The German national has been a lead suspect in the case for several years.

German police have discovered an email account linking convicted sex offender Christian Brueckner to the disappearance of Madeleine McCann in 2007.

The 47-year-old is currently on trial in Braunschweig, Germany accused of several sex crimes including the rape of an unidentified woman aged between 70 and 80 in her holiday home in Portugal, and the rape of a girl believed to have been at least 14 years old at his home in Praia da Luz.

While investigators have previously refused to reveal what the explosive evidence they have against Brueckner is, a senior detective told the German court yesterday that authorities had discovered emails on his Hotmail account which link him to the case.

Detective Titus Stampa told a court the German FBI had identified two email accounts linked to the paedophile.

Prosecutors got access to the inbox after making an application to US software giant Microsoft in 2019.

The court heard how Brueckner used one of several email accounts to swap vile child sex abuse images with other online paedophiles.

A second email account had many messages from early 2007 – the time Maddie vanished – deleted.

Madeleine McCann has not been seen since May 3, 2007, when she vanished from her family’s apartment while on holiday in Praia da Luz, on the southern coast of Portugal.

Madeleine was three-years-old at the time of her disappearance, and would be a 21-year-old woman today.

Detective Stampa referred to one of the accounts as the “murder” account, but refused to say if the emails contained videos or photos.

He also stated that he had no clearance to discuss the account further because it was “related to the killing” of a child.

Prosecutors spent three years investigating Brueckner before dramatically naming him as a suspect in 2020.

According to reports last year, Bruckner is said to have visited a reservoir that had previously been searched by police “some days” after Madeleine went missing.

A former friend of his is said to have informed police, and the tip-off tallied up with photos and videos of Bruckner near the reservoir and influenced investigators to carry out thorough searches of the area.

Brueckner opened a Hotmail account in January 2007, just four months before Madeleine vanished in Praia da Luz.

The court heard how Brueckner used the account to write a vile fantasy about raping a mother and her young daughter: “It was a very detailed story about a five-year-old girl and her mother who are kidnapped and taken away in a van,” Detective Stampa said.

“It was about violence and brutality and them being abused sexually – one is raped in front of the other.”

A copy of the sickening fantasy story was found on a laptop Brueckner used in Portugal in 2017.