Yes, of course. But Rachael and Fiona also saw the timelines written by ROB, before being quizzed by the Portuguese police (google "Elizabeth Loftus" to know how false memories could be implanted).
If I remember correctly the police approved them working on the timeline. I am in two minds about that. Obviously it was of the greatest importance to establish the when and where and to do it with the utmost urgency. It was the proper course of action to get it all on record while memories were fresh and in my opinion they made a valiant attempt at doing that.
But they did it in the absence of professional advice and at a time when they were caught up in the turmoil of the event.
They were not the only people in Praia da Luz that evening. In my opinion their individual accounts should have been collated with reference to all other individual accounts to take in the overall picture and not their part in it in isolation.
Inadvertently it became in part the catalyst for "inconsistencies" in a situation in which of course there were going to be inconsistencies in individual accounts taking individual viewpoints into consideration.
I think that misinterpretation did immeasurable damage to Madeleine's case when police focused in before focusing out.
Don't know if you are familiar with the phrase ~ 'can't see the wood for the trees' ~ but I think that is what happened.
In my opinion, though, Jane Tanner was isolated from much of that and her account was therefore untainted by collaboration.
The circumstance of her knowledge of what she had witnessed led her in my opinion to remain aloof as she tried to work it out.
Unless someone knows different as soon as the furore of Madeleine's disappearance erupted she immediately recalled the man she had seen carrying the child away.
She recalled the circumstances surrounding that. She made the connection to Madeleine's disappearance. That was prior to the timeline being drawn up and as soon as she could on the arrival of the police she told them what she had seen.
In my opinion that knowledge weighed heavily on her and to her was in context probably of far more importance than the trivia of a timeline to establish when Madeleine's disappearance could have happened.
She knew exactly when.
It would be a reasonable assumption that Jane may have seen Dr Totman in the course of the holiday. She never associated him with the man who passed in front of her on the night Madeleine vanished or made the connection to the possibility the man she saw was a tourist. Quite the reverse.
I remain convinced Jane Tanner's account of the events concerning her is yet to be overturned. In my opinion it is accurate and therefore I believe that man is still to be traced.
