Not all Guards are corrupt that would be a bit too obvious you might be spotted by an honest policeman.
Like the one in the Bandon tape being threatened for noting honest unbiased view of a witness statement which didnt tally with the agenda.
But certainly can steer an investigation in one way or another, lean on a witness etc
Some Guards engage in shady practice because they think Bailey did it and want to help things along, some because he is the most likely suspect they can get a result with regardless of his actual guilt, some because of group agenda again regardless of actual guilt.
It's Leo Bolger, not Leo Bulger, I take it. He's the one doing cannabis and in the end, didn't go to jail, even though what he had would have given him at least a 10 year if not life sentence. I wouldn't rely on Leo Bolger as a witness same as I wouldn't Marie Farrell.
Regarding Drew Harris, I don't know anything wrong or corrupt about him? Only he's from the North and been appointed to the Garda in Ireland. That was some international selection process, I think? Father got killed by the IRA?
No, as far as I know, nothing negative about Drew Harris. I wish him well in the role.
The point is, that he was appointed (ex RUC) in an attempt to tackle the poisonous organisational culture that had taken root in the GS.
A culture that is evident in this investigation.
"GSOC said it was unable to clarify when the interference may have taken place other than believing it was likely to have occurred since a review of the file in 2002, but possibly as far back as the 1990s.
The commission said it had considered whether the interference with the Jobs Book warranted sending a file to the DPP, but they had chosen not to on the basis that one of the main gardaí who had responsibility for the documents had since died."
Had the McNally Review of 2002 been a genuine review, with access to these pages, it would without doubt have placed serious emphasis on the reason Ian Bailey became a suspect early on. There is an attempt by objectionable people to suggest that either they were a) seen but considered of so little importance they didn't warrant a mention or b) were simply overlooked. Neither is credible . They were obviously so explosive that it was decided to take the risk of removing them, whether before or after makes no difference as their contents were not going to be allowed get near the DPP. If after, it was very likely on the instruction of somebody carrying out the review.
Shouldn't GSOC have alerted the DPP in any case? Wouldn't the DPP have been more qualified in deciding on how to proceed? This more than any other element of the GSOC review indicates why it took so long. As with all the reviews, unreliable witnesses and the original joke of a file sent to the DPP, everything about this case has been about muddying the waters and dragging it out for all it's worth.
Even if one has decided on Ian Bailey's guilt, it indicates a complete indifference to Jules Thomas for all the faux sympathy expressed about her experience of domestic violence.
It was opened up to international selection for a reason... reason being so many senior Gardai with skeletons in the closet or just not up to scratch. A new broom was needed.
Thanks for that. I didn't have that insight. I'd say for one who's been educated in Oxford, and Harris having a degree from Cambridge, it could have mattered... :-)
Interesting that not only Leo Bolger but Alfie Lyons got arrested regarding the marijuana growing too..
As with so many things in this case, like the 'honest' investigator who took Jules Thomas' statement being maligned on a recorded conversation by his colleagues, something was committed to paper that was so regretful the law had to be broken to rectify the mistake. Ms Johnson? WTF? it's the way you tell 'em
Must be some hardcore stoner goats that ate that crop. I wonder is Banniseda beginning to wonder if maybe she wasn't as close to Alfie and Shirley as she thought.
No question that he is qualified and that there were many sound reasons for his appointment.
However, the choice of an ex RUC man would have been humiliating for the Senior Gardai. And, I suspect, intentionally so.
After the catastrophic tenures of Messrs Callinan and O'Sullivan, the scandals of the Kerry babies, the Donegal fiasco, Maurice McCabe, the breath test caper, the driving licence points circus, Sophie's murder etc. etc. the government had to be seen to get to grips with these cowboys.
Yes, its a can of worms.
Tbf, its why IB wrote to him to ask him to reinvestigate the case.
Can't imagine a guilty man pleading with a Garda commissioner to re-open a crime that he can never actually be charged with in this country as it stands. Especially one like Drew Harris who is especially good at sniffing out truth.
Thanks for this.
