SMITHMAN 2 - What can account for the 17 remarkable similarities between Tannerman and Smithman?

Tony Bennett wrote:A new video released on YouTube yesterday (7 September) by one Thomas Baden-Riess - "Why are people so reluctant to question the Smith sighting?" - makes some very valid points about the Smith sightings:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAoQB39tXlM

In a short 3-minute video, he has taken the trouble to understand some of my concerns about the Smiths' evidence - and that's without going into the whole related issue of how the Smiths could possibly have seen someone for a few seconds in the dark, and over a year later could have remembered enough about the man they (hardly) saw as to come up with TWO different-looking men, ridiculously claimed by DCI Redwood to be the same man

logical wrote:Good points Newintown
But Tonys been stymied by the short n curlys about what he can say about the macs .
I do admire greatly all the time and effort hes put into this case but cant for the life of me understand his stance on the Smiths unless hes been got at. ?? Imo

Newintown wrote:

logical wrote:Good points Newintown
But Tonys been stymied by the short n curlys about what he can say about the macs .
I do admire greatly all the time and effort hes put into this case but cant for the life of me understand his stance on the Smiths unless hes been got at. ?? Imo

Yes, I agree about the McCanns, I forgot that he is not allowed to say anything untowards about them (that's what we've been told), but to put so much effort into discrediting the Smiths and Murat seems to go beyond anyone's natural thinking unless as you say "he's been got at" which would account for his obsession to discredit them at all costs.

You would have to sell your soul to the devil though to discredit people for ££££££££££ when you have no idea whether they've had any part in the disappearance of Madeleine but you can overlook her parents in her disappearance for ££££££££££

palm tree wrote:Yes he is woofer, but I still just can't get my head around a grandfather laying the blame on the father of a missing child either, when they would have been going through hell already. IMO Martin had no reason to blame gm, but was at least 60% to 80% sure it was him. If he knows it wasn't gm, why would he say this? Confused!
IMO

palm tree wrote:Yes he is woofer, but I still just can't get my head around a grandfather laying the blame on the father of a missing child either, when they would have been going through hell already. IMO Martin had no reason to blame Gerry McCann, but was at least 60% to 80% sure it was him. If he knows it wasn't GM, why would he say this? Confused!  ---  IMO

Tony Bennett wrote:

palm tree wrote:Yes he is woofer, but I still just can't get my head around a grandfather laying the blame on the father of a missing child either, when they would have been going through hell already. IMO Martin had no reason to blame Gerry McCann, but was at least 60% to 80% sure it was him. If he knows it wasn't GM, why would he say this? Confused!  ---  IMO

@ palm tree

The issue of why Martin Smith was so sure he recognised Gerry McCann when he saw him coming down the plane steps on 9 September 2007 is indeed one of the major puzzles about the Smiths' evidence. I will try and address that and other key problems about the Smiths sighting in this post - by summing up a few of the key questions we have to ask about the Smiths' claims. They are:

1. Why did he - and the whole family - wait 13 days before reporting their sighting?

@ Woofer: You said: "I don't know about other posters, but I would like to think he did in fact report the sighting to the Portuguese police 2 days after MBM's disappearance as per the Mirror and Irish Central news reports on 15th October last year.

REPLY: Whatever we may like to think, none of the Smiths made any mention when talking to the police or the press (as they also did) of reporting the sighting to the PJ 'after 2 days'. In fact, very much to the contrary, both Martin Smith and his son Peter Smith both agree that on 16 May, the very day after Robert Murat was made a suspect in the case, Peter 'phoned his father and asked: 'Am I dreaming, but did we see a man carrying a child on the evening of 3 May?'   

@ Dont Make Me Laff: You wrote:  "To report something takes a lot of guts (been there) sometimes it takes a lot of sleepless nights and arguing with one's conscience before one builds the courage to bite the bullet to speak out. I have no doubt MS was in turmoil and was tormented by the consequences but he found the courage to speak out and for that he must be applauded".

REPLY: The problem with that is there is no evidence whatsoever to support your belief that he was 'tormented'. On the contrary, to read what Martin Smith has said, he wasn't even thinking about making a report until his son spoke about his apparently sudden recollection of the sighting.

