Madeleine McCann police shouldn’t just focus on prime suspect, forensics expert warns

For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy Forensics experts have warned investigators in the Madeleine McCann case cannot focus purely on their prime suspect and that, 16 years after she disappeared, “traditional” evidence may not have survived. open image in gallery Teams searched the water in a reservoir in Portugal last month Speaking to The Independent about the recent search, forensics expert Dr Robert Green OBE, who previously worked for the Home Office and has worked on high-profile unsolved murder cases, felt investigators needed to “keep an open mind” as suspect Christian Brueckner should only be one line of inquiry. open image in gallery Forensics expert Dr Robert Green said we must not get too focused on prime suspect Christian Brueckner open image in gallery Recently, Brueckner - who is in jail for rape - was revealed to have protested his innocence and tried to claim he had nothing to do with Madeleine’s disappearance He stressed that the focus for the investigators should be on finding anything physical linking Brueckner to the case in an attempt to disprove the claim he is innocent. “You could potentially be looking at things that are not visible to the naked eye and using something like a microscope takes time.” open image in gallery Investigators will be hoping to have found something that links back to Madeleine’s case in their search of the reservoir Based on his own past experience, he explained investigators working on high-profile cases are “under an awful lot of pressure to update people regularly”, but people would need to be patient given the challenges of tackling a cold case like this.