Aberdeen Evening ExpressAberdeen paedophile link to Madeleine McCann abductionSex beast Hewlett lived in Aberdeen and Forres
By David Ewen chief reporter
Published: 22/05/2009
POSSIBLE SUSPECT: Raymond Hewlett has a history of sex attacks on girls.
A SEX beast who used to live in Aberdeen was today named as a possible suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.
Convicted paedophile Raymond Hewlett was living an hour’s drive from the Portuguese resort where the Madeleine McCann went missing in May 2007.
Raymond Hewlett, a former soldier, has a long record of sex attacks on young girls.
Detectives working for parents Kate and Gerry McCann have flown to Germany to speak to the 64-year-old, where he is being treated in hospital for cancer.
But today he denied having any involvement.
Hewlett, a former Scots Guardsman, was convicted of two sex attacks on girls in the 1970s and a further attack in 1988 for which he was jailed for six years.
In 2002 police released a picture of him strolling with his girlfriend Marianne Schmucker in Forres, Moray, while trying to trace him.
Hewlett reportedly tried to join the Findhorn Foundation. He was said to have worked at Forres’ Royal Hotel for two weeks before moving to Aberdeen.
It was understood he worked as a trawlerman and for fairground operators.
Hewlett is said to have been living near the Algarve town of Faro, an hour’s drive from Praia da Luz, the resort where the McCann family was staying.
Clarence Mitchell, spokesman for Kate and Gerry McCann, said: “Hewlett is an individual of interest to the investigation.
“Beyond that I cannot go into any further operational detail.”
Hewlett has denied having anything to do with Madeleine’s disappearance.
Hewlett’s string of sex attacks began in September 1972, when he abducted and sexually assaulted a neighbour’s 12-year-old daughter.
He was jailed for 18 months.
In 1978 he was sentenced to four years in prison for attempting to rape a 14-year-old girl while holding a gun to her head.
And in 1988 he was jailed for six years after kidnapping and assaulting a 14-year-old girl in Cheshire.
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