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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.

More on Madeleine Mccann

“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
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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
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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
Police recover ‘number of’ items in Portuguese reservoir search
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.

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‘A constant game of cat and mouse’: Inside the police crackdown on illegal moped delivery drivers

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'A constant game of cat and mouse': Inside the police crackdown on illegal moped delivery drivers

The first thing you notice when immigration officers stop a possible illegal moped delivery driver is the speed in which the suspect quickly taps on their mobile.

“We’re in their WhatsApp groups – they’ll be telling thousands now that we’re here… so our cover is blown,” the lead immigration officer tells me.

“It’s like a constant game of cat and mouse.”

Twelve Immigration Enforcement officers, part of the Home Office, are joining colleagues from Avon and Somerset Police in a crackdown on road offences and migrants working illegally.

Police chase suspected illegal immigrant working as a delivery drivers

The West of England and Wales has seen the highest number of arrests over the last year for illegal workers outside of London.

“It is a problem… we’re tackling it,” Murad Mohammed, from Immigration Enforcement, says. He covers all the devolved nations.

“This is just one of the operations going on around the country, every day of the week, every month of the year.”

Murad Mohammed from Immigration Enforcement
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Murad Mohammed, from Immigration Enforcement, says his team are attempting to tackle the issue

Just outside the Cabot Circus shopping complex, we stop a young Albanian man who arrived in the UK on the back of a truck.

He’s on an expensive and fast-looking e-bike, with a new-looking Just Eat delivery bag.

He says he just uses it for “groceries” – but the officer isn’t buying it. He’s arrested, but then bailed instantly.

A man inspects the Just Eat food delivery bag of a suspected illegal immigrant working as a delivery driver

We don’t know the specifics of his case, but one officer tells me this suspected offence won’t count against his asylum claim.

Such is the scale of the problem – the backlog, loopholes and the complexity of cases – that trying to keep on top of it feels impossible.

This is one of many raids happening across the UK as part of what the government says is a “blitz” targeting illegal working hotspots.

Angela Eagle, the border security and asylum minister, joins the team for an hour at one of Bristol’s retail parks, scattered with fast food chains and, therefore, delivery bikes.

Angela Eagle, Minister for Border Security and Asylum
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Border security and asylum minister, Angela Eagle, speaks to Sky News

She says arrests for illegal working are up over the last year by 51% from the year before, to more than 7,000.

“If we find you working, you can lose access to the hotel or the support you have [been] given under false pretences,” she said.

“We are cracking down on that abuse, and we intend to keep doing so.”

A suspected illegal immigrant working as a delivery driver being arrested

There are reports that asylum seekers can rent legitimate delivery-driver accounts within hours of arriving in the country – skipping employment legality checks.

Uber Eats, Deliveroo, and Just Eat all told Sky News they’re continuing to strengthen the technology they use to remove anyone working illegally.

But a new Border Security Bill, working its way through Parliament, could see companies fined £60,000 for each illegal worker discovered, director disqualifications and potential prison sentences of up to five years.

“I had them all in to see me last week and I told them in no uncertain terms that we take a very tough line on this kind of abuse and they’ve got to change their systems so they can drive it out and off their platforms,” the minister tells me.

Read more:
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Ex-Tory chairman defects to Reform
Wealth tax could be coming to the UK – what is it?

The gig economy – so prevalent in every city – creates another incentive for those wanting to risk their lives coming to the UK illegally.

More than 20,000 migrants have crossed the English Channel to the UK in 2025 – a record number at this point of the year.

A suspected illegal immigrant working as a delivery driver holds his helmet

For some of those who arrive, a bike and a phone provide a way to repay debts to gang masters.

There were eight arrests today in Bristol, one or two taken into custody, but it was 12 hours of hard work by a dozen immigration officers and the support of the police.

As two mopeds are pushed onto a low-loader, you can’t help but feel, despite the best intentions, that at the moment, this is a losing battle.

