How Did Madeleine McCann Vanish Without A Trace? | Our Life

Behind These Prison Walls alone in a Cell sits a 43-year-old man who German prosecutors believe may know the truth about The Disappearance of Madeline mccan please please do not ha her please don't scare her after more than 13 years and a worldwide investigation could the desperate search for the missing 3-year-old be nearing its end in a major development police have identified a new suspect but it is now a Race Against Time without fresh evidence the suspect may walk free in a matter of weeks and the manc might never see Justice to solve this case you need a body Witnesses or a confession tonight we investigate claims of failure and missed opportunities that have plagued the inquiry into madelin's [Music] disappearance how are we going to stop this happening again what are we going to learn if a child went missing on a beach in Europe this summer in 2020 what would be done differently and ask how this man was allowed to go undetected for so long I really hope that someday in our lives we can know what happened to mine mccan but if we don't the fault of all this is because they didn't do the proper job at the right time there was a missing child still out there we need action for madelin's sake 3 years ago in a small town on the algar coast in Portugal an extraordinary chain of events was [Music] triggered nellia BR was at a party in a park in [Music] [Music] m what's your name police identified him as Christian Brookner and when they discovered he was wanted for sex crimes in Germany the Portuguese authorities deported him back to his home country [Music] a convicted child abuser he is now the prime suspect in The Disappearance of meline mccan but why did it take so long to connect [Music] him in 2007 Kate and Jerry mccan took their family on holiday to Pride Alou on the alav on May the 3rd they went for dinner with friends at a tapas bar just across from their apartment in the holiday complex where their three children were asleep we're just hearing that a search is underway for a three-year-old British girl who's gone missing in the AL gav area of port Portugal and they were all down here having dinner this is Tap bar journalist Joel Thiago has been following the McAn case since it first broke all the friends were together uh every single night having dinner inside of it they had a system actually they decided as this was quite close to the apartments it was much more comfortable for the children to sleep and each 30 minutes one of them would go there to the apartment to check if the kids were okay but that night their system went terrifyingly wrong Jerry had checked the kids before a friend that checked the kids before was Kate M turn at 10:00 she leaves the the the restaurant she walks this about 80 M distance to the to the apartment she walks all all the way up and she gets into the apartment in this gate over here walks up the stairs get into the apartment in the the balcony in the access of the balcony there is a big window over there she crosses the living room and then she gets into the the children room where she realized the door was open and shutter open window open Twins were sleeping but meline wasn't in the bed how meline disappeared is still a [Music] mystery I heard that the British child was missing that the Portuguese authorities did didn't have a clue where she could be Sandra feras was one of the first journalists to arrive on the scene we didn't know what really happened and in Portugal such a thing was unknown a child went missing from the room where she was sleeping looking back I think that no one neither the police neither the journalists were prepared for that please if you you have Madeline let her come home to her mommy daddy brother and sister iess children that are abducted and that are eventually killed are normally dead within 3 to 6 hours of the abduction so time is the biggest enemy with these kind of Investigations as the seriousness of the situation became apparent local police were joined by officers from the criminal investigation unit good evening it is 21 hours now since little meline mccan went missing and with every hour the search for her becomes increasingly desperate when you first get the call to these kind of Investigations as a senior detective what you're interested in is have the basics been done has thorough search been carried out of the house house to house investigation speaking to the parents in the early stages you might have 200 decisions to make in the first day but the really important ones are the first 20 or 25 that you make meline is a beautiful bright funny and caring little girl she is so special please please do not haur her please don't scare her please tell us where to find her at the time of Madeline's disappearance gram hill was a Senor detective with the police investigating major crime including child abductions I was asked if I would go to Portugal and offer the Portuguese police some advice early on I realized that it was an investigation of a very different magnitude you know you open the door and there's 80 photographers there was a thirst for knowledge and and it very quickly became apparent that our advice was going to be considered but potentially not acted upon if you ask me now if I think it was a good police work no it wasn't not at all I saw the crime scene on the first day and it was not preserved I know now that they've collected samples inside the