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.
Murder at the Cottage wasn`t Netflix. Murder at the Cottage showed a printed segment of her statement and Sheridan had access to the Garda file courtesy of Bailey. The ownership of the shed was not an issue that she had with Alfie. It was an issue that she would have had with the auctioneer and possibly the previous owner of the house.
DNA extraction techniques are much better today than they were back in 2007. It's also possible that a DNA sample from 2007, if kept in storage, may have degraded or actually have insufficient quantity left to reanalyse. I know they currently analyse profiles using STR technology, I'm not certain what techniques were in use back then. Also, there is the possibility that no DNA remains on file. I know the DNA database is only relatively recent, it's possible they weren't allowed to retain extracted DNA back then.
Really
The problem in todays terms for the DPP reports is that a lot of the doubts expressed about witness testimony has been shown to have been misplaced when those witnesses came under oath and other scrutiny.
As for the shenanigans with Farrell. For sure a couple of the boys in blue might have dropped the pants for her and I don`t really doubt her when she says that she was pressurized to identify Bailey as the man she saw in the three sightings. But I have serious issues with her now saying that it absolutely was not Bailey and it was someone else that she identified in a French photo for Jim Sheridan.
She said in her statement that it was a quiet day. Farrell was on the street when Sophie entered the shop. Another witness who actually knew both Sophie and Bailey said she saw Bailey in his long black coat across the street as Sophie exited Spar. Are we seriously to believe that the man that Farrell saw in a long black coat across from her shop when Sophie was in was anyone other than Bailey? You`d be arguing for two separate men in black across the street from Sophie, minutes apart on a quiet day. Gimme a break.
Farrell saw the same man on the Airhill Road early the next morning. It has also been established that Bailey was on the Airhill Road at some point early the following morning. Come on now. French hitman equals LaLa land and apparently Jim Sheridan has given up on the theory.
I seriously doubt that Marie was out at all on the night of the murder. There was no Kealfada sighting. She has accused them of a lot but Marie has never accused the Gardaí of creating false tales for her to tell. All she has offer now is that the man outside her shop followed Sophie when she left and I am in no doubt that that was Bailey.
She has also caused a lot of confusion because I suspect that the Gardaí believed the Kealfada story and assumed that Bailey was wearing his black coat on the night. If he gave any forethought to seducing the classy French lady, I seriously doubt that he went over there dressed as Bull McCabe.
As for the Garda whipped hysteria...it was well know locally that Bailey was a violent man who had been hammering his partner. He had been kicked out by Jules in 1993. That was also the year that Sophie`s house was broken into. Alfie had his own bath. Locals saw the scratches on his hands and word got round. That`s where the hysteria originated. It didn`t need whipping. That`s just another stick that people like to beat the Gardaí with. The fact is that the locals added one and one and got two and two was the right answer.
Ta, corrected
@chooseusername Typo in your post there - 1979?
Alfie is hardly going to say he and Sophie didn’t see eye to eye, is he? You’re probably aware of the misunderstanding over the ownership of Alfie’s shed. He had to use the lane along the back wall of her house to access his shed and field, right outside her kitchen window. For obvious reasons it’s only Alfie’s version was available.
“I already told you where I pulled Farrell`s statement from. Murder at the Cottage...Episode 2....14 minutes in.”
If you took it from the Netflix film 20 + years later why would quote it as being from her Garda statement in Jan 97?
Unless you put up that statement it will look as though you imagined that what she told Sheridan in the film is what’s in her statement in 1997.
In other words you will have made it up!
Edited; typo
"Overwhelming burden of circumstantial evidence" my arse:
No known link between Bailey and Sophie.
No motive.
No physical evidence.
The idea that he hiked across fields in the dead of night coz he was horny is fanciful in the extreme.
A Garda investigation which was not just incompetent but known to be profoundly corrupt.
