Re: Pat Brown - is still claiming, like Operation Grange and the McCanns, that 'Smithman' is the key to solving the Madeleine McCann mystery - and dismissing the evidence the Last Photo was taken on Sunday as 'irrelevant'

by suzyjohnson 16.04.17 12:58

Without quoting loads of information from above, thanks Tony Bennett.

by Guest 16.04.17 14:44

SuspiciousMinds wrote:
pennylane wrote:Added by a Mod: The thread has recently seen a spate of quite ridiculous theories. The reason they are so absurd is that those members proposing them are fixated on one alleged, unproven 'fact' - namely the claim that the Smiths really saw Gerry McCann carrying Madeleine at about 10pm on Thursday 3 May. This is blinding them to the other evidence on the case. They try to fit absolutely everything around the controversial Smith sighting, and none of their suggestions seem to work.

Suzy already answered all the other points in this post very eloquently, so I won't answer those again. But I will take issue with the statement above.

1. If people contributing to the thread are continually asked to state why they think that the Smith sighting may be genuine and relevant, then they are going to tell you why they think the Smith sighting may be genuine and relevant. There is a possibility that those thoughts may not concur with your own. Shocking, I know, but true.

2. The Smith sighting is not the "basis" of any of the 'May 3' theories. The fact (yes, fact!) that Mr. Smith claimed to see someone and later thought it might have been Gerry is an interesting sideshow, that tends to support the theory that the McCanns were involved. If it was Gerry, it's huge. If it wasn't Gerry, then shrug. So what? The 'May 3' theory does not get blown out of the water because of that and there is no need to 'fixate' on it. Neither is there any need to jump on it and assume that Mr. Smith had a more nefarious purpose for making his statement.

3. The piece of evidence you really, really need to get past is the statements from the nannies that say Madeleine was alive on May 3rd. That is the true sticking point. The 'alleged, unproven fact' that the nannies were lying on behalf of the McCanns is a whopper - and it actually DOES blow the 'Died-on-Sunday' theory out of the water. You cannot criticise people for incorporating one witness statement into their theories, while blindly ignoring or trashing inconvenient statements that don't fit your own.

4. I know I am in a minority on this site. I don't contribute very often, as I don't really enjoy getting jumped on from all sides and pummelled into submission, and I don't have time to sit here and answer every angry and aggressive response. I don't know what happened to Madeleine. But neither do you. None of us believe the McCanns are innocent of any wrongdoing - we are all intelligent enough to look beyond what we have been fed by the media. That is something that should be respected - especially by a so-called Mod.

All 4 points well made, pity you don't post more often thumbsup

by **Tony Bennett** 16.04.17 15:18

SuspiciousMinds wrote:
pennylane wrote:Added by a Mod: The thread has recently seen a spate of quite ridiculous theories. The reason they are so absurd is that those members proposing them are fixated on one alleged, unproven 'fact' - namely the claim that the Smiths really saw Gerry McCann carrying Madeleine at about 10pm on Thursday 3 May. This is blinding them to the other evidence on the case. They try to fit absolutely everything around the controversial Smith sighting, and none of their suggestions seem to work.

Suzy already answered all the other points in this post very eloquently, so I won't answer those again. But I will take issue with the statement above.

1. If people contributing to the thread are continually asked to state why they think that the Smith sighting may be genuine and relevant, then they are going to tell you why they think the Smith sighting may be genuine and relevant. There is a possibility that those thoughts may not concur with your own. Shocking, I know, but true.

REPLY: First of all, thank you very much for your reply. You wrote "...they are going to tell you why they think the Smith sighting may be genuine and relevant". I have no problem whatsoever with that. On the contrary, I welcome well-reasoned opposite views. As Jill recently put on the CMOMM home page: "This is an investigative forum". By debate, well-evidenced and supported views prevail, while those that are not so well evidence should fall by the wayside.

