If investigations are taking place with Madeleine McCann "at the core" how much faith do you have in detectives who took 6 years to account for Tannerman when he had presented himself to the PJ in the early days? How much faith do you have in an investigation that takes 6 years to finally admit that Smithman should be a focus of greater attention? I knew about Smithman in 2007 - how is it a "revelation moment" for DCI Redwood in 2013? It's absolute nonsense..... If the 2013 Crimewatch show was a serious attempt to find the abductor - why was it dressed up as "if you were in PDL at the time, or might know this man please call our hotline" (not verbatim).... There has already been an identification of Smithman.... why weren't the viewers told the full facts? It's been the same narrative from the London press conference.... how can any serious investigation have a PR man, acting like a detective, talk about his "private briefings" from CEOPs yet fail to mention that Tannerman had presented himself to the Police.... and worse still imo fail to even mention the existence of Smithman!! How do you explain that an appeal for witnesses to an abduction fail to even mention a possible abductor!!!?? .
Abduction or accident this was tragic for the McCanns. If Madeleine is "at the core" then why does no-one point out the obvious that leaving children three and under alone in an unusual apartment is fraught with risk. On one night a child cried for an hour and a half, reportedly.... and there's some reports that some of the T9 group were in Chaplin's Bar which is further away still than the Tapas... just how effective and how frequently were their "listening outside the window" checks?? People have lost sight of the real cause of tragedy here imo.
Showing the Smithman efits was a bit of a gamble for Operation Grange imo. Their remit was to investigate an abduction, but they must have been aware that Mr Smith thought the man he saw was Gerry McCann. They must have seen the report which accompanied the efits too, which;
According to the Sunday Times, it had contained criticisms of the evidence provided by the friends of the McCanns, and by the McCanns themselves
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/ourbeeb/crimewatch-dupers-or-duped/To put the icing on the cake, Operation Grange must have been aware that the efits weren't new evidence, they'd been produced five years earlier.
Despite all of the above, they publicised the efits and, predictably, the whole story behind them emerged. Were Operation Grange expecting that? If so they obviously thought that showing the efits was very very important. If not, they should have been able to predict it.
The media did their best, telling people that Mr Smith had changed his mind about the identity of the man he saw. Except that he didn't, according to a later story.