I totally know where your coming from. Like its massive injustice to Sophie to not have any answer to final moments of her life and worse still I'm saying here that that answer could have been lot more forthcoming had it not been for the way it was handled by our own police. I can't blame them alone , it's not right , they are trying to find information but they should have tightened the processes immediately on this case and not following random operation of telling witnesses what to say. It's worse that having bad witness in first place than doctoring statements thereafter. Like if I had been there and out of my depth , I get big guys in from all cities Dublin Cork and elsewhere. Remember this was year of Veronica guerin..and established of CAB. We had man power, we had experience. It just wasn't applied in right way. Like say even bailey being suspect early on..then why was he still allowed report and gather clues on case..is that even normal..
The DPP did a helluva lot more than that and you know it. He was scathing about the investigation. He pointed out multiple issues with the credibility of the evidence, lack of certain evidence, safety of the Garda conduct with witnesses and in the investigation. On the basis of all that, it is entirely reasonable to consider that Bailey is likely to be innocent.
And that was before the full scale of the shenanigans with Marie Farrell had emerged, before the Bandon tapes, before the lost and tampered evidence as noted in the GSOC report. And no real new evidence has emerged against Bailey since then.
What information could the Guards share with journalists they couldn't share with the DPP? Isn't that the conduct of a "conspiracy" if you are so bothered by them? And what does that say about the safety, reliabilty and integrity of the Garda investigation?
Oh and you talked of mad locals, have you forgotten Bill Fuller running for his life at the mere thought he had seen Bailey? This was the hysteria the Guards whipped up in the locality and where these witnesses you are relying on came from/
If this case didn’t have the notoriety to it, the publicity, the virtual soap opera feel to it. It would just have been another unsolved murder with a “likely” suspect -,outside of the family and friends impacted by the killing, it would have fallen from the collective memory and consciousness of the Irish public - we certainly wouldn’t be talking about it here today, and we’d all assume Gardai had it in hand, only that they just don’t have that missing piece of the jigsaw to get it across the line- poor guards we’d say, hope they get a breakthrough one day soon
For me, like all other major crimes, you assume Gardai are doing the best job they can in solving them - you don’t expect to learn about methods and so called evidence that even a keystone cop would laugh at- it’s actually quite worrying and you start to ask the question, what else do we not know about ?
When you lose faith in your own police force, the society you’re living in becomes a much more scary place to be.
Id like to see a lot more accountability-GSOC powers need to be ramped up - for example instead of requesting documents for an enquiry, and waiting months with no response whilst the Gardai laugh at them, they need to start walking in the door and just taking what they’re entitled to - our Garda watchdog has lost its teeth and has forgotten how to growl
The blockheads were amazing and Norman watt Roy is a Savage beast of a bassist
The DPP isn`t a conspiracy theorist at all. He doubted the veracity of a lot of witness testimony and of course he was judging them from written statements. He interviewed none of them. When many of these witnesses were tested under oath in later court cases and indeed subjected to cross examination by Bailey`s legal representatives, what they had to say stood up under scrutiny and Bailey lost big time. The proof of the pudding is in the eating as they say.
Over 20 witnesses directly contradicted Bailey under oath in the first libel case. His only legal victory had nothing to do with testimony coming out of west Cork. A couple of papers said he assaulted his ex, but they couldn`t substantiate it.
There was also an attempt by senior guards to put political pressure on the DPP. Which is all sorts of illegal.
Add in the fact there was international pressure coming from France too.
Which lead to a bizarre and terrifying situation where the state engaged in a mechanism to extradite Bailey to France whilst at the same time ordering an investigation into police corruption, which was deemed so secret it couldn't be released. That is bonkers.
It's one of those rare cases where the actual investigation of the murder and subsequent shenanigans is probably more in the public interest than the actual murder.
The Public Enquiry should have been ordered years ago.
The irony of the whole thing is if Bailey had been an Irish citizen, he would have spent his final days in a prison in France.
The trouble is I've followed this case from the start, read absolutely everything that's been printed on this case, from the start Senan has been sure of the perpetrator of this crime and has never been shy of saying so and that's a bad place for a journalist to start from, I like many here remain of the view that there was not enough evidence to convict Bailey in a court of law, exactly the view of the Dp.. There's no conspiracy theories just looking at the bald facts as presented,and to be honest anyone who produces an Ian Dury and the Blockheads lp as some sort of evidence against Bailey is blinded by his intense dislike for the man and must have a neck as thick as an asses collar to brand other posters as conspiracy theorists
It was 2 separate DPPs though who reached the same conclusion independently. It's not as if one was a Bailey lover and spared him a court trial.