2. The Smith sighting is not the "basis" of any of the 'May 3' theories.

REPLY: No, and I've never said it was. But AFAIK everyone who thinks that the Smiths really saw someone, and think it was Gerry McCann, also stick with Amaral's theory that Madeleine died after 6pm on Thurday (despite the mounting evidence against that).

The fact (yes, fact!) that Mr. Smith claimed to see someone and later thought it might have been Gerry is an interesting sideshow, that tends to support the theory that the McCanns were involved.

REPLY: Surely only to a very limited extent? - given (a) his delay in making the identification (b) the extremely flimsy basis for it (carrying Sean on his left shoulder) (c) the limited degree of certainty (60%-80%) and (d) the fact that he soon changed his mind and has been batting for the McCanns for 9 years

If it was Gerry, it's huge. If it wasn't Gerry, then shrug. So what?

REPLY: If it was a genuine sighting by the Smiths, but wasn't Gerry, then it's hardly a 'shrug', is it?! This is the very theory that DCI Andy Redwood and DCI Wall etc. have been working on for 4 years. It is not just their focus, but the very 'cente of their focus'!

Of course, if the Smiths fabricated their evidence, then at a minimum they would be guilty of 'wasting police time' or more likely several years in jail for perverting the course of justice.

The 'May 3' theory does not get blown out of the water because of that

REPLY: I agree. The 'May 3' theory is getting progressively 'blown out of the water' for all sorts of other reasons.

and there is no need to 'fixate' on it. Neither is there any need to jump on it and assume that Mr. Smith had a more nefarious purpose for making his statement.

REPLY: It was never my initial assumption, but the weight of evidence re the Smith sighting which I've looked have driven me to the current working assumption that their sightings were fabricated

3. The piece of evidence you really, really need to get past is the statements from the nannies that say Madeleine was alive on May 3rd. That is the true sticking point. The 'alleged, unproven fact' that the nannies were lying on behalf of the McCanns is a whopper - and it actually DOES blow the 'Died-on-Sunday' theory out of the water. You cannot criticise people for incorporating one witness statement into their theories, while blindly ignoring or trashing inconvenient statements that don't fit your own.

REPLY: Well, thank you for clarifying the 'true sticking point', that is helpful. IIRC only two nannies gave evidence of specifically seeing Madeleine on 3rd May - mainly Cat Baker, but later Charlotte Pennington. If your position is that both these witnesses are reliable witnesses of truth, then we will simply have to agree to disagree. Did you have any other nannies in mind apart from those two please?

4. I know I am in a minority on this site. I don't contribute very often, as I don't really enjoy getting jumped on from all sides and pummelled into submission, and I don't have time to sit here and answer every angry and aggressive response. I don't know what happened to Madeleine. But neither do you. None of us believe the McCanns are innocent of any wrongdoing - we are all intelligent enough to look beyond what we have been fed by the media. That is something that should be respected - especially by a so-called Mod.

REPLY: Like I've said, opinions are here to be robustly probed; this is an investigative forum. We are genuinely interested in why people are still defending the Smith sighting. You are just as welcome to probe our opinions, as you have done above in defending the 100% honesty of Cat Baker and Charlotte Pennington

by Phoebe 16.04.17 19:15

3. The piece of evidence you really, really need to get past is the statements from the nannies that say Madeleine was alive on May 3rd. That is the true sticking point. The 'alleged, unproven fact' that the nannies were lying on behalf of the McCanns is a whopper - and it actually DOES blow the 'Died-on-Sunday' theory out of the water.

What is proven however, is that Cat. Baker's own two accounts of what happened that week re. creche contradict each each other and also contradict the creche records.

by plebgate 17.04.17 9:12

Phoebe wrote:3. The piece of evidence you really, really need to get past is the statements from the nannies that say Madeleine was alive on May 3rd. That is the true sticking point. The 'alleged, unproven fact' that the nannies were lying on behalf of the McCanns is a whopper - and it actually DOES blow the 'Died-on-Sunday' theory out of the water.

