Madeleine McCann detectives quiz British barmaid over her German ex-boyfriend who lived near Portuguese resort where toddler vanished in 2007

Madeleine McCann detectives quiz British barmaid over her German ex-boyfriend who lived near Portuguese resort where toddler vanished in 2007

• Carol Hickman, 59, was stunned when police entered her bar two weeks ago
  
  
  
• She works at Kelly's Bar in Praia da Luz, Portugal, where Madeleine vanished
  
• She claims police pressed her for details on ex-boyfriend Michael Jehle, 51
  
• 'Friendly hippy' Mr Jehle said: 'I don't know anything about Maddie McCann
  

Scotland Yard detectives still investigating the disappearance of Madeleine McCann have questioned a British expat about her German ex-boyfriend.

Carol Hickman, 59, was stunned when police entered her bar in Praia da Luz, Portugal, where the three-year-old vanished on holiday in 2007.

She claims to have been pressed for details about her 'friendly hippy' former partner Michael Jehle, 51, including his phone number.

The employee of Kelly's Bar - 450 metres from the resort where the McCann's had been staying - told the [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] two plain clothed officers collared her two weeks ago.

Ms Hickman said: 'They came into the bar and said "You can thank Her Majesty for this visit".

'That's when I knew they were from Scotland Yard. They asked if I could remember May 3, 2007.'

This initial conversation at the bar was followed by a further interview at her home.
 
The expat uprooted to the Algarve in 1997 and had an 18-month relationship with Mr Jehle, who was himself baffled as to why police would be interested in him.

The decorator, who now lives in Bensafrim, 20 miles from Praia da Luz, said: 'I don't know anything about Maddie McCann.' 
 
Ms Hickman said she split from Mr Jehle years prior to the harrowing night in 2007, but has no reason to believe he is implicated in the case.
 
The Sunday Mirror also reported that another one of his ex-girlfriends was also quizzed at the time, and had her freezer searched.

The unnamed woman recalled: 'Six police, some British, entered my apartment. They told my boyfriend not to move while they looked under the bed.'

Yet there is no reason to believe Mr Jehle is a suspect in the case.

Ms Hickman said she joined the search party for Madeleine after her parents Gerry and Kate raised the alarm.
 
They had been dining at a nearby tapas restaurant, and had left Madeleine and their two toddler twins asleep in the hotel.
But when Kate went to check on the children, she discovered her eldest child had vanished.

The tragic and mysterious case tugged on the heartstrings of people the world over.

Gerry and Kate, from Leicestershire, have raised thousands of pounds to pour into their own private investigation into their missing daughter.

And the Metropolitan Police's Operation Grange continues to pursue lines of inquiry into the disappearance.
 
A Scotland Yard spokesperson tonight said: 'The investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann remains ongoing. We are not providing a running commentary.'

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Huile Oyliver



Beware the Ides of March ....

Verdi wrote:

Madeleine McCann detectives quiz British barmaid over her German ex-boyfriend who lived near Portuguese resort where toddler vanished in 2007

• Carol Hickman, 59, was stunned when police entered her bar two weeks ago
  
• She works at Kelly's Bar in Praia da Luz, Portugal, where Madeleine vanished
  
• She claims police pressed her for details on ex-boyfriend Michael Jehle, 51
  
• 'Friendly hippy' Mr Jehle said: 'I don't know anything about Maddie McCann
  

Scotland Yard detectives still investigating the disappearance of Madeleine McCann have questioned a British expat about her German ex-boyfriend.

Carol Hickman, 59, was stunned when police entered her bar in Praia da Luz, Portugal, where the three-year-old vanished on holiday in 2007.

SNIPPED
 
The Sunday Mirror also reported that another one of his ex-girlfriends was also quizzed at the time, and had her freezer searched.

The unnamed woman recalled: 'Six police, some British, entered my apartment. They told my boyfriend not to move while they looked under the bed.'

