Madeleine McCann-linked paedophile fled 'on my passport' 
26 October 2014
SHOCKED: Rex Smith showed his passport to paedophile suspect Roderick Robinson.
The Madeleine McCann kidnap ring suspect fled from New Zealand to Portugal - on a passport he stole from a close Kiwi friend.
In an exclusive interview yesterday, New Zealand man Rex Smith said he once trusted Roderick Robinson, till police turned up on his Auckland doorstep and told him Robinson had used his passport to flee to Portugal.
Robinson, also known as Roderick Macdonald, has multiple warrants out for his arrest around the world. New Zealand police want him for offences from 2009, including the alleged indecent assaults of children in Hamilton and Auckland, and a Passport Act charge. That charge alleges he used Smith's passport to flee New Zealand.
The two men were once close friends - they spent time together at the Auckland retirement village where they both lived.
But Robinson was not well-liked: "There were 70-odd residents and none of the women liked him," Smith said. "Looking back on what he was, the women must have been picking up the vibes."
One woman resident told the Star-Times: "He told me he worked for the navy but he was a conman . . . none of [his stories] were true."
He was never visited by friends or family. His mail and junkmail would stack up in the shed.
Another neighbour, Don, said: "He called himself Captain Robinson - he reckoned he was a qualified captain for seagoing vessels. He told me he was going to take a vessel down to Tauranga and then sail to Fiji. And then he left, he left a whole lot of gear behind that had to get sold on his behalf."
"I was picking up his stuff and that's how I know he was using two different names because he was getting all these letters from social welfare and the power board . . . I thought, ‘What are you up to?' "
Smith had no idea his passport was missing until police knocked on his door. After asking if he knew Robinson and where he was, they told him they had been looking for the paedophile for three years.
They then asked to see Smith's passport. "I said it was in the drawer. I open the drawer, and it's not there."
Police told him his passport was found in Portugal and that Robinson had used it.
This month Robinson was arrested in Malta, and is being extradited to Britain to serve a sentence for abusing two girls there. British police also want to speak to him about a paedophile ring possibly operating in the Algarve in Portugal when 3-year-old Madeleine vanished from that area in 2007.
It is not known whether Robinson was in Portugal at the time of Madeleine's abduction, but he returned there in 2009, before being deported to Australia the following year to face charges of raping an 8-year-old girl.
Smith said he knows, with hindsight, how Robinson got his passport, which was brand new from the Department of Internal Affairs.
"I showed it to him and he said, ‘Oh, we're alike, aren't we?'
"I said, ‘No, not really.'
"I had to go to the toilet then, so I put it back where it was and he must have seen it."
Robinson had seemed like a regular person, whom Smith said he trusted. "Of course I'm annoyed. I'm annoyed because he's turned out to be the person he is - two-faced, a dark horse. He was an expert crim."
He said he had been entirely unaware of Robinson's criminal past. "It was a shock."
Robinson has reportedly travelled on stolen passports regularly.
www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/10663829/Madeleine-McCann-linked-paedophile-fled-on-my-passport