2. Why were they prompted into making a statement by the news of Robert Murat being made a suspect?

My suggestion is that it is connected with Martin Smith's acquaintance with Murat, which we know from the Smiths' own mouths (though they did not admit this at first) amounted to 'several meetings' over a perod of at least 'two years'. I think they were friends, but accept that's not yet capable of proof.
I think they where friend
What we need to do is put together the timing - just after Murat was made a suspect - with the content of what Smith said - namely that the one thing he was certain of is that this man definitely was not Robert Murat. Murat seems to be the trigger

3. Why was his description of Smithman near identical to Jane tanner's description of Tannerman?

I have dealt with this previously on the forum by pointing out what I said were no fewer than 17 similarities between the two descriptions. My critics have gleefully pointed out that I said that both said that the child's hair was blonde, yet apparently Jane Tanner never said that. OK, I accept the correction. But that still leaves SIXTEEN uncanny similarities between the two descriptions, such as the colour of the clothes, and the more-than-faintly ridiculous "he didn't look like a tourist". 

4. Why was Martin Smith so sure it was Gerry McCann he had seen on 3 May?

@ palm tree - As you quite rightly say, clearly Martin Smith knew exactly hat he was doing. He was telling the Portuguese Police that he was as sure as he could be that this was Dr Gerald McCann carrying his recently-died young daughter through the streets of Praia da Luz. One of the things we need to do is assess the credibility of a man who sees virtually nothing of the face of the man he claims to have seen, yet over 4 months later, and two days after Gerry McCann is named a suspect, insists that based only on the way he was carrying his child - the same way in fact that everyone else normally carries a sleeping or tired child - that it must be Gerry McCann.

In addition to that, we have evidence from newspaper reports that Martin Smith later denied he was so sure it was Gerry McCann, and judging by his active co-operation with Operation Grange, namely his two visits to see DCI Andy Redwood in 2012 and again in 2013, he is now allying himself with the McCann Team and Operation Grange in pursing the elusive abductor. In addition, it is clear that he has co-operated with the McCann Team's agents, Brian Kennedy, Kevin Halligen and Henri Exton.

5. What did Brian Kennedy want from Martin Smith, and what did Martin Smith give him?

We know that Brian Kennedy contacted Martin Smith, apparently in early 2008. Presumably, by then, the McCann Team knew that Smith had claimed that Gerry was carrying his dead child through the streets of Praia da Luz to hide her body. So it was obvious why Kennedy wanted to talk to him, and here we might well recall that back in August 2009, Mark Hollingsworth told us in an article in the Evening Standard that Kennedy's men intimidated some witnesses in the Madeleine McCann case so severely that they subsequently refused to give evidence.

6. Did the Smiths draw up those two e-fits clearly of two different men?

The Smiths are claimed to have drawn up these efits in 2008. I thought this was in the spring of 2008, but I saw one authoritative report recently which asserted that this was in October 2008. No matter, it seems that at least one year after seeing this man

in the dark
with weak street lighting
only for a few seconds at most
his face being hidden
with all three Smith witnesses saying they'd never be able to recognise him again, and
when Martin Smith was not wearing his glasses

it is claimed that they were perfectly capable of drawing up two efits, which were actually of two different blokes - thin triangular face young man, and fat rectangular face man.

I don't buy this for one moment, and quite frankly I am really surprised that anyone at all could accept this claim at face value?  

A POSSIBLE MOTIVE FOR LYING 

@ Dont Make Me Laff

My critics re Smithman have one key argument in their favour: what possible motive could the Smiths have for lying, and how can you accuse them, and a 12-year-old girl, of lying?

@ Dont Make Me Laff

You said: "He is a quiet family man who just wanted to do the right thing..."

With respect, we cannot assume that, and we must look at the evidence.

Here are three things about Martin Smith and his evidence that should at least make us pause for doubt:

1. Newspaper reports claimed he was 'a former Unilever executive'. This has not been substantiated
2. Other newspaper reports claimed that he was a former senior army officer. This has not been substantiated either
3. In the prospectus for his Golf Net Ltd company, and apparently in a bid to gain funding for his company from an Irish business support agency, Martin Smith purported to have as fellow Directors some of the biggest names in international corporate business. If that was a barefaced lie, then he has form for lying.
Newspaper reports  :please:
I am asked what possible motive Martin Smith could have for lying and for getting his 12-year-old daughter to lie.

These are some common reasons for lying:

1. Money
2. Fear
3. Helping a relative or friend.

In this case, the evidence we have tends to point to the third reasons - a friendship of some kind with Murat.
Someone he might have met a few times a friendship
I link that to my thoughts that they may be two camps involved somehow in what happened to Madeleine. I would loosely call them 'the McCann camp' and 'the Murat camp'.

