Old thread seems to be permanently locked. It will be interesting if anything can come of this at last.
Threadbanned Posters:
We all know the investigation was flawed. The circumstantial evidence leaves Bailey as the main suspect in my view. That you say there's nothing on him means that you're in the camp that believe people were lying in their statements except for Bailey and those associated with them. That's quite the leap.
Why are you ignoring my question? Can you give an example of a murder like Aisling Murphy's?
Then you're back to your conspiracy theories, Bill Fuller was lying as was a long list of others who made statements against Bailey.
It's a very weak defence of Bailey when that's all you've got.
Great post Yurt.
I would add that, not only were the DPP dismissive of the "evidence" - they were scathingly so.
The case of Colin Stagg in Surry comes to mind.
He was a bit of an oddball. The police were convinced of his guilt. They convinced the media. The media convinced the public. All despite there being no real evidence against him. The police moved heaven and earth to try to frame him, even setting him up with a bogus "girlfriend"
Stagg became a pariah. He couldn't even walk the streets without being insulted and threatened.
Made his life a misery.
But he was totally innocent.
Some of the things you mention there like "his knowledge of the area, his access to the area" could apply to thousands of people in the area and doesn't consist of evidence of any sort. Some of it is conjecture like his history of violence - shake a tree in Ireland and a person with histroy of violence will come down off of it. Some of it has been discredited and assigned as weak or irrelevant evidence by the DPP
I mean, people are free to continue with the "top suspect" stuff as long as they want to, but there's a reasonable and credible possibility the real perpetrator is out there laughing his or her head off at this and got off scot free while people lead themselves in a merry dance about the local English alcho.
It's worth thinking about and letting it seep into your thoughts rather than obsessing about a man who there's actually almost zero evidence against.
Where did you get that from? Bailey? He made the statement to Fuller soon after the murder. He wasn't even asked for questioning at that stage!
Many "locals" do not think anything of the kind. Some do, some don't.
That is a lazy assertion.
Of course it means something. It means that the sexual motive theory is entirely speculative.
But everything on this thread is entirely speculative.
And it's just opinions on what people think happened.
I make no bones about what I think happened is just speculation and that my opinion that Bailey is the prime suspect is just that,van opinion.
Alright, you've looked at the evidence and don't think he should be a suspect. Others have looked at it and think he very much is a suspect. The DPP didn't have to be wrong on everything. Some of the investigation was botched. The changing story, marks on his arms/face, his admissions, his history of violence, his knowledge of the area, his access to the area, the fire behind his house, turning up to the scene soon after the murder and so on leads me to believe he's the main suspect. You don't think that does. We agree to disagree.
Equating the "French authorities" with the DPP is comparing apples with oranges.
It was the FRench cours which accepted the evidence as verified, which is normal under the French judicial system as , in France, the investigative proces incorporates verification steps at every stage before the presentation to the courts. This did not, obviously happen with the evidence in the Bailey case as the investigative process did not take place in France.
Furthermore, the case was uncontested and the outcome was a foregone conclusion.
The DPP were correct. If they brought charges against Bailey off the back of that file, it's a guaranteed acquital. Lionel Hutz defending would secure a not guilty verdict with that file.
The DPP inspect files with a view as to if the evidence credible, can we prove anything and can we secure a conviction. They took a look at it and basically said it's keystone cop BS and there's almost nothing to link Bailey to the crime.
As to whether Bailey is "top suspect", well we're in the world of yellow-pack journalism, bawdy podcasts, internet sleuths and curtain twitchers. Yes he's the "top suspect" in this conjecture flooded world, but that's because it was a circus from the beginning where the investigation zoned-in on one man, and one man only, and hasn't moved very far from that due to a shambolic investigating team completely lost at sea.
I'm not willing to condemn the man. He's a narcissistic boor, but I'll err on the side of caution that there's a distinct possibility his life has been destroyed by crap police work and a red top media that treated this like a bad episode of Murder She Wrote. He's fed into his downfall in the aftermath with his weirdo carry on, but that does not a murderer make.