Yet there is no reason to believe Mr Jehle is a suspect in the case.

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REST SNIPPED

Is there any member of this forum, or any guest here, that has even a smidgeon of doubt that...

1) Operation Grange was a corrupt investigation, an expensive charade, from Day One, designed to fool the public?

2) This case shows that the combined power of the government, the security services, the media, lawyers and public relations figures have virtually unlimited power to suppress the truth about any seriously embarrassing story? 

A poll has been added

Couple of snippets (pure fiction?) from the Sunday Mirror report:

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‘Tonight, (so they spoke to him on 22nd Feb 2020?) the memory remained vivid as Martin (Smith) told the Sunday Mirror: “I’d say it was definitely the child. 
"I’d say it definitely had to be. The place was very quiet at that time of year so I’d say it was definitely the child.”

The latest developments come as it is revealed for the first time that Scotland Yard detectives visited Portugal five times in 2019.’

(Tony’s FOI response dated 27/1/20 said three times, so somebody is lying!)
 
‘Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick has said the force is pursuing “active lines of inquiry” – while Portuguese police are understood to have increased the numbers of officers they have working on the case.’
 
Really? Where has this come from? It’ll be interesting to see if Natasha Donn picks up on this story in the Portugal Resident.
 
 
Plus this from Textusa this morning:
 
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According to Mr Bennett’s FOI request, OG visited 3 times not 5 in 2019, April, July and October.

OG could not interview witnesses in Portugal unless they used the European Investigation Order, which would require the PJ, on their behalf, to ask the questions.

The questioning would have to be conducted according to Portuguese law.


 
Don’t know if this is relevant as regards Carol Hickman as she is clearly not a suspect or a witness and their access to talk to her probably depends more on their relationship with the Portuguese authorities.

sharonl wrote:All this article does is put out a claim (probably a false one) that  Op Grange are actually doing something.  This will be followed by more crazy claims and finally an application for future funding to follow up yet another "FINAL lead".

What the media and Op Grange doesn't seem to realise is that public are not buying all these ridiculous stories.

1. Exactly

2. The establishment and media have been feeding the public with bovine dung for decades - it's called propaganda. And the public really do get a proper gander in their own sheepish way.

Forget the case of Madeleine McCann for a few minutes and just browse through a Sunday tabloid. Do folk really believe the trash the papers report, or the exaggeration applied to some story that contains an element of truth? You'd have to be pretty gullible.

A Scotland Yard spokesperson tonight said: 'The investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann remains ongoing. We are not providing a running commentary.'

Therein lies the clue.  

A stock phrase, regularly used by the tabloids when reporting on the case of Madeleine McCann.  So I think it can be safely concluded the information did not come direct from the Met Police, under whatever guise, but from a source close to ....

The Mirror [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], links the report to the Netflix film..

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Just read the entire article ..

Madeleine McCann police quiz British expat barmaid over her German ex-boyfriend

EXCLUSIVE: Carol Hickman, 59, was asked for information on Michael Jehle, 51, who lives near Praia da Luz – where Maddie, three, vanished in 2007

ByDan Warburton
Patrick Hill

22:00, 22 FEB 2020Updated08:41, 23 FEB 2020

Police probing the disappearance of Madeleine McCann have quizzed a British barmaid about her German ex-boyfriend.

Carol Hickman, 59, was asked for information on Michael Jehle, 51, who lives near Praia da Luz – where Maddie, three, vanished in 2007.

But Mr Jehle insisted to the Sunday Mirror: “I don’t know about Maddie. Police know where I live.”

Barmaid Carol Hickman told of her shock today.

Expat Carol – who works at Kelly’s Bar just 450 metres from where Madeleine vanished on May 3, 2007 – said two plain-clothed officers acting for Scotland Yard asked about the German decorator.

They wanted phone numbers and any Facebook contact.

The Sunday Mirror has learned another of his exes was quizzed in 2007 – and had her freezer searched.

