Germany/Portugal - Christian Brueckner, 27 @ time of 1st crime (2004), charged with sexual assault crimes, Praia de Rocha, Portugal. #6 *Acquitted*

Not sure he's repeated that line for some time, here's something I've seen elsewhere on here that might add a bit of perspective to the difficulty with witnesses some years after a fact.

The claim that eyewitness testimony is reliable and accurate is testable, and the research is clear that eyewitness identification is vulnerable to distortion without the witness’s awareness. More specifically, the assumption that memory provides an accurate recording of experience, much like a video camera, is incorrect. Memory evolved to give us a personal sense of identity and to guide our actions. We are biased to notice and exaggerate some experiences and to minimize or overlook others. Memory is malleable.



One has an insurmountable instance of where the theory can be subject to test conditions in the playground incident where the witnesses on the scene got more of an eyeful of CB's private parts than was warranted.

Was he masturbating or was he wild peeing, whatever that might be, but it certainly does conjure up an unwelcome picture of events neither of which should have happened in a children's playground in the presence of the said minors.

Did I remember to say that he was doing whatever he was doing with his pants around his ankles.
Nothing in CB's actions should be countenanced if the scenario is to be believed. And it appears it wasn't believed.

Very difficult to listen to and assess when recounting the experience as young adults appx seven years down the line from the children they were when the weird event they witnessed sent them running in alarm to their parents.

Anyway a dilemma did not arise in the judgement of the Braunschweig court in which the blanket judgement that all trial witnesses to each of the five independent indictments were liars prevailed.
Seems that covers even this guy
Snip
  • April 26, 2024: On the eleventh day of the trial, another witness from Portugal is heard. The man had held the defendant on a playground in 2017 until he was arrested by the police. According to his descriptions, Christian B. first tried to move away and then claimed that he had only urinated. At the same time, the presiding judge UE reprimanded the work of the Portuguese authorities.
 
The thing about JG is that he has a long and distinguished career in police work and is nobody's fool. He also comes over in the podcast as a humane and compassionate man.

Snip
Mr G is regarded as an expert in online crime but he began his career in Northern Ireland as an ordinary offline policeman.

Hunting paedophiles

He quickly rose through the ranks and became the head of Northern Ireland's anti-terrorist intelligence unit in Belfast.

Promoted to Deputy Chief Constable, Mr G became the deputy director general of the National Crime Squad, which later merged with the Serious Organised Crime Agency.

In this role JG began to gain his reputation as the UK's foremost hunter of paedophiles, heading up Operation Ore, the UK's largest ever police investigation into who was viewing internet child abuse images.

The operation identified over 7,000 suspects and led to more than 2,000 convictions but it proved highly controversial.

There were criticisms that the net was hauling in too many innocent people and that some of those convicted had not viewed images of child abuse at all but were actually victims of identity theft.

But there is little doubt that the work started by Mr Gamble has led to some of the most predatory paedophiles being stopped in their tracks.

In interviews, Mr Gamble was always keen to stress that, while his work was embedded in the online world, the images and activities the unit monitored were real children who were being abused.
His opinion on the work being carried out by the German police is quite unequivocal in regarding investigation of the prime suspect in the disappearance of MM is that there is more to come.
"what I would say historically from having worked with the BKA and German police before is, in my opinion they know something and they're not saying as if they do they can't put it back in the box.
They are so adamant in their belief that I believe they must have more than they are telling."
Possibly CB is not the only fish ready for the frying pan, there may well be fatter ones out there.
Real shame if premature disclosure of sensitive information allows them to slip the hook.
My opinion
Yes - very insightful & summarises everything so accurately.

I think he may be a few months off on the timing though.

Out of thousands of tip-offs, hundreds of local sex offenders & thousands of sightings, Christian B is the sole prime suspect. “Hey guys/super villains let’s pick a patsy & then spend millions of pounds & half a decade investigating him” - that shallow thinking makes no sense! This is very significant & serious, if it wasn’t they wouldn’t all be investigating.
 
