BOB SMALL AND THE SPANISH POLICE
After speaking to “the people that Kate and Gerry brought in”, Miss Tanner received a telephone call from Bob Small (a senior Leicestershire Police Officer, who was assisting the PJ in the Algarve) who told her that the “Spanish Police” wanted to see her! Yes: he did say, according to Miss Tanner, “the Spanish Police”. It is likely, by that time, that covert plans had been made (on some pretext) to induce Mr Murat to walk across the top of the road, north of Apartment 5A, where Miss Tanner said she had seen the “abductor” and was thus the precise context in which she believed she could make an identification.
Mr Small told Miss Tanner to not to discuss anything with anyone, including her husband. She claims she followed this instruction to the letter: but is it realistic to believe she did not tell him anything: or is she lying on this point? If she is being untruthful, why?
Mr Murat was under suspicion but had not been made an “Arguido”. He been around the Ocean Club a lot from 4th May 2007 onwards and had interpreted the PJ’s interviews with Catriona Baker, Stacey Portz , Leanne Wagstaff and Amy Teirney (Folio 457). It is possible that between 6th May 2007 (when his name was mentioned by Lori Campbell) and 13th May 2007 the news that a local suspect had been identified had reached the ears of the “Tapas 9”. It is even conceivable that they knew the suspect was Mr Murat. Unlike her husband and others of the “Tapas 9”, Miss Tanner had never been introduced to Mr Murat.
THE ILL JUDGED“PICK UP”
Arrangements were made for Miss Tanner to be collected by Mr Small and his PJ colleagues in a car park near to Mr Murat’s home: this was probably around 7.30pm on Sunday 13th May 2007 while Dr Amaral waited for news in a meeting room at the Public Ministry, preparing to pounce if Miss Tanner’s identification was “successful”.
Miss Tanner dramatizes that she was “worried sick” that the “Spanish Police” were about to cart her off to destinations unknown and got her husband to walk with her to the rendezvous with Mr Small. If, as she claims, she did not discuss the identification operation with her husband, what precisely did she say to him? What did he think was going on? Who looked after their kids and what did they tell them? It is beyond belief that Russell O’Brien and some of the other “Tapasniks” did not know what was afoot.
Why the police arranged Miss Tanner’s pick up so near to their main suspect’s home was at best foolish and was asking for trouble. On their way to the car park - and just outside his home - Robert Murat (who had met Russell O' Brien on the morning of Friday 4th May 2007) stopped, got out of his green VW van and chatted, showing the couple posters he had made to “Find Madeleine” and generally rattling on about nothing in particular. This was the first time Miss Tanner had been introduced to Mr Murat, but given the events that were about to follow it is amazing she did not cry out “That’s him… that’s the ‘person’ I saw: the abductor”. But she didn’t say a single word.
In April 2008 she told the Leicestershire Police that she was concerned that there “was some strange conspiracy going on” (to abduct her) and that Mr Small had “scared the daylights out of her”. She continued: “But that made me even more suspicious because it was like, so I think at that point, I think I actually spoke to Stewart (Stewart Prior the lead UK Police Investigator in Luz)”. She knows she had spoken to Mr Prior and thus had no reason to believe that she was about to be abducted. Her histrionics in this regard are absurd.
The discussion Miss Tanner had with her husband about the identification charade are very important. He had already met Mr Murat and would be able to identify him and point him out to her. Was it pure coincidence that he accompanied Miss Tanner to the pick up by Mr Small? Was it bad planning that the pick up was just outside Mr Murat’s house? Was it misfortune that they happened to bump into Mr Murat? Or is the whole sequence far more sinister?
Miss Tanner was taken away by Mr Small and the PJ and she says Russell O’Brien wrote down their car registration number, presumably so he could rescue her if the Spanish Police abducted her. Miss Tanner was driven to another location and hidden in the back of an undercover surveillance vehicle (a refrigerated van) which was driven to a position near the side entrance to Apartment 5A, facing north.
THE IDENTIFICATION OF MR MURAT AS THE ABDUCTOR
Miss Tanner then, apparently, saw three people walk across the top of the road: but Mr Murat was the first to do so. It is not clear exactly what she told the PJ at the time but, however she would like to spin the story now, it was enough to make them believe Mr Murat was the “abductor”, notwithstanding the fact that he looked nothing like the “Egg Man” or her verbal description. The sighting was reported to Dr Amaral and the Public Ministry and plans made to arrest Mr Murat. The following day, 14 May 2007, Robert Murat was designated an arguido.
http://thetapas9janetanner.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/jane-tanner-and-framing-of-robert-murat.html
