RETIRED British detectives searching for Madeleine McCann yesterday welcomed convicted paedophile Raymond Hewlett’s offer to answer their questions.
The two ex-policemen employed by the little girl’s family hope to interview him about her disappearance in the “near future”, a source close to them said.
Hewlett, 64, is said to have been staying around an hour’s drive from the McCanns’ holiday flat in Praia da Luz in Portugal when Madeleine vanished in May 2007.
Over the weekend the family’s private investigators - former UK detectives Dave Edgar and Arthur Cowley - flew to Aachen in Germany, where Hewlett is being treated in hospital.
They had hoped to quiz him about his movements around the time that Madeleine went missing.
But having failed to gain access to him they returned to the UK today, the source said.
Hewlett emerged from the hospital in a wheelchair this morning and was confronted by journalists.
He again denied having any involvement in Madeleine’s disappearance but told the reporters he would speak to the McCanns’ private detectives.
