Is there something I'm missing. Why does everyone assume that IB would have had to have walked when he says he had access to Jules' car that weekend. Is there a reason to assume he would have walked.
Absolutely, when Sinead O’Connor confronted him he rang the newspapers with a BS story that she wanted to put his poems to music. She was wise enough to record their conversation.
It could be true or exxagerated
We've still only Bailey's word for it, he knows.the gardai don't comment so he can spin it how he likes
Thanks, that's quite emphatic and hopefully true.
Photographer^^??
https://www.thesun.ie/news/7381166/ian-bailey-gardai-attempt-life-death-threat/
It's in the DPP's report https://syndicatedanarchy.wordpress.com/category/uncategorized/
"Sarah Limbrick, Bailey’s former wife who has known him since the 1970’s has asserted that he never used violence towards her person."
and it's also the basis on which he was successful in his defamation case against two newspapers. https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ian-bailey-s-libel-action-fails-against-six-out-of-eight-newspapers-1.1130651?mode=amp
"Judge Moran found that the articles, which had said that Mr Bailey was the chief suspect for the murder of Ms Sophie Toscan du Plantier in December 1996, were justified.
He found in favour of Mr Bailey in relation to one allegation contained in articles published by two newspapers who claimed he had been violent towards his former wife. Judge Moran found that no evidence was brought to support this contention in articles in the Sun and the Irish Mirror, and he awarded Mr Bailey damages of €4,000 against each of them."
Photographer^^
In fairness anything bailey says like that can be taken with a pinch of salt
Bailey say Gardai told him his life had been threatened by an anonymous caller to the Garda station
EDIT. @MoonUnit75 Sorry,posted this in the wrong place, it was meant to be a stand alone post as it is not really a reply to your post but I cannot delete and move
Do you have a source for his ex-wife saying he'd never been violent towards her. I've only just started Foster's book but I've heard that he was violent towards his ex.
If he was a total stranger, or just someone she knew to see around, would she have come out of her house to talk him in the middle of the night/very early in the morning? I'm not suggesting a full-on relationship/affair (although it's not impossible), more likely a few brief conversations, maybe a low-level flirtation that probably meant a lot more to him than it did to her.
Indeed, in his diaries read out in court IB described several women he observed and the pleasure he got from fantasising about them. Not untypical for your average male, but who writes that kind of stuff out in black and white? I think there’s a part of himself that horrifies even him and the diaries play that horrific fascination he has with himself out.
Not necessarily- whoever did this could have admired her from afar or indeed simply said hello to her one day- a relationship is actually far from likely IMHO
For IB to make sense as the perpetrator, I think we have to assume he had established some prior connection with Sophie and somehow kept it completely secret from his partner and everybody else. On the face of highly implausible, but whatever the real story behind this murder is, it is bound to contain implausible elements.
The testimony of the photo seems damning if true
Standing over her body possibly at night
The problem is the DPP report can't be taken at face value. It was unusual for a report like this to be returned to the gardai with no name or signature on it. No one in the DPP's office wanted to be associated with it and the DPP himself confirmed he didn't write it or compile the arguments in it.
What was the most revealing thing to come out of it was when the newspapers wanted to use the witnesses in the DPP file for their defence when Bailey sued them. If the DPP is planning on pursuing a case they can prevent these witnesses from prejudicing a criminal trial by testifying in a civil case beforehand. The DPP went to court to try and stop these witnesses and evidence in the garda file from being used in the libel action. The legal team from the newspapers turned the tables, they said the report showed the DPP had totally dismissed a case against Ian Bailey, the judge agreed. The fact that the DPP fought this in the first place revealed that they did in fact believe there was a good prospect of a future criminal trial against Bailey, despite the illogical and weak dismissals in the leaked report.
The libel trial revealed, for the first time publicly, the true extent of Bailey's violence. He wrote in his diary not just about the well known times he hospitalised Jules but also that in one particular year his attacks on her increased after the Easter period. He also wrote about assaulting a boy in a pub, which he said was 'seen and remarked upon'. He himself wrote that he had really wanted to kill Jules during a savage beating, he described himself as an animal on two legs and described his serious drink and drugs problem.
Yes, he did know far too much about the crime. In the days after it he wrote that she had been hit on the back of the head and was chased down the hill but explained this by saying everyone in the pub was saying the same. The problem is, no one saw the back of her head until the body was examined during the post-mortem, the chase down the hill was not known about until a forensic examination found a bloodstained stone halfway down the bank. The pathologist report was shared with senior detectives but not junior gardai or locals. In the west cork podcast Bailey also admits the gardai were telling him nothing and he struggled to come up with ‘angles’.
In one of the court cases he tried to shift responsibility for these details to a young inexperienced French journalist who was not in the local area. Nick Foster tracked her down and she said this was total nonsense.
I thought it was a decent series.
It became a little bit "Twin Peaks" with the ghostly apparition at Three Castles Head and Sophie's aunt having a premonition about her niece's death.
