Madeleine McCann disappeared during a holiday in Portugal

A PREDATORY German paedophile who will be sentenced tomorrow for abducting and murdering three boys has denied he is behind other child crimes, including the abduction of Madeleine McCann. 

Today we can reveal that Scotland Yard has been in contact with German detectives questioning Martin Ney, 41.

It follows our disclosure last May that Ney looks very like the photofit of a man seen acting suspiciously hours before Madeleine vanished from a holiday apartment in Portugal in May 2007.

The photofit was drawn up by a woman who saw a man leaving the rear of the next-door apartment. She said he very “quietly” closed the gate and looked around nervously to see if he was being watched. The photofit was published in Kate McCann’s best-selling book, Madeleine.

When we asked the Yard why officers were interested in Ney, it issued a terse statement saying: “We are not prepared to discuss it.”

Ney, who faces life in prison, claims he is not guilty of a series of other child ­murders across Europe. According to the Spanish newspaper El Mundo, he would be familiar with the Algarve coastline having travelled to Portugal in the mid-Nineties.

British detectives are believed to be interested in Ney’s communications in internet chat rooms in which he used the nickname Gerd X. Although Ney claims his last child murder was in 2002, they found a posting by him in March last year which said: “Gerd X moves on to the next boy.”

In a 2002 posting he bragged: “I bought a camouflage suit to jump out of the bushes in children’s playgrounds if a beautiful boy goes past.”

The softly spoken youth worker was free to kill for 20 years. His first victim was Stefan Jahrd, 13, in 1992. Three years later he murdered Dennis Rostel, eight. Six years after that he snatched nine-year-old Dennis Kleinfrom.

Kai Thomas Breas, spokesman for the German prosecutors, told the Sunday Express: “He has said he hasn’t killed in Portugal. 

“German police have been in contact with Scotland Yard. We think he had a sexual interest only in boys.”