Briton refuses McCann interview

Raymond Hewlett is understood to have been in Portugal in May 2007

Last-ditch efforts to interview a convicted British paedophile now living in Germany about the disappearance of Madeleine McCann have failed.

Raymond Hewlett is said to have been staying an hour's drive from the McCann's Portuguese holiday flat when Madeleine vanished.

Private detectives hoped to speak with him, but negotiations with his lawyer failed, the McCann's spokesman said.

The three-year-old disappeared from Praia de Luz, Portugal, in May 2007.

Retired UK policemen Dave Edgar and Arthur Cowley have been employed by Madeleine's parents Kate and Gerry McCann to look for their daughter.

'Very disappointed'

They flew to Germany on Tuesday in the hope of securing an interview with Mr Hewlett.

But Mr Edgar said he was "very disappointed" with Mr Hewlett's lawyer's behaviour.

He said: "I have been attempting to speak with Raymond Hewlett to eliminate him from our investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.

Any meaningful interview would not be possible Dave Edgar

"He is not a suspect but I was keen to interview him because of his failing health.

"I have tried over the past weeks to arrange this via his lawyer in Germany. These negotiations have been difficult."

Mr Edgar added that "any meaningful interview would not be possible" because of the frail state of Mr Hewlett's health.

The 64-year-old former soldier, who has lived in Blackpool and Telford, is being treated for throat cancer.

While in the UK he was jailed on a number of occasions for sexually assaulting young girls.

During one attack in 1978 he put a gun against his victim's back.

The Portuguese police have said they are no longer actively investigating the case but the McCanns are conducting a private investigation.

A spokesman for Leicestershire Police said the case "remains a Portuguese investigation and we would still pass any relevant information to the Portuguese".