flat but the great majority were contaminated madelin Mam's face soon became known across the world as investigators found no credible evidence to explain her disappearance he was very kind he said that You' pray for us and our family and that he contined to pray for madin safe return to us in that period there were a lot of theories of uh everything that could um have happened they talked about suspects who was the suspect number one then another guy then we had footage from Morocco where a woman was claiming that I saw her I'm definitely sure I saw her then the police start saying that they were investigating not a kidnapping anymore but a murder and that maybe the mechan were implicated I was convinced from the beginning that there were no evidence against them because I believe that they were innocent you have to go after solid evidences so finally the police was able to start looking for the true criminal and to try to find what happened despite International scrutiny of the ongoing investigation into madd's disappearance it soon appeared to Graham Hill and to his superiors back in England that his assistance was unwelcome it became very frustrating I said lots of verbal and written reports back to London about the difficulties we were experiencing and after just over a week we decided that actually it probably wasn't serving any purpose for us to remain there and we returned to the UK but not before one vital piece of evidence was gathered by the Portuguese a log of all phone calls that have been made in the area on the evening Madeline vanished the cell site analysis will tell you what phone numbers have used what particular MK in the area and if those phones are registered to someone it will give you the register details of that person in that phone the there's all sorts of things you can do with uh cell site analysis but you have to have the data to do something with in the first place while investigators pursued other suspects what no one realized was that hidden amongst the thousands of numbers was one that belonged to a convicted sex offender who had once lived less than 2 miles from where the MC were staying in a small village in Eastern Germany nearly 2,000 mil from the alav authorities were called to an abandoned Factory where locals believed illegal waste was being dumped a search of the property revealed a shallow grave in which a dog wrapped in a blanket had been buried beneath this they found six USB flash drives and two memory cards on which more than 8,000 files were stored most were pornographic images of children and images of child sexual abuse there were also nearly 100 sexually explicit images of the man who owned the abandoned Factory his name was Christian Brookner being in possession of of child pornography um it hasn't been a very serious offense it would only give you about 3 years maximum in Germany at the present moment or a fine the ministry of of justice has now already said they want to change things but up to now it's only about 3 years that year 2016 an investigation began into Brookner as prosecutors started looking at other allegations of sexual exploitation and child pornography but by the time they were ready to file charges they had no idea where he was and a European arrest warrant was issued they found 8,000 pieces of pictures and videos if you download one child pornography torture item a day think about it how many years you would need under collecting 8,000 pieces so this for the offenders is not a hobby something they do sometimes this is an [Music] obsession so who is Christian Brookner born in verburg in southern Germany in 1976 he was adopted as a baby his early years were troubled and in 1993 aged just 17 he was caught sexually abusing a child for the first time he would face significant [Music] punishment if I look at the life and criminal record of Christian be I see some red flags he definitely had a difficult childhood and he maybe experienced violence himself but let me be very clear about this aspect yes it's true that most child molesters have a history of violence in their childhood but this is no excuse Brookner was sentenced to 2 years detention in a young offender's institution but before he could begin his sentence he went on the run he would eventually serve his time but this was a pattern of behavior he'd perfect over the years chrisc Crossing Europe trying to evade capture for other crimes from a criminological point of view he's a young adult that feels rejected he very angry lacks remorse lacks empathy his lifestyle was pretty chaotic it was itinerant he he was a risk taker he was an habitual Thief those are what's known as chronic behaviors after fleeing Germany Brookner had ended up on Portugal's algar Coast not far from prior delu a place he'd returned to many times we know that he had a criminal life he was stealing he was sometimes working in some restaurants he went there for a night he had some money in that evening and then he went away everyone's saying this guy's a player this guy has multiple relationships he's very Charming he's socializes he went to nightclubs he did all the things that someone who is highly socially competent but concealed by his charms his criminal lifestyle continued the first time he went to a court it was in 2004 because a Jaguar that he was driving without a proper license it had a German plate he had to pay in order to drive it in Portugal he didn't so he was cut by the police he was always