He died earlier from a heart attack, very curious guy whatever you think of him. If he didn’t kill Sophie Toscan du Plantier he certainly didn’t help himself by his attention seeking behaviour.
Interesting.
Was the perception back then that he definitely did it?
Never really followed this case but the guards did a shite job.
I worked on the crimecall reenactment they did after.
The crew was all having lunch in the local pub with the local Guards and they all stood up and we had to leave as he came in and took the closest table to us.
It was very weird as if he was taunting them you can't catch me.
Have you ever heard of annual leave? And people choosing to take it on certain days? They probably couldn’t get through to him for a while.
In fairness he was the only state pathologist at that time which meant he was on duty every day of the year 24 hrs per day. Its not really unreasonable that he wanted to have a few drinks on his birthday - the timing was just unfortunate. I dont blame in fairness its the authorities fault.
The preserving of the scene by the gardai was poor but its not a situation they were used to.
It's mentioned in several of the podcast/documentaries on the matter, that he was on leave celebrating his 60th birthday, and it was the next day before Gardai were able to locate/contact him. It's not mentioned, but i assume he didn't have a mobile/pager at the time.
I've replied to this above. He wouldn't have been working 24/7, but it's not a 9 to 5 job. So having to cancel leave from time to time is hardly surprising. Lots of people have to do this from time to time, and murderers are hardly going to give advance warning.
(I've literally never heard of an employer giving people a day off for their birthday, but in any case you say it's their "birthday month", not the day itself. I suspect it's highly unusual, and never in jobs which are both time dependent but also can't be planned in advance.)
I think that depends on how often he was expected to be available. 100 PMs a year is one every three or 4 days. Even assuming each PM lasts a day, plus a day for writing up a report, that's quite a way from a 5-day week, so it's not like he'd be working 24/7.
In those circumstances I'd expect him to be able to make himself available pretty much as and when he was needed, and to catch up on the time off afterwards. He'd also be getting overtime for working on weekends or over holidays.
It's not a 9 to 5 job, and is presumably remunerated accordingly.
Actually, some companies give employes a day off in thier Birthday Month, mine does.
But apart from that, how many people are on call 24/7/365. He was entitled to take leave. It's not his fault the government did not see fit to recruit a deputy for him.
That's an article of second hand rumours from 2003.
It contains zero actual evidence or testimony from the ex wife Sara Limbrick.
The judge said there was absolutely no evidence Mr Bailey was violent towards his ex-wife Sarah Limbrick and he was defamed. He awarded damages of €8,000 against The Irish Sun and Irish Daily Mirror.
https://www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/commentanalysis/arid-20436242.html
Do many people get a day off work for their birthday?
Either he was supposed to be available or he wasn't. If he wasn't then why was there no procedure to ensure that evidence wasn't destroyed until he did become available?
It may not have been his personal fault, but it was certainly a failing of the service as a whole. and as head of the service, I presume he had some input into what should happen in the case that he wasn't available.
This article references his ex wife Sara Limbrick. She’s a journalist specialising in reporting on court cases.
You were caught out making an errant claim about what happened "at midnight". There's a world of difference between saying something happened "at midnight" and "after midnight", which could mean several hours later.
So your own sources are contradicting you. Nowhere does the Senan Maloney piece you quoted mention "at midnight." Nowhere. It's not there in his text. Don't pretend otherwise.
So spare us the BS about trying to play the victim.
That really just says a lot about the resourcing of the state pathology unit at the time. It seems to have basically been totally dependent on one individual being on call 24/7. It's not possible to provide 24/7/365 coverage on that basis. The fact it was someone wasn't available wasn't down to the reason why, but rather that there was no cover.
The murder occured on Professor Harbison birthday, which was part of the delay.
Best post in this thread, logical and factual. Both the Bailey bashers and Garda conspiracy theorists could do with absorbing this post.
The State Pathologist (then Professor John Harbison) arrived 28 hours later.
