The Smiths - Remastered

Sometimes it's nice to revisit old albums to re appreciate just how good they are.  The same goes for the evidence in the McCann case.

Take the sighting of The Smith family for example.   Once the ridiculous Tanner sighting was abandoned by even the buffoons at Operation Grange it became the only credible witness sighting on that night.  As these things go, one could hardly wish for a better witness at least on those lonely Luz streets at 10pm at the beginning of May.  Martin Smith, a respected Irish business man, his wife Mary, his son Peter and the son's pregnant wife and 5 kids including a very observant 12 year old Aoife.  None had any connection to the McCann's or possible reason to be dishonest, none has attempted to make anything of their moment in the limelight nor cash in on any way.  There is no plausible explanation why they would just make their testimony up.  Moreover the timing of the sighting is not in doubt.  They had just emerged from a bar and till receipts allow us to time the encounter pretty accurately at around 9.55pm.

Between them they give a rather detailed description of the taciturn stranger.  In fact it was this very reluctance to speak that the Smith's had even that night felt very strange.  Mary Smith had approached the guy and asked him directly "Is she asleep?" to which the stranger just looked down and moved on.  Now this type of impoliteness might be common in London or New York, but in a sleepy Portuguese tourist village it was odd behaviour.

The description given sounded rather like Gerry McCann, a match that was emphasised when the testimonies were released in the PJ Files and it was realised that Aoife Smith's description of his trousers as beige coloured straights possibly with buttons matched exactly trousers Gerry was photographed wearing and were seen in an initial photo of the parent's bed (removed a few minutes later for a second photo).  Confusingly two efits  were produced from two witness seeing the guy from different angles.  It seemed that this was deliberately done to confuse matters and to introduce nonsensical speculation about the Podesta  Brothers involvement.

The epiphanous moment for Martin Smith came as he happened to be watching the news 4 months later and saw Gerry McCann carrying his son Sean down from the aircraft in a manner exactly the same as the stranger had held the child.  He was so struck by this revelation which left him 60-80% sure that he had seen Gerry McCann that night that he urgently contacted the police. 

The selection of CB as this year's Prime Suspect makes the Smith testimony particularly problematic for the McCanns.  The 6ft short blond haired German with piercing blue eyes is clearly not Smithman, so if CB was the abductor then who was?

There has always only really been four possibilities:

1    An Abductor who happens to look like Gerry carrying Maddie

2    Gerry McCann carrying Maddie's corpse

3    Gerry McCann carrying the sedated child of one of his Tapas friends

4    An innocent man who happens to look like Gerry carrying a blonde girl who happens to be around the same size as Maddie

If CB were really the abductor then the only viable option is 4.  

How plausible is 4??  Luz is not Victoria Station at rush hour.  It's a sleepy village where the chances of finding someone who happens to look close enough to Gerry for Mr Smith to be so mistaken must be remote.  However we must compound the improbability because the stranger was also carrying a blonde girl same size as Maddie.  We must also ask what are the chances of a (i) a guy disarmingly similar to Gerry (ii) carrying a small blonde girl similar  to Maddie (iii) at 9.55pm at night heading away from the resort (iv) being impolite enough not to answer Mary Smith's polite  question (it should be obvious  why Gerry or an abductor would not wish to give away his accent).

By this stage it should be realised that the probability of 4 being true is  very slim indeed but it does not stop there.  Despite the unprecedented global publicity that must mean that noone in Luz at the time can not be aware of the situation, this stranger  has not come forward to say:  Oh it was me taking my daughter home from the restaurant or whatever. Not only that, it might reasonably be assumed that the stranger was taking the girl FROM somewhere TO somewhere and that there were most likely people with him at one or both ends as it were so why has noone come forward.  It's a town where most locals know  each other and few tourists will be travelling as just a man and  a  small child.  Were this Gerry McCann look alike to truly exist , surely SOMEBODY would come forward and say well I have a friend xxx who looks alot like Gerry and has a 4 year old blonde  daughter and was in Luz that night.

It doesn't even stop there.  We must also look at the McCann's treatment of the Smith's testimony.  This was by far the most compelling lead generated by all the publicity.  Had they really been genuinely interested to find the abductor of their daughter this lead would have been seized upon and given maximum publicity to try to try to get further information on this man.  Instead it was unceremoniously kicked deep into the long grass.  The one thing that the McCann's were at great pains to implicitly point out was that Smithman could not be Gerry because of cause Gerry was supposedly at the Tapas table with a bunch of his  friends at the time.  The problem is that the only witnesses that concur with the McCann timetable are  their Tapas friends.  4 or  5 INDEPENDENT witnesses indicate that the alarm was raised earlier  at 9.20-9.40pm in which case it seems that the Tapas group were at pains to pull back the timing precisely to give Gerry an alibi for the time he  knew the Smiths  saw him.

In my view both Options 1 and 4 can be  safely dismissed. It is  highly probable that Martin Smith was correct in thinking that they had met Gerry McCann that night.

As to which of 2 or 3 is correct, I think the jury is out on that one.  For what it's worth I would say 70 to 30 its  more likely to be a decoy run with another Tapas child than a last minute  effort to hide Maddie's body.  To me  only hiding the body at the last moment would  seem to be an insane  risk.  I believe that Gerry found a place/way to hide the body earlier and was able to convince the rest that it was very unlikely to be discovered, otherwise it seems to me that they would  be  running an extraordinary risk going along with the  plan.  I think the plan was a deliberate attempt to provide some substance to the abduction theory by searching out for some independent witnesses who it would  have  been hoped would recall seeing a guy carrying a  child but not recall any more detailed description.  This is  why the McCanns put such effort into begging any one who say anything especially any Irish tourists out there to come forward.  So keen were they to get Irish tourists  to  come forward were they that they made a special plea on the Irish equivalent of crime stoppers.  Gerry would have  known the Smiths  were Irish from their  accents.  It was only when that they actually did come forward and remembered far more  details that the McCanns had bargained  for that they so decisively kicked them into the long grass.

For now the appropriate (and thus highly improbable) strategy for our wonderful media should be to put out an ardent plea for anyone  who might be Smithman or know  who  he  might be to come  forward immediately.  If some credible candidate were to come forward it would significantly weaken CB's defence, but I  have a strong feeling noone  will come forward.