Good point.
It would seem more and more that Sophie really stumbled into something just by buying the house and then spending time there. On one of her hikes in the countryside things didn't go unnoticed for long.
I don't know if Mary Jane grew in plain sight? The thing is that the houses are all isolated and other than the owners/residents only visitors would have come. And there was no fear from the Gards as well.
It was signed off on in late 2019 to pay off 30 senior Gardai and Drew Harris was to make the decision on who was accepted (or persuaded?) for severance. That's how reform has been taking place. Quietly. The reform process is going a bit like Slaintecare at the moment with the Department of Justice in a bit of a standoff with Harris about who gets the POWER. Same old story
I am pretty certain that even Today, there are no dwellings at all on the entire length of that "main" road bar one abandoned caravan. So, there were none in 1996.
The 'main' road I'm referring to is the L8413 that runs between Kealfadda Bridge and Dunmanus. There would have been a house about 600m south of the junction with the cul de sac and a house about 500m north of the junction, just beyond a fork in the 'main' road.
Location on google maps to give people an idea of the location.
I'm not sure what it was like in 1996.
Picture is present day
https://www.google.com/maps/@51.5295255,-9.6767708,228m/data=!3m1!1e3
That's the end of the cul de sac. The 'main' road is a little over 1km east (to the right) of there. In 1996 there were no other houses between there and the main road.
The nearest neighbours, other than Alfie and Shirley would have been around 600m (give or take) north or south of where the cul de sac met the 'main' road. i.e. about 1.7km from Sophie's house by road.
Also interesting is the fact Leo was allowed through what was still a crime scene to visit Alfie, who was still confined to his property,
to deliver -ahem- groceries.
Oh! I almost forgot. What might they have been talking about? At the time a Guard's reasonable suspicion was the test for requiring permission of the Minister for Justice to carry out surveillance on someone. I'm sure plenty of those requests were back-dated😉
I've often wondered about the case of Malachi Reed, where he was taken out of school etc. It was almost as if the Guards already knew that they had something that could be construed as a confession before questioning the boy.
Something similar happened with Helen Callanan.
Another theory. A gentleman caller spent the night at Sophie's. Half way through the night Sophie realizes this guy is a big mistake but has to gracefully see 'the date' through until his morning departure. Happen all the time with one night stands. The guy is parked down below the gate. In the morning she decides to walk him down to the gate. He is like "great night, let's do it again sometime". She tell him straight it won't be happening again. He takes this news very very badly.......
Let the hole picking begin.
the man who says he saw a ford fiesta speeding away like a bat out of hell that morning.
Does anyone know the ultimate source of this story? The earliest media reference I can find is this 2014 Mirror article
The same journalist says
A German man, who was having an affair with Sophie, was named in a 2001 DPP report.
He committed suicide and left a note saying: "I have done something terrible."
so if she is the one who 'broke' the speeding Fiesta story I'd be very wary of it.
Isn't it remarkable that a few months before IB's High Court case against the state begins in 2014, this story about a blue fiesta that gardai apparently never looked for appears out of nowhere. Adds in a lie about a german man having an affair with Sophie and then killing himself yet names no sources and later disappears from the web, only to be captured on a news scraping website. How mysterious.
The German man you're referring to was Karl-Heinz Wolney. He was a musician, sometimes or often playing in Crookhaven. It is alleged or speculated, that he was one of the men, Sophie slept with on occasions. As far as I know, he didn't leave that information on a not, but said it to a fried some time before committing suicide.
It didn't come out of nowhere, he made official statements.
Why wouldn't Jim Sheridan use it then? Seems like gold dust for his project.
Anyone could allege or speculate that she slept with Neil Armstrong in a replica of the lunar landing craft.
Should be noted the petrol station attendant also claimed to have seen someone who he was fairly sure was Sophie with a man, and they were driving a grey or blue Ford Fiesta.
What evidence is there for this, beyond the word of the Mirror journo? None of the subsequent references to the story that I can see appear to cite any source. Is the identity of this witness known "on the grapevine"?
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