![Christian Brueckner is pictured in a court in Germany (Image: The Daily Mirror)](/upload/news/2024/03/11/172352.jpg)
The mother of Madeleine McCann suspect Christian Brueckner has cut of all ties with the man, it is reported.
Brigitte Brueckner blasted her 47-year-old son, who is currently on trial for rape in Braunschweig, Germany, and says her life was "destroyed all over again" when he was named as the prime Madeleine suspect in 2022. Speaking publicly about her son for the first time since 2020, Ms Brueckner said: "I don’t have anything to do with him anymore. As far as I’m concerned I have said goodbye. Auf Wiedersehen."
The paedophile's adoptive mother, who raised him since he was a baby, opened up about how hurt she was when Brueckner became suspect in Madeleine's disappearance. She vanished in Portugal in 2007 during a family holiday as her parents Kate and Gerry were eating in a nearby restaurant.
A court heard this month Brueckner had boasted to a friend about carrying out burglaries in hotels on Portugal's Algarve coast. The defendant is accused of five sex offences, said to have happened between 2000 and 2017 in the country. A source told The Sun: "It’s terrifying to see what he has become when you see the pictures of him at court with those frightening eyes. He looks nothing like the boy we all used to know. He looks the same but it was impossible for me to recognise him."
Brueckner's trial was due to open in February but judge Dr Christina Engelmann adjourned the case after the defendant's lawyers had argued the lay judge was unsuitable. They alluded to social media posts the lay judge had allegedly made, in which they are reported to have called for the assassination of former Brazilian president Jair Bolsanaro.
It was the first time Brueckner had been seen in public since first being linked to the Maddie case in 2020. He denies any involvement in her disappearance and has never been charged with anything in connection to it. But the paedophile is currently serving a seven-year prison sentence for raping an American pensioner in the Algarve. If he is cleared by a judge in Braunschweig, Germany, at the end of the trial, he could be freed in September next year.
Prosecutors appear no closer to proving he was behind Madeleine’s disappearance - despite claiming they have proof she is dead. And they face the nightmare scenario of seeing their prime suspect walk free if they cannot convict him of the new Portuguese charges. He is going on trial accused of carrying out five offences in the Algarve between 2000 and 2017. They include the alleged rape of an Irish tour rep, who was attacked in her apartment Praia da Rocha in 2004. The trial continues.