Disgraced Portuguese ex-cop who blasted Madeleine McCann’s parents in Netflix doc begins seven-year jail sentence after losing bid to overturn kidnap and burglary convictions

A former Portuguese detective who attacked Madeleine McCann’s parents in a Netflix documentary has been jailed for seven and a half years.

Paulo Pereira Cristovao, a longtime critic of Kate and Gerry McCann who also angered Madeleine’s parents by writing a controversial book about their daughter’s mysterious disappearance in 2008, is now behind bars.

He had been fighting convictions for kidnap and burglary for more than four years, but the disgraced 55-year-old was forced to admit defeat after his latest appeal failed.

He has now turned himself in to Evora prison, a prison 180 kilometers north of the Algarve village of Praia da Luz, where the toddler went missing on May 3, 2007.

Pereira Cristovao was convicted in December 2019 of taking part in the planning of two violent burglaries of properties in Lisbon and the nearby resort of Cascais.

Paulo Pereira Cristovao is a former Portuguese detective who attacked the parents of Madeleine McCann (pictured), who disappeared in Portugal in 2007

Prosecutors had accused him during a trial that ended last month of being a major player in an organized crime ring by providing accomplices with information about the target’s victims and homes.

The ex-police officer, who left the Policia Judiciaria after a torture trial that also involved Madeleine McCann’s former chief investigator Goncalo Amaral and was found guilty, could remain a free man pending his appeal.

It emerged for the first time that Pereira Cristovao was on trial when he played a prominent role in the Netflix documentary The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann, which premiered on the streaming service in March 2019.

He was a constant critic of Kate and Gerry McCann and called for them to be arrested for leaving their children alone in their holiday apartment in the Algarve after Madeleine disappeared on May 3, 2007.

He claimed in a 2008 book called The Star of Madeleine that the toddler was dead and her body had been dumped in the sea.

His novel, based on the real police investigation that he claimed was hampered by interference from British authorities, ended with two fictional officers staring out into the Atlantic Ocean after a massive search for land.

He mysteriously claimed that two of the McCanns’ holiday friends – the so-called Tapas Seven – were ‘fundamental’ to discovering the truth about Madeleine.

The couple’s spokesman Clarence Mitchell at the time called his comments “hurtful and disturbing” and accused him of trying to profit from the McCanns’ misfortune.

Pereira Cristovao wrote his book prior to his 2009 trial for allegedly torturing the mother and uncle of a missing girl into making a false confession while he was still a PJ inspector.

After he was acquitted, he became head of the Portuguese Association for Missing Children.

Pereira Cristovao has been a constant critic of Kate and Gerry McCann (pictured in 2012 with an age-appropriate mugshot of their daughter) and called for them to be arrested for leaving their children alone in their holiday apartment in the Algarve.

Pal Goncalo Amaral, who overturned a libel damages ruling over his best-selling book The Truth of The Lie, which the McCanns fought all the way to the European Court of Human Rights, was found guilty of falsifying evidence in the same case .

Joana Cipriano disappeared in September 2004 at the age of eight from Figueira, eleven kilometers from Praia da Luz where Madeleine was staying.

Her mother Leonor and uncle Joao were sentenced to 16 years for killing her, despite their claims that they had been tortured into falsely pleading guilty.

Judges ruled that Leonor was injured at a PJ station in Faro, but could not say how she suffered her injuries.

Pereira Cristovao, a former president of top Portuguese football team Sporting Lisbon, admitted involvement in misconduct before his trial at a court in Cascais, which ended in November 2019 when judges retired to consider their verdicts.

But he denied prosecution claims that he was a gang leader and insisted that after the guilty plea he had been convicted of crimes, including kidnapping, that he did not commit.

His lawyer told the hearing that he had returned the £8,500 commission he received for one of the raids to a victim.

All but one of the 16 suspects were convicted in the 2014 raids, led by police officers with fake search warrants who used the illegal operations to steal cash and other valuables.

In one case, a couple and their daughter were kidnapped and the perpetrators took more than £100,000.

Two police officers, both fired before the trial, were each sentenced to 17 and 16 years in prison.

Nuno Vieira Mendes, the alleged leader of a hooligan group better known by his nickname Mustafa, was sentenced to six years and four months in prison.

Cristovao claimed in a 2008 book called The Star of Madeleine that the toddler (pictured on May 3, 2007 – the day she went missing) was dead and her body had been dumped in the sea.

Cristovao mysteriously claimed that two of the McCanns’ holiday friends – the so-called Tapas Seven – were ‘fundamental’ to discovering the truth about Madeleine. The couple’s spokesman Clarence Mitchell at the time called his comments “hurtful and disturbing” and accused him of trying to profit from the McCanns’ misfortune.

Prosecutors said he received instructions from Pereira Cristovao and passed them on to a relative, who then got the convicted police officers to carry out the raids.

Mustafa’s appeal also failed, but reports in Portugal say he is now a wanted man after failing to turn himself in to serve his prison sentence after being released on bail after contesting his conviction.

Pereira Cristovao faces a new trial in an unrelated case on charges of fraud, embezzlement and money laundering.

Convicted pedophile and rapist Christian Brueckner, Madeleine McCann’s sole suspect, will stand trial on February 16 in the German city of Braunschweig for three aggravated rapes and two crimes of sexual abuse against children that he allegedly committed in Portugal between 2000 and 2017 .