How else, for example, can we explain why Jane Tanner claimed it was Murat she saw on 3 May? Why Rachael Oldfield said she saw Murat outside the Ocean Club on the evening of 3 May. Why did Russell O'Brien say the same? Why did Fiona Payne say the same. Four of them ganging up on Murat in the very early days. Without Jane Tanner's evidence, Murat might never have been made a suspect.
Because none of them told the truth
And what was that meeting at the Eveleighs on 13 November all about.

Face to face at that meeting was:

1. The McCann Team, represented by their top investigator, Brian Kennedy, and his lawyer and the McCanns' 'co-ordinating lawyer', Senior Freemason Edward Smethurst

2. The Murat Team, represented by Murat, his mother, his aunt and uncle, and his lawyer Francisco Pagarete.

What was this meeting really about? It certainly wasn't, as Kennedy tried to claim later, to offer Murat a job looking for Madeleine.

Was it a summit meeting of the two camps, trying to resolve their differences, with lawyers present to make sure all the loose ends were tied up?

It's common for there to be two rival camps who can fall out spectacularly:

sellers and buyers
providers and users
producers and consumers.

As I've said before, a fly on the wall at that meeting, equipped with a recording device, could probably solve the whole case for us.

Tony Bennett wrote:

palm tree wrote:Yes he is woofer, but I still just can't get my head around a grandfather laying the blame on the father of a missing child either, when they would have been going through hell already. IMO Martin had no reason to blame Gerry McCann, but was at least 60% to 80% sure it was him. If he knows it wasn't GM, why would he say this? Confused!  ---  IMO

@ palm tree

The issue of why Martin Smith was so sure he recognised Gerry McCann when he saw him coming down the plane steps on 9 September 2007 is indeed one of the major puzzles about the Smiths' evidence. I will try and address that and other key problems about the Smiths sighting in this post - by summing up a few of the key questions we have to ask about the Smiths' claims. They are:

1. Why did he - and the whole family - wait 13 days before reporting their sighting?

@ Woofer: You said: "I don't know about other posters, but I would like to think he did in fact report the sighting to the Portuguese police 2 days after MBM's disappearance as per the Mirror and Irish Central news reports on 15th October last year.

REPLY: Whatever we may like to think, none of the Smiths made any mention when talking to the police or the press (as they also did) of reporting the sighting to the PJ 'after 2 days'. In fact, very much to the contrary, both Martin Smith and his son Peter Smith both agree that on 16 May, the very day after Robert Murat was made a suspect in the case, Peter 'phoned his father and asked: 'Am I dreaming, but did we see a man carrying a child on the evening of 3 May?'   

Tony - IMO we wouldn`t necessarily know from the Smith`s statements that they had previously reported the sighting.  And the sighting could still have been reported by them 2 days after as well as Peter `phoning his father and asking him `Am I dreaming etc.` Remember Peter had already gone home 2 days after the sighting and maybe hadn`t seen his father since, so phoned him up not knowing his father had reported it.


@ Dont Make Me Laff: You wrote:  "To report something takes a lot of guts (been there) sometimes it takes a lot of sleepless nights and arguing with one's conscience before one builds the courage to bite the bullet to speak out. I have no doubt MS was in turmoil and was tormented by the consequences but he found the courage to speak out and for that he must be applauded".

REPLY: The problem with that is there is no evidence whatsoever to support your belief that he was 'tormented'. On the contrary, to read what Martin Smith has said, he wasn't even thinking about making a report until his son spoke about his apparently sudden recollection of the sighting.

Tony - I don`t agree - you have no proof that he was NOT tormented.

2. Why were they prompted into making a statement by the news of Robert Murat being made a suspect?

My suggestion is that it is connected with Martin Smith's acquaintance with Murat, which we know from the Smiths' own mouths (though they did not admit this at first) amounted to 'several meetings' over a perod of at least 'two years'. I think they were friends, but accept that's not yet capable of proof.

What we need to do is put together the timing - just after Murat was made a suspect - with the content of what Smith said - namely that the one thing he was certain of is that this man definitely was not Robert Murat. Murat seems to be the trigger

Tony - it could be as simple as he knew it wasn`t Murat so he thought he ought to report it, no matter whether he knew him casually or well.

3. Why was his description of Smithman near identical to Jane tanner's description of Tannerman?

I have dealt with this previously on the forum by pointing out what I said were no fewer than 17 similarities between the two descriptions. My critics have gleefully pointed out that I said that both said that the child's hair was blonde, yet apparently Jane Tanner never said that. OK, I accept the correction. But that still leaves SIXTEEN uncanny similarities between the two descriptions, such as the colour of the clothes, and the more-than-faintly ridiculous "he didn't look like a tourist". 

