The witness who first linked a sex offender prime suspect to the abduction of Madeleine McCann has told how he is convinced he knows what happened to her.
Police in Portugal are this week making fresh searches for clues to Madeleine's disappearance on land close to the former home of German paedophile Christian Brueckner.
Helge Busching, a former friend of Brueckner, first linked the German to her abduction as long ago as 2008 - just a year after she disappeared.
Busching told MailOnline: 'I am convinced Brueckner is involved. There has to now be some hope for Madeleine's parents.'
The then three-year-old vanished from a holiday apartment in the Algarve resort of Praia da Luz in May 2007 and it has been 18 years of heartache for her parents Kate and Gerry as well as her now teenage two siblings.