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Yes - very insightful & summarises everything so accurately.

I think he may be a few months off on the timing though.

Out of thousands of tip-offs, hundreds of local sex offenders & thousands of sightings, Christian B is the sole prime suspect. “Hey guys/super villains let’s pick a patsy & then spend millions of pounds & half a decade investigating him” - that shallow thinking makes no sense! This is very significant & serious, if it wasn’t they wouldn’t all be investigating.
Agreed. Had the investigation wanted a patsy they had the perfect one in 2013 in the shape of the dead Portuguese suspect EM. It could have been done and dusted saving a lot of time, effort and money.
Snip
SP, a 44-year-old construction worker in Lagos, the town where EM lived near Praia da Luz, told The Mirror he did not believe his friend would have kidnapped and killed a child. But he conceded M had problems.

"Toni was a good guy but had some serious drug problems. He would smoke heroin and became a slave to it," SP said. "I know he would sometimes break into apartments and rob them. He was taking valuables from rooms at Ocean Club and selling them for drugs."

Portuguese investigators have suggested Monteiro might have kidnapped and killed MM as a way of striking out at the Ocean Club for firing him or that she might have disturbed him while he was burgling the apartment.
EM was never set up by the investigation. I doubt the thought ever crossed anyone's mind to do so. Particularly because they were following the evidence and there was none to connect EM to the crime.
So back to the drawing board and the continued search for more evidence which wasn't realised until 2017 when CB was introduced into the equation. The fact that he is still a suspect suggests the evidence is there which supports this.

The myth making is offensive to hard working investigators.
My opinion
 
Agreed. Had the investigation wanted a patsy they had the perfect one in 2013 in the shape of the dead Portuguese suspect EM. It could have been done and dusted saving a lot of time, effort and money.
Snip
SP, a 44-year-old construction worker in Lagos, the town where EM lived near Praia da Luz, told The Mirror he did not believe his friend would have kidnapped and killed a child. But he conceded M had problems.

"Toni was a good guy but had some serious drug problems. He would smoke heroin and became a slave to it," SP said. "I know he would sometimes break into apartments and rob them. He was taking valuables from rooms at Ocean Club and selling them for drugs."

Portuguese investigators have suggested Monteiro might have kidnapped and killed MM as a way of striking out at the Ocean Club for firing him or that she might have disturbed him while he was burgling the apartment.
EM was never set up by the investigation. I doubt the thought ever crossed anyone's mind to do so. Particularly because they were following the evidence and there was none to connect EM to the crime.
So back to the drawing board and the continued search for more evidence which wasn't realised until 2017 when CB was introduced into the equation. The fact that he is still a suspect suggests the evidence is there which supports this.

The myth making is offensive to hard working investigators.
My opinion
Yes - the idea that CB is a patsy is a very shallow & illogical conclusion to make.

Jim Gamble makes a great comment on the link between deflecting/defending all things CB & being followers of the anti theory. Peas & carrots, time & again.

If there was a super sneaky ‘establishment’ EM would have been a super easy ‘patsy’.

3 multimillion pound investigations, highly significant
 
Agreed. Had the investigation wanted a patsy they had the perfect one in 2013 in the shape of the dead Portuguese suspect EM. It could have been done and dusted saving a lot of time, effort and money.
Snip
SP, a 44-year-old construction worker in Lagos, the town where EM lived near Praia da Luz, told The Mirror he did not believe his friend would have kidnapped and killed a child. But he conceded M had problems.

"Toni was a good guy but had some serious drug problems. He would smoke heroin and became a slave to it," SP said. "I know he would sometimes break into apartments and rob them. He was taking valuables from rooms at Ocean Club and selling them for drugs."

Portuguese investigators have suggested Monteiro might have kidnapped and killed MM as a way of striking out at the Ocean Club for firing him or that she might have disturbed him while he was burgling the apartment.
EM was never set up by the investigation. I doubt the thought ever crossed anyone's mind to do so. Particularly because they were following the evidence and there was none to connect EM to the crime.
So back to the drawing board and the continued search for more evidence which wasn't realised until 2017 when CB was introduced into the equation. The fact that he is still a suspect suggests the evidence is there which supports this.

