Madeleine McCann suspect Christian Brueckner was just 15 when he committed his first crime – a burglary which would send him on a downward spiral into paedophile, rape and drug trafficking.
Born Christian Fischer in Dettlebach near Wurzburg in Bavaria southern Germany, he was adopted by Brigitte and Fritz Brueckner who would discipline him and his two brothers with regular beatings.
He was given up by his biological mother – who lived above an inn in the village – because she couldn’t cope and preferred the company of petty criminals to her own son.
A family friend of his adoptive parents said: ‘They were really cold; they were only interested in money. The dachshund was treated better than the children.
‘One time she banged his head on the table. Another time he wet himself.
‘His father pulled down his pants and hit him with his belt. When the boy started to cry, his father said, “If you cry, you’ll get a few more.”‘
One former neighbour told German media: ‘Even as small children the boys were beaten and shouted at, Brigitte would always say children must be strictly disciplined.’
They revealed how Brueckner and his brother were locked in dark rooms and were only allowed to drink at set times.
The neighbour added: ‘They (foster parents) were heartless and cold. The fact that they took in the children was just a business deal for them.
‘They spoiled their beloved dachshund but repeatedly told the boys who they were, sons of a crook and a whore.’
When teachers asked how the boys were covered in bruises, neighbours said she would say ‘they fell down the stairs’.
In 1994, two years after his conviction for burglary, Brueckner’s adoptive parents put him in a children’s home after Fritz was left seriously injured after an accident.
And it was while there that he was found guilty of his first sex offence, abusing a child in the home when he was 17.
He followed her into a bush, held her by the upper arm, took his penis out of his pants, lifted the six-year-old’s skirt and grabbed her between the legs.
The girl cried out and Brueckner fled only to later abuse a nine-year-old.
He was sentenced to two years in prison for ‘sexual abuse of a child, attempted sexual abuse of a child and performing sexual acts in front of a child.’
But he shortly afterwards, he travelled to Portugal, where he found jobbing work in hotels and garages before eventually being tracked down by police and extradited to Germany.
After serving his sentence he returned to Portugal and in 2004 he was said to have raped Irish tour guide Hazel Behan at her apartment in Praia da Rocha on the Algarve coast – close to where Madeleine vanished from three years later.
A year later he raped an American woman, 72-year-old Diana Menkes, who was living in the Algarve and who has since died.
She was bound, gagged, blindfolded and whipped before being raped by Brueckner who was only convicted in 2019 after DNA linked him to the attack and he was jailed for seven years.
In April 2007 – just before then three year-old Madeleine vanished and not far from the apartment where she was staying – he is said to have exposed himself to a ten-year-old girl.
Brueckner then left Portugal and was a regular fixture at hippy festivals on the Costa del Sol, his distinctive American style Winnebago motorhome marking him out.
With this he made regular trips back to Germany bringing drugs backwards and forwards and in 2011 he was eventually convicted of dealing.
After his release he continued to flit between Germany and Portugal and he is said to have exposed himself to children at a festival there in 2017.
The same year while back in Germany he was arrested and convicted for ‘sexual abuse of a child’ and given 15 months jail.
After his release he travelled to Italy where he was held in Milan before being sent back to Germany again on drug dealing charges.
And it was while there that he was charged and put on trial in 2019 for the rape of Mrs Menkes and at the same time he was also convicted of drug dealing again and given 21 months.
His current sentence is due to end in September 2025.