The man suspected of abducting Madeleine McCann is due to face trial accused of raping an Irish woman while she was living and working in Portugal.
He will tomorrow go on trial charged with a total of three rapes and two sex assaults against four people – the youngest of whom was ten years old at the time.The alleged victims include an Irish woman who has said she was raped twice, threatened with a knife, tied up, dragged by the hair and subjected to a prolonged attack by a tall, slim German-speaking man after he broke into her apartment in the resort of Praia da Rocha on Portugal's Algarve coast in 2004.
She has claimed Portuguese police failed to investigate her rape properly, failed to record a formal statement and told her,"It would ruin the holiday trade".