The crux of the matter is whether Mrs. Farrell did or didn't see Ian Bailey on the bridge at 3am.
And whether Ian Bailey was divulging very specific information about the case to locals before it was communicated by the police.
As the gardaí frequently request when asking for public assistance on Crimecall to contact them with any information no matter how trivial you might think it. It might be the one piece needed to help solve the crime.
There may be hundreds of potential leads in an investigation. Each one needs to be followed up and confirmed or refuted with corroborating or conflicting evidence.
The DPP has no reason to be anything but objective. By Ian Bailey's own admission he assaulted Jules Thomas three times over a ten year period from 1992 to 2001. This is consistent with Jules Thomas' own account if it being something that only happened about once every four or five years.
It is therefore factually correct to say he was violent which would be enough for the media to defeat a claim for libel for calling him violent.
It's a far cry from the habitually violent threat to all women some try to depict. Even his former wife said he was never violent towards her person even though they had a fractious divorce.
I've just read these two articles
This one about a photographer (now dead) who allegedly developed a roll of film allegedly for IB 3 years after Sophies death- containing the images of her body and crime scene- a bizarre testimony which cannot at all now be verified. Any thoughts on this? Has it been discredited by an independent sources since? It's very a very hard story to believe in MHO
This one outlines an account of an alleged conversation with Bill Fuller- it's quite scary and eye-opening reading his testimony. It doesn't read "sarcasm" to me no matter how i look at it.
When he visited Mr Bailey a short time after the crime, Mr Fuller said the man became agitated and accused Mr Fuller of the murder.
“You saw her in the shop, you saw her tight arse, you fancied her, you went up there to try to see what you could get,” Mr Bailey reportedly said.
You tried to calm her, but she was scared, she ran away screaming, so you chased her to calm her down,” he went on. “You stove [sic] something into the back of her head, you realised you went too far, and you had to finish her off.”
Mr Fuller retorted: “That sounds like the sort of thing you would do.”
Mr Bailey replied: “Funny you should say that - that’s how I got to meet [his partner] Jules [Thomas]. I saw her tight arse, but she let me in.”
@MoonUnit75 @champchamp thanks for the replies.
It just goes to show that no matter how close back to the day/night/morning of the murder, there is very little solid concrete evidence/testimony that everyone can agree on.
My understanding is that Bailey first came under suspicion because he knew details about the case (the wine glasses for example) that weren't common knowledge?
In accounts of his civil action testimonies, he hasn't necessarily accounted clearly (in fact he's been quite vague) as to where he obtained this information in the first instance. I would imagine journalists need to keep detailed notes on sources/references as to where they obtained their information, I find this strange.
However, journalists do find out considerable information about crimes, especially from AGS and other journalists- so it's not beyond the bounds of possibility that he was provided with this information. But I think he could have been clearer around what he knew, when he knew it and how he knew it- after all, this is the key reason why/when he started to become a suspect.
So, 5 reasons for arresting Bailey:
1. "that Mr Bailey had had several opportunities to account for his movements and they were "not correct" ".
To me this is interesting and suspicious. He initially said that he was in bed all night, then changed his story when Jules said that he left the bed during the night.
2."that he had scratches on both arms"
There is too much conflicting evidence re these scratches to know what the truth is here. Seems likely that he had light scratches which he was able to account for (the forehead scratch is interesting as Jules said in her statement that it wasn't there the previous evening, however I think the garda statements have to be viewed with caution due to their carry on at the time).
3. "gardai were told he had been seen at Kealfadda Bridge (near Schull) at 3am"
Were they? I thought they were told that "a man" was seen there, the same man that MF saw standing across the road from her shop and was roughly the same height as her husband (5' 8")? Either way this witness's statements must be disregarded due to her being unreliable.
4. "he was very violent towards his partner Jules Thomas"
This is mentioned by the guards twice and is evidence that he was violent towards his partner, nothing else.
5. "Mr Bailey had told people he committed the murder"
I'm on two minds about this. As someone who uses sarcasm a lot, I can see how it could be misrepresented as fact, however it does seem odd that numerous people said he told them this.
All in all there just doesn't seem to have been enough evidence to arrest IB, certainly not convict.
The French Court conviction was an absolute joke.
Do I think he killed her?
Certainly possible, unfortunately for him and the victim's family this murder looks like it will never be solved.
I wonder if there had been a thorough, professional Garda investigation at the time would the killer have been brought to justice? We'll never know.
The way this case has gone over the years, it wouldn't surprise me if there were a few more twists and turns yet...
This was all tested at the libel trial, the judge concluded the papers were correct to call him a violent man. It is the DPP who understated this element.
MF gave a statement in her own name in December 1996/Jan 1997 to say she saw Sophie in her shop and a man in a long black coat appeared to be watching her from across the street. She also said she drove to Cork on the Sunday morning and saw the same man hitching a lift around 7.30am.
