Andy Redwood, ruled out the only evidence of an abduction, by claiming that Tannerman had turned up with the clothes that he and his daughter were wearing on that night, six years earlier

Operation Grange detective Andy Redwood, on a Crimewatch documentary, ruled out the only evidence that there was of an abduction, by claiming that Tannerman had turned up with the clothes that he and his daughter were wearing on that night, six years earlier, as he carried his daughter home.  Research shows that he was heading in the wrong direction.

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We know by now not to expect truthful reporting by such rags as The Mirror or straight talk from Chief Inspector Andy Redwood of Scotland Yard, but the "shocking revelation" presented on CrimeWatch by Redwood was the elimination of the "top suspect" - the man Jane Tanner claimed she saw crossing the street in front of her as she came up alongside the McCann's vacation flat - by "proving" that this man was but an innocent vacationer carrying his sleeping daughter back from the creche after enjoying his evening out. Redwood went on in the show to tout the 10 pm sighting by the Smith family as the more credible sighting of an abductor carrying Madeleine off towards to beach, a suspect Scotland Yard has not identified as anyone in particular, especially not Gerry McCann, the one man Mr. Smith told police the individual just might be.

Most of us wondered, quite immediately, how this vacationer could actually have been a real person, one that Jane Tanner truly did see. It doesn't take rocket scientists to note that the man was walking the wrong direction, the he should have been walking toward the McCann flat if he were coming from the creche, not walking from the McCann apartment in the direction the creche. (The yellow dot is the entrance to where the McCanns were dining at the Tapas Restaurant, the red dot is their vacation flat, and the blue dot is the creche. The supposed father carrying his daughter to the creche was crossing the road away from the red dot).



Now, the story gets weirder. It is[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] (if one can call what The Mirror prints as reporting), that the man came forward in 2007 to the  Leicestershire police and filled out a detailed questionnaire detailing his movements and that he was carrying his child back from the creche at the time of the Tanner sighting. Then, there is some inference that this information was forwarded to the Portuguese police who ignored it even though, according to the report, they were obsessed with the Tanner sighting to the exclusion of the Smith sighting.

Of course, this simply foolishness. If such a report existed, either it made no sense to the PJ that this man could be Tanner's bundleman because he was walking in the wrong direction or they were not interested in Tanner sighting because her story was not very credible (read more on this [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]) or because they believed the Smith sighting was the true one of Madeleine or all three of these reasons had an effect on whatever decision they made (should this man even exist). However, what is being reported is a pure rewrite of history, that the PJ truly believed the Tanner sighting was that of a man abducting Madeleine and their failure to interview this supposed person-of-interest threw the investigation off track.



This bit about the innocent father carrying his child into the pathway of Jane Tanner gets even more ridiculous. It is also claimed that Scotland Yard just interviewed him in recent months and he produced not only the clothing he was wearing that night but also the pink pajamas of his daughter! Mind you, six years has passed but not only does he remember what both of them were wearing but he still has the clothing in his possession! What a miracle!

One could think, perhaps, that this poor man, seeing all the to-do about Bundleman, how the McCanns were desperately searching for this man who they thought took their child at 9:15 pm, might have kept the clothing around just in case, one day, he needed to produce them as his alibi, clothes not only necessary to prove that he was Bundleman, but that his own daughter was in those pink pajamas and not Maddie. How kind it was for him to keep the clothing as proof and wait patiently for the police to one day call and how incredibly horrific a human being he was to not have ever contacted the McCanns or their private detectives to let them know that they should not be focusing on Bundleman as the man who took Maddie.

So, I can only surmise from these ludicrous claims of Redwood and The Mirror that either the man was early ruled out as having nothing to do with the McCann case because he was walking the wrong direction and, therefore, was not the man Tanner claims to have seen, or he doesn't exist at all and is merely a ruse to exonerate Jane Tanner from her claim to have seen the possible kidnapper (which would mean Scotland Yard is attempting to make Tanner an honest woman and bring a level of believability back to the Tapas 9) or it is a ruse to bring the time frame to 10 pm and the sighting of the Smiths which might have been a sighting of Gerry (which would mean Scotland Yard is playing a very clever card game). I wish it was the latter but I am a bit too cynical to harbor such an incredible hope.

What I do know is Sr. Amaral never believed Tanner's story and he always believed that the Smith sighting was likely the real one; how Andy Redwood, Scotland Yard, and the UK media can spin this to the complete opposite is incredible and yet another rewrite of history and we can only hope one day we will have a clear understanding as to the entire motive that lurks behind all of these misrepresentations and manipulations.

Criminal Profiler Pat Brown

December 30, 2013