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Officers who confronted Southport killer reveal how they disarmed him – as they are nominated for police bravery award

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Officers who confronted Southport killer reveal how they disarmed him - as they are nominated for police bravery award

The officers who confronted the Southport killer have described, for the first time publicly, how they disarmed him – as they joined a list of 70 officers nominated for a police bravery award.

Sergeant Greg Gillespie, 42, PC Luke Holden, 31, and PCSO Tim Parry, 32, were the first to arrive as Axel Rudakubana rampaged with a knife through a holiday dance school last summer.

Speaking to Sky News about what they saw when arriving at the scene, Sgt Gillespie said: “There was maybe 20 or 25 adults and all of them were looking at me, all of them have this look of terror and fear, panic on their faces and I knew whatever it was we were turning up to was really, really bad.”

His colleagues drove fast from Southport police station and were thirty seconds or so behind Sgt Gillespie.

PC Luke Holden (left), PCSO Tim Parry (centre), Sgt Greg Gillespie (right) nominated for the police bravery awards
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PC Luke Holden (left), PCSO Tim Parry (centre), Sgt Greg Gillespie (right) nominated for the police bravery awards

PC Holden said he saw “a large puddle of blood on the floor outside the door” and said Sgt Gillespie “just looked at me” and asked if he was ready.

“That was it, there was no conversation. There was nothing else going on. He said, ‘Are you ready?’ and I said, ‘Yeah, let’s go’.”

PCSO Parry, who doesn’t carry a baton or pepper spray like his colleagues, went to the back of the building to stop people from entering, help anyone who needed it, and get information on the number of suspects inside.

He said: “It was a horrific scene to really go into because I was so unprepared with the equipment I had.”

Sgt Gillespie and PC Holden identified the suspect at the top of the stairs, a bloodied knife in his hand, and walked towards him shoulder to shoulder.

“I saw him, made eye contact with him, saw his facial expression, saw his body language and the way he moved himself into a position at the top of the stairs, showing us he had a knife,” Sgt Gillespie said.

“He was fronting us, like he was saying, ‘I’ve got a knife, what are you going to do about it?’

“And I think the second he realised he was looking at two people who weren’t scared of him, who were going to attack him, all that bravery that he must have summoned up to attack defenceless children, he lost that straightaway, and he threw down the knife.”

In January, Rudakubana, who was 17 at the time of the attack, admitted the murders of seven-year-old Elsie Dot Stancombe, Bebe King, aged six and Alice da Silva Aguiar, who was nine, as well 10 charges of attempted murder, as well as possessing terrorist material and production of the biological toxin, ricin.

He was jailed for life with a minimum of 52 years – with the sentencing judge saying it was “highly likely” he would never be released.

**STRICTLY EMBARGOED UNTIL AFTER CONCLUSION OF SENTENCING**
Pic: Merseyside Police
Axel Rudakubana trial Southport murders court evidence
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A machete was also found at Rudakubana’s home. Pic: Merseyside Police

Dozens nominated for bravery awards

The Merseyside trio are among 70 officers from around England and Wales who have been nominated for tonight’s Police Federation national bravery awards.

They include two sergeants from Sussex who swam to the rescue of a vulnerable teenager struggling to stay afloat at night off Brighton beach.

Footage of Sergeant Craig Lees and Sergeant Matthew Seekings rescuing a woman from the sea in Brighton. Pic: Sussex police
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Footage of Sergeant Craig Lees and Sergeant Matthew Seekings rescuing a woman from the sea in Brighton. Pic: Sussex police


Police with torches had located her in the sea fifty metres from the shore, but a lifeline they threw to her didn’t reach.

Sergeant Craig Lees said: “We could see that she was starting to struggle with the cold and tide, and she began to dip under the water. We knew we needed to do something, and that was that we needed to get into the water and swim out to her.”

His colleague and friend Sergeant Matthew Seekings said: “I don’t think it’s in the blood of any police officer to watch somebody at risk or somebody needing help and not do something.

