A CONVICTED child molester wanted for questioning in connection with Madeleine McCann’s disappearance was jailed for six years for sexually assaulting a Cheshire schoolgirl.

Former soldier Raymond Hewlett, 64, was locked up after grabbing the 14-year-old on her paper round at knifepoint in Cuddington in 1988.

“You know what is going to happen to you now,” he told the terrified teenager when they arrived at a quarry 50 miles away in North Wales.

She was subjected to a brutal sex attack before being bundled into the boot of Hewlett’s car and dumped a further 50 miles away at another quarry.

Hewlett, who left a hospital in Aachen, Germany, this week after throat cancer surgery, is believed to have been living in the Algarve when Madeleine disappeared in May 2007. He has a history of sex attacks on girls.

He served 12 months for an indecent assault in 1972 and 16 months of a four-year sentence for another in 1978.

He is currently wanted for questioning by British police for the indecent assault of a young girl in Yorkshire more than 30 years ago.

Ex-Cheshire detective Dave Edgar, hired by Kate and Gerry McCann to find Madeleine, has so far failed to secure an interview with Hewlett as he has no legal authority as a private investigator.

But as he left hospital on Monday night, Hewlett said: “I have nothing to hide – I am willing to talk.”