As the mystery deepened yesterday, baffled Carol, 59, described Mr Jehle as “a friendly hippy”.

And when our team tracked him down he said he had nothing to hide.

Carol said officers from the Portuguese Judicial Police were trying to trace her ex and another of his old flames, a German woman.

Carol, 59, who has lived on the Algarve since 1997, told us: “They came into the bar and said ‘You can thank Her Majesty for this visit’.

"That’s when I knew they were from Scotland Yard. They asked if I could remember May 3, 2007.

“Of course I remember. I was in the bar and we had a call from friends saying a little girl had vanished. We went out on the search and we were out all night.”

Carol said the police visited her two weeks ago – first at the bar, followed by an interview at her home.

She went on: “They were asking about Madeleine and interested in my German ex-boyfriend.

"We were in an 18-month relationship, but at the time of Maddie’s disappearance hadn’t been together for years.

“There’s no reason to suspect him at all. I’m amazed I’m being asked about him. He was a friendly hippy.

"I just find it so strange, the whole thing. The police asked if I had any contact numbers or if I was friends on Facebook, but I’m not.”

It is the second time Kelly’s Bar – a four-minute walk from the McCanns’ apartment – has been mentioned in the investigation.

On the night Madeleine vanished Martin Smith, from Co Louth, Ireland, was there with his family.

As they left they saw a man carrying a small blonde girl who they believe to be Madeleine.

Tonight, the memory remained vivid as Martin told the Sunday Mirror: “I’d say it was definitely the child.

"I’d say it definitely had to be. The place was very quiet at that time of year so I’d say it was definitely the child.”

The latest developments come as it is revealed for the first time that Scotland Yard detectives visited Portugal five times in 2019.

There is nothing to suggest Mr Jehle or the German woman are considered suspects.

It is thought they could help police obtain new information to help in the search.

Mr Jehle has been in Portugal since 1995 and now lives in Monte Novo, Bensafrim, 20 miles from Praia da Luz.

When the Mirror traced him he had no idea why officers had been talking to Carol. Mr Jehle said: “I don’t know anything about Maddie McCann.

“I lived in Praia da Luz for many years, then I moved. I don’t know why the police [are asking about Maddie].

"Everybody knows me, about three months ago people called me and said police were looking for me.

“They were looking for me for another reason. I had to go to court because I had a problem with a friend. This was nothing to do [with Maddie].

“[The police] know where I live, they have my phone number, they can call me.

"I was with Carol in 2004. It was only for one year. She works in Kelly’s Bar, she’s still a good friend of mine.

"I have another girlfriend now. I have had many girlfriends.”

In 2007 another of Mr Jehle’s ex-partners told how she was quizzed by police.

She said then: “Six police, some British, entered my apartment. They told my boyfriend not to move while they looked under the bed.”

On a second visit they reportedly checked her freezer, cupboards and pantry.

She said police officers told her: “We are looking for Madeleine.”

The girl vanished from a holiday flat days before her fourth birthday.

Her doctor parents Kate and Gerry, both 51 and from Rothley, Leics, were with pals at a tapas diner – taking it in turns to pop back and check on the kids.

The original Portuguese police investigation was widely criticised.

Disgraced cop Goncalo Amaral was sacked after falsely claiming the McCanns were involved in the case.

British police launched their own investigation, Operation Grange, in 2013 and £12million has been spent.

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick has said the force is pursuing “active lines of inquiry” – while Portuguese police are understood to have increased the numbers of officers they have working on the case.

Last May, it was claimed they are still trying to trace 13 persons of interest. But none have come forward.

Clarence Mitchell, for the McCanns, said: “Kate and Gerry are always encouraged to hear police are chasing potential leads and are very grateful to British and Portuguese police for the work they are doing.”

A spokesman for Operation Grange said: “The investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann remains ongoing.”

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Did anyone capture the original (22.00) Mirror report from last night?

