The Smith Family Sighting

5a Canada12.

Heisenburg wrote:5a Canada12.

Oops. Sorry :-) Got 5A confused with 3A - the 3 Arguidos, old chat group.
My bad.
Aging brain.

Clipped from the blog upthread:

Additional  statement by Martin Smith, 30 January 2008
I hereby declare that this statement is true to the best of my knowledge and belief and that I make it knowing that if it is tendered in evidence I will be liable to prosecution if I state in it anything which I know to be false or do not believe to be true.
I would like to state that the statement I made on the 26th of May 2007 in Portugal is correct. The description of the individual that I saw on 3rd May 2007 carrying a child is as follows. He was average build, 5 foot 10"  in height, brown hair cut short, aged 40 years approximately. Wearing beige trousers and darkish top maybe a jacket or blazer. He had a full head of hair with a tight cut. This individual was alone. I saw Gerard McCann going down the plane stairs carrying one of his children on 9th September 2007 BBC news at 10 PM, I have been shown the video clip by Sergeant Hogan which I recognize. A clip I have seen before on the Internet. In relation to the video clips of Gerard McCann and the person I saw on 3rd May 2007 when I saw the BBC news at 10 PM on 9th September 2007 something struck me that it could have been the same person. It was the way Gerard McCann turned his head down which was similar to what the individual did on 3rd of May 2007 when we met him. It may have been the way he was carrying the child either. I would be 60-80% sure that it was Gerard McCann that I met that night carrying a child. I am basing that on his mannerism in the way he carried the child off the plane. After seeing the BBC news at 10 PM, footage on the 9th September 2007, I contacted Leicestershire police with this information. During that time I spoke to all my family members who were with me on the night of 3rd May 2007 about this and the only one who felt the same way as me was my wife. She had seen the video clip of Gerard McCann walking down the stairs of the plane earlier that day. We did not discuss this until some days later. This statement has been read over to me and is correct.  

Smith describes the man he saw as having brown hair. I know there has been speculation that Gerry's hair appeared to be much darker a few day after the alleged abduction. The suggestion being that he might have dyed his hair. I think there are several threads on this here or over the way. If it is true, it does tend to suggest that the Smith-man sighting was most unwelcome.

It's fascinating how Kate's book of the truth reveals golden nuggets, so to speak, as one tries to unravel the case.

After the release of the PJ files Kate reveals how she 'set to work' on the files. 'Scrutinizing them would in the end take up six months of my life, and it would be a painful as well as time-consuming labour," she writes. 'Inevitably, I spent a great deal of time bringing together bits of related data in order to get a clearer picture of what they actually represented.'

According to Kate: 'Combing through the files, I despaired. It was only now that I became aware of just how cursory some of the police work had been.........Night after night, I read of depraved individuals, British paedophiles, Portuguese paedophiles, Spanish, Dutch and German paedophiles, and of the horrific crimes they'd committed. The police went to visit some of them, looked around their apartment and recorded merely, 'No sign of the minor.' Was that enough to eliminate these vile characters from the inquiry? If more had been done, there was certainly nothing in the files about it. No description, no photographs, no alibi, no DNA. Just 'No sign of the minor'.

Is there one shred of evidence for the above claim? The inference being that Portugal is some kind of lawless paedophile paradise with dozens of unsolved cases. As is so often the case with what Kate writes, it is difficult not to be aghast at her audacity.  Who are all these 'vile characters' running amok in Luz? Perhaps she is referring to 'bundleman' et al - mythical characters rather like Tanner-man? Which brings me around to Smith-man. Could Smith-man  be one of the 'vile characters' that Kate is referring to? After all, he was seen by a family of nine which gives him far greater credibility than some of the other sightings - like Tanner-man, for instance.  I'll take the evidence of a family of nine over the evidence of one of the McCanns' best friends any day.

This is what Kate has to write about Smith-man on page 328 of her book: "In addition to the man and child seen by Jane Tanner at about 9.15pm on the evening Madeleine was taken, and the similar sighting forty-five minutes later by the family from Ireland, there were six reports from four independent witnesses of a 'suspicious' male noticed around Ocean Club."

I will never be remotely convinced that the description given by Jane Tanner of Tanner-man is similar to the description given by the Smiths of Smith-man. They are not similar at all, imo,  the hair is completely different for starters.

