He actually said;
I would be 60-80% sure that it was Gerard McCann that I met that night carrying a child.
http://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/MARTIN_SMITH.htm
How Martin Smith could have drawn up ANY efit a year after allegedly seeing a man in the dark for a few seconds is a great mystery.
Why he and the family should approve two efits of quite different-looking men is another mystery.
How Martin Smith could identify Gerry McCann on 20 September 2007 as the man he had seen, just by the way he walked and was carrying Sean, is one more mystery.
How the 'Smithman' efits lay gathering dust for around five years and five months is another - and so on.
There are still some people who say that the Smiths really did see someone that night - and most of those say that he saw Gerry McCann carrying Madeleine.
I don't know how anyone could seriously consider the Smith's sighting is genuine.
But if someone can give persuasive answers to these 60 questions about the Smithman sighting, I might change my mind:
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SMITHMAN sighting
For anyone who still believes that the Smith family, at around 10pm on Thursday 3 May, saw Gerry McCann carrying the body of his daughter down towards the beach from his holiday apartment
(or that he was carrying a ‘decoy’, as some suggest, or that it was another member of the ‘Tapas 7’, as others suggest)
Can you satisfactorily answer ANY of these questions:
1. Why would anyone whose daughter had died recently (whether hours or days earlier) be so bone-headed as to carry her openly through the streets of a popular tourist resort
2. Why would he do so at the very moment that his wife and friends were raising the alarm at the Ocean Club?
3. Where could he have hidden the body?
4. How could he have both hidden the body, buried or stored it somewhere, and have been able to return to be seen around his apartment and the Ocean Club minutes later?
5. Why did the Smiths give so many differing accounts of the impact of having seen this man carrying a child? (anything from ‘quite normal to see men carrying their toddlers home late at night’ to ‘it was a disturbing encounter’
6. Why did not one of them – bearing in mind that the news of Madeleine’s disappearance was headline news in Portugal, Ireland and around the world - suggest contacting the police at any time before the day Robert Murat was made an ‘arguido’ (15 May)?
7. Is it credible (as claimed by the Smiths) that Martin Smith only acted to contact the police after his son Peter ’phoned him on 16 May (the day after Murat was declared a suspect) and asked: “Dad, am I dreaming, or did we see a man carrying a child on the day Madeleine was reported missing?”
8. Why was Martin Smith so adamant that a man he saw in the dark for barely a second or two could not possibly be Robert Murat?
9. How well did Martin Smith know Robert Murat?
Contradictions by Martin Smith about his knowledge of Robert Murat:
Martin Smith statement to PJ, 26 May 2008: “Met Murat twice, in May and August 2006 in Praia da Luz bars”.
Met him ‘only once’ – two years ago (Drogheda Independent - 8 August 2007) “The family are also mystified at reports that he knows Mr Murat. They met once in a bar about two years ago”.
‘Met him several times’ SKY News, 4 January 2008: “I told police it was definitely not him because the man wasn't as big as Murat - I think I would have recognised him because I'd met him several times previously”.
‘I’ve known him for years’ - Daily Mail, 3 January 2008: “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”.
Which one of these versions, if any, is the truth?
10. What is the explanation for all three Smiths giving the Portuguese Police on 26 May 2016, in Portimao, a description of the man they said they had seen, which exactly matched in almost every detail those given by Jane Tanner of ‘Tannerman’ and by Nuno Lourenco of ‘Sagresman’/Wojcek Krokowski? (including cloth clothes, ‘classic shoes’ and ‘did not look like a tourist’)
11. According to Martin Smith, his wife Mary Smith actually spoke to the man. So why did she not accompany her husband and her children to Portugal to give the police her evidence?
12. In Martin Smith’s statement to the PJ, 26 May, he told them: “On 4 May, I thought it could have been Madeleine”. So why did he not report the sighting for a further 12 days? Hetand his family never reported the sighting until 16 May
13. Why did the family, immediately after having a meal with drinks at the Dolphin restaurant, go to Kelly’s Bar for even more drinks?
14. Why could none of the staff at Kelly’s Bar remember this party of nine coming in?
15. Which of the four bar bills between 9.30pm and 10.00pm Thursday 3 May, if any, was theirs?
16. In what precise way was the man supposed to be carrying the child? – the Smiths’ accounts differ
17. Aoife Smith said she thought she saw buttons on the man’s trousers. Can it be ruled out that Aoife Smith had, before 26 May, seen a photograph of Gerry McCann wearing trousers with buttons?