I have no recollection of any mention of the PJ involvement, nor of anything from CM and there is nothing about either in the Mail & Sun reports which are cribbed from it.

Seems odd how the story changes when they get challenged on their nonsense.

"Disgraced cop Goncalo Amaral ..."

He really should sue these ********

PeterMac wrote:He is a retired Police Officer.
As am I
I would never think of suing Jon Clarke and the Olive Press for the defamatory lies he has published about me

I would not stoop.
So I confine myself to publishing the facts, and let decent people decide.

Chapters from my e-book
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It is known as integrity.

Integrity it is, plus perhaps the inability to financially face a libel case before a court of law - after all, rumour has it the McCanns have all but bankrupted Snr Amaral.

Aside from that, Snr Amaral was trying to do his job.  He didn't invite the UK press into his work or his life, they took it upon themselves time and time again to publish slanderous things about him that were just not true.

Snr Amaral has so many reasons to be resentful - even vindictive.  Thankfully, anyone interested in following this case will know that the stories printed about him were nothing but spiteful revenge because he was getting too close for comfort.

Live peacefully Snr Amaral - the McCanns are not worth the energy, as you well know.

CoventryLive are now on the case for some reason..

Fresh Madeleine McCann hope as 'barmaid quizzed over German ex-boyfriend'

Nearly 13 years on from the youngster going missing in the Algarve resort, investigations continue to find out what happened.

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It would appear from this particular report that the intelligent tabloid, [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], Mirror are behind the investigative journalism.  The same outfit who made such a cock-up of the Ben Needham undercover investigative journalism project.

It's this bit that really intrigues me..

The intelligent tabloid wrote:Carol, 59, who has lived on the Algarve since 1997, said: “They came into the bar and said ‘You can thank Her Majesty for this visit’.
"That’s when I knew they were from Scotland Yard. They asked if I could remember May 3, 2007.

Call me naive but when on official duty, investigating a very serious crime, wouldn't Scotland Yard present identification rather than thanking Her Majesty for the visit?  What's it got to do with the Queen - did she order Scotland Yard to visit this potential witness thirteen years after the event?

This is reminiscent of those heady days of 2007/8.  Witnesses appearing from out of the blue with tales to tell - is the double glazier still on board the Titanic, or has someone else taken over the helm?

Beware the Ides of March ....

"That’s when I knew they were from Scotland Yard. They asked if I could remember May 3, 2007.

I agree. That is rather ridiculous.

In fact it's ludicrous.

Carol said officers from the Portuguese Judicial Police were trying to trace her ex and another of his old flames, a German woman.

Carol Hickman, 59, was asked for information on Michael Jehle, 51, who lives near Praia da Luz

The reporters had no problem.
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Stupid sardine munchers.

Or the story is a crock of poo.

What is it with Germany?

Robert Murat's girlfriend - German
Raymond Hewlett - German girlfriend/s. Died in German hospital
Paedophile investigated - German
McCanns European campaign - Germany

Mirror reporter Simon Wright wrote:
there was a mountain of circumstantial evidence against Hewlett

Madeleine McCann suspect Raymond Hewlett admits he doesn't have an alibi for night she disappeared

Convicted paedophile talks for the first time about Maddie investigation, but says he did not kill her.

By Simon Wright
14th January 2009

Broken, frail, with only weeks to live, Raymond Hewlett is the man the McCanns fear could take the secrets of their daughter’s disappearance to the grave.

The convicted child rapist – who has been catapulted into the frame over the hunt for Madeleine – sits hunched up in a squalid German flat, gasping for breath as he finally breaks his silence.

“It’s obvious why they’re interested in me,” croaks Hewlett, 64. “But they can all think what they like. I didn’t kill the McCann girl. It’s the truth and it’s never going to change.”

The man jailed three times for sex attacks on girls today speaks out for the first time in a bid to clear his name amid the mountain of circumstantial evidence against him.

