Pictured: Third well searched by Portuguese divers for the body of Madeleine McCann

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Kate and Jerry McCann are ‘on tenterhooks’ as Portuguese divers search a well six miles from the Praia da Luz resort where Madeleine vanished 13 years ago.  

Detectives from the investigative Policia Judiciaria coordinated a search of the underground reservoir on Thursday morning.

A 15-strong team of rescue firefighters, including expert divers, spent 12 hours searching for any trace of missing Madeleine, acting on a tip-off that prime suspect Christian Brueckner’s van was often in the area.

The well, on the outskirts of the village of Budens, in the municipality of Vila do Bispo, is just six and a half miles from Praia da Luz, where Madeleine was last seen 13 years ago.

Overgrown by bushes and weeds, the pool is on an abandoned farm. 

Sources yesterday said the hunt may be extended to other nearby wells.  

Madeleine’s parents Kate and Jerry ‘are on tenterhooks’, their former spokesperson told the Sun this evening, adding the couple refuses to believe their child is dead until her remains are found.   

British police, who are not involved in the search, are keeping the couple up to date on any developments. 

The family’s ex publicist Clarence Mitchell said: ‘Kate and Gerry want answers more than anyone but while the Metropolitan Police are still treating Madeleine’s abduction as a missing people’s rather than a murder inquiry it gives them a glimmer of hope that she could still be alive.

‘They continue to hope until there is incontrovertible evidence which proves she is dead. They are being kept informed every step of the way.’ 

The well, the third in the Portuguese police’s search since Thursday, is close to a road just a short drive from the Ocean Club resort where the youngster was staying with her family.

Prime suspect Christian Brueckner is understood to have known the area well.

Portuguese broadcaster RTP claimed detectives have ‘fundamental evidence’ to be able to prove the 43-year-old German is responsible for Madeleine’s disappearance. 

News of the latest hunt comes after detectives undertook searches in wells in Vila do Bispo, a 20 minute drive west of Praia da Luz where the British youngster vanished.

Investigators reportedly brought in a team of specialist rescue firefighters who included expert divers to examine the water wells in Vila do Bispo on the Algarve.  

The broadcaster has also linked the German 43-year-old to another missing persons’ case in the Algarve resort of Silves.

RTP reporter Sandra Felgueiras last week revealed Breuckner had been arrested on suspicion of exposing himself to children in a playground a short drive from Praia da Luz in 2017 when he was on the run from German authorities.  

She also quizzed a couple the convicted paedophile used to live with in Portugal who claimed a Scotland Yard neighbour had been helping Algarve investigators probe Madeleine’s disappearance. 

There was no immediate official response from Portuguese police to the RTP well search claims.

The searches are said to have involved officers from Portugal’s GNR force, which tends to cover rural areas, as well as PJ investigators and the fire rescue team.

However, Portuguese newspaper Correio da Manha said no evidence Madeleine’s body had been abandoned in the wells had been found. 

After the recent appeal which led to Brueckner being identified as a suspect, Portuguese police were said to be on standby to search wells and other areas German prosecutors pinpointed as possible burial sites once they had extra information.

The convicted child sex offender, who was born in Würzburg under a different name believed to be Fischer, is currently behind bars in Germany and serving 21 months for dealing drugs in the German resort of Sylt.

His lawyers have reportedly filed a request for him to be released after serving two-thirds of his sentence, but prosecutors fear he may flee the country after his release. 

The serial sex offender is also facing a separate sentence for the rape of a 72-year-old American woman in Praia da Luz in 2005. 

During the attack, Brueckner reportedly bound, gagged, blindfolded and whipped his victim with a metal cane before raping her for 15 minutes.  

In late 2008, the sex offender was arrested on a European Arrest Warrant while living on the streets of Milan for the rape of the American pensioner and taken back to Germany where he was charged. 

