A FORMER detective who headed up the murder investigations of dad-of-three Garry Newlove and schoolgirl Shafilea Ahmed is now at the forefront of the hunt for Madeleine McCann.

Retired detective inspector Dave Edgar, who has more than 30 years’ experience with Cheshire Police and the RUC (Royal Ulster Constabulary), has joined forces with fellow ex-detective sergeant Arthur Cowley from Merseyside Police, who has worked on cold case reviews of old crimes, in the fight to bring the six-year-old home.

Mr Edgar, aged 52, received a judge’s commendation for his efforts in bringing Mr Newlove’s killers to justice.

The duo, who now run the Alpha Investigations Group have been hired by the Find Madeleine Fund to examine missed leads, and believe five separate sightings of a suspicious man could hold the key to solving the mystery of Madeleine’s disappearance.

Their theory, revealed in a Channel 4 documentary a week after the second anniversary of her disappearance on May 3, is that someone was watching the McCanns’ apartment in Praia da Luz for up to a week before Madeleine disappeared.

The retired policemen have now flown to Germany after a tip-off about the whereabouts of 64-year-old Raymond Hewlett, a British paedophile wanted by police and who was living an hour away from Praia da Luz at the time Madeleine was snatched.

Mr Edgar said: “In my experience random doesn’t happen. A passer-by doesn’t go in and pick up a child and take it. These things are planned. This offence happened in Praia da Luz. It's a very self-contained resort, and that's where I think the answer is."