The DPP review outlines why the "evidence" against Bailey as presented by AGS is flimsy and of no legal use. It is easy to view whether or not the DPP were correct: they were! Had Bailey been put forward for trial on the basis of the "evidence", it would have been easy even for a poor quality defence team to poke holes through it.
This is purely because the garda investigation was flawed right from the outset and wasn't helped by the state's lack of investment wihthin the State Pathologist's office. The crime scene was not preserved adequately. The body was not preserved from the elements and vital evidence disappeared. A vital witnesses was allowed to bring items to the dump.
That the French legal system bypassed the scrutiny of the evidence just shows how important it is for such a stage. It also shows that the procedure to convict Bailey in France was flawed because it was based on a flawed process (whihc was based on flawed evidence). If a new investigation from scratch was held by the French - would they convict Bailey? It is very unlikely!
As for your coment that Bailey is the top suspect - given that there is absolutely nothing on Bailey just shows that you are expecting them to find evidence against him rather than them trying to find evidence against the culprit. You are pre-judgiung the outcome and looking for evidence to meet your perspective.
It's very plausible. Locals thought it was the most likely scenario as did AGS. He was speaking in the second person while talking to Bill Fuller.
It's not the same scenario as the Aisling Murphy example. You know this. To pretend otherwise is nothing more than an attempt at a con job.
You don't know if it was his statement. It's what Bill Fuller said he said. Big distinction. We're zero objective evidence he stated it. Even if he stated it is does absolutely zero to make the scenario more plausible.
You continue to make statements without foundation. You have absolutely no expertise in crime or evidence (vis a vis other murders) to support the position that it is the most plausible theory. The inability to provide examples of it wrt other crimes shows it is an inherently unlikely scenario for murder which speaks to its implausibility.
It might be your opinion. But that's all it is. Stating it as fact just demonstrates how little understanding you have of what facts are.
Repeating the same line over and over does absolutely zero to advance evidence as to its plausibility.
On the "you" question - Bailey was repeating - verbatim- the accusations spat at him by the Gardai during one of his interviews.
"You did this" " you saw that" etc etc.
This is nonsense.
In terms of plausibility, the involvement of an associate - husband, lover, neighbour in conflict etc is obviously more plausible.
The DPP report is logical, comprehensive and cohesive.
Nothing is infallible, and I am open to persuasion regarding Bailey's gulit. But nothing I have learned of this case has convinced me that he's guilty. In fact the more I study it, the more I think he's innocent.
And for the DPP to be wrong, they would have to be wrong on all 16 points analysed.
No, its possible, but stops short of plausibility.
Possible - well (almost) anything is possible. Plausible - hardly. Who is the 'you' he was referring to? That clearly does not make any sort of admission unless one is going through mental contortions to try fit something to a preconceived notion.
We already know that. The bodged investigation ensured there was not enough evidence against anyone. I think the circumstantial evidence against Bailey was quite damning though. The DPP disagreed, the French authorities didn't.
Maybe, just maybe, it is a case of the 'dog that didn't bark in the night' in other words there was no DNA or fingerprints evidence etc. because the killer was someone local that might be expected to be in the area?
That article is based on the premise that the DPP were correct. We don't know if they were. Based on the evidence received, the French authorities found a different verdict than the Irish authorities. Of course, the evidence provided to both came from a flawed investigation. Even with that, there's enough on Bailey to leave him as a top suspect.
The DPP report is much more than a decision.
It is a forensic analasys of the evidence. By some the finest legal minds in the country, which leads, step by step to the conclusion.
Not that Bailey is innocent. But that there is no credible evidence against him.
It is, very odd especially on a crisp night with a light breeze. There was a report of someone hearing a fox cry that night.
But as we're not in a court of law, we can judge Bailey's own statement and see the motive explained fully. This is not pure speculation, it came from the number 1 suspect's mouth.
It's a very plausible motive, in fact, the most plausible. It's possible that the DPP were wrong. Or are they infallible? The Gardaí incompetence may have saved Bailey rather than costing him. There has been no physical evidence found against anyone but someone is guilty so again, the lack of physical evidence is more a result of Garda incompetence than exonerating anyone, including Bailey.