Kate goes on to write: "The police did not appear to feel that Jane's sighting.....and the man and child reported by the Irish holidaymakers....were related. They seem to have concluded that these were in all likelihood two different men carrying two different children (if, they implied, these two men actually existed at all.) The only reason for their scepticism appeared to be an unexplained time lapse between the two sightings. They didn't dovetail perfectly. To me the similarities seem far more significant than any discrepancy in timing."

The above is quite rich in meaning, imo. Notice how Kate lumps the two sightings together to make it appear as if police are equally incredulous about both the sightings. This is Kate at her best again. No, Kate, the police never believed Tanner-man and the fact that their friend Jane Tanner - who can hardly be described as an independent witness - was the only person who saw him further discredits this sighting. Even Jez and Gerry didn't spot Tanner-man, for goodness sake, and they were in the exact same place as Jane!

The Smith sighting, on the other hand, was taken very seriously by the police and family members gave long witness statements and several members returned to Luz to help police draw up the famous e-fits. So Kate is being disingenuous, at best, by lumping the two sightings together. But this is typical Kate modus operandi. And it is also very strong evidence, imo, of how unwelcome the Smith-man sighting was to the McCanns.

I do love this sentence: "To me the similarities seem far more significant than any discrepancy in timing."

As is usually the case, you have to deconstruct what Kate says to get at the real meaning. IMO, the lack of similarity between the two sightings is significant. They cannot be the same person because they look too different. The discrepancy in timing is equally important I would say as what abductor worth his or her salt would be wandering around with a child for 45 minutes? Taken together, the lack of similarity and the discrepancy in timing rule out the sightings as being related, which is what police concluded. They also ruled out Jane Tanner's sighting as being credible, which only leaves Smith-man. But nice try, Kate!

Kate scores her own home goal as is often the case by failing to give an artist's sketch of Smith-man but instead lumping the Smith sighting together with the  Tanner-man sketch and sighting.

It gets better though....

Hilariously, imo, alongside the two Tanner-man sketches, Kate has written how the man has never been traced and asks: "Did you see him? Was it you, or someone you know?"

Ha! You really couldn't make this stuff up could you?  At this point it becomes abundantly clear why Kate cannot have a sketch of Smith-man in her book and cannot be asking these questions in relation to Smith-man.  It cannot have passed unnoticed by the Smith family that a sketch of the description of the man they saw is not included in Kate's book.

And given that when Mr Smith saw Gerry leaving the aircraft carrying Sean he becomes convinced that the man they saw that fateful night was Gerry McCann, you can quite understand why Kate was at such pains to emphasise the similarities between Tanner-man and Smith-man.


After all, Kate's very own husband might have looked at the Smith-man sketch and thought: "Cripes - that looks like me!! Perhaps I am Madeleine's abductor after all! I must contact Kate at once!!"

The artist used for the sketches in Kate's book is quite creative, clearly, as s/he has also morphed the sighting of Mrs Fenn's niece - who described a distinctly blond man - with another sighting to create an artist's impression of a man with a distinctly north African appearance. Try as I might, I simply cannot see how someone could confuse a blond man of Scandinavian appearance with a dark man of north African appearance.


But, we must place trust in Kate's book of the truth.

(ETA: However, I do think Tanner's description is a bit like the Polish male allegedly seen suspiciously photographing young girls in Sagres...).

canada12 wrote:I agree too that it was a ramshackle put-together plan that ran into some unfortunate problems - the main one being Jez Wilkins.

Here's what I think was supposed to happen: Gerry was supposed to be outside 3A, either acting as a lookout for whoever was inside 3A jemmying the shutters, or actually jemmying the shutters himself. Either way, I think there was another person inside 3A, and I know it's been mentioned before, but I believe it was Jane Tanner. I think Jane's job was also to pass Madeleine out to Gerry. I think Jez Wilkins came along unexpectedly and Gerry had to talk to him.

That meant JT had to stop whatever she was doing and merely lurk, at the window, out of sight. But she saw the conversation between Gerry and Jez, and because of that, she instantly had an alibi for her absence from the table. She could claim she was on the road and saw them talking. It didn't matter that neither of them could state that they saw her. She could accurately describe what each of them was wearing and what they were talking about and that Jez had his child with him in the pram or buggy, if she was ever asked to come into the police station and answer questions about where she was. She also could instantly therefore become Gerry's alibi as well, because she could state that she saw him chatting on the road with Jez, which was true at that particular time.

