British DJ who fled from Praia da Luz after being accused of grooming an under-age girl for sex.
Police found the car of Christian Ridout, 32, at Sevilla airport after he fled the Portuguese village where Maddie McCann was snatched in May last year.
Known as DJ Shifty, he had allegedly sent lewd messages to a 12-year-old British girl, whose mother found them on her mobile phone.
“He was sending my daughter messages offering to pick her up from school, and suggesting the most disgusting sex acts,”
“He was sending my daughter messages offering to pick her up from school, and suggesting the most disgusting sex acts,” her mother told the Daily Mail. “It went on for two months before I found out.
“He was suggesting he should pick her up from school. The messages were absolutely vile.”
“My youngest girl is quiet – and police said that it was a clear case of grooming. It was very sick. I couldn’t even read the final ones, but just phoned Christian. I said, ‘If you come anywhere near my daughters again I’ll kill you.’”
Ridout left Portugal a year before Maddie’s disappearance on May 3 but his parents still run the same pub and his name was given to police by concerned locals - although he has never been traced.
He also grew up in the same village of chief suspect Robert Murat, Almadena, some five miles from Praia da Luz.
The mother worked at his parent’s pub called the Plough and Harrow - which has been nicknamed The Plough and Paedophile by locals.
“He took all the money from the till at the Plough and Harrow and went to Spain that night,” she said.
“They later found his VW Golf at Seville airport, with his keys left hidden in the wheel arch and he was believed to have gone back to England.”