The 30-minute video – seen by the Sunday Mirror – shows Hewlett, Mariana and their seven children laughing at the camera and playing games with each other at a market they regularly attended in the Portuguese town of Fuzeta every Sunday, less than 40 miles from Praia da Luz.
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.”
A month later, on June 10, Hewlett left Portugal and took his family to Morocco.
He said: “A friend gave me a broken old Mercedes and I stripped it down into parts.
“I knew they were worth a fortune in Morocco because I’d been there for a couple of months in 2005. You can even get good money for Mercedes nuts and bolts there.
“I knew people on the docks at Faro and I got the captain of a ferry to take us over for free. We stayed in Morocco for two months and came back in the August. I made 300 euros from the car parts.”
His voice so weak it is at times barely audible, today Hewlett is holed up in his cramped, sparce apartment, with Mariana, 33, and six young children.
The family arrived there six weeks ago as his health deteriorated, and Mariana is able to get state benefits.
Hewlett was last month tracked down by the McCanns’ detectives to a hospital in Aachen, Germany, where he was undergoing treatment. The detectives had hoped to put a series of questions to him but he refused to see them and they were forced to return to the UK empty-handed.
This week, they travelled there for a second time but he was deemed too ill to undergo intensive questioning.
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 would say to the McCanns that I know what it’s like to lose a child because it’s happened to me recently,” he says.
“I’ve been through hell and now I’ve got another hell which I don’t deserve. I know for a fact that I didn’t do anything wrong, but if people aren’t listening, what can you do?”
Shaking with pain, he repeats: “I didn’t kill the McCann girl.”
simon.wright@sundaymirror.co.uk