Hewlett, who has been in hiding ever since he was named in connection with the case, admits he was in the Algarve at the time Madeleine was snatched and, as our pictures show, that he looks strikingly similar to a sketch of a suspect with a pock-marked face seen lurking around the apartment.

And five weeks after she disappeared, he left Portugal for Morocco for a two-month-long “business trip”.

There, he told Peter Verran, a tourist he had befriended, that he’d become obsessed with the case and he admitted being outside the McCanns’ holiday flat in Praia da Luz “many times” and parking his van close to the complex.

What’s more he is refusing to give an alibi for the night Madeleine, three, vanished.

“I have an alibi but why should I share it?” he says, struggling for air with each syllable.

“There is a person who can say where I was that day, but why should I bring them into this? I’ve done nothing wrong. Why should I have to prove it?

“My life’s been made a misery for something I know nothing about and a crime I’ve not committed.

“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. Yes I’ve been to Praia da Luz, but not since 2002.”

But those claims contradict what former Scots Guard Mr Verran, 46, says Hewlett told him – that he was in and around Praia da Luz at the time Madeleine disappeared in May 2007.

The McCanns’ private detectives first became aware of father-of-six Hewlett in February this year when his name was given to them during local door-to-door inquiries.

His distinctive live-in Dodge truck, large family and bizarre nomad lifestyle singled him out.

Further checks into his past revealed his previous convictions in Britain, including the rape of a 12-year-old girl he lured into his car and then drugged with paint stripper, an attempted rape of a 14-year-old girl he snatched from a fair and threatened with a fake gun and the abduction of a 14-year-old newspaper delivery girl.

The McCanns’ investigators began searching for him, keen to eliminate him from inquiries.

Portuguese detectives told UK officers they were unaware of his existence until the McCann team uncovered his name.

But bizarrely, Hewlett tells the Sunday Mirror he was visited twice by Portuguese police over the Maddie case and gave detectives a DNA swab and fingerprints, although he was never arrested or quizzed.

The McCanns’ investigators are unsure whether to believe him or the detectives in Portugal. Hewlett says that Portuguese police, acting on unknown information, swooped on his truck while he was had throat cancer treatment across the border in Spain in August 2008.

He also says that local police helping in the search for Maddie visited him, wife Mariana and their children in the summer of 2007.

He says: “They checked that all the children living with us were ours. Our youngest girl looks a bit like her. But they saw everything was OK and they left.

“The police came again in August last year and told Mariana it was about the McCann girl. They asked for me and Mariana told them I was in hospital. They came to see me and asked permission to take DNA and fingerprints. I was very sick and barely able to speak to them. They asked where we parked in the Algarve in the first half of 2007.

“I told them, ‘You know where we’ve been because you know us round there.’

“I knew why they were asking, because I’d seen the TV and newspapers. By then, that McCann kid’s photo was in every shop and supermarket you went in to. I’ve got previous convictions for child-sex crimes so my heart sank. I thought, ‘Oh no, here we go again.’

"I was miles from the UK but it didn’t make any difference. I’d tried hard to build a new life. But the reality for me is that my past convictions will never go away.

"I have to put up with it because it’s always going to be this way. I gave them their DNA and fingerprints. I knew they were just doing their job but I was angry. I had enough to cope with. I had cancer and no money.”

At the time Madeleine vanished, Hewlett and his family were moving between three towns in the Algarve – Vila Real de Santo Antonio, Fuzeta and Tavira – all within 60 miles of Praia da Luz. They scraped money together by picking up unwanted jumble and old car parts, then selling it on.

Hewlett, originally from Todmorden, West Yorks, and Mariana first arrived in Portugal from her native Germany in the summer of 2002. They had been together five years after meeting in Italy. He was a mechanic on a tourist boat and Mariana worked as a cleaner for the boat’s owners on the Mediterranean island of Elba.

They embarked on a tour of Europe in the converted Dodge truck. He had installed beds for their children, a sink, cooker and shower.

