A former tour guide has told court that she is still physically suffering from a brutal sexual attack allegedly carried out by Christian Brueckner 20 years ago.
Hazel Behan, 40, who waived her anonymity, tearfully described her ordeal at the hands of the convicted rapist and pedophile.
He was sensationally named by German police in June 2020 as the man suspected of kidnapping Madeline McCann, but he has not yet been charged and is currently on trial for unrelated sexual crimes.
Mrs Behan told the court in Braunschweig, Germany, that she had been raped in June 2005 by a masked man who then whipped her and filmed her in her apartment in Praia da Roch, just minutes from the town of Praia da Luz. on the Algarve Coast, where Madeleine, who was three years old at the time, was kidnapped in May 2007.
The former Irish tour guide, who broke down in tears as Brueckner’s defense team carried out a brutal interrogation, revealed she was still bleeding as a result of the horrific sexual attack.
Hazel Behan, 40 (pictured), who waived her anonymity, tearfully described her ordeal at the hands of the convicted rapist and pedophile.
Christian Brueckner (pictured) was sensationally named by German police in June 2020 as the man suspected of kidnapping Madeline McCann.
The defense team questioned whether her rapist had used lubricant when he attacked her, leaving members of the public gallery horrified.
Brueckner’s lawyers also claimed that DNA evidence showed she had had sexual relations with her then-boyfriend Jason Coates immediately after the brutal rape.
She said: “I had sex before the incident because we were a couple and I had sex afterwards because we were a couple and had a child, but I didn’t have sex immediately afterwards.”
Behan contacted police after recognizing a photo of Brueckner, 47, and asked for information, and when asked why she was sure it was him, she gave her heartbreaking response.
She said: “When you spend time in this situation and you can’t see anything else in this human, it’s the only thing you can remember, they drilled a hole in my skull and I’ll never forget it.”
Brueckner’s defense conducted a brutal interrogation of the Irish woman
Behan, from Mullingar, Ireland, added that his eyes were completely lit up against the black mask and tight clothing he was wearing while he raped her.
She added: “They were so blue… all so dark that he had one, so they worked like lights, they were so bright, and I just know them.”
Behan went on to reveal that she managed to use the nightmare ordeal in a positive way, choosing to try and help other women in similar situations.
She told Judge Ute Insa Engeman: “I visited the rape crisis center and received the help I didn’t know I needed then.”
‘It made me think of many other women who were perhaps in a similar situation.
‘I never felt listened to, and that no one had listened to me. One morning I had been listening to the radio and on a program I listened to regularly there was a person talking about a completely different topic than rape. I thought it was great that she was so brave to use something terrible that had happened to her and use it in such a positive way.
Ms Behan detailed how the attacker threatened to kill her before fleeing down the balcony after the attack (pictured is the outside view of the apartment’s windows from the road).
Ms Behan was raped in an apartment in Praia da Rocha, Portugal, in 2004 (the exterior of the building is pictured)
The attacker entered Ms Behan’s room while she was sleeping and held a knife to her throat before carrying out the attack (interior view of the apartment block pictured).
‘So I wrote to the radio station and they invited me to speak on air. At first I didn’t really want to do it, but then I realized that I could do for other people what this person had done for me.
“First it was the radio, there were no plans for anything on television, but thanks to the radio there was an increase in calls to the rape crisis center, so they invited me to go on the late night show, so I accepted, and there were many reasons why I wanted to do it, for myself, to be heard.
Brueckner, currently serving a seven-year prison sentence for raping an elderly woman in Portugal in 2006, listened impassively without any visible sign of emotion.
He is accused of raping three women and carrying out a series of sexual assaults on children in the Algarve between 2000 and 2017.
The trial continues.
