Madeleine McCann’s suspected murderer Christian Brueckner was a twisted loner who was hated by the other children at school, a former classmate has revealed.
The ex-classmate, who wants to remain anonymous, said Brueckner would spend his days annoying the other pupils and getting into fights.
He added that Bruekner was even hated by the teachers and he ‘knew he’d turn out bad’.
It comes as German police are thought to have put sex offender Bruekner, now 43, under surveillance in prison in the hope that he lets slip a ‘knockout’ clue to his cellmate.
The Maddie murder suspect is behind bars in Kiel in northern Germany for a drugs offence but has a history of rape and child abuse.
Madeleine McCann, the three-year-old British girl who vanished from her hotel room in Praia de Lug in May 2007. Christian Brueckner (left) is the prime suspect in her case
This has made him the key suspect in the disappearance of three-year-old Madeleine from Portugal’s Praia de Lug in 2007, and he has also been linked to three other missing children cases.
Now, an ex-classmate has revealed how Brueckner was deeply unpopular at school, winding up and annoying his fellow pupils and even goading teachers before laughing in their faces.
The former classmate told the Sun: ‘I have only ever had one fight in my life – and that was with Christian Brueckner.
‘Everyone hated him in class and they all kept their distance. But it wasn’t just the children – it was the teachers as well.’
The father lost touch with Brueckner in his mid teens and admitted to being surprised to hear that he was linked to Maddie’s disappearance.
He added: ‘I always knew he would turn out bad but it is unbelievable to think he might be involved.’
At 17, Brueckner molested a six-year-old girl in his home town of Wurzburg, Bavaria – and he only stopped groping her when she started screaming and crying.
But he is also said to have ‘dropped his trousers’ at a nine-year-old boy before fleeing the scene, according to German tabloid Bild.
He went on to live in Praia da Luz in Portugal, the picturesque resort where the McCanns chose to take their three children on holiday, for 12 years.
Detectives believe Christian Brueckner, the latest main suspect in the McCann case, was living out of a German campervan in 2007
Brueckner left Portugal after Maddie disappeared on May 3, 2007. The previous month, he had moved out of the villa and into a VW Westfalia campervan which police have now linked to the three-year-old’s disappearance.
Brueckner’s mobile phone placed him in the area the night Maddie went missing.
However, despite the circumstantial evidence linking him to the three-year-old, German police fear they are lacking a ‘knockout’ blow to find him guilty.
Brueckner has now been placed under surveillance in prison in the hope that he admits his crime or gives away a detail that will help convict him of Maddie’s murder.
Though German police believe the three-year-old was killed, British police are still treating it as a missing persons case.
Brueckner is currently serving a 15-month sentence in his home country of Germany for drug offences and is reportedly eligible for parole from today, though he is unlikely to be released.
The serial sex offender is also facing a separate sentence for the rape of a 72-year-old American woman on a waterfront villa less than a mile from where Madeleine went missing in Portugal in 2007.
Although he was convicted in December 2019, he appealed against his seven-year sentence and so it cannot be imposed until his appeal avenues are exhausted.
But this does mean that he can be held on remand while any appeal takes place.
Brueckner himself is also reportedly refusing to cooperate with the police investigation.
It comes as a witness claimed to have spotted Madeleine McCann getting into a German-owned VW van with a man just weeks after her disappearance, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
A police file unearthed by this paper details how the witness saw Madeleine emerging from a restaurant in the Spanish seaside town of Alcossebre before climbing into the van with an unidentified man.
The sighting, one of dozens in the early weeks of the investigation, has taken on new significance since German paedophile Christian Brueckner was identified last week as a key suspect in the case.