It is 18 years since three-year-old Madeleine McCann disappeared without trace from the apartment block in Praia da Luz, Portugal, where her family were holidaying. The suffering of her parents, Kate and Gerry, then and since is unimaginable. It is not clear whether the new documentary Madeleine McCann: Searching for the Prime Suspect was made with their blessing or not. But here it is – an hour-long film led by criminologist Dr Graham Hill, who has been involved in the case since the beginning, about the possible connections between convicted sex offender Christian Brückner and the child’s disappearance. It attempts to evaluate the likelihood that he took and, as the German police investigating him firmly believe, though he denies any involvement with Madeleine, killed her.
“There are millions of men with a sexual interest in children. But only a very rarefied group of men who will abduct, sexually assault and then murder that child,” says Hill. It only gets bleaker from there. In 2007, he was a senior detective with Surrey police and arrived in Portugal three days after Madeleine went missing, as part of the UK’s Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre’s response to the unfolding situation. At their first meeting, Gerry McCann asked him how likely it was that Madeleine was alive. According to statistics, Hill told him, abducted children are usually dead within three to six hours of being taken.
