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The search for missing toddler Katrice Lee took a dramatic turn tonight as it was revealed the name of a potential suspect has been handed to police.

The informant said he had served in the RAF with the man he identified from a Royal Military Police photo-fit.

The suspect was seen putting a child similar to Katrice into a green saloon car when she vanished from a supermarket in Germany in November 1981 on her second birthday.

After talking to police, he told the Mirror: “I trained for the RAF with a guy who looks exactly like the picture of the man with the green car.

“We went our separate ways in 1980 and I don’t know where he was posted to but the police seemed interested in what I had to say.”

Based on a witness account, the photo-fit was made after Katrice’s disappearance but only released during a review of the investigation last year.

(Image: PA) (Image: PA)

It was then reissued last week when a new hunt for Katrice began, as the RMP, backed up by 100 soldiers, began a five-week excavation of a river bank near Paderborn military base in Germany.

Katrice, from Hartlepool, was in a NAAFI supermarket with mum Sharon and aunt Wendy while dad Richard, a sergeant major at the base, was outside parking the car.

He walked in to find now ex-wife Sharon sobbing and Katrice gone – the start of a 37-year ordeal for the family.

It is believed the green car was seen at both the supermarket and by the river that is now the scene of a forensic dig, visited by dad Richard.

The 68-year-old has blasted the RMP for blunders in the initial probe and subsequent years.

(Image: Daily Mirror)

“I believe the whole investigation has been a complete and utter sham,” he said.

Speaking as the search got underway last week, he added: “We were never listened to from day one.

"As soon as Katrice went missing, we asked police to check border controls. At that time there were still border crossings where you had to produce identification.”

He remains convinced his daughter was either taken to be sold to a childless couple, or taken by a couple who wanted a child of their own.

“I’m hoping they find nothing,” he said. “She could be speaking a foreign language by now. I could be a grandparent and not know it.”

Tonight he said he was unaware of the latest development, but added: “They won’t make me aware until they have had 100% confirmation. You have to allow them to do their job.

(Image: PA)

“If they follow up leads they have been given and it proves factual, they will let me know. What they don’t like is building me up and letting me drop.”

Katrice’s sister Natasha, 43, said the current search was such a “double-edged sword”. “I don’t want them to find her there,” she said. “But if they did that would also bring closure.”

While campaigning in 2012, Sharon also complained bitterly about the investigation.

“It took six weeks for the girls working on the checkout on the day that my daughter disappeared to be interviewed. And in one case it took 20 years for one of those members of staff to be interviewed.

(Image: PA)

“It also took 48 hours for border control points to be informed my two-year-old daughter was missing and it took 24 hours for the sniffer dogs to be brought in to the NAAFI to pick up a scent for Katrice.”

She will never forget the day at the shop, when she realised she had forgotten to pick up crisps.

After getting them and returning to the checkout, Katrice was not there.

Her sister, Wendy, thought Katrice had run after her mum.

It was every family’s worst nightmare. They quickly raised the alarm and frantically searched the shop shouting out the youngster’s name.

The Lee family dismisses the theory that Katrice fell in the river, saying she would never go near water.

One suspect was arrested under Operation Bute and released without charge. The case was then closed again.

The Ministry of Defence said last night that it was unable to comment on an ongoing investigation.