What is proven however, is that Cat. Baker's own two accounts of what happened that week re. creche contradict each each other and also contradict the creche records.

Why isn't this being used as new evidence to get the case fully re-opened i.e. re-interviewing EVERYONE again either by SY or Portugese police?

by **Tony Bennett** 17.04.17 9:29

A CMOMM member has kindly sent me, by 'pm', some pertinent observations about eye-witness testimony.

S/he has over 20 years' experience in evaluating witness testimony especially eye-witness testimony. The observations are clearly relevant to the Smiths' claims. Here are her/his observations:

==================================

We recognise people through a fairly tight connection of facial features. The better we know the person the better recognition we have of them. So, if I knew you very well and I saw you in the street but you were wearing a wig or had shaved all your hair I'd still be able to say: "It's Tony." Similarly, we can recognise people we've not seen for a very long time and despite obvious ageing.

The problem comes with recognising people we don't know, when we've only met them briefly and especially when we have no reason to remember them. For example, if a stranger has just robbed me of my wallet I've got a reason to want to recognise them again and will retain some information both conciously and subconciously. On the other hand, I could sit opposite someone on the train for an hour and if you asked me shortly afterwards for a description I may well struggle for detail. Most of us would certainly have difficultly remembering the features of someone we had simply passed in the street even a short time previously (barring any unusual features).

In latter cases, people tend to remember general features like race, hair, build and clothing but crucially not detailed facial features.

With regard to the McCann case, we are asked to believe that a passing glimpse of someone on a poorly lit street has lead to these e-fits being created some time after the event (I can't recall how long?**) Like so much of this sorry saga it just doesn't add up.

** [Added by TB: We know that by the first week in January 2008, Martin Smith was already talking to Brian Kennedy, the head of the McCann Team's private investigation. In theory, Henri Exton could have met the Smiths and drawn up the efits in the weeks immediately following their first contact. That would make the efits as having been produced some 8 to 9 months after the initial claimed sighting on 3 May. However, other indications we have are that Exton drew up the controversial efits around May 2008, which would mean the delay beween sighting and drawing up the efits was one year. At all times, when evaluating the Smiths' claims and the efits, we must remember two things:
1. Henri Exton is on the record as having been the Head of Covert Intelligence for MI5 and
2. The efits are of two quite diffrerent-looking faces. It is almost unprecedented for any police force to issue two quite different efits for ONE suspect - T.B.]

by Phoebe 17.04.17 10:24

IMO those efits had little to do with what the Smiths could recall (which was next to nothing by their own admission). I think team McCann were badly rattled by Martin Smith's "recognition" of Gerry, (even though Gerry had not been carrying any child that night to allow any sighting of him). The dogs' findings and the D.N.A evidence had swayed public and media opinion against them at that point. Smith "recognizing" Gerry was yet another blow for the "innocent parents" campaign. The efits are quite clever, they stick to the Smith's general description of May 07 - male, caucasion, under 40, short back and sides hair - and then go on to show, twice, how such description could bear a passing resemblance to Gerry without actually looking like him. I don't believe the unusual result of producing two quite distinct efits is an accident. If they thought it would not have stretched credulity to breaking point they might have added another, one from all 3 Smiths, all different, but that would have been too unbelievable. As for the Smiths? If, by the time Kennedy had finished with them, he'd produced a picture of Shrek, they'd have kept schtum and nodded agreement.

by **Jill Havern** 17.04.17 10:31

Tony Bennett wrote:A CMOMM member has kindly sent me, by 'pm', some pertinent observations about eye-witness testimony.

S/he has over 20 years' experience in evaluating witness testimony especially eye-witness testimony. The observations are clearly relevant to the Smiths' claims. Here are her/his observations:

==================================

We recognise people through a fairly tight connection of facial features. The better we know the person the better recognition we have of them. So, if I knew you very well and I saw you in the street but you were wearing a wig or had shaved all your hair I'd still be able to say: "It's Tony." Similarly, we can recognise people we've not seen for a very long time and despite obvious ageing.

