Plot to kidnap child hatched a week before Madeleine McCann disappeared
A plot to kidnap a child was being hatched in a Portuguese holiday resort a week before Madeleine McCann vanished there, Sky News has been told.
Expat Ken Ralphs said that Christian B, the German drifter suspected of abducting Madeleine, tried to recruit a mutual friend to help find a youngster to sell to a childless couple.
Mr Ralphs, a former UK political campaigner, said Christian B made the offer to the man who was penniless and living in a tent in a remote part of the Algarve coast.
Mr Ralphs, 59, said: “We were sitting around the fire one night after a meal, we had a few beers and during the early hours of the morning my friend began to cry.
“I asked him what the matter was and, eventually, he confessed to me he was getting involved with Christian to steal a child from Praia da Luz from a rich family.”
Mr Ralphs, Christian and their mutual friend, a foreigner who cannot be named for legal reasons, were all part of a nomadic, bohemian community living – for different reasons – off-grid in isolated spots in southwest Portugal.
After a short drive off-road, Mr Ralphs took me along a track to a clearing in the woods about 20 miles from Praia da Luz, the beachside village from where Madeleine disappeared in May 2007.
“It’s fenced off now, probably privately owned,” explained Mr Ralphs, as we stood in the shadow of several towering eucalyptus trees.
“But 17 years ago my friend and his family were living in a teepee here and me and my wife used to bring them food.
“Christian knew the guy was vulnerable and wanted to travel abroad, but he couldn’t leave because he couldn’t afford the air tickets.”
Mr Ralphs said he told his friend not to get involved in the plot and offered to help him financially when he returned from a trip he was about to make to the UK.
“I said you can’t get involved in kidnapping a person for ransom, that’s ridiculous, then he explained, no, it’s not like that. Christian had a customer, a buyer lined up, a German couple who couldn’t have children.”
Christian Brueckner
A week later, Mr Ralphs was back in the UK when he heard the news that Madeleine, aged three, had vanished without trace from the family’s rented holiday apartment.
He told me that within three hours he had driven from his father’s home to a police station in Workington, Cumbria, and reported what he knew.
“I said to the police, here’s the secret map of how you get to this point in the woods here. I said that must be sent immediately to the Portuguese police.”
On his return to the Algarve he went to his local police station and repeated his story, but said he was told Portuguese detectives knew nothing about it.
He found his friend had disappeared, his teepee tent burned, and there was no sign of Christian B. He never saw either of them again.
“The GNR [local police] asked me, have you made your statement to the British police? I said, yeah and they said, well, don’t worry, go home. If they need to contact you, they will. And of course, over the years nobody contacted me.”
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The hunt for Madeleine McCann
In 2020, when Christian B was publicly identified as the Madeleine suspect, Mr Ralphs recognised him from media photographs and again contacted police.
Mr Ralphs was interviewed by Portuguese detectives, though he still doesn’t know what part his evidence has played in the investigation.
He said: “They told me someone had made contact with my friend abroad and he had denied knowing me, but I have a dozen witnesses who will say that he’s lying. I guess he just didn’t want to be interviewed by police.”
Mr Ralphs has had contact with Scotland Yard detectives and late last year sent a detailed statement to the German prosecutor now leading the Madeleine investigation.
The prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters told Sky News he had passed the statement to German investigators.
Christian B, who cannot be fully identified under German privacy laws, is still the Madeleine suspect but has not been charged. He denies any involvement in Madeleine’s disappearance.
Missing Madeleine McCann
He is currently serving a seven-year sentence in a German prison for the rape of an elderly American woman, a crime he committed in Praia da Luz in 2005.
Mr Ralphs said he knew Christian in the months before Madeleine vanished because they both used to park their camper vans on Barranco beach at the end of a long, rocky track.
Mr Ralphs and his wife had left the UK when police mistakenly exposed him after he had passed on information about a gangland murder.