Now this I agree could be relevant, but IMO it could be that GM went back to JT, said `I`ve flippin well been seen by a group of people - make up a story about seeing a man similar to me carrying a child but going in the opposite direction`.


4. Why was Martin Smith so sure it was Gerry McCann he had seen on 3 May?

@ palm tree - As you quite rightly say, clearly Martin Smith knew exactly hat he was doing. He was telling the Portuguese Police that he was as sure as he could be that this was Dr Gerald McCann carrying his recently-died young daughter through the streets of Praia da Luz. One of the things we need to do is assess the credibility of a man who sees virtually nothing of the face of the man he claims to have seen, yet over 4 months later, and two days after Gerry McCann is named a suspect, insists that based only on the way he was carrying his child - the same way in fact that everyone else normally carries a sleeping or tired child - that it must be Gerry McCann.

In addition to that, we have evidence from newspaper reports that Martin Smith later denied he was so sure it was Gerry McCann, and judging by his active co-operation with Operation Grange, namely his two visits to see DCI Andy Redwood in 2012 and again in 2013, he is now allying himself with the McCann Team and Operation Grange in pursing the elusive abductor. In addition, it is clear that he has co-operated with the McCann Team's agents, Brian Kennedy, Kevin Halligen and Henri Exton.

I don`t see anything suspicious about the sight of seeing GM coming down the steps of the place and MS having a revelation that it`s the man he saw. Yes, most people do carry children that way but, as someone has already said, if it had been any other man, say John McCann or ROB or DP coming down the steps it wouldn`t have set off alarms.
As regards him `co-operating` with TM, he could have been frightened off.


5. What did Brian Kennedy want from Martin Smith, and what did Martin Smith give him?

We know that Brian Kennedy contacted Martin Smith, apparently in early 2008. Presumably, by then, the McCann Team knew that Smith had claimed that Gerry was carrying his dead child through the streets of Praia da Luz to hide her body. So it was obvious why Kennedy wanted to talk to him, and here we might well recall that back in August 2009, Mark Hollingsworth told us in an article in the Evening Standard that Kennedy's men intimidated some witnesses in the Madeleine McCann case so severely that they subsequently refused to give evidence.

See above

6. Did the Smiths draw up those two e-fits clearly of two different men?

The Smiths are claimed to have drawn up these efits in 2008. I thought this was in the spring of 2008, but I saw one authoritative report recently which asserted that this was in October 2008. No matter, it seems that at least one year after seeing this man

in the dark
with weak street lighting  there was a full moon
only for a few seconds at most
his face being hidden - not totally
with all three Smith witnesses saying they'd never be able to recognise him again, and
when Martin Smith was not wearing his glasses

it is claimed that they were perfectly capable of drawing up two efits, which were actually of two different blokes - thin triangular face young man, and fat rectangular face man. This could be the same bloke but from the memory of 2 separate witnesses.  But I understand you have information about this efit that you cannot share.

I don't buy this for one moment, and quite frankly I am really surprised that anyone at all could accept this claim at face value?  

A POSSIBLE MOTIVE FOR LYING 

@ Dont Make Me Laff

My critics re Smithman have one key argument in their favour: what possible motive could the Smiths have for lying, and how can you accuse them, and a 12-year-old girl, of lying?

@ Dont Make Me Laff

You said: "He is a quiet family man who just wanted to do the right thing..."

With respect, we cannot assume that, and we must look at the evidence.

Deleted.

I am asked what possible motive Martin Smith could have for lying and for getting his 12-year-old daughter to lie.  You don`t literally get a 12 year old to lie - an image can be planted in a child`s mind purely by subtle suggestion.  This I do find hard to believe though.

These are some common reasons for lying:

1. Money
2. Fear
3. Helping a relative or friend.

In this case, the evidence we have tends to point to the third reasons - a friendship of some kind with Murat.

I link that to my thoughts that they may be two camps involved somehow in what happened to Madeleine. I would loosely call them 'the McCann camp' and 'the Murat camp'.

How else, for example, can we explain why Jane Tanner claimed it was Murat she saw on 3 May? Why Rachael Oldfield said she saw Murat outside the Ocean Club on the evening of 3 May. Why did Russell O'Brien say the same? Why did Fiona Payne say the same. Four of them ganging up on Murat in the very early days. Without Jane Tanner's evidence, Murat might never have been made a suspect.  Perhaps because they did actually see him and later had to retract it for some reason.

