Was Martin Smith mistaken about his 60% - 80% certainty after all?

[pegasus]

OK. Scrap my last comment. What has a call from Walter in Argentina got to do with the release of the Smith sighting?

How many hours was it after the article appeared, that a plane diversion was suggested?

[Brietta]

http://books.google.co.uk/books?isbn=0552165158
174

You have let me down Pegasus, I am not used to you using a perfectly innocent and a horribly traumatic non-event in this way.  Totally expected of others, not you ... what on earth were you thinking of?

[misty]

How many hours was it after the article appeared, that a plane diversion was suggested?

IMO the McCanns would have been told about the Irish press release before breakfast or maybe the night before.
The Argentinian called the Spanish police. The Embassy in Berlin gave the McCanns options. They flew to Amsterdam.
I think you're guilty of association by date only, yes?

[pegasus]

You have let me down Pegasus, I am not used to you using a perfectly innocent and a horribly traumatic non-event in this way.  Totally expected of others, not you ... what on earth were you thinking of?

The end result was that some valuable interviews in Amsterdam to publicise the search had to be cancelled, and for that you should be blaming whatever person made that call to Spain

[Brietta]

The end result was that some valuable interviews in Amsterdam to publicise the search had to be cancelled, and for that you should be blaming whatever person made that call to Spain

That fact was not indicated in your original post nor does it have the slightest relevance to the Smith sighting being published in the Irish press on that day.

[pegasus]

IMO the McCanns would have been told about the Irish press release before breakfast or maybe the night before.
The Argentinian called the Spanish police. The Embassy in Berlin gave the McCanns options. They flew to Amsterdam.
I think you're guilty of association by date only, yes?

How would someone in germany know within about an article in an irish local paper Misty? That would require either a psychic, or a great expert.

Yes it's association by date.

[pegasus]

That fact was not indicated in your original post nor does it have the slightest relevance to the Smith sighting being published in the Irish press on that day.

Two TV interviews were missed due to that 3 hour delay which I agree all the media state was due to a potentially important phonecall. Eventually it turned out that the phonecall was "nothing of interest"

[misty]

How would someone in germany know within about an article in an irish local paper Misty? That would require either a psychic, or a great expert.

Yes it's association by date.

They had a great expert with them. Clarence.
My son did a short stint at Sky Sports in Leeds. Many people sit around watching computer screens for breaking news  on Twitter feeds and from other journalists. CM would have known before it hit the printer,

[stephen25000]

They had a great expert with them. Clarence.
My son did a short stint at Sky Sports in Leeds. Many people sit around watching computer screens for breaking news  on Twitter feeds and from other journalists. CM would have known before it hit the printer,

Is this the Clarence who worked for Blair ?

[blonk]

An example of this is that I had supposed that the chronology of events was that

• Jane Tanner reported her sighting immediately the GNR arrived on the scene
• The Smith family reported their sighting as soon as they found out about the missing child, which would have been the next day

I was astounded to learn that the Smith sighting was not reported to the PJ for a fortnight after the event.  That is a very important interval at a time of greatest importance in investigating a missing child.

I am completely at one with you on that issue. The 13-day delay is very telling, and perhaps even more so because it appears that their contacting the police followed directly from Robert Murat being made an arguido. Martin Smith certainly 'knew' Robert Murat; how well seems a bit of a mystery.

But over and above the fact of that very strange 13-day delay, the Smiths offered several different reasons for that delay. I will post them if anyone wants to know what these were.     

[G-Unit]

Despite the obvious problems with the Smith's evidence, Redwood's Crimewatch programme seems to have been devoted mostly to publicising the e-fits supposedly produced by them. Does that mean he didn't properly examine their evidence or that he somehow managed to explain the problems to his own satisfaction? By moving the 'window of opportunity' to a later time he does seem to have been suggesting that the man seen by the Smiths could have been carrying Madeleine.

[blonk]

Despite the obvious problems with the Smith's evidence, Redwood's Crimewatch programme seems to have been devoted mostly to publicising the e-fits supposedly produced by them. Does that mean he didn't properly examine their evidence or that he somehow managed to explain the problems to his own satisfaction? By moving the 'window of opportunity' to a later time he does seem to have been suggesting that the man seen by the Smiths could have been Madeleine.

