If it is that easy to prove that Smithman wasn't GM (because he was at the Tapas Bar at 10pm) then this begs the question why didn't Clarence Mitchell publicise the sighting at the LSE event (January 2008) nor indeed at any of his public appeals around that time or since news of Smithman first broke? John makes the perfectly valid point that CM doesn't publicise Smithman because Smith thought it might have been GM (and CM believes him to be totally innocent). But if it's so easy to prove it wasn't GM then why not publicise a credible sighting of a possible abductor when we know how well they publicised lots of other reported sightings?
Did you miss the post where I explained to you exactly why your preoccupation with Clarence Mtchell and this event is totally wrong.
http://miscarriageofjustice.co/index.php?topic=11585.msg602450#msg602450This was a debate about the Media and the McCanns ... I wonder the loud mouths who went out of their way to make a show of themselves at it didn't ask for answers to your question.
SnipSo far, so good. But once the debate was opened out to the audience by chairman Steve Hewlett, it went nowhere helpful. A vociferous group who have formed an organisation called The Madeleine Foundation showed a lamentable grasp of debating rules by interrupting speakers and shouting out a string of offensive comments about the McCanns and their PRs.
Their anger may have been sincere, but it became abundantly clear that they are infected with prejudice. Many of the claims they made - about money donated to the McCanns' fund, about payments to PRs, about the McCanns' actions and relationship with the police - were obviously based on the inaccurate accusations and innuendos published by so many newspapers.
However, reflecting on the debate on my journey home, I realised that they represented the authentic voice of so many British people, the Sun readers Kelvin had mentioned and probably the readers of all popular papers. It is not pretty.
Their unconcealed bile, their lack of compassion for the McCanns, their sanctimonious statements about the supposed parenting inadequacies of the McCanns, do not stem wholly from poor reporting.
Certainly, false stories have contributed to their fallacious arguments. But they were uninterested in the rational statements of Mitchell and McGuinness. They took no notice of the subtle arguments of Graef and Mills.
They were the equivalent of those mobs outside courts in murder trials, deaf to facts, cocooned from reality by their own self-righteous demagoguery. Their major aim, outlined in a "manifesto" circulated within the lecture theatre, is to see the McCanns prosecuted for "abandoning" their children.
The newspapers that have retailed nonsense about this case do have a lot to answer for. But then so do the people, do they not? What the debate never touched on was whether the media could, even eight months' on, play a positive role to counter the misinformation that appears now to have taken such a grip among the population.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2008/jan/31/themccannsdebatefrombanaliSmithman was a long time ago and unless you can make a connection between him and the German prime suspect Brueckner ... decidedly off topic on this thread.