And what was that meeting at the Eveleighs on 13 November all about.

Face to face at that meeting was:

1. The McCann Team, represented by their top investigator, Brian Kennedy, and his lawyer and the McCanns' 'co-ordinating lawyer', Senior Freemason Edward Smethurst

2. The Murat Team, represented by Murat, his mother, his aunt and uncle, and his lawyer Francisco Pagarete.

What was this meeting really about? It certainly wasn't, as Kennedy tried to claim later, to offer Murat a job looking for Madeleine.

Was it a summit meeting of the two camps, trying to resolve their differences, with lawyers present to make sure all the loose ends were tied up?

It's common for there to be two rival camps who can fall out spectacularly:

sellers and buyers
providers and users
producers and consumers.

As I've said before, a fly on the wall at that meeting, equipped with a recording device, could probably solve the whole case for us.

Woofer wrote:

Tony - IMO we wouldn't necessarily know from the Smiths' statements that they had previously reported the sighting.  And the sighting could still have been reported by them 2 days after as well as Peter 'phoning his father and asking him 'Am I dreaming' etc. Remember Peter had already gone home 2 days after the sighting and maybe hadn't seen his father since, so 'phoned him up not knowing his father had reported it.

REPLY: For the record:
1. Peter Smith went home the next day (4 May)
2. Martin Smith returned to Ireland on 9 May and so had a whole 7 days at home with his family before reporting his claimed 'sighting to the police, and
3. There was never any mention by Martin Smith or anyone of his claimed 'early reporrt to the PJ' until two days after the BBC CrimeWatch McCann Special    

Tony - I don't agree - you have no proof that he was NOT tormented.

REPLY: I fully agree with your statement. But 'Dont Make Me Laff' wrote:  "I have no doubt MS was in turmoil". No doubt? 'Dont Make Me Laff' has no proof, so his statement is sheer speculation without a jot of evidence.

Tony - it could be as simple as he knew it wasn't Murat so he thought he ought to report it, no matter whether he knew him casually or well.

REPLY: There is an uncomfortable coincidence of timing in Martin Smith's two statements. The one denying he saw Murat was made the day after Robert Murat was made a suspect. The one saying that it was Gerry McCann he had seen was made two days after Gerry McCann was made a suspect  

Now this [this SIXTEEN uncanny similarities between the descriptions of Tannerman and then Smithman] I agree could be relevant, but IMO it could be that GM went back to JT, said 'I've flippin well been seen by a group of people - make up a story about seeing a man similar to me carrying a child but going in the opposite direction'.

REPLY: I have said previously that the notion that Gerry McCann carried his dead daughter through the streets of Praia da Luz from their apartment to the beach at the very same time as his wife and friends were raising the alarm is very far-fetched 

I don't see anything suspicious about the sight of seeing GM coming down the steps of the place and MS having a revelation that it's the man he saw. Yes, most people do carry children that way but, as someone has already said, if it had been any other man, say John McCann or ROB or DP coming down the steps it wouldn't have set off alarms.

REPLY: OK, we disagree.

As regards him 'co-operating' with TM, he could have been frightened off.

REPLY: In the light of Mark Hollingsworth's evidence that Kennedy's men intimidated witnesses in the case into silence, this msut be considered a possibility

There was a full moon

REPLY: And a 'blue moon' into the bargain, an event of deep significance for many who practice the occult arts (a blue moon being one of the two full moons which occur in the same calendar month. May 2007 was a 'blue moon' month with full moons on 2nd and 30th May). But your point was that a full moon would create light enough perhaps for a face to be recognised. However, if you look at the evidence PeterMac has accumulated, it appears that it was a cloudy evening; if so, your point would not be relevant. No witness has said it was a bright moonlit evening, all say it was dark

The face [of the man said to have been seen by the Smiths] was not totally hidden

REPLY: I agree, but all say it was hidden in part and I think two of the three say they couldn't really see his face properly  

The [two e-fits] could be the same bloke but from the memory of 2 separate witnesses.

REPLY: OK, but do you accept that they look completely different:

fat face v thin face
rectangular face v triangular face
older man v younger man?

If so, how can the two efits be so very different. What does that say about the value of those two efits. Think about this for a moment. In how many other cases do the police show us two efits of the man they are after who look quite different?    

But I understand you have information about this efit that you cannot share.