In December 2019, a court in Braunschweig, near Hanover in north-central Germany, where he had lived before fleeing to Italy, convicted him of the rape after DNA from his hair was found in the woman’s holiday home.

However he is appealing the rape verdict on the grounds that his extradition from Italy was illegal, with Germany’s Federal High Court due to rule on the case. 

Brueckner was an 18-year-old backpacker when he moved from Germany to Praia da Luz in Portugal in 1995 after serving part of a two-year sentence for molesting a six-year-old girl in Wurzburg. 

He began working in catering in seaside resorts before reportedly becoming involved in trafficking drugs into the Algarve, according to his friends. 

Earlier this year, Brueckner was identified as the prime suspect into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann- who was three-years-old at the time she went missing. 

German prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters claimed authorities had ‘concrete evidence’ that the three-year-old was killed, and insisted that he had shared this information with Madeleine’s parents Kate and Gerry McCann in a letter.

‘We have concrete evidence that our suspect has killed Madeleine and this means she is dead,’ he said. ‘The parents have been told the German police have evidence that she is dead but we have not told them the details.’ 

Prosecutors in Germany also labelled Brueckner a ‘multiple sexual predator’ and claimed that he had been convicted of a child sex offence in his native Germany when he was just 17.

Despite the new information, the drifter, who reportedly has as many as 17 criminal convictions, was apparently overlooked by Portuguese police.

Following his identification as a suspect in the case, he has further been linked to the disappearances of six-year-old boy René Hasse in the Algarve, 1996, and five-year-old girl Igna Gehnricke in Germany, 2015. 

In June, it emerged Brueckner became a suspect for Scotland Yard in 2017 when he was said to have told a friend at a bar he ‘knew all about’ what had happened to Madeleine. 

According to Sky News, Brueckner was prompted to make the comment when her face appeared on a TV screen in a German pub during a UK appeal for information on the tenth anniversary of her disappearance.

The convicted child sex offender reportedly went on to show his friend a video of him raping a woman. 

It is understood that Brueckner lived in a remote farmhouse in Portugal from 1999 to 2006. 

The remote property is surrounded by disused water wells and sits on a hillside which leads on to a footpath to the beach where the little girl played.  

The farmhouse is also a 25-minute walk to the Ocean Club complex where Madeleine was on holiday with her parents and her twin siblings Sean and Amelie.

In 2014, detectives investigating the disappearance of the little girl sealed off an area of scrubland close to the farmhouse and used a ground-penetrating radar to examine whether there had been a disturbance in the soil. 

Earlier this month, detective revealed a new mobile phone lead into the Madeleine McCann case after a viewer on Germany’s Crimewatch recognised the phone number that suspect Bruckner is said to have phoned on the night the young girl vanished.  

Details of a call involving a mobile number allegedly used by Brueckner were revealed on the German show Aktenzeichen XY… Ungelöst.

Police previously said a phone linked to Brueckner had received a 30-minute call between 7.32pm and 8.02pm on the night Madeleine disappeared from the Ocean Club apartment complex. 

Last month the Metropolitan Police launched a fresh appeal into the disappearance of Madeleine and appealed for information about Brueckner and his movements.

DCI Mark Cranwell, from Operation Grange, said: ‘Following our appeal for information yesterday, I want to thank those members of the public who have contacted us.

‘As of 4pm today, Thursday June 4, 2020, we have received over 270 calls and emails into the incident room.

‘We are pleased with the information coming in, and it will be assessed and prioritised.

‘We continue to urge anyone with information to come forward and speak with us.’

Following their daughter’s disappearance in May of 2007, parents Kate and Gerry McCann, who had been dining in a nearby tapas restaurant as their children slept at their apartment, were questioned by the Portuguese authorities.

However they were soon found to be innocent and have since continued their long battle in trying to find their missing daughter. 

German authorities are now trying to track down Brueckner’s ex-girlfriend Nakscije Miftari, who may hold key information about Madeleine’s disappearance.