Kate and Gerry McCann were today being briefed by detectives investigating a former Shropshire man as part of the hunt for their missing daughter Madeleine.

The couple were told of Raymond Hewlett and his possible link to their daughter’s disappearance after their private investigators spent the last week in the Algarve at the Praia da Luz resort where she went missing in May 2007.

Convicted paedophile Hewlett, 64, formerly of Telford, has been jailed several times for sexual offences against girls.

Hewlett was living at Wellsfield, Woodside, when he posed as a policeman and bundled a teenage papergirl into his car in Cheshire in 1988.

Kate and Gerry McCann were today being briefed by detectives investigating a former Shropshire man as part of the hunt for their missing daughter Madeleine.

The couple were told of Raymond Hewlett and his possible link to their daughter’s disappearance after their private investigators spent the last week in the Algarve at the Praia da Luz resort where she went missing in May 2007.

Convicted paedophile Hewlett, 64, formerly of Telford, has been jailed several times for sexual offences against girls.

Hewlett was living at Wellsfield, Woodside, when he posed as a policeman and bundled a teenage papergirl into his car in Cheshire in 1988.

The 43-year-old returned to his Telford home before fleeing to Ireland but returned to the borough about two weeks later and was arrested in Madeley.

He was jailed at Mold Crown Court for six years in June 1988 after he admitted kidnap, false imprisonment and indecent assault.

His string of crimes include the abduction of a 12-year-old girl in 1972 on moors in West Yorkshire and an attack on another girl six years later when he was jailed for four years.

Hewlett was also questioned over the 1975 murder of 11-year-old Lesley Molseed, following the release of Stefan Kiszko who was wrongly imprisoned for the crime. Another man Ronald Castree was eventually convicted of the girl’s murder in 2007.

West Yorkshire Police have today confirmed they want to speak to Mr Hewlett in connection with an indecent assault.

A spokeswoman for West Yorkshire Police said: “We are actively seeking him in connection with an indecent assault in 1975.”

Officers in Greater Manchester, Leicestershire and the Republic of Ireland are also believed to be hunting him. Clarence Mitchell, spokesman for Madeleine’s parents Kate and Gerry, said Hewlett was an “individual of interest” to the Maddy investigation.

He said: “We are aware of Raymond Hewlett and the claims that have been made about him in some newspapers.

“The investigators searching for Madeleine are currently looking into the circumstances surrounding these claims.

“Mr Hewlett is an individual of interest to the Madeleine investigation but I would stress it is just one line of inquiry.

“Beyond that I can’t really go into any further operational detail.”

He said Madeleine’s parents were “fully aware” of the development and added that the couple’s investigators had been in Portugal for the last week.

Mr Mitchell added: “It’s my understanding that if you are on the sexual offenders register you are supposed to alert the authorities to your movements.

“I understand that in this case Mr Hewlett’s whereabouts weren’t known to a number of police forces for some time.

“Now that he is being treated for an illness in Germany it’s up to the individual police forces as to what they do with that information.”

The Daily Mirror today published a picture of Hewlett and said he being treated for throat cancer in a German hospital.