Christian Brueckner In Court: Prime Suspect In Maddie McCann Disappearance Faces Judge

the mystery of this case is is ongoing and it will not until there is a child found alive or dead this will not end hello and welcome back to Crime suspect each week we unravel some of the UK's most prolific crimes as well as providing in-depth analysis on the criminality that plagues our nation on the show today a 17-year-old investigation which has baffled captivated and tormented those at its heart we dissect the latest updates in the case of meline mccan as a hunt for this missing little girl continues she would of course now be a young woman were she alive next up we'll be bringing you the best and worst of policing with our good cop bad cop and finally it's your chance to book a crook as we show you this week's wanted criminals joining me for all of this today is Sky news's legendary crime correspondent Martin brunt retired detective superintendent shabam chry writer journalist and editorinchief of the steeple times Matthew Steeples thank you all very much for being here now you have the right to remain watching this is crime suspect it is one of the most mysterious disappearances of our time meline mccan went missing in May 2007 when she was just 3 years old and since then there have been reported sightings of her all over the world from Morocco in 2007 to India in 2011 to Cyprus in 2013 and while there have been a apping accusations and conspiracy theories the circumstances around her disappearance remain a mystery the prime suspect for her abduction is 46-year-old prolific burglar Christian Brookner who has previous convictions for sex crimes against women young and old Brookner has not been charged with any crimes relating to Maddie but German police prosecutor Hands Christian V remains adamant he has the right man I say prove it then Martin only last week you garnered many headlines airtime column inches because a man called Ken rals came forward and spoke to you you can't kidnap a child and ask for a ransom you'll end up going to jail he said it's not about a ransom it's about selling the child to a German couple who couldn't have children he had an intriguing story that uh stemmed from a late night conversation after several beers with a very close friend of his uh in that rather strange part of Southwest Portugal where people lived off grid they lived in camper vans they L led a nomadic life um among them was Christian be Christian Brookner uh and Ken Ralphs who had fled Britain because of troubles of his own uh his friend told him over the campfire one night that Christian Brookner was trying to lure him into a plot to grab a child in Pride delou uh and Ken said to him you can't hold a child for ransom you know the police will find you and so forth and this chap said to him it's not a child for ransom Christian tells me he has a German couple lined up a childless couple who are going to pay for him to steal a child for them uh Ken's big beef was that he had tried several times over the years to tell the authorities about this plot and he felt that until recently he hadn't been taken very seriously now he says having been told that story he went back to the UK and a week later he read the news saw on TV that a little girl called M mccan had been abducted shabam so Ken Ralphs says he spoke to a man who had apparently had a conversation with Brookner so it's not hearsay it's almost hearsay of hearsay evidence how valuable would this be to any police investigation well police will still follow up all lines of inquiry and whilst this information has come third fourth hand um if you like they would still have to follow up those leads there is an investigation that's been ongoing since the today that madling has been missing and that has been uh you know from the Metropolitan Police so they wouldn't ignore that information despite the fact that is um thirdhand information they would look at the credibility of Ralph they'll look at the credibility of the information they will try to locate and Trace any potential witnesses to speak to them and then they'd make an informed decision on whether or not that information is credible and whether there should be some further lines to be pursued but in terms of evidential value could that that be put before a court for example Ken Ralph's versions of events but because he didn't hear this conversation because he wasn't there to oversee it does that water down or lessen the value of that evidence yeah unfortunately it's heay and uh any good uh defense lawyer will say it's here say you've heard it third hand you know it's speculation it's opinion it's you know information that's been passed and may well have been exaggerated through a conversation and therefore most likely would be inadmissible in evidence talking of credibility Matthew certain conspiracy theorists and certain people who have done some very unpleasant trolling of the MC over the years have said some completely off-the-wall stuff I think there have been I I regularly hear from people who have all sorts of theories about the Mand and some of them are utterly ridiculous and ludicrous you know effectively meline mccan has gone to the Moon you know that kind of level of craziness but there are so many people out there who believe in these things and unfortunately with the power of the internet and especially the likes of Twitter um these things spread like wild well talking of judging unlike the obsessives you've actually met Jerry and K I have met tell us about that please I have met Jerry and Kate mccan on several occasions through a charity that no longer exists called parents and abducted children together did you ever discuss Madeline's abduction with the m um on the occasion I met them they wanted no discussion of anything to do with that they were very specific about that and Mrs mccan is very much more quiet and reserved than her husband but he is quite a forceful character in terms of his views and um I think he is he is the stronger of the two of them in the public Arena with your interest in the case that you've had for 17 years like so many other people and having met the m and having listened to so many theories and done your own study of the evidence that's available if I