“When you’re in the sea, it’s pitch black, you don’t even know where the bottom is, it’s terrifying, and I can only imagine how the female was feeling.”

Sergeant Craig Lees and Sergeant Matthew Seekings who are nominated for a bravery award. Pic: Sussex police
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Sergeant Craig Lees and Sergeant Matthew Seekings who are nominated for a bravery award. Pic: Sussex police

Read more from Sky News:
Mother of Southport attack victim ‘still struggling to survive’
‘Wholesale failure’ to address Southport killer’s risk – inquiry

Battling their own fatigue, the two officers managed to get the girl to shore, where colleagues and paramedics were waiting to take over.

In Devizes, Wiltshire, PC Nicola Crabbe was called to a town centre fight between two men, one of whom had a knife.

PC Nicola Crabbe from Wiltshire police who is nominated for a police bravery award
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PC Nicola Crabbe from Wiltshire police who is nominated for a police bravery award

‘Just saturated in blood’

“They were grappling, and they were just saturated in blood,” said PC Crabbe, who confronted the man she thought was the knifeman.

“I was in the middle of the road when I grabbed hold of him, and there was a member of the public just there, and that’s when he explained to me that I had the wrong person.”

CCTV image of PC Nicola Crabbe from Wiltshire police dealing with a fight in Devizes. Pic: Wiltshire police
Image:
CCTV image of PC Nicola Crabbe from Wiltshire police dealing with a fight in Devizes. Pic: Wiltshire police

Armed only with a baton and Pava pepper spray, she grappled with the suspect, trying to find his knife.

She said: “At one point he grabbed my hair and kind of dragged me around a bit, so I Pava’d him which just had no effect at all.”

PC Crabbe managed to restrain the knifeman until colleagues arrived and arrested him.

The full list of award winners will be announced on Thursday night during a dinner at a west London hotel.

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Labour MPs form new group as they urge prime minister to focus on living standards to help ward off Reform

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Labour MPs form new group as they urge prime minister to focus on living standards to help ward off Reform

A group of Labour MPs has urged Sir Keir Starmer to do more to tackle the rising cost of living amid fears the party could lose the next election to Reform.

The MPs are launching a new splinter group, the living standards coalition, to shift the focus to everyday concerns such as food, energy bills and housing.

Politics latest: Former Tory chairman defects to Reform

In a letter to the prime minister, the group’s members warned that one question would be on the mind of voters at the next election: “Did this Labour government make me better off?”

“After 14 years of living in a no-growth economy and with some of the highest bills in Europe, our constituents are struggling to make ends meet,” they said.

“More of them are turning away from democracy and towards populism as they can’t afford a decent life.”

The coalition is the latest splinter group to form since the party’s landslide election victory a year ago.

More on Labour

Other groups include the Labour growth group, which focuses on delivering economic growth, and MPs in Red Wall constituencies in the North who are alive to the threat Reform poses in their seats.

A YouGov poll last month found Reform was on track to get the most seats if an election were held this year – with combined support for the Conservatives and Labour collapsing to less than half of the national vote.

While the MPs stress they are supportive of the actions the government has taken so far, the forming of a new group could be interpreted as a sign of restlessness in the parliamentary party, especially given the fallout of last week’s botched welfare vote.

In the letter, first reported by The Guardian, the MPs write: “We are here to support your efforts to go further and faster on raising living standards. We come from every corner of our party.

“To raise living standards, we support government interventions that will help to increase incomes and lower costs.

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Controversial welfare bill passes

“We welcome interventions that will raise incomes. We welcome investment in labour- intensive building, education, and healthcare jobs that will raise living standards through employment. We welcome the Employment Rights Bill that will get wages rising.”

They added: “We know that some will try to stop us raising living standards.

“They will try to block us from building the affordable housing and windfarms we need to get bills down. They oppose the way we have raised revenue from the very wealthiest to invest in childcare and our NHS.

“We are glad you are keeping this government’s focus on raising living standards. We stand in support of you. It is the most important issue to our constituents and the country.”

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