Prince Philip is famously required to walk two steps behind his wife in public.
But is he required to stand two steps behind her, even when this leads to his head and that of his wife’s being on different sides of a theatrical curtain?
That’s what happened when the couple stood as they listened to the National Anthem today in Salisbury. The Queen and Duke of Edinburgh are visiting the South West of England as part of their Diamond Jubilee Tour of the country.
Just a few days shy of what would be Madeleine McCann’s 19th birthday, a break in the case points to everyone’s worst fears: that the young Briton was abducted, sold and killed by a pedophile sex ring that worked in and around the Portuguese resort town where she disappeared 15 years ago.
Thousands of tips and hundreds of sightings over the years led to dead ends until Christian Brückner was officially named a suspect on April 22 of this year. The 45-year-old German, who is in jail for raping a 72-year-old American in the same village where McCann disappeared,
denies taking any part in the crime. But in January 2022, a German documentary team found proof that Brückner did odd jobs at the Ocean Club in Praia da Luz in the spring of 2007 and would have been very familiar with the layout of the multi-building resort, including exits and less traveled lanes.
That documentary led Hans Christian-Wolters, a German prosecutor focusing on Brückner’s alleged involvement,to dig into case further. Last week, he first told a Portuguese television channel and then confirmed to The Daily Beast that they have proof that he was at the center of the disappearance.
