Is it not the case that Mrs Smith gave her statement in Portugal?
This may explain why it is not in the PJ files as it was taken at a different time.
The Smith's spent a lot of time in Portugal as I believe Mr Smith may have had business interests there and they owned their apartment.
I have read that somewhere but cannot provide a cite. Anyone help?
Mary Smith never gave a statement to the PJ as far as I know.
http://www.mccannfiles.com/id162.htmlHis wife Mary, 59, said: "We saw a man carrying a blonde child. It was just such a normal thing to see in a holiday resort — we didn't think anything of it at the time."
Speaking from his home in Drogheda, Co. Louth, Mr Smith recalled the sighting, which is strikingly similar to one by a friend of the McCanns, Jane Tanner. In hindsight, the retired Mr Smith said, the mans rude behaviour should have aroused his suspicions.
He explained: "The one thing we noted afterwards was that he gave us no greeting.
"My wife Mary remembered afterwards that she asked him, 'Oh, is she asleep?' But he never acknowledged her one way or another.
"He just put his head down and averted his eyes. This is very unusual in a tourist town at such a quiet time of the year."
"I rang the Portuguese police and they took a statement from me on the phone.Then they asked me to make a statement to gardai, which I did in Drogheda two weeks after the disappearance.
"Two days later, Leicestershire police got on to us and said they wanted to speak to all nine of us. But we felt there was no point dragging grand children and the whole lot out to Portugal so just my eldest son, Peter, and youngest daughter, Aoife, and I flew to Luz to make a statement.
"We spent the whole day there from 10.30am to 7pm with an interpreter. That day, May 26 last year, was the last time we had any contact with the investigation.I remember clearly because it was my wedding anniversary.
"I told them we went for dinner at the Dolphin Restaurant and then went on to have just one drink in Kelly's bar, just 50 yards away.
"We would normally have stayed out longer but my son and his family were going home the next day.
"As we made our way back to our apartment in Estrella da Luz, we met a guy with a child that appeared to be asleep.
"None of us was 100 per cent sure what he was wearing but we all told police he was wearing beige trousers and a darker top. We all put him in his early 40s. I didnt think he was Portuguese." Insisting he knew chief suspect Robert Murat visually for years, Mr Smith told police the person he saw carrying a child could not be him.
"I told police it was definitely not him because the man wasn't as big as Murat. I think I would have definitely recognised him."
"It looked like a blonde child, and I thought she might be four years old, as she was the same size as my grandchild who was with us.