18. Did the man lower his head? Peter Smith to the PJ: “He did not try to hide his face nor did he lower his gaze”. But Martin Smith said: “He put his head down”.
19. How much did each of them see of the child? Aoife Smith said she “didn’t see the child's face because she was lying vertically against the man’s left shoulder…” But Peter Smith says he was able to see the girls’ face: “The girl was asleep; her eyelids were closed”.
20. Martin Smith said: “The child was in a deep sleep”. How did he know she was in a ‘deep’ sleep?
21. Was the child wrapped in a blanket? The Daily Mail (3 Jan 2008) told us: “An Irish holidaymaker has spoken publicly for the first time of his disturbing encounter with a man carrying a child wrapped in a blanket on the night Madeleine McCann disappeared”. Yet the Smiths in their statements to the Portuguese police say the child was dressed only in pyjamas and was not covered by a blanket.
22. What was the effect on them of seeing the man carrying a child?
Mary Smith: We didn’t think anything of it’ (Report, 3 Jan 2008)
Martin Smith (audio recording in an Irish voice for McCanns’ website, May 2011) “I thought they were father and daughter, so I - I wasn’t so suspicious”
But in 2008 Martin Smith said: “…the man’s rude behaviour should have aroused my suspicions. The man put his head down and averted his eyes. This is very unusual… (Media reports, 3 Jan 2008)
Martin Smith: “I heard that a kidnapping had happened in the village of Luz. We were looking at all the commotion on Sky News…it had a terrible effect on [the children]. They all wanted to sleep in the same room as us until we went home on the Wednesday”.
Which one of the statements (if any) is the truth?
23. Different reasons were given by the Smiths for the 13-day delay in reporting their sighting:
Reason 1: My son ’phoned me up two weeks after we got back and asked “Am I dreaming, or did we meet a man carrying a child…?” (Statements of Martin Smith and Peter Smith to the news media)
Reason 2: “We only reported our sighting because we eventually found out about the exact time of the sighting” (statement of Peter Smith)
Reason 3: The descriptions of the man matched those of Jane Tanner (Daily Mail 3 Jan 2008)
Reason 4: ‘The Portuguese police were too busy’ (claim by Martin Smith reported by the Daily Mirror, 16 Oct 2013, two days after the BBC Crimewatch McCann Special) [NOTE: This was the first time Martin Smith had made this claim in 6½ years]
24. Again, which of those four versions, if any, is the trut,?
25. How can we explain these contradictions by Martin Smith in what he saw of the man’s clothes above the waist?
Martin Smith statement to PJ, 26 May 2007: “He did not notice the body clothing and cannot describe the colour or fashion of the same”
Martin Smith to Irish police officer, 30 January 2008: “He was wearing a dark jacket or blazer”
Martin Smith statement audio recording put on McCanns’ website, May 2009: “I can’t recall what he was wearing, apart from a pair of beige trousers”.
26. Why did Martin Smith delay by 11 days (9 to 20 September) reporting his belief that Gerry McCann was the man he had seen carrying a child?
27. Exactly how credible is it that Martin Smith, four months after allegedly seeing a man carrying a child - when it was dark, there was weak street lighting and he only saw him for a few seconds at most - could be 60% to 80% certain that the man was Gerry McCann, based only on the way he was carrying the child out of an aeroplane (and bearing in mind that most parents having to carry a child would also carry sleeping or very tired child on their shoulder as Gerry was doing)?
28. Why on earth, if Martin Smith was now so sure it was Gerry McCann who had been carrying that blonde child dressed only in pyjamas, would he even think of speaking to Metodo 3 and Brian Kennedy (as reported in the British press on 3 & 4 January 2008?)
29. Still more strange, why would he agree to start working for the McCann Team by agreeing to work with Brian Kennedy, Kevin Halligen and Henri Exton?
30. Did Martin Smith tell the McCann Team at any stage that he still thought the man he saw was Gerry McCann?
31. Why did Martin Smith feel it necessary to ask a solicitor to demand that an Irish newspaper must remove from an article any reference to his association with Robert Murat?
32. Martin Smith and his family, so we are told, helped Henri Exton to draw up some efits of the man they said they saw. How could they possibly be able to do so given that (a) they last saw the man a year or more previously (b) they only saw him for a few seconds at the most (c) it was dark (d) the street lighting was ‘weak (e) some of them did not even see his face properly and (f) each of the three of them who gave statements to the Portuguese police agreed that there would be no chance at all of them ever recognising the man if they ever saw him agaim?
