The Tale of Smithman

There is an eerie coincidence between the documented sighting of a stranger carrying a child on the night of Thursday 3rd May 2007 by the McCanns friend Jane Tanner and that of the Irish tourist and his family, holidaying on the Algarve during the same period as Madeleine McCann's reported disappearance.  The Irish man Martin Smith and two members of his family reported some weeks later, the sighting of a stranger carrying a child a little later on the same night, very similar to that described by witness Jane Tanner.

The subject of Martin Smith and his family input has been discussed extensively over the years here on CMOMM.

I take this opportunity to rekindle a summary as posted by CMOMM researcher, Tony Bennett, back in July 2015.

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SMITHMAN 8 - The Nine Phases of Smithman - How the Smiths became part of the McCann Team in January 2008

THE NINE PHASES OF SMITHMAN

Phase 1
from 3 to 15 May 2007:
AN UNREPORTED SIGHTING

The Smiths claim to have seen a man carrying a child at about 10.00pm on 3 May, but do not report it – a baffling delay. They give several contradictory reasons for not reporting what they say they saw 

Phase 2
from 16 May to 20 September 2007:
A REPORTED SIGHTING

On 16 May The Smiths get round to reporting what they say they saw – the day after someone they know, Robert Murat, is made an unofficial suspect in the case. The Portuguese Police interview three members of the Smith family on 26 May. Martin Smith is adamant that the man he saw was not Robert Murat. All the three Smiths admit they saw the man in the dark and for a few seconds at the most, and agree that none of them would be able to recognise him again if they saw him

Phase 3
from 20 September to December 2007:
COULD IT BE GERRY MCCANN?

Martin Smith triggers new interest in the sighting by claiming that he was 60% to 80% sure that he really saw Gerry McCann that night in early May. He bases this on the way Gerry McCann carried his son Sean down the steps of an aeroplane on 9 September. He delays reporting his new belief for 11 days

Phase 4
from January 2008 to December 2008:
THE MCCANNS TAKE OVER THE SMITH SIGHTING

Newspaper articles on 3 and 4 January 2008 reveal that Metodo 3 have ‘already’ been in touch with the Smiths - and that Cheshire businessman Brian Kennedy, one of the McCann Team, is also involved. The Sun reported that “Investigators from the Metodo 3 agency hired by Maddie's parents Gerry and Kate are preparing to travel to Ireland to interview them”. Kennedy contacts the Smiths. Henri Exton, and possibly Irishman Kevin Halligen, visits the Smiths and produces two e-fits of what, to many people, looks like different men: different face shape and size, differences in chin and nose length, hair style and so on. From this moment on, Martin Smith drops his identification of the man he says he saw as Gerry McCann, supports the McCanns’ search for the abductor, and in effect becomes a McCann supporter, working with the McCann Team 

Phase 5
from January to May 2009:
SMITHMAN FEATURES IN A PRO-MCCANN DOCUMENTARY

Former Detective Inspector Dave Edgar appointed to lead the McCann private investigation, around November 2008. Former Detective Sergeant Arthur Cowley appointed later. They help to prepare a documentary, widely called the ‘Mockumentary’, prepared by Mentorn Media and shown by Channel 4 on May 2009. The documentary, in two lengthy passages, suggests that ‘Tannerman’ and ‘Smithman’ are one and the same    

Phase 6
from May 2009 to April 2011:
SMITHMAN PROMOTED AS A KEY SUSPECT ON THE MCCANNS’ FIND MADELEINE WEBSITE

This is the period during which the McCanns actively promoted the Smith sighting on their ‘Find Madeleine’ website, with a 30-second audio clip of a man with an Irish accent repeating a summary of the Smiths’ evidence. During this audio clip, the voice is heard to say that the man looked ’34-35’. But in his original police statement, he had said the man looked ’35-40’. This was the second time Martin Smith changed his mind, because when he was interviewed a second time by the Irish police, he gave the man’s age as ‘40’. The most likely explanation for Smith changing the age of the man from ‘40’ to ’34-35’ is because he was asked to by the McCann Team 

Phase 7
May 2011:
SMITHMAN PROMOTED IN KATE MCCANN’S BOOK, ‘madeleine’:    

When Dr Kate McCann published her book, ‘madeleine’, on 11 May 2011, seven pages of her book mentioned Smithman. Three of these seven pages consisted of an itemised list of the ‘striking similarities’ between ‘Tannerman’ and ‘Smithman’.

Phase 8
from May 2011 to September 2013:
DCI REDWOOD PREPARES TO REVEAL SMITHMAN AS HIS MAIN SUSPECT

DCI Andy Redwood, Head of the Met Police’s Operation Grange, talks to Martin Smith at least twice. There is on-the-record confirmation that he met Det Chief Insp Andy Redwood of Operation Grange at least twice, once in 2012 and once in 2013. Undoubtedly this was to discuss the BBC Crimewatch McCann Special which had long been planned together with the BBC Crimewatch Team, at a cost of around £2 million

Phase 9
from October 2013 to now:
SMITHMAN REVEALED BY SCOTLAND YARD AS THE CHIEF SUSPECT

There was a blaze of pre-programme hype and then innumerable BBC trailers promoting the BBC Crimewatch McCann show, transmitted to an audience of 6.7 million viewers. In this broadcast, DCI Andy Redwood showed us two efits of different-looking people, implying that the Smiths drew them up. He claimed that the man represented by these two e-fits ‘is now the centre of our focus’. Despite that, the e-fits of Snithman are no longer viewable either on the Met Police website or the McCanns’ ‘Find Madeleine’ website. The audio of an Irish voice describing a man aged ‘perhaps 34-35’ is still on the McCanns’ website.

Thank you. I hope this will be read by anyone who still thinks that Martin Smith's 'Smithman sighting' of Gerry McCann was true.

How can the actions I've described above possibly be consistent with those of a man who sincerely believes that he saw Gerry McCann carrying Madeleine's body down to the beach at 10pm, Thursday 3rd May?

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