I was Christian B’s pal – I warned Met cops in 2009 that he knew about Madeleine McCann… they did nothing for 9 years
A FORMER friend of Madeleine McCann prime suspect Christian B claims he alerted Scotland Yard to the fiend in 2009 — but was not contacted for nine years.
Helge B also revealed in a tell-all interview how he first discovered the twisted side of his German pal in harrowing sex abuse videos.
The petty criminal then claimed Christian B appeared to confess to snatching the British tot, telling him at a festival after a few drinks: “She didn’t scream.”
Helge B, 48, tipped off UK authorities investigating the disappearance of Madeleine from her holiday apartment in Portugal, but said: “I was never called back.”
He told how he initially thought Christian B was “a nice guy” when he first met him around the time the three-year-old went missing from Praia da Luz in 2007.
He recalled: “It was in the parking lot in front of a pub in Portugal.
“My friends Micha and Manni introduced me to Christian.
“He had helped them with a breakdown — I thought that was a good thing.
“The first impression was that he was a nice guy — personable, sociable.”
The pair discussed their criminal activities, with Christian B boasting of his climbing skills which enabled him to enter hotel rooms via the balconies.
But Helge B fatefully decided to ransack Christian B’s Algarve home after learning he was in jail — and made a horrific discovery which later blew open Madeleine’s case.
Helge B said he and Manfred Seyferth were looking for diesel fuel they knew Christian B stored.
But they also found a gun and a video camera which laid bare their “nice guy” pal’s sexual depravity.
Helge B said: “I had heard that Micha and Christian were in prison.
“It was in the newspaper, ‘Two Germans arrested’.
“Manni said, ‘I know where Christian B lives – he still has 1,000 litres of diesel there’. We went there and tapped off a few canisters.
“The front door was open, so we just walked in.
“We searched the apartment, took a video camera, a bunch of film and a gun.”
When he eventually viewed the footage, he initially thought it was a movie, but then it gradually dawned on him Christian B was torturing and raping a pensioner.
A teenager was also subjected to a similar horrific ordeal, he said.
Helge B told German newspaper Bild: “We went to my house, where I had a big TV, where I saw the first videos. ‘Tourist s*’, I thought – until I came across the older lady video. At first I thought, ‘This is a feature film’.
“It showed someone whipping the woman.
“She was tied up, lying on the bed and must have been 70 or 80 years old.
“She wore painted diving goggles and couldn’t see.
“She spoke English and was shouting, ‘You f*ing b*d’. At the end of the video he sat down on the bed and pulled down the mask.
“Then I saw that it was Christian B.
“I couldn’t believe it.
“I said to Manni, ‘Come over here and see what’s going on’.
“He watched for two minutes and said, ‘I don’t want to know anything about that’.
“I said, ‘Manni, that’s Christian B.
“I saw it, he took off his mask’.
“On another cassette was the video with the old lady from a different position, and another film with a younger girl, 13, 14 years old.
“She was tied naked to a beam.
“Christian B sat behind it on the sofa and made fun of her.
“She said, ‘This borders on rape’. And he just (said), ‘Shut up’. That’s when I knew what kind of guy Christian B was.”
Christian B is now serving a seven-year jail term for rape thanks to Helge B’s chance discovery.
But he claimed that police initially told him to keep quiet.
He said: “I spoke to a police officer I know in Germany.
“He said, ‘Helge, keep your hands off it’.
“A lawyer told me the same thing.
“I wasn’t sure what could happen to me — I would have incriminated myself.”
He said Manni threw the gun in a reservoir, though sources say it is not the one recently searched by police near Silves.
Helge B went on: “I sold the camera.
“When I left Portugal later, I left the videos in my caravan.
“It’s unclear where they ended up.”
Helge B then later had a “difficult” encounter with freed Christian B at a kite festival in Spain, Spain, in 2008.
He said they discussed the disappearance of Madeleine from the previous year.
Helge B recalled: “I sat in my Mercedes, saw him in the rear view mirror.