He successfully sued Greater Manchester Police, pulled out of a witness protection plan and disappeared into an itinerant life in Portugal.
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Sky News visits the reservoir police searched for Madeleine in May 2023
When German police appealed for information about the then unnamed suspect in 2020 they released a photograph of Christian B’s yellow and white camper van parked on Barranco beach near its eastern cliffs.
“I think Christian took that picture to show his friends back in Germany, a tourist snap,” Mr Ralphs told me as we wandered the beach on a blowy January morning.
“He normally parked away from the sea, in the bushes where he was hidden and could sell drugs which was what he was known for.”
I showed Mr Ralphs pictures of Christian B from those days and more recent police photographs and asked if he was sure it was the same man.
“Of course, it’s definitely him. I remember him clearly, he was good-looking, spoke very good English and was polite, though not particularly friendly. A bit of a loner.”
Read more:
Sexual offence charges against Christian B dropped by German court
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Who is the main suspect in the Madeleine McCann case?
Mr Ralphs’s evidence of a plan to steal a child is backed up by Michael Tatschl, a good friend of Christian B in those days.
Tatschl told author Jon Clarke in his book My Search for Madeleine: “He (Christian B) was always bragging about money and making money, particularly from burglaries. He even talked about selling kids, maybe to Morocco.”
And Scotland Yard detectives have always believed that, whatever her ultimate fate, Madeleine was abducted in a carefully planned operation.
Sky News has approached Christian B’s lawyer and Scotland Yard for comment.
Counter-terrorism police are investigating after an incident involving a crossbow and a firearm left two women injured in Leeds.
Police were called to Otley Road at 2.47pm on Saturday to reports of a “serious incident involving a man seen with weapons”, West Yorkshire Police said.
Officers arrived at the scene to find two women injured – and a 38-year-old man with a self-inflicted injury. All three were taken to hospital, with the man held under arrest, but their injuries are not believed to be life-threatening.
“Two weapons have been recovered from the scene, which were a crossbow and a firearm,” Counter Terrorism Policing North East said in a statement.
The incident happened on the ‘Otley Run’ pub crawl, with one venue saying it was closed for the evening due to “unforeseen circumstances”.
Officers guard one of the crime scenes
Officers inside the cordon in Leeds
Counter Terrorism Policing’s statement added: “Due to the circumstances surrounding the incident, Counter Terrorism Policing North East have taken responsibility for leading the investigation with the support of West Yorkshire Police.
“Extensive enquiries continue to establish the full circumstances and explore any potential motivation.”
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper described it as a “serious violent incident” and said she was being kept updated by police.
“Thank you to the police and emergency services for their swift response,” she said. “My thoughts are with the victims and all those affected by this attack.”
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Wrexham AFC have been promoted for the third season in a row.
The North Wales-based side has gone from the National League to the Championship in just three seasons, under its Hollywood owners Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney.
Wrexham were second in the table and had a run of eight games unbeaten ahead of their match against Charlton Athletic on Saturday, which they won 3-0.
Wrexham’s James McClean lifts the League One trophy. Pic: PA
Wrexham’s Dan Scarr celebrates with the fans on the pitch after Wrexham won promotion to the Championship. Pic: PA
It is the first time any club has been promoted for three consecutive seasons within the top five tiers of English football.
The third oldest association football club in the world, Wrexham AFC was bought by Reynolds and McElhenney in 2020, and has since been the subject of a Disney+ documentary, Welcome To Wrexham.
Reynolds, wearing a Wrexham sweatshirt, and McElhenney were pictured celebrating each goal, and after the game, as the fans came onto the pitch at the SToK Cae Ras (Racecourse Ground) to celebrate the victory with the players.
Wrexham co-owners Rob McElhenney (L) and Ryan Reynolds and Ryan’s wife Blake Lively, before the match. Pic: PA
Both stars came onto the pitch after the supporters returned to the stands.
Speaking to Sky Sports, McElhenney praised those behind the scenes, referring to “so many that don’t get the credit they deserve, people who aren’t talked about”.
