Key Madeleine McCann witness says Met police ignored tipoff for nine years | Madeleine McCann

The man who tipped off police about Christian Brückner, the main suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, has said his initial approach to the Metropolitan police in the year after she disappeared was ignored and he was only taken seriously when he contacted them again nine years later.

The German man, identified only as Helge B, said he had approached Scotland Yard in 2008, suspecting Brückner’s involvement in the child’s abduction, but he heard nothing back from them. Publicity around the 10th anniversary of Madeleine’s disappearance in 2017 prompted him to contact them again, after which they acted on his information, he said.

Speaking to the German tabloid Bild from his home in Corsica, Helge said that revealing his connection to Brückner had ruined his life because people associated them with each other. He has admitted having carried out petty crime with Brückner when they both lived close to Praia da Luz, the resort from where Madeleine disappeared in 2007.

Helge said: “I called Scotland Yard in 2008, ringing the Maddie hotline. I told them I know someone who has something to do with it and gave them his name. They noted my personal details, my telephone number, but nothing happened. Nothing! They never even rang me back. I thought to myself: I guess they’ll be in touch at some point.”

Having been released from prison in Greece in 2017 after being convicted of people smuggling, Helge said the 10th anniversary of the girl’s disappearance led him to contact them again. He said two officers came to Athens to meet him and he was later flown to London and questioned formally there.

In 2018 he was contacted by the German criminal police, BKA, calling him as a witness in a trial in which Brückner was subsequently convicted of raping an elderly American woman in 2005, for which he is imprisoned in Germany.

Helge said he had told police about his discovery of a video of the rape, believed to have been made by Brückner. He had found it in 2007 in Brückner’s flat, where he and a friend had gone in his absence to steal some diesel. “We searched the flat and found a video camera, a bunch of films and a pistol, which we took with us.” Helge watched some of the videos back at his house. “Tourist shit, I thought to myself, until I came across the video of the older woman.”

He said he initially thought it was “a feature film”. He described watching the woman being raped by a masked man, who, towards the end of the video, sat down on a bed and removed his mask. “Then I saw that it was Brückner,” he said. “I could hardly believe it.”

Helge said he had seen other videos, including one in which Brückner was molesting a girl of around 13 or 14 years of age tied to a pillar.

He said a police officer with whom he was friends, and a lawyer, had warned him against reporting what he had seen because it would cause him problems.

When he left Portugal, he said, he left the videos in his caravan and he does not know what happened to them.

He met Brückner again in 2008, in Órgiva, Spain. Helge had tried to avoid talking to him. “It was difficult for me – after all, I knew what he had done and that he was immensely dangerous.”

The pair had some beers together and Brückner asked Helge if he still travelled to Portugal to make money. “I told him: ‘Since that girl disappeared there are too many police around and I don’t need it.’ We started to talk about Maddie and I said: ‘I don’t understand how the little one could have disappeared without even a trace.’

“Christian had drunk two or three beers, and in response he said: ‘She didn’t scream.’

“I immediately twigged what he had meant.” Helge said Brückner, sensing his acquaintance had understood, had fled during the night. “He left the festival in his motorhome at 3 or 4am. When I looked for him the following day, the neighbours said he had gone.”

He stressed his belief that Brückner was innocent until proven guilty. “My theory is that he planned a break-in, then found the children in the apartment and then took Maddie with him. That was probably not at all planned.

“But with everything I know about him, I would certainly think he’s capable of such a crime. I believe he kidnapped her. Whether he actually killed her in the end, I don’t know.”

Helge said his life had been ruined after his association with Brückner became known and that he had lost all his friends. “I had no clue what dimensions it would all take on. I believe I would not do it again if I had known. It has ruined my life. In retrospect it was the biggest mistake of my life taking that video.

“I lived on Corsica, I was happy, I had work and no worries. Then suddenly it was all gone. Reporters were at my door … [people] asked me: ‘How come you know someone like that?’ My past caught up with me … I want my old life back, but that is no longer possible.”

The Met has been contacted for comment.