He still produced e-fits that looked like Gerry McCann. E-fits that Oakley's investigators added to a report which was hypercritical of the McCanns and their friends. A report that the McCanns gave to SY, but SY also asked the Oakley investigators for it. Why, if they already had it?
Some factual points we need to settle here.
The statement: 'He produced e-fits that looked like Gerry McCann' simply cannot be substantiated', for the simple reason that we to not know if Martin Smith produced EITHER of two very DIFFERENT e-fits. On the BBC Crimewatch McCann Special on 14 October 2013, all we were told was that the efits had been drawn up by 'two of the witnesses' - DCI Redwood didn't even say they were drawn up by 'two members of the Irish family'.
So, who drew up which one? Answer - we don't know.
Why did the two efits look so different? - we don't know.
Why do the two efits look as though they were drawn up using different computer programs? - again we don't know.
The claim that even ONE efit 'looks like Gerry McCann' is questionable. As has been said above, each one would bear a resemblance to tens of thousands of white British male faces between say 24 and 50.
On the claim that the Oakley's eeport "was hypercritical of the McCanns and their friends", this is a claim made by ex-MI5 Head of Covert Intelligence, Henri Exton, who stoplifted a bottle of perfume from Manchester Airport. Can we trust him as an honest witness? I think not. It appears he was royally miffed that Halligen didn't pay him enough money and that his efits had lain dormant for 5 years. It sounds like he had an agenda.
Even if the Smiths are all telling the God's honest truth about their sighting, and even if we take as genuine Martin Smith's 60% to 80% certainty about Gerry McCann being the man he saw for a few seconds in the dark four months previously, it is absolutely plain that his subsequent conduct contradicts that belief.
He and/or his family...
* support the McCanns and the McCann Team
* endorse the search for the abductor
* have clearly co-operated with the McCanns in the Channel 4 documentary of 2009
* changed his evidence about the age of the man he said he'd seen from 40 to '34-35' when the McCanns uploaded a summary of his statement to their 'Find Madeleine' website
* were content, so far as we can ascertain, with the claim in Kate McCann's book that 'Tannerman' and 'Smithman' were one and the same, and
* met with DCI Redwood both in 2012 and 2013 in the run-up to the BBC Crimewatch McCann Special.
'ferryman' asserts that this conduct proves beyond doubt that if Martin Smith ever did feel that the man he says he saw was Gerry McCann, he has long since changed his mind.
The only alternative is that he has been calmly stringing everyone along since 2007 - that is, for nearly 9 years.
The McCann-doubters cling on to Martin Smith's '60% to 80% certain' claim as a drowning man clings to a branch.
The McCann-believers sincerely believe that the Smiths really could draw up efits of two quite different-looking men a whole year after seeing a bloke, face partly hidden, for a few seconds, in the dark, with poor street lighting, and after all saying that they would never be able to recognise him again if they saw him. They are equally clutching at straws in sharing DCI Redwood's claim that 'these two efits are the centre of our focus'.
INTERESTING NOTE:
Aoife Smith also used the phrase '60% to 80% certain' when asked if she thought the child she saw being carried was Madeleine McCann. I doubt if any judge or jury would put any weight whatsoever on this testimony.
But they might raise an eyebrow at why both father and daughter came up with the identical '60% to 80%' figure and ask themselves: 'I wonder where that figure came from?'
