But they also had to say for the first time that 9.15 man may have been identified, so if you don't then make a great big deal of 10pm man everyone involved is potentially in trouble: the public may have started asking questions about a) what is the point of this investigation when it has achieved nothing?, and b) the McCanns.
Lawyers would not have been at all happy about the second possibility. Doubtless they were aware beforehand about what was going to be said in Crimewatch (it's a big show and the audience was huge. It's potentially trouble if you make a mess of it).
Well first of all, DCI Redwood claims that the investigation is 'almost certain' in their ruling out of Tannerman as a suspect.
Personally I think it's semantics to suggest that the use of the word 'almost' indicates any real kind of doubt on the part of DCI Redwood and his team regarding this conclusion. There is always going to be a chance that a mistake has been made; mistakes occur all the time and in any profession. That goes without saying. But in this matter, a man has come forward to identify himself, has been interviewed by SY presumably quite extensively, matches the physical description of the person Jane Tanner saw, and has provided SY with details, unrevealed to us, which indicate to them that this is the man.
How much more certain could SY be, having had the benefit of meeting the person face to face and and speaking to him at length?
This is not the kind of evidence that involves much subjectivity, conjecture, inference , interpretation etc..on the part of investigators, or a piece of evidence such as certain forensics for example that could be inconclusive. This is a flesh and blood person who presumably believes himself to have been that person on that night. How much more evidence do you need?
And why is it so that, having ruled Tannerman out, SY needed to be seen to have a replacement? If there was no equivalent replacement why inflate one into that position? Why not just say that inquiries are ongoing?
