Inside Madeleine McCann suspect’s sinister ‘camp’ next to reservoir searched by cops
EXCLUSIVE pictures show the secret camp Christian B set up next to the reservoir searched by Madeleine McCann cops.
Witnesses told The Sun on Sunday the convicted rapist and paedophile used stones from the water to build a wall, fixed up a table and a chair — and swam in the lake to “cleanse” himself.
And they have been helping German police to pinpoint when he was there and exactly where.
We can also reveal it was four years ago that they first told cops about his lair at the Arade lake in Portugal, 31 miles from Praia da Luz, where three-year-old Madeleine vanished in 2007.
Christian B would visit his “little paradise” — where it is also believed he built a strange stone circle and edged a pathway to his lair — in his VW camper van. He went for weekends or sometimes a week, taking hash and snacks with him.
As cops last week finished a three-day search of the area following a “very credible” tip-off, a former close pal of Christian B’s said: “This was his exact special spot that he said he liked to come to cleanse himself. He came here often, but he was always secretive about it.”
German cops had found snaps showing 45-year-old Christian B at the site among his stash of 8,000 child abuse images at his home.
His former pal, a German mother of two who has lived on the Algarve for three decades, has been helping German authorities with their enquiries for several years.
She said: “He would drive right down to the edge of the lake. He liked to be near the water. He always camped in the same spot, but I don’t know what he did there as he was very secretive.
“He washed himself and his clothes in the lake and he drank a lot of beer, as when I came down with him a couple of times there were loads of empty cans.
“I think he liked the silence and the fact there was usually no one else around. It now makes me horrified to think what he really might have done down there.”
Christian B became the prime suspect in Madeleine’s disappearance in 2020 but cops did not find enough evidence to charge him.
He is now serving seven years in a German jail for raping a pensioner in Praia da Luz in 2005.
Madeleine vanished from her family’s holiday apartment in May 2007 while her parents Gerry and Kate dined with pals nearby.
In 2006 Christian B, who moved to the Algarve in 1994, and his old flatmate, fellow German Michael Tatschl, were jailed for eight months for fuel theft.
Christian B was freed in December 2006, five months before Madeleine vanished — and he is thought to have visited the Arade lake around the time she went missing.
He has always denied involvement in Madeleine’s disappearance, and did so again in letters from his prison cell published yesterday, saying: “There will never be a trial.”
The world-renowned criminologist Dr Graham Hill has analysed Christian B and said: “It appears it was his habit to retain items that could invoke memories of his victims, or a situation or crime.
“He most likely retained this material to help him relive his crimes and increase his arousal.
“The fact that Christian B kept these potentially incriminating trophies is testament to the strength of his need to do so — and shows how comfortable he was with risk.”
Dr Hill detailed the escalation of his crimes, from flashing as a teen to raping a pensioner two years before Maddie vanished, and said: “It suggests he’s a predatory, undifferentiating sex offender, willing to offend across the age spectrum.”