The problem comes with recognising people we don't know, when we've only met them briefly and especially when we have no reason to remember them. For example, if a stranger has just robbed me of my wallet I've got a reason to want to recognise them again and will retain some information both conciously and subconciously. On the other hand, I could sit opposite someone on the train for an hour and if you asked me shortly afterwards for a description I may well struggle for detail. Most of us would certainly have difficultly remembering the features of someone we had simply passed in the street even a short time previously (barring any unusual features).

In latter cases, people tend to remember general features like race, hair, build and clothing but crucially not detailed facial features.

With regard to the McCann case, we are asked to believe that a passing glimpse of someone on a poorly lit street has lead to these e-fits being created some time after the event (I can't recall how long?**) Like so much of this sorry saga it just doesn't add up.

I was burgled a few years ago in broad daylight. I came home from work and was opening the front door, when the side gate opened and a man came out, shortly followed by another man. The second man reached the end of the short driveway then turned and looked back at me.

At that point I didn't realise I'd been burgled so wasn't in shock or anything - and I remember saying "What do you think you're doing?"

All I could tell the Police was that they were possibly in their 20s and were wearing jeans, dark jackets and baseball caps, even though they
would also have been carrying my laptop and other things.

Years later I can still only recall that, and wouldn't for the life of me be able to produce efits of their faces or even any other description.

by SuspiciousMinds 17.04.17 18:30

AFAIK everyone who thinks that the Smiths really saw someone, and think it was Gerry McCann, also stick with Amaral's theory that Madeleine died after 6pm on Thursday (despite the mounting evidence against that).
> AFAIK everyone who thinks the nannies didn’t really see Madeleine on May 3^rd also stick with the theory that Madeleine died earlier in the week. How odd. (And equally irrelevant.)

The fact (yes, fact!) that Mr. Smith claimed to see someone and later thought it might have been Gerry is an interesting sideshow, that tends to support the theory that the McCanns were involved.

REPLY: Surely only to a very limited extent? - given (a) his delay in making the identification (b) the extremely flimsy basis for it (carrying Sean on his left shoulder) (c) the limited degree of certainty (60%-80%) and (d) the fact that he soon changed his mind and has been batting for the McCanns for 9 years.
> It ‘tends to support’ the theory that the McCanns were involved. It’s intriguing. It makes people more suspicious of them. It proves nothing.

REPLY: If it was a genuine sighting by the Smiths, but wasn't Gerry, then it's hardly a 'shrug', is it?! This is the very theory that DCI Andy Redwood and DCI Wall etc. have been working on for 4 years. It is not just their focus, but the very 'centre of their focus'!
> If it wasn’t Gerry (or a friend of Gerry’s) and you don't happen to believe that Madeleine was abducted, it’s a shrug. Most likely just another dad taking his daughter home.

Of course, if the Smiths fabricated their evidence, then at a minimum they would be guilty of 'wasting police time' or more likely several years in jail for perverting the course of justice.
> One would therefore assume that the Smiths would collectively have more sense than to fabricate their evidence?

REPLY: I agree. The 'May 3' theory is getting progressively 'blown out of the water' for all sorts of other reasons.
> Other reasons based on pure supposition, that end up involving more and more loosely connected people in an intricate web of deception with no obvious benefit for themselves, and yet not one person has cracked in 10 years? With the whole fantastic theory teetering on this tiny, delicate foundation of nannies telling fibs to the police for no apparent reason?

REPLY: It was never my initial assumption, but the weight of evidence re the Smith sighting which I've looked have driven me to the current working assumption that their sightings were fabricated.
> Why though? If it was to help the McCanns, why implicate Gerry? If it was to help Murat, why not just leave it at ‘It wasn’t Murat’? And what difference would any of it make anyway?

