Another analytical mind and favourite of this blog, Dr Martin Roberts casts a discerning eye over the events of the evening of the third of May and the subsequent reactions.
I chose this paragraph purely for it's delightful turn of phrase.
A TANNER IN THE WORKS
If lies are two a penny, then a 'tanner' should give you at least a dozen.
.......Whether by accident or design, the 'Tanner sighting' has become the maypole around which all the other colourful threads in the McCann fairytale are entwined. Yet there are more sides to it than a threepenny bit, suggesting that design might have played a role, and that this isn't quite a case of the tail wagging the dog.
And these two, the second one particularly, as a wonderful example of lateral thinking.
Jane Tanner's seemingly coincidental sighting is but one of a medley of events itemised, for the benefit of the PJ in the first instance, by Tapas 7 members. So scrupulous were they concerning the chronology of the sequence overall, that they saw fit to annotate it twice, with small, and on the face of it insignificant, amendments. As is the case with so many things, the process itself turns out to be as interesting as the result.
Simply playing devil's advocate and supposing that, whatever else, Madeleine was not abducted, provides an immediate explanation for Gerry's astonishment. For how can Jane Tanner be in a position to know something about the detail of an event that did not take place? That someone should come forward with independent validation of a lie must have been unsettling to say the least. Even more unsettling for Gerry McCann was Jane Tanner's continued insistence subsequently. more