“He joined us and we talked.
“That was difficult for me.
“He asked me, ‘Don’t you go to Portugal anymore and do business there?’
“I said, ‘No — since the girl disappeared there, there have been too many police checks for me and I don’t need that at all’.
“We came up with Maddie and I said, ‘Anyway, I don’t understand how the little one could have disappeared without a trace.’
Christian had drunk two or three beers and then said, ‘She didn’t scream’.
“I immediately checked what he said.
“I thought, ‘He knows that. He has something to do with it’.
“I knew his background from the videos . . . I got really sick.
“But he also checked that I understood that and then left at night.
“At three or four o’clock in the morning he left a packed festival with his mobile home.
“I looked for him the next morning. His neighbours said, ‘He’s gone’.”
Helge B claimed in his interview that he then tipped off the Met.
He said: “I called Scotland Yard back in 2008.
“At the Maddie hotline.
“I said I knew someone who might have something to do with it and gave them the name.
“They took my personal details, my phone number.
“But nothing happened there. Nothing!
“I was never called back.
“I thought, ‘Well, they’ll take care of it’.”
It was not until nine years later that his information reached police.
He said: “In 2017 I had just served a prison sentence in Greece.
“When I heard about the 10th anniversary of the disappearance, I remembered so I contacted Scotland Yard again.
“Then they listened to me.
“A first meeting took place with two officials in a hotel in Athens.
“I then flew to London and gave my testimony there for the record.”
The German federal police used evidence gleaned from Helge B’s video viewing to help convict Christian B of the pensioner rape.
The former friends saw each other again at the 2019 rape trial.
Helge B said: “This whole situation took a toll on me.
“When I saw him, I thought, ‘He’s a pig’.
“He’s not sitting here without a reason.”
German public prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters named Christian B as the prime Madeleine suspect in June 2020 — and said he had evidence she was murdered.
Helge B believes Christian B was only planning to burgle Kate and Gerry McCann’s holiday apartment.
He said: “It went wrong and he found the kids. And then he took Maddie with him. It probably wasn’t planned at all.”
But he went on: “I definitely believe him capable of something like that. I think he kidnapped her.
“I don’t know if he ended up killing her.
“I wish there would finally be peace.
“It is clear to me that Maddie is no longer alive.
“As sad as that is, it would be better if her body was found.”
Asked whether he had a message for Christian B, who has denied any involvement in Madeleine’s disappearance, he said: “Christian, I hope you don’t get away with this story.”
He also claimed the video discovery “was the biggest mistake of my life”.
He said: “I would have preferred not to know anything about it.
“I’m also not proud that I started this investigation.
“I’m not doing well.
“I’ve gained weight, I have phases when I go crazy, I don’t sleep at night.
“It ruined my life.”
16 years of grief & hope
MAY 3, 2007: Madeleine McCann vanishes from the Ocean Club apartment in Praia da Luz, nine days before her fourth birthday.
MAY 26: Police issue a description of a man from the night of Madeleine’s disappearance who was spotted “possibly carrying a child”.
SEPTEMBER 2007: Portuguese police name parents Kate and Gerry as suspects.
JULY 2008: They end investigations, officially lifting the McCanns’ “arguido” status.
MAY 2011: PM David Cameron asks the Met to launch a two-year case review.
MAY 2013: Detectives say they have identified “persons of interest” and a formal investigation is opened.
JUNE 2014: Searches of Praia da Luz, including scrubland.
JULY 2014: Four suspects are quizzed then released.
MARCH 2017: Home Office gives an £85,000 grant to continue the probe for a further six months, taking the total cost to £11million.
JUNE 2019: German prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters confirms his team’s work is “connected with Madeleine”.
JUNE 2020: German sex offender Christian B is named as prime suspect.
MAY 2023: Police search the Arade Dam near Silves, 31 miles from Praia da Luz.
JUNE 2023: Key witness Helge B discloses details from his police statement for the first time.