REPLY: Well, thank you for clarifying the 'true sticking point', that is helpful. IIRC only two nannies gave evidence of specifically seeing Madeleine on 3rd May - mainly Cat Baker, but later Charlotte Pennington. If your position is that both these witnesses are reliable witnesses of truth, then we will simply have to agree to disagree. Did you have any other nannies in mind apart from those two please?
> Emma Wilding was another, I believe? She said Madeleine was at the Mini Club on May 3^rd. Then you have all the other childcare staff who claim to have seen or had contact with Madeleine during the week. Were they all mistaken, or lying, or fooled into thinking a different child was Madeleine? Who lent the McCanns their child for a week? The plot thickens still further… and still more people get dragged into the conspiracy… and credulity is stretched to breaking point. Snap. Back to May 3^rd.

REPLY: Like I've said, opinions are here to be robustly probed; this is an investigative forum. We are genuinely interested in why people are still defending the Smith sighting. You are just as welcome to probe our opinions, as you have done above in defending the 100% honesty of Cat Baker and Charlotte Pennington
> Robustly probing opinions is not the same as shouting them down and being obnoxious and patronising if you don’t agree. I realise the latter has worked very nicely for the McCanns for nigh on 10 years, but there really is no need to stoop to their level.

by Phoebe 17.04.17 20:25

@ SuspiciousMinds Re. nanny sightings. Emma Wilding "On 3rd May she does remember that, around 12.30pm Madeleine's father went to fetch her for lunch".(P.J. files statement) N.B. creche records show her signed out for lunch that day by Kate. Emma does not remember when Madeleine returned for the afternoon session, who accompanied her or if she was present at high tea that evening. Charlotte Pennington tellingly, I believe, reveals that when her own charges were asleep in creche she would leave them to "participate with the children and activities of the mini club". Why they would need her help given there were so few children is a mystery. She claims to have had direct contact with Madeleine only twice - On Sunday April 29th (when her other colleagues claim creche was closed as it was nannies day off) and on May 3rd when she read a story to her. Cat Baker's first statement to the P.J. makes only general claims about that week, she also states she does not remember if Madeleine was in creche on Sunday morning. Her day to day description of events for the P.J. action plan flatly contradicts the creche record evidence over and over. Amy Tierney can only say in her first statement that Madeleine seemed rather shy- and that creche is closed on Sunday when Charlotte and Cat claimed to be working as normal. Jacqueline Williams claims she only ever said hello and goodbye to Madeleine, but not on a Saturday (her day for saying creche closed). Kirsty Maryan only had contact with Madeleine once, when she was minding her for Emma, although Madeleine was never in Emma's charge (Cat being the Lobsters' nanny). Leanne Wagstaff only saw Madeleine once that week and she too claims creche is closed on Sundays. Lyndsay Johnson saw Madeleine go sailing, accompanied by her parents who claim they weren't there. Lynne Fretter only saw Madeleine once that week for a few seconds. Pauline McCann makes no mention of ever seeing Madeleine. Sarah Williamson claims to have seen Madeleine briefly, but doesn't specify when. Sinead Vine saw Madeleine once when she first arrived and she is yet another who claims creche was closed on Sundays. Stacey Portz claims to have seen Madeleine often chatting to the twins whenever they were being collected, despite the creche records showing that it was usual for one parent to collect the twins while the other collected Madeleine. Ditto for Susan Owen. Given the complete contradictions in evidence, the nannies statements cannot be relied on in any way.

by Verdi 17.04.17 21:03

Phoebe wrote:IMO those efits had little to do with what the Smiths could recall (which was next to nothing by their own admission). I think team McCann were badly rattled by Martin Smith's "recognition" of Gerry, (even though Gerry had not been carrying any child that night to allow any sighting of him). The dogs' findings and the D.N.A evidence had swayed public and media opinion against them at that point. Smith "recognizing" Gerry was yet another blow for the "innocent parents" campaign.