giving uh false addresses to the the court and he was always escaping for years Brookner gave the Portuguese police the runaround until in April 2006 his luck ran out here was where Christian brookin was caught by police around midnight with his Austrian friend stealing some Diesel from three trucks parked around here the police got him took him to police station and then s him to court next day when I started representing him he was already in jail because he had no residency so he could get away easily from Portugal and if he didn't have a job he could carry on committing more crimes so he stayed in Cody until at the end of the court case surprisingly it was in court in front of the judge that Brookner revealed his past criminal record the judge asked him if he had any criminal convictions and he did say yes yet one of them was the uh sexual uh crimes he was very concerned about it he start saying dirty words in German the lawyer told him you have to shut up but he was very annoyed and he he was shouting in German to the church I me said yeah yeah I had a sentence in in uh in Germany for sexual offenses they didn't look at Brookner as a whole as an entire criminal they were judging in each crime by each crime not connecting all the things they were not getting a profile of him in the end Christian Brookner spent 8 months in detention for theft but this did little to slow his criminal activity on his release he drifted around the area living in various Camper vans deta met him in early 2007 soon after he was freed [Music] m [Music] [Music] before madelin mccan vanished the courts knew that they had a convicted criminal and self-confessed best sex offender living in their Community yet the dots that might have linked him to that crime were not joined up for three agonizing years Kate and Jerry mccan watched as the Portuguese investigation into Maddie's disappearance slowed to a standstill they lobbied the media they lobbied the police and they lobbied the government they refused to give up believing that their daughter would would be found we want a review you know that absolutely that is our number one thing we think it should be done it's the right thing we're asking for help and we're asking for answers at the very least there's a missing child still out there 4 years after Madeline went missing operation gra was launched by the Metropolitan Police its mission to review the investigation into her disappearance the home office says Scotland Yard are to offer to help the Portuguese police in the hunt for madelin I think from the point of view of the Portuguese police this was a really extraordinary investigation for them it grew very quickly and I think it caught him off guard they had wound down their investigation to the level where actually it stopped so I thought the establishment of operation gra was a positive move mine Manan I'm British the Macan seized on the renewed interest in their missing daughter and in 2013 toured Europe's TV stations to appeal for information it was this Appeal on German TV which resulted in a tip off that would finally name a credible suspect in her abduction the police got in touch with the man who'd been named but they had nothing that could tie him to her disappearance and didn't pursue an investigation the suspect named was Christian Brookner it was the the first time German investigators had linked his name to the case but it wouldn't be the [Music] last yes [Music] SK on the 10th anniversary of Madeline mcan's disappearance an extraordinary conversation took place in a bar in Germany a report came on the TV about Madeline's disappearance and this suspect then said to His companion something to suggest that he knew what had happened and was responsible for melin's disappearance this astonishing statement was said to have been overheard by several people one of whom reported it to the police but this witness then went further they named The Man who'd been speaking once again it was Christian Brookner for four years after his name was first given to German investigators Brookner was again linked to madelin's disappearance but nothing they heard put him in Pride delou on the night she vanished finished to place him there they had to understand who this man [Music] was up this road is a farmhouse where Brookner live most of the time um it is 5 minutes drive to PR the L apparently he didn't want to have a permanent address he wanted to be close to society and at the same time out of it it was a lifestyle that gave Brookner the freedom to move around and continue his criminal activities undetected so this is PR the L that's where melon went missing in 2007 but two years before chrisan Brooker was here in this Village down where he found an open door inside and 72 years old American lady was inside the house she was brutally raped and uh um assaulted um he would was never caught for that because no one she wasn't able to see him local police did not connect Brookner to the assault on the American woman but in 2018 13 years after the rape German investigators who were looking into madelin's disappearance learned of it after Witnesses finally came [Music] forward for at the time of the rape Portuguese authorities had little chance of identifying a suspect and the evidence had remained untested for years but 13 years later when the Germans ran a DNA test the results identified Christian Brookner if you look at his criminal records you find abuse of children you find