The myth making is offensive to hard working investigators.
My opinion
Episode 3 (the final episode about the McCann case) of the ‘True criminals’ podcast is now out. I highly recommend it. I’m very interested in the mentality behind some of the alt-noise in this case & this provides a sound albeit top-level insight into this.

I wonder whether this led to missed opportunities to find CB sooner.
 
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Episode 3 (the final episode about the McCann case) of the ‘True criminals’ podcast is now out. I highly recommend it. I’m very interested in the mentality behind some of the alt-noise in this case & this provides a sound albeit top-level insight into this.

I wonder whether this led to missed opportunities to find CB sooner.
I think it was yes....one track mind is never a good thing in a investigation like this
 
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I think it was yes....one track mind is never a good thing in a investigation like this
Unless one wishes to disagree with the author of 'A Verdade da Mentira' record of events, your assessment of the botched police investigation and its place in history hits very close to the mark.
Snip
In an interview with Portugal's Radio Renascenca being broadcast on Sunday, Mr Ribeiro, national director of the PJ - Portugal's equivalent to the CID - stressed he did not give his officers orders about who should be named an arguido.
But he said there was a "certain hastiness" in making the McCs suspects.
That one hasty error fed the flames of the adverse publicity which set the scene for the internet abuse trial of MM's parents and distracted attention from known paedophiles resident in Luz and who were familiar with its environs.
The villa in which DM was raped was in close proximity to apartment 5A from which MM disappeared.

The police were out of their depth with no evidence and were between a rock and a hard case as Portuguese law was about to change to necessitating arguido status to be substantiated with evidence; and no longer at the whim of local cops, much as indicted was the practice as indicated above by the national director of the PJ.

Snip
Previously the police did not need to provide any evidence to justify their suspicions, but this has now changed under the new penal code.
Attorney General, Fernando Pinto Monteiro said: "The law did not demand justified suspicions at the time in which they were made 'arguidos'.

"I do not know if they would be in light of the new code."
Yesterday friends of the couple angrily accused police of a deliberate smear campaign as the McCann's lawyer Carlos Pinto de Abreu spoke out.

He said: "After September 15, a new procedural penal code was introduced making it necessary for there to be evidence against the citizen to make him an arguido.
"Before September 15, it wasn't necessary. You could be made an arguido without any suspicions or evidence against you.
"Now to constitute anybody as an arguido it is necessary to have evidence in the file.
"That's why the national public prosecutor said that if this inquiry was launched now, maybe they would not have been made arguidos.
"Maybe that's why the inquiry happened then, why they were made arguidos eight days before the new laws came in."
Interestingly that understanding of the present law is applicable to CB who was constituted an arguido in the MM case in 2022
 
It certainly is not. And the fact the case remains the unsolved and unedifying mess it is is testament to that.

Indeed there were so many elementary errors it is difficult to enumerate them all or indeed to separate fact from fiction.
If the following is to be believed the present suspect in MM's disappearance was on Portuguese police radar early days.
Snip
Portuguese detectives showed up to question prime suspect CB soon after MM's disappearance, but he wasn't in when they arrived.

Former chief GA, 60, who led the investigation in 2007, made the claim in an interview on Portuguese TV on Sunday night.

'I have been told by colleagues, who are retired like me, that they had come knocking on the door. That person was not at home.' he said.

Pressed on what Portuguese police knew about CB's past around the time MM disappeared, he appeared to admit Algarve authorities were aware of his 1994 teenage sexual conviction for molesting a six-year-old girl by confessing: 'At the time all we knew was that this man was a paedophile.'

The main reason the case remains unsolved is that the name the PJ were following in 2007 was never revealed to subsequent investigators.
  • it did not figure in the official PJ files
  • it did not figure in the official files which MM's parents had professionally translated
  • it did not feature in redacted files containing information shared by investigators regarding known paedophiles and others of interest
Think how many years of work having that name to check either to rule in or rule out of the inquiry. That is the actual definition of an unedifying mess.
My Opinion
 
It's panto season tales usually appear.
Hmmm, the Germans are adamant the girl is dead and they have her killer.


