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Finally, some promising news in the case of missing Madeleine McCann.

Madeleine McCann has been missing for seven years.

 

 

 

 

There’s a new Madeleine McCann documentary coming to Netflix. You can find out everything you need to know about it right here.

A British paedophile who once lived in Australia has been arrested over a child sex crime – and is expected to be questioned over the abduction of Madeline McCann.

Roderick McDonald, 76, will be extradited from Malta to Britain for the rape of a separate child under 13, and will also be questioned by police about a paedophile ring possibly linked to Madeline’s 2007 abduction.

The UK Daily Mirror reports McDonald – known as Roderick William Robinson while he was living in Australia – has links to paedophile gangs that operated in Algarve, Portugal, where three-year-old Madeline was abducted.

McDonald has been on the run since being convicted in 2012 of abusing two young girls.

The Daily Telegraph reports McDonald, an ex-oil rig worker, was sentenced to six months in prison for sexually assaulting a nine-year-old girl in the late 1990s. He was arrested by NSW Police in 2001 but fled while on bail.

McDonald was subsequently arrested in New Zealand in 2009 over alleged child sex offences but again fled — this time to Portugal, aided by a fake passport.

McDonald was finally arrested by Interpol and extradited to Australia, where he pleaded guilty to two counts of indecent assault of a child under 10 and served a brief sentence, according to The Daily Telegraph.

Madeline McCann arrest
Parents of missing girl Madeleine McCann, Kate (L) and Gerry McCann (R) pose with an artist’s impression of how their daughter might look now at the age of nine. (Photo: LEON NEAL/AFP/GettyImages)
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McDonald later returned to Thailand and was arrested by local police following a joint operation between the UK’s Child Exploitation and Online Protection agency and Thai authorities. He was sent back to the UK, but again fled to Europe after allegedly preying on more girls.

The Daily Telegraph is reporting that authorities finally tracked him to Malta this week. He was arrested and will now be extradited back to the UK to serve his prison sentence, and to face questions by detectives investigating Madeleine’s disappearance.

Madeline’s mother Kate McCann said it was “unbelievable” police had missed the chance to quiz the man over Madeleine, The Mirror reports.

She said: “The police knew he was in Portugal around the time she vanished, but let him slip through their fingers.

The police are proposing new tests on DNA found in the little girl’s bedroom that that did not belong to workers at the holiday resort where her family was staying at the time of her abduction.

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