Convicted paedophile says: 'I've never seen Madeleine'

Published on Sunday 14 June 2009 21:59

A CONVICTED British paedophile has insisted he has never seen missing Madeleine McCann other than in posters and on television.

Raymond Hewlett, whom detectives working for the McCann family have tried and failed to interview, said in an interview published yesterday: "I'd take a lie-detector test. I'll take any test you like. The only time I've seen Madeleine McCann is on missing posters. And I saw her on TV in a bar once. But I've never seen her in real life."

Final attempts by the detectives to interview Hewlett failed on Wednesday.

Retired UK policemen Dave Edgar and Arthur Cowley flew to Germany the day before hoping to speak to Hewlett, who is said to have been staying an hour's drive from the McCanns' Portuguese holiday flat when the little girl vanished.

But negotiations between the private investigators and Hewlett's German lawyer broke down, leading Mr Edgar, who has been employed by Madeleine's parents, Kate and Gerry, to look for their daughter, to say he was "very disappointed".

Hewlett, 64, a former soldier who previously lived in Blackpool and Telford, has been treated for throat cancer in Aachen.

He was jailed several times in the UK for sexually assaulting young girls, including an attack in 1978 where he put a gun to his victim's back.