Documents filed by Companies House state the cash in the Madeleine will be used to secure her safe return and to ensure “her abduction is thoroughly investigated”. Once that objective has been fulfilled, any money that remains will be donated to help solve similar missing person cases.


Although.


Madeleine prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters admitted in October that they are in a race against time. “Christian Brueckner is our prime suspect and still our only suspect,” he said.

“The clock is ticking. We only have one year. I’m not worried but we have to realise that we may have to come to a decision next summer. If the Supreme Court rules in our favour before his release, then we will try to get an arrest warrant for his retrial on these cases.

"But if they say there will be no retrial then we only have the Maddie case. If we don’t have enough evidence, then he will walk free from prison.”
 
It's panto season tales usually appear.
Hmmm, the Germans are adamant the girl is dead and they have her killer.


Documents filed by Companies House state the cash in the Madeleine will be used to secure her safe return and to ensure “her abduction is thoroughly investigated”. Once that objective has been fulfilled, any money that remains will be donated to help solve similar missing person cases.


Although.


Madeleine prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters admitted in October that they are in a race against time. “Christian Brueckner is our prime suspect and still our only suspect,” he said.

“The clock is ticking. We only have one year. I’m not worried but we have to realise that we may have to come to a decision next summer. If the Supreme Court rules in our favour before his release, then we will try to get an arrest warrant for his retrial on these cases.

"But if they say there will be no retrial then we only have the Maddie case. If we don’t have enough evidence, then he will walk free from prison.”
Of course he's their only suspect - they are only permitted to investigate a German national, as the crime took place in another country and they wouldn't have any right or jurisdiction to investigate a non-German suspect.
 
Of course he's their only suspect - they are only permitted to investigate a German national, as the crime took place in another country and they wouldn't have any right or jurisdiction to investigate a non-German suspect.
Also the acquittal of CB is a devastating blow to the parents of MM?
 
It's panto season tales usually appear.
Hmmm, the Germans are adamant the girl is dead and they have her killer.


Documents filed by Companies House state the cash in the Madeleine will be used to secure her safe return and to ensure “her abduction is thoroughly investigated”. Once that objective has been fulfilled, any money that remains will be donated to help solve similar missing person cases.


Although.


Madeleine prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters admitted in October that they are in a race against time. “Christian Brueckner is our prime suspect and still our only suspect,” he said.

“The clock is ticking. We only have one year. I’m not worried but we have to realise that we may have to come to a decision next summer. If the Supreme Court rules in our favour before his release, then we will try to get an arrest warrant for his retrial on these cases.

"But if they say there will be no retrial then we only have the Maddie case. If we don’t have enough evidence, then he will walk free from prison.”

One certainly must welcome the timely reminder that once MM's parents and RM were cleared by the Portuguese judiciary in 2008 absolutely no-one was looking for MM with the exception of her parents.

How disgraceful was that to ignore doing anything about a missing child for six years.

Snip

The BBC report now accuses the Portuguese police of having prevented an effective search for Maddie with sloppy investigations.
Among others, the Briton RM, who lived only a few meters from the hotel complex at the time of the crime, also has his say. Since he speaks fluent Portuguese and English, he had made himself available as a translator immediately after the crime.

"I felt very pressured"

A few days later, the Portuguese police targeted him as the main suspect. "I felt very pressured."
He was questioned for 19 hours at the time, then the police released him for lack of evidence.
"I got the impression that the officers were not interested in the truth at all.
" Instead, it was only a matter of being able to deliver a result as quickly as possible.
 
Of course he's their only suspect - they are only permitted to investigate a German national, as the crime took place in another country and they wouldn't have any right or jurisdiction to investigate a non-German suspect.
There is indeed some force to that argument as far as it goes.
But one has to bear in mind that all previous suspects some of whom retained their anonymity have been investigated appropriately and subsequently eliminated from the inquiry.

