DNA clues delay in Maddie probe

Paul Fielding
21 July 2009
The Gazette

A former Blackpool soldier, linked to the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, is unlikely to face charges over a sex attack 30 years ago.

A team of detectives from West Yorkshire police flew to Germany to question Raymond Hewlett over the assault on an eight-year-old girl in 1972 and took a DNA sample.

(Blogger Note: Raymond Hewlett was cleared in the Lesley Molseed murder based on the "fact" that his DNA did not match the DNA on the tape used to swipe Molseed's clothing.  That means that Hewlett's DNA was already in the possession of the West Yorkshire police (who led the Molseed investigation).  This does not make sense and due to other questions about the Molseed case, I think it is worth looking at very carefully, perhaps with a Freedom of Information request to the relevant British agencies.)

But sources at the Yorkshire force said that although they were still awaiting instructions on how to proceed from the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), it was unlikely charges would follow. A spokesman for West Yorkshire Police said: "We have been over to interview him and are currently liaising with the CPS regarding the matter. "We are also still awaiting the results of a DNA profile."

Hewlett, 64, who was brought up in Hawes Side Lane, Marton, is currently in hospital in Aachen where he is being treated for throat cancer.

Private detectives working for the McCann family have not named him as a suspect but want to question him after receiving some worrying information from people who knew him. In the past he has been jailed three times for sex attacks on young girls but has since insisted "I didn't kill the McCann girl".

Hewlett is said to have been staying around an hour's drive from the McCanns' holiday flat in Praia da Luz in Portugal when the little girl vanished on May 3, 2007. The battered blue Dodge van owned by Hewlett at the time of Madeleine's disappearance has been seized by German police and looked over by investigators. It has been alleged the vehicle was seen parked close to the McCanns' complex on several occasions around the time the youngster went missing.

(Blogger note: ALL the information related to Hewlett came from three sources - Peter Verran, Alan Thompson and his wife, Cindy Thompson. Hewlett was checked out by the Portuguese police and was NEVER a suspect in the case. He gave the PJ a DNA swab and his fingerprints, etc.)

The McCanns' investigators – retired UK policemen Dave Edgar and Arthur Cowley – flew to Germany last month in a bid to question Hewlett. But negotiations between the private investigators and Hewlett's German lawyer broke down and the detectives flew home empty handed.