Mike on Crime

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
LONDON — Detectives working for the parents of missing British child Madeleine McCann are investigating a convicted pedophile in connection with the her disappearance.

Family spokesman Clarence Mitchell confirms the detective is looking into Raymond Hewlett, a Briton who was living an hour away from the resort in Praia da Luz, Portugal, where the girl disappeared two years ago when she was three years old.

The Daily Mirror first reported the story Friday, citing as their source Alan and Cindy Thompson, a couple who said they met Hewlett while he was in Portugal.

It quoted the Thompsons as saying Hewlett denied having anything to do with Madeleine’s disappearance.

Mitchell confirmed that private investigators hired by the family were looking into Hewlett, a former soldier who has been convicted of a string of sex attacks, but he emphasized that it was only one of many leads they were following.

Hewlett’s whereabouts was not immediately clear, though the Mirror said he is now being treated at an unidentified German hospital for throat cancer.

It published a photo of what it said was the 64-year-old lying on a hospital bed with an oxygen mask hanging from his ears.

A recent appearance of Kate and Gerry McCanns on the U.S. television show “Oprah,” and the publicity surrounding the second anniversary of the girl’s disappearance have led to hundreds of phone calls — some of which had yielded “helpful information“ which investigators were following up, Mitchell said.

“Ideally that process would remain private,” he said.

“However, a couple who claimed that they met Mr. Hewlett, they have — for whatever reason — decided to go public,” he said, explaining why he was confirming that Hewlett was being looked at.