Reynolds said bringing success back to the club “seemed like an impossible dream” when they arrived in North Wales in 2020.
Wrexham’s Sam Smith celebrates in front of the fans after Wrexham won promotion to the Championship. Pic: PA
He put the three promotions down to “the coaching staff, the greatest dressing room” and an “all for one, one for all” attitude throughout the club, adding he was “speechless with their commitment and their emotion”.
As for the mouth-watering prospect of another promotion to the promised land of the Premier League, the pair agreed it was “for tomorrow”, before ending the interview with a joint mic-drop.
Veteran striker Steven Fletcher said, “as soon as I came to this club, I knew it was something special. We want to go again. We’ll reset in the summer, take a break and go again”.
“It has been a success.”
Just Stop Oil (JSO) insists it’s been “successful” – as its members ceremoniously hang up their orange high-vis vests during a march in central London.
Since the group formed three years ago, it’s drawn attention and criticism for its colourful, controversial protests, which ranged from disrupting sporting events to throwing soup on Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers, and climbing on gantries over the M25. It sprayed orange paint over Stonehenge, and cost police forces tens of millions of pounds.
Those days are now behind it; to the relief of many.
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As a few hundred activists marched through London on Saturday, blocking roads as they went; taxi drivers blared their horns and football fans shouted abuse from the pavement.
The PA News Agency filmed the moment a white minivan seemed to drive towards a group of protesters blocking the road.
Protesters shouted “I’m being pushed back!” to police, while the driver could be heard shouting “What about my right to get home?” to the officers gathered.
But JSO never set out to be popular. And it believes its tactics – though hated – have been successful; thanks to the new Labour government’s commitment to not issue new oil or gas exploration licences.
That’s why, it says, its ceasing direct action.
JSO hangs up its high-vis jackets in central London on Saturday
A washing line of high-vis jackets signifies JSO’s disbanding
“This moment marks the success of the JSO campaign – our demand was to end new oil and gas licences and that is now government policy.
“As a result of which four billion barrels of oil are being kept under the North Sea. The campaign has reached a natural end.”
Dr Oscar Berglund, senior lecturer in international public and social policy, disagrees that JSO is disappearing because it’s been “successful”.
He told Sky News policing strength and public perception might have more to do with it.
“They have very low levels of popularity. About 17% of the British population are kind of broadly supportive of what Just Stop Oil do. And that’s too low to recruit.
“It’s difficult to recruit members to something that is that unpopular, and then that a lot of people for good reason I think have kind of stopped believing in that kind of disruption as a means to achieve meaningful change.”
Group triggers specific new protest laws
One thing it did change is the law.
Policing commentator Graham Wettone tells us: “Obstruction of the highway, obstruction of rail networks for example, these are specific offences now.
“It’s given the police more tactics, more methods, more offences they can consider, even stopping and searching somebody who may have something to either lock themselves on or glue themselves to something.”
A JSO activist holds a picture of an imprisoned colleague
Emma Smart was held in prison for her activism with both Insulate Britain and Just Stop Oil.
“The high-vis might be going away,” she tells me, “but we aren’t.”
“These people aren’t going anywhere, we are still committed, dedicated, terrified by the failings of this government and governments around the world.”
JSO activists throw orange paint at van Gogh’s sunflowers
Orange smoke set off by JSO protesters at Stonehenge
She hopes for a time of reflection before it returns in a new form but says the need for climate activism is stronger than ever.
She also believes that while most people dislike JSO tactics, it still raises awareness of the cause and might even push people to more moderate campaign groups.
Just Stop Oil came behind other, similarly controversial climate campaign groups like Insulate Britain and Extinction Rebellion, and as it says goodbye, its disruptive methods have been seized upon by other organisations like the Pro-Palestinian Youth Justice.
The infamous Just Stop Oil orange vests might be going away, but the individual activists, their cause and campaign tactics feel here to stay.
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