33. Why did they draw up two efits of different-looking men? One of them
looks older
has a ‘fatter’ face
has a rectangular face (the other has a triangular-shaped face)
has curly hair, apparently brushed back (the other has short, straight hair)
has a much shorter nose
has a much bigger chin, and
has smaller ears.
The other one has none of those features.
34. Why could they not agree what he looked like?
35. Why, if Martin Smith still believed that the man he said he saw was Gerry McCann, did he agree to take part at all in drawing up any efits?
36. Why, if Martin Smith still believed that the man he said he saw was Gerry McCann, did he not authorise an efit that looked exactly like him?
37. Why, if Martin Smith still believed that the man he said he saw was Gerry McCann, did he and his wife make statements urging the police to ‘find the abductor’?
38. Why, if Martin Smith still believed that the man he said he saw was Gerry McCann, did he offer his sympathy to the McCanns?
39. The Smith family sighting was featured prominently, twice, in the Channel 4/Mentorn Media ‘Mockumentary’ of May 2009. Did the Smiths know about – and then consent – to their sighting featuring in the documentary, despite Martin Smith (allegedly) still believing that he had seen Gerry McCann on the night of 3 May 2007?
40. Did he approve the contents of what was said about his family’s sighting in the film?
41. If not, did he ever protest publicly about it?
42. Immediately after the C4/Mentorn Media documentary was shown, the McCanns uploaded a 30-second summary of Martin Smith’s alleged sighting, read out in an Irish accent (not by Martin Smith). Was Martin Smith told about this, or did he become aware?
43. If and when he did become aware, did he consent to his sighting being used on the McCanns’ website?
44. If he did become aware, was he also aware that after he had changed his initial story about the age of the man he said he saw from ‘35 to 40’ to ‘40’, was Martin Smith aware that in this audio recording the age had been changed again to ’34-35’? Did Martin Smith agree to that second change of the man’s age?
45. If yes, why did he do so? If not, why did he never protest publicly?
46. When Dr Kate McCann published her book, ‘madeleine’, on 11 May 2011, seven pages of her book mentioned Smithman. Three of these seven pages consisted of an itemised list of the ‘striking similarities’ between ‘Tannerman’ and ‘Smithman’. Was Martin Smith consulted about this before the proofs went to the printers?
47. Again, given that in September 2007 Martin Smith was sure that he had seen Gerry McCann on 3 May 2007, did Martin Smith approve of his sighting being quoted on 7 pages of Kate McCann’s book? – in support of a ‘stranger’ abductor?
48. Did Martin Smith object in any way to his sighting being used in a book which effectively denied that he had seen Gerry McCann - and which was pointing the finger at the ‘Tannerman’ sighting?
49. Why did Martin Smith meet with DCI Andy Redwood, Head of the Met Police’s Operation Grange, in 2012?
50. What did he discuss with him?
51. Was he told that his sighting would be the ‘top’ feature of a BBC programme?
52. And did he consent, despite apparently believing that Gerry McCann was the man he had seen on 3 May 2007?
53. Martin Smith again met with DCI Andy Redwood, Head of the Met Police’s Operation Grange, in 2013. Again, did he consent, despite apparently believing that Gerry McCann was the man he had seen on 3 May 2007?
54. On either, or each, of those occasions, did Martin Smith say something like: “Look Mr Redwood, I saw Gerry McCann carrying that child at 10pm on 3 May. I object to you using my sighting to suggest it was someone else”?
55. If not, why not?
56. Did Martin Smith agree with the BBC for his sighting and his/his family’s two efits to be used in the BBC Crimewatch McCann Show?
57. If he did agree, why did he agree, if he was sure that he had seen Gerry McCann on 3 May 2007?
58. There was a blaze of pre-programme hype and then innumerable BBC trailers promoting the BBC Crimewatch McCann Show, transmitted to an audience of 6.7 million viewers. Did Martin Smith consent to these two efits, allegedly having been drawn up by him and members of his family, being shown?
59. How credible is that after nine years of working closely with the McCanns and then Operation Grange (2008-2017), that the Smiths would suddenly tell Irish reporter Gemma O’Doherty: “I have never retracted my view that I saw Gerry McCann that night”?
60. How credible a witness would Martin Smith be if put on a witness stand to testify that in his judgment he was 60% to 80% sure he had seen Gerry McCann on the night of 3 May 2007? How well would that evidence stand up under cross-examination?
