Madeleine McCann suspect Christian B linked to sex attack on another British girl in Praia da Luz
VITAL evidence linking Madeleine McCann prime suspect Christian B to a sex attack on another British girl is gathering dust in Portuguese police stores, it is feared.
The forensic samples from a 2005 assault on a ten-year-old yards from where Madeleine disappeared two years later may hold the key to the investigation, say German police.
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But evidence from that case — and others which could help nail the suspect — may be sitting unchecked.
Officers in the Algarve investigated a spate of attacks on British girls in resorts from 2004 to 2006.
But they did not inform national detectives leading the probe on Madeleine, who vanished aged three from a Praia da Luz holiday apartment in 2007.
German police say mothballed forensic samples from those attacks could contain the suspect’s DNA.
Some of the victims recall their attacker spoke English with a foreign accent — like German paedophile Christian B, 43, who lived there at the time and is now in jail in his homeland for other offences.
German prosecution chief Hans Christian Wolters said today of the attack on the ten-year-old: “This forms part of our investigations.”
Her family came forward in 2014 after a fresh Scotland Yard appeal.
It produced reports of five attacks but the details were not passed by local officers to Madeleine detectives.
Scotland Yard’s Det Chief Insp Andy Redwood said at the time: “If there is a breakdown in communication between local cops and the Policia Judiciaria, there could be forensic material sitting in exhibit stores somewhere that we are unaware of.”
Meanwhile, Mr Wolters said today that a single piece of evidence made him 100 per cent certain Madeleine was murdered.
Earlier, he had said there was “a little bit of hope” that she might yet be found.
It left a source close to parents Kate and Gerry saying they were considering sending an envoy to Germany to demand answers.
Christian B, who has 17 child sex convictions, is known to have videoed victims.
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But Mr Wolters has refused to say whether he has footage or photographs of Madeleine.
The suspect was also left to look after foster children on his own for a pal in Germany, it emerged.
He cared for them while their unsuspecting foster mum Nicole Fehlinger, 43, was at work.
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