You have posed an 'either...or' question there.

To which my answer would be: neither.

There is a third alternative which I suggest must be considered: namely that Operation Grange was never intended to get to the truth from the start, and that the BBC Crimewatch McCann show on 14 October 2013 was a cynical attempt to head the British public toward an acceptable, but false, explanation for what really happened to Madeleine McCann.     

[Carana]

I am afraid that those commenting on Martin Smith's statement have obviously got badly confused, and although ShiningInLuz's little essay on Portuguese grammar is no doubt very informative, it does not help if we are looking at the wrong part of Martin Smith's statement.

And Carana, too, has extracted an irrelevant part of Martin Smith's statement. 

To recap, when asked by Carana for a source, I produced two quite separate newspaper articles which both clearly contain a statement that Martin Smith was not wearing his glasses that night.

Carana didn't quote the right bit of Martin Smith's statement in her reply.

This is the part of Martin Smith's statement that has given rise to the comments that he may not have been wearing his glasses that night:

He adds that in May and August of 2006, he saw ROBERT MURAT in Praia da Luz bars. On one of these occasions, the first, he was inebriated and spoke to everyone. He did not wear glasses at this time. He also states that the individual who carried the child was not ROBERT, as he would have recognised him immediately.

This has given rise to some heated debate elsewhere. Some have interpreted this as: "Robert Murat wasn't wearing glasses on that occasion (i.e. the first occasion Smith saw Murat)".  Others say it means that Martin Smith was saying: "I wasn't wearing glasses on this occasion (i.e. on 3rd May)".

It really is of no consequence to me whether Martin Smith was or was not wearing his glasses that night - if he was, I am still left with six, rather than seven, very good reasons why Martin Smith was in no position to draw up any kind of efit for Henri Exton, a year or more after the event.

However, if ShiningInLLuz has access to what the original English-to-Portuguese version in the files says, and would like to offer her view on the likely meaning of "He did not wear glasses at this time", I am happy to be guided by that.

ONE FURTHER IMPORTANT POINT now that Carana has reproduced that interesting extract from Martin Smith's statement.

In it, he says the man he saw was 'about 35 to 40'.

But in a subsequent statement, he said the man looked about '40'.

But then in another twist, when the McCanns uploaded a 30-second summary of Martin Smith's statement on the Find Madeleine website in May 2009 (and it is still there today), Martin Smith's statement about the age of the man is changed to 'about 34 to 35'.

This is significant. Two separate changes to his original statement on the age alone (and those are not the only changes he makes in his statement.

I have two questions about this for all viewing this thread:

1. What rational explanation is there for Martin Smith to change the man's age not once, but twice? - and
2. How do these two changes in his statements affect his overall credibility as a witness of truth?                     

 

       

Who was Martin saying was inebriated and wasn't wearing glasses at that time? Himself or Murat?

[jassi]

Who was Martin saying was inebriated and wasn't wearing glasses at that time? Himself or Murat?

Form the context of the sentence, I would say that it was Murat who was described, not Smith.

[pathfinder73]

I am completely at one with you on that issue. The 13-day delay is very telling, and perhaps even more so because it appears that their contacting the police followed directly from Robert Murat being made an arguido. Martin Smith certainly 'knew' Robert Murat; how well seems a bit of a mystery.

But over and above the fact of that very strange 13-day delay, the Smiths offered several different reasons for that delay. I will post them if anyone wants to know what these were.   

It's obvious they didn't think anything of it at the time because they looked like father and daughter. That is not an uncommon sight in Luz. You definitely wouldn't expect an abductor to be carrying a child openly through streets (very smart move to not stand out from the crowd). It was only later when they realised that they saw the man and child about the same time as the disappearance they thought it could be important. This case hasn't been solved for the simple reason whilst everyone is chasing shadows, Smithman is having a good laff and thinking what a load of numpties! But he won't be laughing when this case is over.