were to put you on the spot and say what do you think happened to meline what would your answer well I I think the the the mystery of this case is is ongoing and it will not until there is a child found alive or dead no this will not end and I don't think it is correct to speculate you know what actually happened until we find evidence of what happened and they have had 17 years searching and with all the money that is floating around and we're talking big rewards were offered by newspapers there was money given by the likes of Philip green um and somebody somewhere would surely trade someone in for that that money if that to be found and so many of the stories I have read feature a lady went to a supermarket and she spotted madin mccam but they never name the source and they these stories just keep popping up again and again and I find that very very curious talking of money chefman the Metropolitan Police have received some considerable funding over the years to conduct their own investigations into Madeline's disappearance where where are we at now with operation Grange well there's been no significant new updates and what Martin tells you in terms of what police have spoken to uh Ralph about would have probably been the latest um I think you'll find that they've been uh given something like 13 million pounds over the years last year they were awarded a further £320,000 there's an impending trial coming so they will probably spend a significant amount of money going backwards and forwards listening to that trial in the event that they maybe some new information or intelligence that comes to light that may potentially result in an arrest for abduction or certainly develop new lines of inquiry for them but a significant amount of money funding that has been given to this particular case when you think of the thousands and thousands of people that go missing every year this case particularly has had um a huge input from uh Metropolitan Police funding um and from the government itself yes Matthew is it who shouts loudest gets the most attention well it's also a matter of people who have connections and in this case the these two doctors were well educated people with good connections and they were able to get a lot of well meaning people to come and support them so they were able to have Esther McVey as a spokesperson for them and Jim Gamble and all these people which other people I've spoken to whose children go missing they don't know what to do but of course if you were in this situation you would do anything you could to find your child and you can't blame them for for doing that but I do find other people I speak to all of them have the same question why don't we get any help Martin there's a trial starting very soon Christian Brookner is going to face a number of charges none of which are related to The Disappearance of meline and I understand your going to Germany to to keep an eye on this trial I'll be there for the opening um and I don't think we're going to hear very much we're here the indictment read out which is effectively five charges he faces uh five sex crimes alleged uh spread over 17 years all allegedly committed in southern Portugal uh three rapes and two sex attacks on young children he denies them all he'll get a chance to talk on the first day of the trial but whether he's going to say anything it's not clear I mean recently his own lawyer has said that he's not expecting him to say a good deal in his trial uh his attitude is it wasn't me I didn't do it down to the prosecution to prove that I did you very much like the system in the UK CH and what are the challenges in gathering the evidence for historical sex crime charges well one of the biggest ISS issues one of the biggest challenges facing any organization is forensic evidence um with sexual offenses uh but also with um witness evidence and corroboration generally speaking when you have crimes sexual offenses rapes it's normally one person um with another and then you may get information and evidence in terms of a first complainant which can be used but finding that evidence forensics whether it's house-to-house inquiries whether it's crime seen preservation any kind of forensic evidence makes it far more difficult and challenging for any organization to then put a case together to then bring an offender to Justice the other challenges that you have in a case like this is this particular individual doesn't appear to have a particular modor separi he has um he he's uh prison for a rape of a 70 to 72 year old woman um the allegations stem from 14year old to an 8-year-old woman um there's no particular Mo he's a prolific burglar he's got historic sex offenses against him as well so he's very random and very um wide in his range of um criminality and of course just because somebody has criminal convictions in the past doesn't necessarily mean they are guilty of any new charges it will be the job of the prosecution to prove those charges now brookner's current sentence is due to end in a couple of years time I believe if he is found not guilty of the charges which he faces do you think at the end of that sentence he will simply be led out of prison well he should be um if um if he's not facing other charges but um I don't know if that will happen I mean there may be other charges formulated before that happens I think because the German authorities seem to be having so much TR trouble having said that he did it and Madeline's dead so much trouble finding enough evidence to charge him that I think they will want to keep him locked up for some reason um you know he's facing five charges I know that there were um I think there were other allegations made against him who's to say that by the time he finishes this current rape sentence um he will um he will be facing more charges but of course if he's if he's convicted in this upcoming trial he faces many many more years in prison which gives the authorities so much longer to gather the evidence that they feel they they need to charge him with madelin mccan I mean when I talked to the prosecutor in Germany he seems quite convinced that they are going to get to that stage but not quite yet I mean there are continuing forensic tests on his two vehicles they keep the story