Paedophile
Raymond Hewlett
has confessed that he saw
Madeleine McCann
twice weeks
before she disappeared, it was claimed last night.
The child molester, who is undergoing cancer treatment in Germany,
said he spotted the youngster before she vanished from a Portuguese
holiday
resort
two years ago.
In an extraordinary deathbed confession, he was reported to have
told police: “Yes – I have seen Maddie.”
He even remembered the distinctive flaw in her right eye, despite
previously insisting that he was nowhere near the family resort at
the time.
Kate and Gerry McCann’s spokesman said
it was now “imperative” that Hewlett is interviewed before he dies.
Madeleine was just three-years-old when she went missing from her
family’s
apartment as they holidayed at the Algarve beach resort
of
Praia da Luz.
Hewlett, 64, who has a lifelong history of sexually abusing little
girls, was living less than an hour away from the scene of the
abduction at the time.
The paedophile, originally from Yorkshire, was quizzed by Portuguese
police investigating
Madeleine’s disappearance but he
was given an alibi by a 15-year-old girl.
But he came under renewed suspicion after making bizarre comments
about the case to his friends and family.
Yesterday’s claims were made in Germany’s biggest newspaper Bild,
which were understood to be based on “police sources”.
The
McCanns’ team
want to speak to Hewlett but the paedophile
– who has been given weeks to live – has said he will only talk
about the case if he receives tens of thousands of pounds from the
Find Maddie
fund.
Spokesman
Clarence Mitchell said: “In the
light of the Bild piece, this makes it even more imperative that Mr
Hewlett gives any credible information that he may have about
Madeleine to the investigators as a matter of priority. It is only
right that he and his legal representatives ensure this happens.
However, there will be no payment made to him.”
The paedophile was interviewed by
British
police
this week, but they were unable to quiz him about
Madeleine’s disappearance.
Hewlett was being sought by West Yorkshire Police’s Homicide and
Major Inquiry Team, who were conducting a review of an assault on
an eight-year-old girl in 1975.
Two detectives spent Thursday and yesterday in Aachen, Germany,
grilling him.
But under the terms allowing the interview, the detectives were
unable to make any mention of Madeleine unless Hewlett himself
volunteered information. He did not.
But Hewlett has agreed to have a DNA test taken which will go on to
a worldwide Interpol database. This could then be used to
cross-match samples obtained during the Madeleine inquiry by the
Portuguese police.
A West Yorkshire Police source said: “The only way we would have
ventured into the Madeleine investigation would have been through
something Hewlett himself told us.
“We are aware of the reports that he has claimed to have seen
Madeleine twice but he made no such comments to our detectives.”