Reply: To theorize on those lines, you must believe the sequence of events according to Martin Smith and members of his family, from 10:00 pm on the night of 3rd May 2007 onwards.

The efits are quite clever, they stick to the Smith's general description of May 07 - male, caucasion, under 40, short back and sides hair - and then go on to show, twice, how such description could bear a passing resemblance to Gerry without actually looking like him. I don't believe the unusual result of producing two quite distinct efits is an accident. If they thought it would not have stretched credulity to breaking point they might have added another, one from all 3 Smiths, all different, but that would have been too unbelievable.

Reply: Why would the e-fits, published by DCI Andy Redwood during the 2013 Crimewatch production, need to match Martin Smith's and family members vague description of the stranger they allegedly saw on the night of 3rd May - and bear a vague resemblance to Gerry McCann (at least one of the images)?

As for the Smiths? If, by the time Kennedy had finished with them, he'd produced a picture of Shrek, they'd have kept schtum and nodded agreement.

Reply: Why? If Smith is a totally innocent witness and was being harassed by Oakley International, Brian Kennedy, Clarence Mitchell or anyone else, his only sensible option would be to promptly contact the police! Otherwise, Smith has exposed himself to suspicion at best and perverting the course of justice at worst.

Thou shalt not bear false witness.

by Phoebe 17.04.17 23:41

Verdi wrote:
Phoebe wrote:IMO those efits had little to do with what the Smiths could recall (which was next to nothing by their own admission). I think team McCann were badly rattled by Martin Smith's "recognition" of Gerry, (even though Gerry had not been carrying any child that night to allow any sighting of him). The dogs' findings and the D.N.A evidence had swayed public and media opinion against them at that point. Smith "recognizing" Gerry was yet another blow for the "innocent parents" campaign.

Reply: To theorize on those lines, you must believe the sequence of events according to Martin Smith and members of his family, from 10:00 pm on the night of 3rd May 2007 onwards.

The efits are quite clever, they stick to the Smith's general description of May 07 - male, caucasion, under 40, short back and sides hair - and then go on to show, twice, how such description could bear a passing resemblance to Gerry without actually looking like him. I don't believe the unusual result of producing two quite distinct efits is an accident. If they thought it would not have stretched credulity to breaking point they might have added another, one from all 3 Smiths, all different, but that would have been too unbelievable.

Reply: Why would the e-fits, published by DCI Andy Redwood during the 2013 Crimewatch production, need to match Martin Smith's and family members vague description of the stranger they allegedly saw on the night of 3rd May - and bear a vague resemblance to Gerry McCann (at least one of the images)?

As for the Smiths? If, by the time Kennedy had finished with them, he'd produced a picture of Shrek, they'd have kept schtum and nodded agreement.

Reply: Why? If Smith is a totally innocent witness and was being harassed by Oakley International, Brian Kennedy, Clarence Mitchell or anyone else, his only sensible option would be to promptly contact the police! Otherwise, Smith has exposed himself to suspicion at best and perverting the course of justice at worst.

Thou shalt not bear false witness.

Q.A) I believe I have already said plainly that I believe the Smiths passed a completely unconnected man with a child. Q.B) The efits needed to be a "match" to Gerry McCann as it was widespread news that Martin Smith had claimed in Sept '07 that the man he had seen was Gerry. To show how he could have been mistaken, the efits do bear a passing resemblance to Gerry but are obviously not him. Q3) I believe Kennedy vouched for the McCann's innocence most forcefully and convincingly and that, given the obvious support for the McCanns from the authorities, and that couple's propensity to sue he was not going to question any efits. He had probably salved his conscience by believing himself mistaken and recalling that he was only ever 60-80% sure of it being Gerry.

Pat Brown - is still claiming, like Operation Grange and the McCanns, that 'Smithman' is the key to solving the Madeleine McCann mystery - and dismissing the evidence the Last Photo was taken on Sunday as 'irrelevant'

Pat Brown or Rchard Hall