The French trial
Undeterred by their failure to secure Bailey’s surrender, the French authorities proceeded to put him on trial (in his absence) in France for the murder of Sophie Toscan du Plantier in Ireland. As is normal in French criminal procedure, the trial was conducted largely on the basis of the police file. Unlike the situation in Ireland, a French police file is compiled under the supervision of an independent prosecutor and investigating judge. In effect, the credibility and reliability of the police evidence is tested at the investigation and pre-trial phases, so that there is less need for the application of more stringent evidential rules and due process checks at the final trial phase. The latter can proceed mostly on the basis of statement evidence from the police file.
In Ireland, of course, the balance is the other way around. At the investigation stage, the police are left with unsupervised freedom to get on with the task of gathering evidence. Ultimately, the trial, rather than the investigation or pre-trial phase, is the centrepiece of the criminal process where the case against the accused will be tested in full. Critically, it is at the trial phase that police evidence is scrutinised closely through the examination and cross-examination of prosecution witnesses in person. The trial is also conducted in accordance with evidential and procedural rules designed to protect the accused against prejudice that may otherwise flow from having allowed the police excessive unsupervised freedom in building a case against a suspect.
These systemic differences have little significance for the relative integrity or fairness of criminal process in Ireland or France respectively. Each is designed to function as an organic whole with its own internal checks and balances. It is a very different matter, however, when the Irish police investigation stage (and its results) is lifted from the Irish process and inserted into the French process at the post investigation stage. That is what happened in the Bailey case.
The Garda file, which was compiled in the loosely regulated and unsupervised Irish police investigation stage, was treated by the French court as the equivalent of a French police file which would have been compiled under the scrutiny and supervision of an independent prosecutor and investigating judge. The statement evidence compiled by the Garda against Bailey was accepted at face value by the French court, even though it was not sufficiently reliable or credible to put him on trial within the norms of the Irish criminal process where it was compiled and for which it was intended. In effect, the Irish police investigation stage was combined with the French trial stage to produce a monstrous hybrid in which guilt was determined by the unadulterated results of an unsupervised, unregulated and flawed police investigation.
Looking at the above explanation, it shows why the French system accepted the evidence given to them by the Gardai at face value without scrutiny. They skipped the scrutiny stage.
You're using a decision that backs up your already formed opinion and calling that superior to the decision that goes against your already formed opinion. That's about as biased as it gets.
I didn't outline anything. Bailey did. It was his statement and it's the most plausible theory for this murder. Same as the Aisling Murphy example I gave you. Because it hasn't cropped up again and again, doesn't mean the man arrested is the wrong man.
You don't know what they were handed? What weren't they handed?
Of course it means something. It means that the sexual motive theory is entirely speculative. There is no evidence to support it. No evidence of sex or attempted sex.
You may as well speculate that she was killed as part of some satanic ritual.....there is no evidence to support it.
The only reason that the sexual motive was mooted was because it was the only possible motive that Bailey could have had. Daniel had financial and personal motive, Bruno had jilted lover motive, Alfie had land dispute motive etc.
So if Bailey was gulity, sex had to be the motive..........unfortunately for the Gardai, there was no evidence to support it.
And if sex wasn't the motive...............???
The DPP has said there's no evidence to suggest a sexual motive in this crime. I think their words were "pure speculation".
In fact there is no evidence of a sexual motive in this case. References in the Garda Report to a sexual motive are pure speculation. (taken from the DPP Report).
It's impossible to prove or disprove that Bailey (or anyone else) went there for a shag. As the DPP said, pure speculation.
Sophie's body showed no signs of sexual interference.
But that means nothing.
Just because he went there with a sexual motive it doesn't mean he was able to fulfill that.
![Photo of [Deleted User]](https://www.boards.ie/applications/dashboard/design/images/banned.png)
![Photo of [Deleted User]](https://we.vanillicon.com/v2/e68aa2b0e039b12ade8384a2f42841c6.svg)