But at that time he was only "State Pathologist" and while he did over 100 post mortem, he was not oncall 24/7. The murder occured on his birthday, and we was uncontactable for a period that day.
the mess thing is totally over played, it wasn't really a mess until Marie Farrell got involved
There was a load of work done on the case, lots of suspects, lots of interviews, its hard to know what else people expect to come from it
they certainly didn't hold onto evidence in the long term and sure maybe that would have helped, but after the 20 years that had passed by that stage, the chances were gone.
Not exactly rejoicing is it though. You seem a very precious sort.
it was 26 hours before he arrived, given it would have taken about 5 hours to get there from dublin at least, so the next day. The issue was he was the only one in the country, what do you do when there are 2 cases.
Not much point doing it at night, in the middle of winter.
the 3 days you mentioned is exactly what is wrong with the whole thing, peoples not listening, bothering to actually find out and just exagerating
Several “Good riddance” comments and the likes
Not many of the deceased people are known wife-beaters who are also suspected of murder though.
Now that there is no longer a risk of the site being found complicit of defamation, I think it's perfectly fair for there to be MORE discussion of that aspect of his life, rather than less.
It's fairly clear the investigation was a total mess, which seems to largely come down to the fact that murders are an extremely rare occurrence in West Cork and the whole thing was handled without significant local experience, and then it got compounded later by a French court procedure claiming universal jurisdiction, and a judicial process that could only be described as bizarre.
From an Irish point of view, at least from what I understand, the case drove a reorganisation of how such cases would be handled in future i.e. expert and experienced detectives and professional pathologists stepping in much earlier and changes to procedures.
I wouldn't get too high and mighty about French investigation and prosecution processes either. There plenty of examples of miscarriages of justice, botched cases, gaslighting and trials based on circumstantial evidence that would be regarded as hearsay and totally inadmissable here.
Their whole criminal prosecution system is completely different and the role of the court is more to conduct a judge led inquest rather than to facilitate an adversarial trial, but in general the standards of evidence and burden of proof seem to be far lower. That last court case just wouldn't have been possible here at all as the standards of evidence required to even bring a case to court are much higher. The DPP couldn't bring a case like that based on what would be regarded here as very flimsy evidence. You'd almost certainly have lost and it would then be potentially impossible or at least extremely challenging to bring a subsequent prosecution under the double-jeopardy concept, which applies in Ireland and most Common Law jurisdictions.
You'd feel very sorry for the family, as they never really got a conclusion to this and it looks rather like it could end up never being solved.
Ultimately, the whole thing is a rather grim set of events that underscores the importance of tightly managed and standardised investigative procedures that are capable of dealing with a complex crime, regardless of where it occurs. Justice was never done and a clear, safe prosecution was never possible and it resulted in a lot of anguish for far too many years.
Where’s the rejoicing? You were caught out there lad. Very very little point in having a moan about something that doesn’t exist.
Why not? I don’t care either way but I don’t understand why this sort of posting is deemed acceptable when threads about a recently deceased person usually come with reminders to be respectful and the usual emotive nonsense.
Yep, I'm not suggesting it means he was involved but I don't understand it myself.
Didn't the forensic examiner wait nearly 3 days before turning up to examine the crime scene, during which time the body was left outside in the middle of winter?
I'd call that botched.
That part I agree with, that's plausible
No one is rejoicing at anything. We’re simply saying that all RIP and ‘poor Ian’ comments have no place here.
He’s no loss, I for one won’t be mourning him.
I know it has likely spurred on conspiracy theories around hitmen and so forth but yes I did think it strange myself - I would have wanted to be there, looking at the police eye to eye and ensuring all was being done to catch my wife’s killer - him not coming over doesn’t “prove” anything I know, but it was still strange
We also know for an undisputed fact that he beat Jules Thomas to within an each of her life on many occasions prior to the murder of Sophie.
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