Yeah in other words it wasn't her
He wasn't definite about the colour but he was clear and definite about the absence of hubcaps.
You know that for sure? Were you with her at the time?
While all hire cars may not have had hubcaps,
not all cars without hubcaps are hire cars.
Her car had hubcaps, the garage owner states the car he is talking about didnt. He was clear about that because he's 'in the trade'. So clearly it wasnt her.
People are better at retaining details of other people than objects, there may have been something else that told him it was a hire car, a brand sticker or 'petrol' sticker on the fuel cap that made it stand out as a hire car but he felt it was the obvious sign he'd usually see when trying to justify his belief it was a hire car. He contacted the gardai after seeing her picture in the news and he thought it was the same woman he had served.
So he made up the car had no hubcaps? Going by his statement it wasnt her car. end of story
It was almost two weeks later, the type of car, the fact that it appeared to be a hired car, it was a 96 C reg, the woman was blonde with her hair in a pony tail, she was foreign, she was in a location Sophie would indeed be passing, the statement was made after a recognition from a photograph in the media, I don't think you can dismiss all this so definitively because of a minor observation that was incorrect. You are entitled to form that opinion but you can't make a definitive statement on it.
I can only go on what he said..
We don't know exactly what was said, the statement is typed up based on questions asked etc. It seems more likely he told the gardai he thought it was a hired card and they pushed him for a reason for this, he picked one that he would usually use to determine a hire car but it may have been something else. In Nick Foster's book he said the car had an 'Avis - We try harder' sticker on it and both the family and the gardai noted the passenger seat had been pushed back as though to accommodate a very tall person, which the garage owner could not have known about.
Its a statement you quoted...you said its a exerpt taken on the 3rd Jan 97. So either its what he said or it isnt. You tell me lol
Metallic light blue or light grey could easily be mistaken for silver.
It seems bizarre that more wasn't done to confirm the identity of the car and occupants. The above excerpt has the car at the garage in Skibbereen between 2pm and 3pm. The garage owner stated he was certain it was Sophie Toscan du Plantier yet in the Irish Mirror article I linked to a few posts up he says "The guards who I gave the statement to said that it couldn’t have been her as she was spotted in Ballydehob buying firewood close to the time I gave that day."
Surely being spotted fifteen minutes away close to the time of the garage owner's possible sighting should lend weight to his statement rather than detract from it.
The possibility that someone may have been with Sophie should surely have been significant to the investigation. That it was never established if the car was hers seems a serious oversight.
The petrol station didn't sell firewood ,so she went on to the shop in Ballydehob that did.
It is bizarre to think that more wasnt done to find out if the car seen at the garage was Sophies. What time did Sophie fly into Ireland at?
If it was Sophie who was the man in the car with her - yes it could be Ian Bailey or it could be someone who flew over with her, or it could be somebody she collected on her way from the airport. Can we be sure she was even on her own in the house and didnt have a houseguest?
Given the time of year though and alot of people were on the move - Friday afternoon before Christmas it is possible it was someone else completely.
Another detail that could have helped the investigation if it was followed up e.g. if the description of the woman buying firewood was consistent with the description of the woman who stopped for petrol in the garage in Skibbereen or were there any other details that might help confirm if they were the same person + car or not.
The pushed back front seat was discussed earlier, some said they come like that out of the hire garage, others pointed out it could be just she pushed it back to get something that dropped under it or to accommodate a shopping bag in the front footwell, either way to try to use it as evidence of a tall person sitting in the front is in line with most other evidence against Bailey, half baked clutching at straws.
Nick Foster seems to have graduated from the Martin Bashir school of journalism.
"The possibility that someone may have been with Sophie should surely have been significant to the investigation. That it was never established if the car was hers seems a serious oversight."
Once it was established that it was unlikely to be Ian Bailey they soon dismissed it.
Unless of course Ian Bailey drove to Cork airport to pick up Sophie in Jules' Fiesta.
(The fiestas all over the place is like the the green beetle in Bullit.)
According to Nick Foster, only Sophie and her housekeeper had keys to the house. The housekeeper's husband kept animals on Sophie's land. He could have been using the bath and the housekeeper forgot a time or two to clean up after him. (?) I have no idea who owned the property before Sophie or if they were still in the area and could be using it knowing she was seldom there.
I seriously doubt that Bailey would have been paying for the rich French lady`s petrol. Anyway the hubcaps are important in this sighting. He was clear that there were none. Sophie`s car had hubcaps. It wasn`t her.
The garage owner is also certain that it was Sophie. His statement was made two weeks later. It wouldn't be unusual, for a statement make after two weeks to have some inaccuracies, especially in small details.
A possible sighting close to the time she is believed to have been seen in Ballydehob, fifteen minutes away, should have been followed up and positively confirmed or eliminated. That it was never traced is a loose end that leaves too many important questions unanswered in the investigation adding to the doubt of any one particular narrative.
I think I read somewhere the Ballydehob sighting had no male passenger in the car.
Inaccuracies in statements is one thing but I'm just pointing out according to his own statement he is describing a different car. He made a particular point about it, so he has remembered that detail correctly according to him.
Just on the fiestas if the one seen bombing around at 7am had a red reg it was an older model. I've read the Seargent had a blue fiesta, was his an older model?
The skid marks by the gate, surely to god they were photos of them taken? My cousin vinny would be all over that
On a dull day a silver car may appear grey.
I've read that somewhere too but haven't seen any detail similar to the possible Skibbereen garage sighting. How certain is it that the Ballydehob sighting was Sophie.
Both sightings should be compared for the consistency or inconsistency of descriptions of the car and driver. It is possible both, one or none of the sightings were Sophie. Determining which should have been important.
AGS seemed to do a fairly awful job of protecting the crime scene. My guess is they were run over my other cars.
There's no reason to think he was paying, it sounds like neither of them got out of the car. This was an old fashioned service station where you pulled up and they filled it for you. The witness would have gone to the driver's side to ask how much they wanted and filled the car, he said the male passenger passed the money through the window but there's no reason to think it didn't come from her purse. On the other hand...
I've often wondered if she had picked up a hitchhiker on the road, maybe the hitchhiker got the wrong impression from her kindness and thought showing up at her door would lead to more. Maybe she had come straight from the airport and didn't have any Irish notes to pay for fuel so the person she picked up paid and said she could repay him sometime. She did take out £200 in Schull on the Saturday which suggests she may have arrived with no Irish currency. Complete speculation on my part.
I do think this was a major drop-the-ball moment for the gardai, they should have eliminated the people in the car definitively. It seems it didn't fit their ideas that IB just noticed Sophie in Schull doing her shopping and started stalking her there.
Sure, but how many cars would he see on any particular day? If someone said they noticed a car pulled into their driveway and it had no hubcaps you would be pretty sure about it, absolutely. There was one car that drew your attention. But after, what, 40-50 cars at least, his memory was first triggered by her photo in the news. Then you would be thinking about how she had to ask her passenger how to order the petrol, the guy being very tall and practically touching the roof of the car. He gave her age as being between 30-40, blonde hair in a pony tail, no make-up, english not great, grey or blue fiesta, 96 C reg. I find it incredible people would just dismiss this out of hand.
So he must be mistaken, if he is misremembering one thing who's to say any of it is accurate.
People remember people better than objects, it's an innate part of us. If you were shown 20 cars with various features you would be hard pressed to recall the details of three or four accurately, if you were introduced to 20 people at a party you'd remember most if not all of them. Especially the face and our first interactions.
Like when Jules remembered IB had a scratch on his that wasnt there in the day before!?
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