Sometime in mid January she rang anonymously to say she had been out driving on the night of the murder and saw a man in a long black coat close to the bridge at Kealfadda. She never rang back and gardai had to appeal on the Crimewatch TV programme for this person to call back.
None of these statements mentioned Ian Bailey. MF was only living there a year and said she had never seen this man before.
The next part is in now in dispute. As far as I can gather MF originally said she saw a picture of IB in a newspaper and took it out on to the street and showed two Gardai, saying this was the man she saw and they named him as IB. She now says she was told by the gardai that the man she saw was IB.
Curiously, her sighting of the man in the coat hitchhiking on the Sunday morning ties in with IB having spent the night at a house on that road, apparently only 100m away from MF's sighting. One person in the house said he had to get up for work that morning and heard the front door opening around 7am. IB had left the house in the early hours and came back but no one really knew for sure if he also left again at 7am and came back. IB left out the entire episode in his account of his movements over the weekend given to the Gardai.
Even more curiously, it appears, from Michael Sheridan's book, that IB himself was the source of the rumour that he had been spotted at the bridge 'washing his boots'. MF never mentioned this in any of her statements, yet IB told journalists after his arrest that he was told he had been spotted washing his boots at the bridge. This isn't included in any statements of his interviews with gardai that I can find. Michael Sheridan thinks IB filled in that detail himself because that's what he was doing, but at the time didn't know that MF had only said she saw a man walking.
If IB spotted MF as he hitchhiked on the Sunday morning, and also realised it was her that spotted him at the bridge, that would explain him leaving out the night spent at the party in his original statements. He only corrected this after going to the house and hearing that they had told the gardai he spent the night there. He then went to the station and amended his statement.
So, article below, from 2015 gives a good summary of the civil case taken by Ian Bailey against the state and where MF U turns on the evidence provided in 2003. The next article outlines the 5 reasons Ian Bailey was first arrested in 1997
So my question is:
I think these are critical questions to answer because quite simply, MF couldn't possibly have known that AGS where fingering IB as a suspect whilst she remained an anonymous caller and phoned in her sightings. It was only after AGS made contact with her, was it possible that they could have introduced the concept that it was IB that was on the bridge.
It would be wonderful to obtain the untainted recordings of these phone calls and it would probably make most peoples minds up, one way or the other. If you saw IB on a bridge at X time of the morning, and you wanted to help the investigation, you'd phone AGS, anonymous or otherwise, and make such a statement.
However, if you were unsure as to who the person was, you'd state "a man".
"Creed also highlighted another difficulty for the State where Sgt Frank Looney admitted he could not explain how Bailey’s name ended up on a questionnaire filled in with Farrell on January 17th. At that time, gardaí had not yet discovered that Farrell was “Fiona”, the then anonymous telephone caller who contacted Bandon Garda Station on January 11th, 1997, to report seeing a man at Kealfadda Bridge."
"A Detective Garda has told the High Court there were five reasons for arresting Ian Bailey for the late 1996 murder of Sophie Toscan du Plantier, including that Mr Bailey had told people he committed the murder.
John Paul Culligan, now retired, said he had gone with two other gardai to Mr Bailey's studio house, located close to the home he shared with his partner Jules Thomas, near Schull on February 10th 1997."
https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/courts/detective-tells-court-investigators-had-five-reasons-to-arrest-bailey-for-murder-30947993.html
Reading section 15 of the DPPs report https://syndicatedanarchy.wordpress.com/category/uncategorized/ you seem to be overstating his propensity for violence.
Jules Thomas says she "never felt threatened by him. It only happens about once every four or five years." ..."The principal assault on Jules Thomas did not require her to be detained in hospital. It related to a domestic incident and unfortunately such violence is not uncommon."..."The killing of Sophie Toscan du Plantier is not similar to the domestic violence in relation to Jules Thomas and this is further emphasised by the further domestic incident set out in file 4643/1/2001."
With regard to the allegedly pinning another woman to a wall in a pub "The evidence relating to this is consistent with the view that it was not a sexual assault, but was a flirtatious act on the part of Bailey. When his approach was not welcomed he immediately desisted therefrom."
His former wife "who has known him since the 1970’s has asserted that he never used violence towards her person. "
None of which makes him a murderer to point out the obvious.
She seems to have a thing for blaming senior gardai for unsolved murders. The second article is barely literate, I’d be embarrassed to link to it.
Knowing her reputation I was a little reluctant to include the village reference but Gemma O'Docherty was once considered one of the country's leading investigative journalists. When she jumped the track to being considered a paranoid conspiracy theorist, I'm not sure but she was correct in her reporting on significant issues like the quashing of penalty points scandal and Terenure College abuse case. The allegations should at least have been worthy of investigation. There is more connecting them to the crime scene than there is Ian Bailey.
The second potential person of interest identified, albeit by anonymous sources, is consistent with the information regarding one of the three new suspects mentioned in the linked newspaper article.
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