Scotland Yard receives 920 tip-offs after appeal over Madeleine McCann suspect

Potential breakthrough: the Maddie McCann case could benefit from a recent appeal
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The number of calls and emails received by Scotland Yard in the past week about the disappearance of Madeleine McCann has risen to nearly 1,000, the Metropolitan Police revealed today.

The 920 pieces of information supplied to police follow an appeal for people to come forward who recognise a VW camper van and a Jaguar car used by Christian Brüeckner, who was last week identified as the prime suspect in Madeleine’s disappearance.

Detectives also asked the public to tell them about two phone numbers, one used by Brüeckner and the other used to call him shortly before Madeleine went missing in Praia da Luz.

Scotland Yard received 400 calls and emails in the 24 hours after the appeal, but that total has now more than doubled. The Met declined to give any details of their content, but the surge in the flow of information will raise hopes of a further breakthrough in the case.

Suspect Christian Brueckner

The positive news follows a warning by Hans Christian Wolters, the prosecutor leading the parallel investigation in Germany, that the “more cumbersome” working practices of Portuguese police and restricted evidence sharing were hindering the pursuit of justice.

Mr Wolters said the Portuguese “take a long time for everything”.

Mr Wolters told German parliamentarians that Brüeckner is the man police in the country believe killed Madeleine. British officers are still treating the case as a missing person investigation.

Madeleine McCann - In pictures

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“From our perspective, the suspect is in jail in Germany right now,” Mr Wolters said. “We are convinced that our 43-year-old suspect is the murderer of Maddie McCann.”

Brüeckner, a convicted sex offender, was living in the Algarve when Madeleine disappeared from her family’s holiday apartment on May 3, 2007.

He is currently serving a 21-month sentence for drug dealing and was also convicted last year of raping a 72-year-old American tourist in Praia da Luz two years before Madeleine vanished.

In the UK, a British ex-girlfriend of Brüeckner has claimed in the Daily Mirror that he turned violent as their relationship soured.

The woman, who said she was too frightened to be named, also alleged that he once broke into her flat in the Algarve and lay in wait for her under her bed, in an incident that happened only hours after he had attacked her in a bar for sharing a friendly hug with another man.

Earlier this week, rape victim Hazel Behan appealed to police to investigate whether the man who attacked her in 2004 in another Portuguese resort near to where Madeleine disappeared was Brückner.

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