Later on, when the Smiths saw Gerry (and I believe it was Gerry) carrying a child (and I believe it was Madeleine), it became necessary to invent Tannerman, to try and prove that the "abduction" happened at the original time it was planned, if Jez Wilkins hadn't come along to disrupt things.

The fact that the early reports claimed that the shutters were "jemmied" when there was absolutely no proof of it at all just tells me that was the plan, and the plan somehow got interrupted before it could be executed. As mentioned above, with JT's purpose of being inside the flat, perhaps the plan was to do exactly what they claimed happened - perhaps the plan was to jemmy the shutters and take Madeleine's body out through the window and leave clues behind that they hoped would convince investigators that was what had happened.

But it didn't happen that way, and so we were left with the shambles and the confusion that ensued.

All my personal opinion.

Excellent! Yes, I agree and you have described it very clearly. The only thing that I would query would be did Jez really come along unexpectedly? Not trying to implicate anyone here but I refuse to believe that some holiday-makers that week did not get wind of something. Despite what the McCanns and their friends claim about the carefree week I think it must have been the week from hell. If Dr Amaral's theory is true, hiding and disposing of a body would be an incredibly difficult task in the midst of a holiday-resort with friends and family all over the place not to mention other holiday-makers and staff.

Someone somewhere or several people must have noticed a few things that were suspicious. And in fact it is on record that some did. For instance Mrs Fenn - the crying incident; Mrs Fenn's niece - the blond man acting suspiciously by a nearby gate on Thursday afternoon; Nigel Foster from Southampton and the video-recording incident on Thursday near the mini-tennis courts.

How many other incidents such as the above might have been in the files but not released? Jez is noteworthy because his specialty is crime documentaries and his partner Bridget is a journalist who used to work on Crimewatch. Given these backgrounds, is it not more likely that certain people got wind that all was not what it seemed that week, and possibly deliberately appeared at a very inopportune moment?

Some things are just too strange to be coincidental, imo.

Theories as always.

I expect everyone is fed up with a certain person going on and on and on but it needs to be said on record that Goncalo Amaral has never wavered from his original theory as far as I am aware, therefore tweeting this sort of thing is pointless. It's also a distinct possibility, in fact a probability that he hasn't.


Anthony Bennett‏ @zampos · 4h4 hours ago


Replying to @xxMichelleSxx @DesireeLWiggin1 and 2 others

AMARAL & SMITHS 3 Paulo Reis said he’d met #GoncaloAmaral in May & that Amaral had read the #MMRG letter to the A-G & thanked those who had compiled it. So it is a distinct possibility that he has CHANGED his views on the #Smithman sighting since the #OENIGMA interview #McCann








Anthony Bennett‏ @zampos · 4h4 hours ago

Replying to @xxMichelleSxx @DesireeLWiggin1 and 2 others

AMARAL & SMITHS 5 It’s a tribute to the work of #GoncaloAmaral that others have researched the 10 Sep 07 INTERIM report of #TavaresdeAlmeida & now have new evidence which casts severe doubt on ONE key conclusion i.e. that #CatBaker was
an independent, credible witness #McCann









Anthony Bennett‏ @zampos · 4h4 hours ago

Replying to @xxMichelleSxx @DesireeLWiggin1 and 2 others

AMARAL & SMITHS 4 You insist that #GoncaloAmaral’s
views may never be queried in the slightest. You’ve forgotten the
#TavaresDeAlmeida report was an INTERIM (‘Intercalary’) report & you clearly
discount the #PJ’s final verdict that the Smiths’ evidence was 'UNRELIABLE' #McCann




---------


Sorry where is the PJ's final verdict that the Smiths' evidence was 'UNRELIABLE'

If a thing is said often enough and with fervour, albeit without proof, you can end up believing it!

I don't think it is we who are obsessed Tony, but the other way round... how many Smithman threads are there now?

Oh and I don't say or know for fact who Smithman was, therefore I do not accuse,  I do say and totally believe the Smith family are not liars, they have no reason.  How could you ask a young girl to lie on such serious matters?





Anthony Bennett‏ @zampos · 1h1 hour ago  


Those who loudly insist that #Smithman is Gerry #McCann have never had an answer to these TWELVE sets of contradictions in the Smith family's evidence. They should forget their obsession & start looking at the other evidence about when Maddie 'disappeared'