The voicemail message that caused a breakthrough in the Maddie McCann case

A voicemail message that a key witness in the disappearance case of British toddler Maddie McCann (3) left for British investigators in 2017 marked a breakthrough in the investigation into the disappearance. This is evident from the testimony of detective Mark Draycott at the trial of Christian Brückner, a German criminal who is also suspected of kidnapping McCann.

To be clear: Christian Brückner (47) is not on trial in Braunschweig, Germany, in the Madeleine McCann case, but he is on trial for three cases of aggravated rape and two cases of child sexual abuse. He is said to have committed those offenses between the end of December 2000 and June 2017 in Portugal, where young Maddie also disappeared on May 3, 2007.

Mark Draycott also testified at the trial. He told how he came into contact with Helge Busching, a key witness in Madeleine’s disappearance. Busching, himself a convicted human trafficker, had befriended Brückner in the mid-2000s and claims the latter told him in 2008 that “she didn’t scream” when the two discussed McCann’s disappearance. In 2017, ten years after the disappearance, Busching called Scotland Yard and left a voicemail message saying that he believed Brückner was involved in Maddie’s disappearance. Yet it would take another three years before German investigators named Brückner as the main suspect in the McCann case.

Secret interrogation

“One of my duties was to check the messages on the answering machine,” Draycott testified at the trial. On May 18, 2017, he noticed Busching’s message. “It was from a man, from the sounds of it. He spoke good English and asked for David Edgar (a private detective who investigated the disappearance, ed.) to be allowed to speak. He said he had information and left a Greek mobile number. I called the number and spoke to a man who I now know is Helge Lars Busching. He called himself Lars and provided information relating to the Madeleine McCann investigation.”

Draycott shared the information with German and Portuguese authorities, leading to the investigation into Brueckner. For example, McCann’s file is one of the origins of the current trial. “Without the investigation into Maddie, these suspected crimes would never have come to light,” a prosecutor’s office spokesperson in Braunshweig said before the start of the trial.

A few days later after the telephone conversation with Busching, Draycott and colleagues from Scotland Yard went to Athens to interrogate the tipster in the utmost secrecy in a hotel. In February 2018, Busching came to London to make a formal statement, Draycott continued.

Big mystery

Maddie McCann was just three years old when she disappeared while on holiday in the Algarve. When her parents went to a nearby tapas bar on the last evening of the holiday, she disappeared when her mother went to check whether she was sleeping well around 10 p.m. What happened to her has remained a great mystery all these years. Even her parents were briefly suspected, but it turned out that they had nothing to do with the disappearance.

Brückner has been in prison for years after convictions for drug trafficking, burglaries, forgery and sexual offenses such as rape, child abuse and possession of child pornography. However, he denies any involvement in Maddie’s disappearance. He has not yet been formally charged, partly because no evidence of his involvement has yet been found. It is not clear whether a trial will ever result.