REPLY: I have a lead on who one or both faces might be, but can't go further than that at the moment. This lead came to me some time after I began publicly challenging the 'Smithmam' sighting 

You don't literally get a 12 year old to lie - an image can be planted in a child' mind purely by subtle suggestion.  This I do find hard to believe though.

REPLY: OK, let's look together at Aoife Smith's statement, which is actually the most detailed of the three statements (my comments in purple).  The main features of Aoife Smith’s statement were as follows:
 

•           she was staying in Praia da Luz with her mother (Mary) and father (Martin), her elder brother, Peter, his wife Sian and two children aged 10 and 4, her aunt Barbara and her two children aged 13 and 6, in the Estrela da Luz complex (where the family go three times a year)

•           they left the Dolphin restaurant at about 9.30pm [NOTE: Martin Smith says ‘about 9.00pm']. They were then in Kelly’s bar for ‘about 30 minutes’, leaving ‘around 10.00pm’. She claims that she knows the time “because her brother and father decided to leave early that night”. There were two reasons for this: her sister-in-law was not feeling very well and the other reason had to do with her brother, sister-in-law, nephew and son of her sister-in-law, who were catching a flight to Ireland the very next day”.

•           she recollects seeing the man just after reaching the top of some steps leading to the Rua 25 de Abril. She says she turned left at the top of the steps, “looked to her left and saw a man carrying a child in his arms, walking down the Rua 25 de Abril”. He was about 2 metres (6 feet) away. She says that the man “crossed to the other side of the Rua 25 de Abril and began walking on the street that leads to the primary school, in the direction of their apartment complex”. She didn’t see which way he walked after that”. [NOTE: If she saw the man 6 feet away, and was passing him in the opposite direction, there would only be about half a second before they crossed, a very short time in which to absorb any information].

•           she has seen photographs of Madeleine McCann and thinks that it could have been her. She is “about 60% certain”.

•           the street lighting there was ‘weak’.

•           she was able to give the following detailed description, although she added that “she would probably not be able to recognise the individual or the child again”:

-  the man was white

- ‘light-skinned’ but ‘of normal complexion’

- between 20 and 30 years old

- 1.75m to 1.8m in height (5’ 9” to 5’ 11”)

- of ‘normal physique’

- thinks he was clean-shaven, doesn’t remember any tattoos, scars or earrings

- had thickish, light brown hair, cut short

- was wearing trousers which were beige in colour,

- his trousers were made of cotton

- his trousers possibly had buttons on them

- she can’t say what he was wearing on top because ‘the child he was carrying covered him completely from the top’

- he was walking ‘normally’

- the child he was carrying was female, and had straight, long, light or light brown hair down to the neck, she says she was about four years old ‘because her niece (who was in the group) is of the same age and same height’; she didn’t see the child's face because she was lying vertically against the man’s left shoulder; she appeared to be sleeping; her arms were suspended along her body and were not around the man’s neck; she thinks the child was white; she had no covering; she  was wearing light, white or light-pink trousers that ‘may have been pyjamas, made of light material’ and ‘could have been cotton’. She can’t remember if they were patterned as it was dark. She also had ‘a light top, with long sleeves’. She can’t remember seeing any shoes on her feet.

 

[COMMENT: It is a very detailed description indeed, given that she had, according to her own testimony, less than a second before he passed her on the street].

   
I find the amount of detail wholly unconvincing. She remembered all this after seeing him for a second or so, with the child fully covering his face? Cotton trousers? 'Thickish, light brown hair'? Trousers 'possibly had buttons on them'. She really remembered all this, over three weeks later? 

Perhaps they [JT, RO'B, FP & RO] did actually see him [and later had to retract it for some reason].

REPLY: We know from Dr Amaral's book that Jane Tanner was certain she had seen Robert Murat carrying a child on 3 May. We also know that later she changed her mind and agreed it wasn't him. Of course, if Dave Edgar is to be believed (and who am I to question the McCanns' lead investigator?), she might have seen a woman. As for the other three, I concede that they might well have seen him that night, but my point is that they all appeared to collaborate, the day after Murat was made a suspect, in telling the police about him and reinforcing the police's view that they 'had their man'.       

Tony - I don't think we can ever totally agree on this. I appreciate you've said you have other information that you cannot reveal, but until that time comes, it's really just flogging a dead horse IMO - we could go on and on.

REPLY: I appreciate your detailed comments but, yes, we are quite far apart on the credibility of this 'sighting'