Murder at the Cottage | Sky

What are your area of expertise?

I do a mean medium rib-eye with sauteed onions. I can do a 100% round book on the 3-15 at Musselburgh today. Might even be able to give you the winner if you want.

The vast amount of reflection and comment around this case is a very good area to study the recent online phenomenon of trolling and the much older tactic of disinformation spreading we now call gaslighting. Sophie died at a time in Ireland where a newspaper story about a moving statue could have been relied on to attract large crowds to that grotto. The nature of society was such however, that anybody with a minimum understanding of it would know that had Ian Bailey been guilty of her murder, he would have spent Christmas day 1996 in Cork prison and that is why it is simply impossible that he did it. It is truly astonishing what this state got up to, to stop him clearing his name. From his arrests to the libel trial up to the high court case.

Everyone from Governments, political parties to private citizens operate troll farms or troll knocking-shops, where, for some vested interest, numerous people proffer opinions on single issues in online forums just like this one, where many times they appear to be disagreeing strongly with each other but which has the same ultimate aim. So what is it on this one? It is the same aim that has inspired books and documentaries and it's very lucrative. It is simply to keep Ian Bailey front and centre of something he had nothing to do with. The vast majority of these people like to suggest that they are almost convinced of his innocence but never completely. While someone like Nick Foster is openly laughing at people for allowing him make a lot of money off of obvious bullshit. In the case of someone like Nick Foster he has figured out that Ireland/France can never let the truth come out. In the case of the gutter press they can use anything related to Bailey because of a libel case he won't be repeating. The trolls don't need any more direction than to keep speculating on the same old story.

All of this suits the people who know a lot more than we will ever know about Sophie Toscan du Plantier.The high court case taken by Bailey spooked a lot of them and led to a flurry of activity designed to bury any future investigation. Hence trolls wherever you look who want to keep going over and over and over how Bailey could have carried out this murder and then disappeared into thin air. Ian Bailey is a latter day moving statue. 90% of people here are almost convinced this statue never moved.

Scooby posts baseless theories as facts, getting away with it by not naming the dead garda when everyone knows damn well who she is talking about. It infuriates me that she gets away with it tbh.

Pot calls kettle black.

So here you are now flanna01, after spending months creating cartoon caricatures for the peripheral players in the plot, some of them who we know had nothing to do with this murder and yet the one character you didn`t caricature was Bailey himself. You have basically ignored the serious debate that has gone on here and you have ignored me like I have the plague.

Now all of a sudden you are dying for a serious debate. There must be something going on that I don`t know about.

Here`s a story for you. Long long ago, probably in the early third century, there was a king of Munster called Ailill Flann Mór. He was too fond of the old mead, never had any kids, would lose the head in his drunkenness and got himself killed while he was still a young man. But the throne was secure because he had a twin brother called Ailill Flann Beag. The little fella was a bit more stable, bagged himself a queen and had a bunch of kids that preserved the family lines. The big fella and the little fella probably got the name Flann because they were warmongers. Back in the misty past you see, in the older Irish language, flann meant blood.

I`d say most people come on here and throw up any old handle. Some though put a bit of thought into what they are doing. They are usually the inward gazers, the ones that usually have an avatar. It is the avatar that indicates the involvement of a real process of thought. One could look at your avatar and conclude something along the lines of...."Aw...isn`t that sweet, Flanna used to watch Sylvester cartoons when he was a kid." Sylvester....he was always trying to kill that bird with the yellow feathers. Wasn`t he?

Only messing with you Flanna. But go back far enough into the old manuscripts, I`m talking pre 10th century and it is clear that flann means blood.

Incorrect. Wiktionary is not accurate.

It's so unlike you to derail the thread talking total rameish 😅

The only way Foster "hiked" over the moors in Bailey's footsteps from Kealfada road to Richardsons' house was in his imagination on Google Earth.

So Bailey's Mon morn activity a la Foster;

After a skinful of beer in Schull , he couldn't sleep and left the house and for some reason decided to trek over the roads to Dreenane.

(about an hour away)

He knocked on Sophie's door, and she, for some reason decided to open the door to him.

She rebuffed his advances, whereupon he, for some reason snatched a bottle of French wine from her porch and ran off.

She put on her outdoor boots, tied them up and decided to follow him calling "Monsieur!! Monsieur!!"

She caught up with him down by the gate.

She confronted him and he struck her with the wine bottle and then continued to beat her with a concrete block.

He continued on his way home leaving her bloody body on the side of the path.

(I don't know if Foster put Bailey on Kealfada bridge , but if so it's even more unbelievable)

For some reason he then decided to abandon the wine bottle in a ditch on the side of the road about a km away.

By now it's getting towards dawn, so he goes home to clean himself up.

At about 9am he takes a cup of coffee up to Jules, who's still in bed.

An hour or so later, he decides to either trek back to the murder scene across the moors ,or get Jules to drop him over to Kealfada and trek from there.

At the scene he is able to avoid detection and he is able to crouch over the dead body to take some sort of trophy.

He hangs about for an hour or so, took some pictures and heads back home, trekking over the moors.

All of this unseen by either Gardaí or neighbours in the area.

By now it's nearing 2pm and the news of the murder is on the radio, so he can now head back to the murder scene again in the guise of a journalist.

That is some 12 hours in anyone's book!!

All of this and not leaving any evidence whatsoever that he was even in the area???

Even more impressive when you consider in the preceding days he had chopped down christmas tree, stalked Sophie along Schull main street, battled furious turkeys, and much merriment of the evenings... this is James Bond stuff!

All while lighting bonfires, writing articles for newspapers and joining the Christmas day swim.