At that point the couple had four children – David, 10, who died when he fell from their moving truck in December last year, Michael, nine, Anya, eight, and Jobe, seven, who were all born in Germany. Yanina, six, and Paul, three, were born during their travels across the Algarve, and the youngest Daniel, now six-and-a-half months, was born in Spain.

“We’d stop in various places and decide whether to hang around there,” he says. “It would depend on the weather and how easy it was to make money. I used to busk on the street, playing guitar. I can’t really play but people would give me money anyway.”

Hewlett says he was 60 miles away – in Vila Real de Santo Antonio – when Maddie was taken. Crucially, he says he cannot specifically remember being there that day.

“May 3 was a Thursday and I was always in Vila Real Santo Antonio on Thursdays,” he says. “My routine never altered. That’s 100km from Praia da Luz.

“If you asked people there if we were there on that day, I don’t know what they’d say. Maybe they can’t remember. If you ask them if we were normally there, they’d say yes. If it wasn’t for the fact that we were living the way we were, I wouldn’t be able to say so clearly that that was where I was.

“It’s only because of the way we live that I can say it. As far as I’m concerned, I don’t have to prove anything.

“Our truck was our only vehicle. I didn’t have another vehicle to go anywhere in. It’s a high-profile vehicle. Once you see it, you never forget it. It was like that purposefully because I wanted people to see us. I didn’t want to be hiding.”

But he claims that a female friend who shot a home video of him and his family on May 5 – two days after Maddie vanished – could vouch for his whereabouts on May 3.

The 30-minute video – seen by the Sunday Mirror – shows Hewlett, Mariana and their seven children laughing at the camera and playing games with each other at a market they regularly attended in the Portuguese town of Fuzeta every Sunday, less than 40 miles from Praia da Luz.

His youngest daughter Yanina bears a striking resemblance to missing Maddie.

He says: “The friend who made the video would remember where I was two days earlier. She could tell anyone where I was. But I haven’t asked her and I don’t intend to.

“Why should I ask her? I don’t think I should involve anybody. Why should I keep dragging people in to this. I don’t like being in it, so why should I keep putting people’s names forward so that they get bothered with it too?

“I could ask her, but if she says no, then sorry, the answer is no. Then people will just have to carry on speculating.”

A month later, on June 10, Hewlett left Portugal and took his family to Morocco.

He said: “A friend gave me a broken old Mercedes and I stripped it down into parts.

“I knew they were worth a fortune in Morocco because I’d been there for a couple of months in 2005. You can even get good money for Mercedes nuts and bolts there.

“I knew people on the docks at Faro and I got the captain of a ferry to take us over for free. We stayed in Morocco for two months and came back in the August. I made 300 euros from the car parts.”

His voice so weak it is at times barely audible, today Hewlett is holed up in his cramped, sparce apartment, with Mariana, 33, and six young children.

The family arrived there six weeks ago as his health deteriorated, and Mariana is able to get state benefits.

Hewlett was last month tracked down by the McCanns’ detectives to a hospital in Aachen, Germany, where he was undergoing treatment. The detectives had hoped to put a series of questions to him but he refused to see them and they were forced to return to the UK empty-handed.

This week, they travelled there for a second time but he was deemed too ill to undergo intensive questioning.

Today as he wastes away on the fourth floor of a tower block, Hewlett is close to death. Doctors discharged him from hospital, telling him there is nothing more they can do for him, and his weight has plummeted to just 45kg. Instead of expressing sympathy for Kate and Gerry McCann, he insists people should feel sorry for him.

“I would say to the McCanns that I know what it’s like to lose a child because it’s happened to me recently,” he says.

“I’ve been through hell and now I’ve got another hell which I don’t deserve. I know for a fact that I didn’t do anything wrong, but if people aren’t listening, what can you do?”

Shaking with pain, he repeats: “I didn’t kill the McCann girl.”

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