alive through people like me in the hope that that one missing key witness will still be tempted at some stage to pick up the phone and call in there's all that going on but I think I think more than anything the Germans want to show the world at the end of the day that they were the people who solved the madlin mccan mystery when Scotland Yard couldn't the Portuguese police couldn't so I think they are incredibly Keen to to get every bit of evidence they can before they're in a position to charge but you know time will run out it's pretty Dreadful that the egos of various law enforcement agencies are so important as opposed to all of them collectively relentlessly striving to establish what the truth is and in the absence of a definitive truth the trolling the gossiping and all of that is merely going to continue isn't it Matthew well I I think this is entirely fueled by the fact that police forces find it very hard to cooperate across International boundaries on such matters as this it's been proven again and again in this case but if you look at a a historical case for example Max Clifford the reason they were able to convict him was because all the independent victims referred to a certain part of his anatomy and they all referred to it being small so these this hear stay and he said she said is is not helping this this matter um with regard to this brockner man he he's obviously a nomadic strange man who as they've as been has been said um you know he's he's got no particular type of crime he goes for from young children to old ladies and he's a burglar and he's he's an unreliable witness and obviously the man you mentioned Mr Ralph um obviously he's had his own troubles in the past as well so his reliability will be questioned also um but the people in these chat rooms every day that this goes on it it makes them more and more suspicious and their conspiracy theories grow and grow and some of them are Beyond obsessive these people about this well what I'm about to do is probably going to add fuel to their fire but quite frankly I don't care because what I would like to do now is to read out a post that was written by mie's parents Kate and Jerry mccan that they wrote at the end of last year which reads another year comes to a close I'm sure they're getting shorter whilst there is no new significant news to share in the search for meline efforts continue with the same determination commitment and vigor let's hope that 2024 brings a greater love for mankind hope and peace to us all going to put you on the spot Martin go on if you were a Gambling Man what would you think the odds of this case ever coming to a definitive close with perhaps the conviction of somebody for mine's abduction I think the German authorities will charge Christian Brookner um I'm not convinced from what I know but you know I don't know know anything um that's not in the public domain particularly but whether he's ever convicted uh I don't know but you know his his reputation is so traduced the whole world thinks he's responsible for madelin's abduction and murder simply based on what the prosecutor has said over the last uh two years two or three years he's he's effectively condemned him already um but there is no jury service in no jury system in Germany uh the trial if he does go to trial for this um for for madin will be done by a judge um who should not strictly be influenced by anything that's been said or written uh about the the defendant in front of him so unless the evidence is absolutely watertight and we know there's no forensics at the moment um then I think um you know he could go on trial and and be acquitted and then know what happens after that because as far as I know there are no other suspects indeed well thank you everybody for a really interesting conversation right moving on to this week's copat good cop this week or should I say good cops are PC's Clift Oken back Priestley and tigwell from kentish Town Police Station who saved the life of a man who who suffered a heart attack the officers heroically worked with the London Ambulance Service to give the man CPR until he was taken to hospital all officers received commendations during an award ceremony and were thanked for their Swift actions officers Take a Bow bad cop and proving this is yet another rotten apple that's not above the law is PC rafiu Rahman who inappropriately touched a female colleague while they were on duty rakman has been dismissed after an investigation by the Mets Professional Standards department and will rightly so be added to the Bard list held by the College of policing all right it's time for the part of the show where we bring you the mugs of thugs who are terrorizing our streets have you seen these criminals first up the Met police are asking asking for your help to name this man after an unprovoked and racially motivated attack at a shop on the AIS of dogs in East London the victim was treated at hospital for minor injuries next we have this suspect police are appealing for information following a robbery on Clayton Hall Road in North Manchester the unknown male suspect dressed in black clothing approached the victim a 6 7 yearold woman from behind dragging her to the floor before stealing her handbag and making off towards Stanton Street lastly have you seen this man tadcaster man Bradley Hunter is wanted in relation to domestic abuse offenses Hunter is described as white around 5' 5 in tall of proportionate build with mousy colored hair and brown eyes if you think you know or have seen any of these Crooks get in touch anonymously with Crim stoppers on 08005 tri1 right that's all we've got time for this week many thanks to Martin shabnam and Matthew be sure to leave us a comment like And subscribe and we'll be back next week for more crime Suspects h

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Keywords: talkradio, talk radio, news, uk, politics, debate, free speech, freedom of expression, talk tv, live, live news, talktv live, talk tv live, talktv, maddie mccann, maddie mcann latest, christian brueckner, maddie mccann news, maddie mcann case, maddie mccann conspiracy, maddie mccann podcast

Id: dZLSfgeAS7I

Length: 22min 34sec (1354 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 15 2024