exhibitionism a lot of child pornography was found on his property and he also raped a 72-year-old American woman at a first glance this might be for Layman like a contradiction but the similarity between the victims is not the age it's the weakness do I think that this new suspect is a viable suspect in this investigation I would say 100% yes this guy is morally indiscriminate he sexually deviant he's an undifferentiating offender and is also a preferential offender clearly this guy is a viable suspect for The Disappearance of meline mcen but was he in Pride ug on that night in May 2007 German investigators still had nothing that could place him there then everything changed the mobile phone data collected by the Portuguese police was re-examined and a list of prepaid mobile phone numbers was uncovered amongst them was a number that had been active in the vicinity of the complex shortly before the M discovered their daughter was missing back in 2007 police was able to collect the whole data uh of phone calls made in PR l in the three days one before other afterwards she went missing there were 74,000 phone calls and it was really very hard to police to go through it so we are right close this this Tower is like um one minute drive down the hill to madin apartment so he was around during that night making a phone call he was there and it's important to understand that he was not just a tourist he lived there for quite a while and most seral offenders they do what they do in their comfort zone and he in his criminal record we find things like burglary and hotel resorts and that's an interesting aspect because the question is how could one single person have planned an abduction from a hotel resort without being seen by Witnesses but maybe he did not plan to abduct a child maybe he just plant a hotel burglary and in this case madelin would have been a victim of opportunity the majority of abductors that I have dealt with or interviewed in my experience uh never intended they never set out that day to abduct a child they were going about their business they were going to work from work or go into the local shop to buy a paper or milk they were confronted with a set of circumstances that led them to act in a particular way they've been thinking sexually about children for many years but on the day that they abducted the child they never set out or intended to do that on that particular day um so in those terms they offending is very random after 3 years of investigation with their Portuguese and British counterparts German authorities called a press [Music] conference the prosecutor has not confirmed the existence of any evidence to suggest whether meline is dead but now 13 years on is time running out to uncover the [Music] truth the investigation following The Disappearance of Madam McAn has been thrust back into the Limelight after authorities announced they were investigating a 43-year-old convicted German pedophile police believe the man who's now in prison for a sex crime was in the area when the three-year-old disappeared 13 years ago phone records Place him close by an hour before she went missing and it's now been revealed for all the global attention Christian Brookner has not yet been charged or even questioned about The Disappearance of Madeline mccan without prejudging brookner's guilt major questions have to be be asked about why he wasn't considered a serious suspect much earlier 13 years of Agony for Madeline's parents1 million spent on a police investigation and the world's detention focused on the case how has this [Music] happened the police had a list of hundreds of people of interest to investigate including known pedop f s and other criminals such as [Music] burglars the former head of the Portuguese police investigation gonsalo Amaral claims Brookner was on that list and that his colleagues had tried to check up on him Portuguese police however did not follow up with Brookner there is also the question about whether Portuguese police went through the cell phone data thoroughly or whether it was left undere examined one of the things that we recommended in the review in 2010 is that that data be analyzed by some because there was a vast amount of material there the Portuguese police were also not able to connect Christian Brookner and his prepaid mobile phone to the cell tower data but an interview with him at the time might have yielded his number and quickly placed him at the scene on the night Portuguese police declined to comment on the claims made in this program in an earlier statement they said their investigation into madelin's disappearance continues in conjunction with UK and German authorities and that a 43-year-old German citizen was now a suspect the selow records were later looked at by the operation gra team here in the UK in October 2013 but they too were unable to connect Brookner to the mobile call but how much did they know about Christian Brookner and when did they know it when I interviewed the metch commissioner Dame crester dick at the beginning of June this year she was not keen to give away much there's been a report in the Portuguese media that the name of the suspect in Germany Christian Brookner is a name that crossed the Met's path as part of the inquiry and was ruled out I'm not going to speculate on what the Portuguese media media are saying and what I can say is that of course there have been hundreds and hundreds of names that have come through