CB on the contrary remains a suspect who is a person of interest to an active police investigation.
The fact that he has exercised his right to silence has probably lengthened the process.
My Opinion
 
There is indeed some force to that argument as far as it goes.
But one has to bear in mind that all previous suspects some of whom retained their anonymity have been investigated appropriately and subsequently eliminated from the inquiry.

CB on the contrary remains a suspect who is a person of interest to an active police investigation.
The fact that he has exercised his right to silence has probably lengthened the process.
My Opinion
Given he's not been formally questioned has far as it's known, what is there not to remain silent about?
 
Also the acquittal of CB is a devastating blow to the parents of MM?
Why should it be?
The recent trial had absolutely nothing to do with the missing child or her parents. Apart from MM being used as 'an out of jail free' card.
My Opinion
Given he's not been formally questioned has far as it's known, what is there not to remain silent about?
It is indeed a weird one.

It is known that CB exercised his right to silence in the non connected sexual offences trial.

The conundrum being that his high powered legal team wanted to introduce an unrelated topic to the mix

Snip

Ahead of the start of the trial, his lawyer FF said his client will not do one thing, adding: “He will not speak to the hearing other than to say his name but nothing should be drawn from that. What needs to be made clear is these charges have nothing to do with MM and that now, almost four years since he was named, as the suspect there has been no update from the prosecutors.

And then proceeded to call a witness to the stand who had absolutely nothing to contribute to any one of the sexual offences the Braunsweig court was actually supposed to be dealing with

Snip

Det Con Mark Draycott appeared in a German court today to give evidence in the trial of convicted paedophile and German national CB.

The trial has no connection to Madeleine’s vanishing but the defendant’s lawyers requested the Metropolitan Police officer testify.


All to the acquiescence of a presiding judge who complained that t’would be impossible for CB to have a fair trial because he is the prime suspect in MM’s disappearance.
One has difficulty reconciling what actually happened with what should have been done which was that the victims of the actual crimes which should have been under consideration were short changed by the defence sleight of hand the presiding judge fell for hook line and sinker.
My Opinion
 
Why should it be?
The recent trial had absolutely nothing to do with the missing child or her parents. Apart from MM being used as 'an out of jail free' card.
My Opinion

It is indeed a weird one.

It is known that CB exercised his right to silence in the non connected sexual offences trial.

The conundrum being that his high powered legal team wanted to introduce an unrelated topic to the mix

Snip

Ahead of the start of the trial, his lawyer FF said his client will not do one thing, adding: “He will not speak to the hearing other than to say his name but nothing should be drawn from that. What needs to be made clear is these charges have nothing to do with MM and that now, almost four years since he was named, as the suspect there has been no update from the prosecutors.

And then proceeded to call a witness to the stand who had absolutely nothing to contribute to any one of the sexual offences the Braunsweig court was actually supposed to be dealing with

Snip

Det Con Mark Draycott appeared in a German court today to give evidence in the trial of convicted paedophile and German national CB.

The trial has no connection to Madeleine’s vanishing but the defendant’s lawyers requested the Metropolitan Police officer testify.


All to the acquiescence of a presiding judge who complained that t’would be impossible for CB to have a fair trial because he is the prime suspect in MM’s disappearance.
One has difficulty reconciling what actually happened with what should have been done which was that the victims of the actual crimes which should have been under consideration were short changed by the defence sleight of hand the presiding judge fell for hook line and sinker.
My Opinion
People who debate on the threads & who gossip in the conspiracy clubs may think the previous acquittals may or may not affect the MM case & in some cases the acquittals may be pleasing…..

I’m sure that the McCann’s have a lot of empathy & sympathy for the victims, but their focus will be on justice for their daughter. So I’m not so sure it’ll be that negative blow that people may want it to be.
 
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No new trial.This is for the DM rape case.


Application rejected: No new trial against Christian B.​



 

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