A convicted paedophile who is being investigated over Madeleine McCann's disappearance said he was familiar with the layout of the Portuguese holiday complex where she went missing, it has been reported.
Raymond Hewlett is alleged to have been staying around an hour's drive from the McCanns' holiday flat in Praia da Luz when she vanished on May 3 2007.
The McCanns' investigation team wants to interview the 64-year-old in the next few days in the hope he can shed some light on the little girl's disappearance.
A former soldier who met Hewlett at a campsite in Morocco in May 2007 told the Sunday Mirror he admitted parking a van close to the McCanns' complex on several occasions. Peter Verran, 46, said: "He brought Madeleine up straight away. He said his three-year-old daughter looked like her. He was worried that because there had been reports that Madeleine may have been spirited away to Morocco, people might think his child was her. Then he suddenly said, 'Madeleine's not in Morocco'."
UK-born Hewlett, a former soldier who previously lived in Blackpool and Telford, is reportedly being treated for throat cancer in hospital in the German city Aachen. He was jailed several times for sexually assaulting young girls and is now wanted for questioning by British detectives in connection with a separate indecent assault.
The McCanns hope that once officers from West Yorkshire Police have questioned Hewlett, their investigators will speak to him, despite reports he is seriously ill in intensive care.
Clarence Mitchell, Kate and Gerry McCann's spokesman, said: "Mr Hewlett has denied any involvement in Madeleine's abduction. Our investigators hope he will see sense and co-operate by giving them whatever information needed so they can eliminate him from the investigation."
It is understood that before the McCanns' team can speak to Hewlett, British officers will interview him in connection with an indecent assault in 1975. Sources close to the investigation say they think both interviews will take place in "a matter of days, not weeks".
The McCanns currently have two retired detectives who they hired to search for their daughter. They hope British police will help facilitate an interview with Hewlett.
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Madeleine was nearly four when she went missing from her family's holiday apartment in Praia da Luz on May 3, 2007 while her parents dined with friends nearby. Despite a massive police investigation and huge publicity worldwide she has not been found.