the inquiry uh over these many many years uh for us this is a missing person's investigation uh in 2017 we did an appeal a name was given to us and we are now saying that uh this man uh is a suspect in our investigation was previously ruled out I'm not going to comment on on the speculation all I can all I can say is he he he was named to us in 2017 and he has now become a suspect in a statement to this program The Met now say they had the name of the man we've identified as Christian Brookner prior to 2017 but that he only became a suspect after that point when new information came to light they say they can't comment on the claims made in this program as the investigation alongside the German and Portuguese police is still operational they would like to reiterate their appeal to the public for information it's a difficult position for the German police and the British police and the Portuguese police all of them have got questions to answer all of them have at some point potentially made some kind of mistake but then again there's no such thing as a perfect investigation there's going to be mistakes the key to solving the mystery could now be in the crucial 30-minute phone call to brookner's cell phone on the evening of madelin mcan's disappearance who did he talk to what did they talk about the normally reserved German prosecutors are desperate for that information part [Music] the biggest challenge for the German prosecutor to get Witnesses is uh the fact that any uh confident would have to incriminate himself once you are involved in a murder crime they would have to at least be sentenced to 10 years prison so the chances of getting somebody to come forward are actually quite L Christian brookner's defense lawyer feels that in the absence of any criminal charges against his client the German authorities are trying to use the media to convict him in the court of public opinion to solve this case you need a body Witnesses or a confession I don't see a high chance that we get a confession or a body so you need Witnesses without it they will not be able to pursue a case there are not just investigative hurdles but serious legal issues [Music] too Christian Brookner was finally extradited back to Germany after the playground incident in the alav in 2017 when Portuguese police realized he was wanted by the Germans but it has been a torturous process across multiple jurisdictions the Portuguese are investigating because the crime took place on their territory the English because the victim is English and the the Germans because the German is the suspect Brookner has since been jailed on child abuse charges and for drug trafficking he's also been found guilty of the rape of the American woman but he's currently appealing that conviction if he succeeds and if there's no fresh evidence against him or meline the Germans may be forced to free him within weeks the European laws are quite strict they don't want people with the presumption of innocence being held in custody for too long so um now Christian be has been in custody for for two years if he's entitled to get a parole after 2third of a sentence from the first uh sentence he got that's the drug trafficking there is a slight chance that he really could walk free and to make matters worse in Portugal there is also a Race Against Time for their own investigations into the case we have a 15 years time Bearer to men Slaughter to homicide also to a certain kind of sexual offenses and even to the most uh serious kind of kidnapping so we are still on time time is getting short now with Portuguese law allowing for just two more years time is running out to bring anyone to justice for meline mcan's [Music] disappearance for the M of course the waight here in their Hometown in leerer is agonizing what began as the search for a small child missing in a quiet corner of the Al gav has become a hugely complex investigation spanning an entire continent but it is still a search that relies on a simple human factor someone to come forward and talk and the mans know more than anyone what Horrors might have to be endured if it were ever to happen again to someone [Music] else what are we going to learn how are we going to stop this happening again if a child went missing on a beach in Europe this summer in 2020 what would be done differently you can abduct a child in one European country and in 24 hours drive right across Europe and I'm not so sure that much or anything different would be done because I'm not so sure we've learned the lessons the lesson is that uh we have to make the international Judiciary cooperation stronger and faster basically with this uh DNA profiles about this cooperation the supplying of information and to stop this kind of uh competition with this kind of Champions League between police forces we have to cooperate to protect against the evil to protect against the crime and that's I think it's the main lesson I really hope that someday in our lives we can know what happened to mine can but if we don't the fault of all this is because they didn't do the proper job at the right [Music] time you relying on the police doing everything they can and you're relying on somebody with information coming forward you know that hope is still [Music] there [Music]

Channel: Our Life

Views: 44,308

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Id: kXpOBy3QyQ4

Length: 45min 59sec (2759 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 10 2023