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A MET cop from the £13m investigation to find Madeleine McCann will now give evidence in DEFENCE of prime snatch suspect Christian Brueckner.
Detective Mark Draycott was central to the Scotland Yard Maddie investigation after it was switched to UK police in 2011.
In a bombshell twist, the man who spent 13 years trying to bring her abductor to justice will now be called to give evidence in defence of prime suspect Christian Brueckner.
A court today confirmed DC Draycott will be brought to Germany as part of a defence bid to pick holes in Helge Busching’s witness testimony.
The move is designed to help clear rapist Brueckner of current charges – but also to discredit Busching, 52, ahead of a Maddie trial next year.
Busching maintains he saw two rape videos after taking them from Brueckner’s Praia da Luz lair – offences currently being tried.
The witness’ Maddie evidence centres on claims Brueckner, 47, told him “she didn’t scream” as they discussed the tot, in 2008 – a year after she vanished.
DC Draycott was the Scotland Yard officer who took a statement from the lead McCann witness in 2017 when Busching came forward to report him.
He has worked on the Met’s Maddie investigation Operation Grange since it was launched on a request from David Cameron in 2011.
Defence lawyers believe they can highlight claimed inconsistencies in Busching’s testimony.
The prosecution have insisted the cop should only be questioned in relation to the current allegations, which does not include the McCann case.
Busching was the first person to name Brueckner to police.
Serving as the key witness in Brueckner’s ongoing rape case, he has called the convicted rapist “really dangerous”.
Busching committed crimes with him in Portugal in the early 2000s before coming forward in 2020 to claim Brueckner had taken Maddie.
Maddie, then aged three, disappeared from her family’s holiday villa in the resort of Praia da Luz in May 2007.
He told a court recently that he took videos from Brueckner’s lair showing the lowlife raping an elderly woman of 80 and a girl as young as 13.
And he admitted that not reporting Brueckner sooner was the “biggest failure” of his life.
Lawyers have also requested McCann private investigator Dave Edgar – who pocketed £100,000s searching for Maddie – also be called.
Brueckner is accused of a string of rapes and indecent exposure allegations uncovered during the investigation into Maddie.
He denies the claims against him and the trial continues.