The howling at the moon rumours are meaningless gossip. Sure what does it matter if someone dresses up like a druid and goes howling at the moon. It's not illegal. It doesn't make someone guilty of murder.
I've always felt it was bailey. I wanted it to be him..it was easy..media had led me to believe so..he looked like that person. He was there , suspicious and he actively was getting involved in sort of self gratifying way..but what's the point..zero DNA, various other theories.. innocent till proven. Happy to take threads here Vs DPP Vs guards Vs all other sightings....and it nearly doesn't yield anything else. Take for example her husband Daniel. Know nothing about him..and yet not turning up for her murder is on par with anything on bailey or others.
The reminder of other strange neighbours especially the guy only living mile from Sophie who had done terrible thing.
So we need that piece of evidence that places bailey there or others
The only other example I can give is Joe Reilly case, completely going along with searching for clues yet and his appearance on TV showed her mother not on line with his thinking. (similar maybe to lot of theories bailey used come up people not be living him) but to catch joe reilly on mobile phone mast was nothing short of amazing beside crime when he was using alibi he was in city. So it's really what we need...otherwise I can safely say guardai will think twice about doctoring any remaining evidence of this case considering the shambles they have made of it. They want one final clue or that enhanced DNA , if they don't get it..the final report will be inconclusive as I really don't think they will bring much else..but I'm hoping
Nope.
Nobody is saying the DPP is infallible.
Belief in Baileys innocence & that the DPP report got it fundamentally right does not require belief in such a conspiracy. Stated without foundation and entirely without merit.
To imply that people who consider the DPP decision and report to be fundamentally right are conspiracy theorists or keyboard cops when they are backed up by one of the highest law officers in the land is entirely without merit or foundation. It is just cheap point scoring, a sign of being more interested in winning the battle than discussing the truth of the matter.
You are implying a DPP and people who agree with their report is a conspiracy theorist.
This is self discrediting.
In second guessing the DPP, does that make you a 'keyboard laywer' - to use your phrasing?
Oh and you are now theorising there was illegal Garda conduct. Secret, illegal Garda conduct. Eh, isn't that a "conspiracy"??? Again, all your phrasing, not mine.
I’m still waiting on yours that you alluded to a few posts back- I’m a conspiracy theorist for doubting Bailey is a murderer according to you but you haven’t provided any evidence to support this - so the ball is in your court- I’ve posted a lot of reasons why there’s considerable doubt here in this thread - you’re just name calling people
Bailey is innocent of the crime of murder according to the Irish justice system - it’s a fact- there’s no disputing that.
What are your top reasons why Bailey is the murderer- you’ve claimed there’s a ton of circumstantial evidence out there, which in itself doesn’t amount to anything like a convincing case but considering the DPP has ripped apart a lot of this so called evidence, why don’t you provide us with yours since you’re calling those who don’t believe Bailey did it, conspiracy theorists.
Why don`t you try make a constructive argument? It would carry more weight.
First of all, the DPP`s report reproduces what he considered to be the important evidence and statements. That`s how some of the Garda file got into the public domain initially. And it`s problematic. For example, just recently here I was in a discussion about the scratches. It is obvious from the DPP`s report that nobody saw a cut on Bailey`s forehead the evening or night before the murder and he was in the pub that night surrounded by people, drawing attention to himself with his bodhran which he apparently didn`t play very well. Jules Thomas saw the cut, fresh and bloodied, first thing the morning after the murder and she remembered it afterwards. She also indicated that it wasn`t the turkey that did it. The DPP didn`t deal with that issue at all.
Once Bailey got his hands on the file, who knows who has it now. Jim Sheridan, I expect got access to it, Nick Foster definitely has it. I don`t claim that various journalists are infallible, but they know a whole lot more about the detail of the case that a lot of the keyboard cops who come and go, with limited knowledge claiming guilt or innocence.
Looks like Bailey himself was also involved in the conspiracy to have him in the frame for the murder.
In his own words describing his heinous assault on his long term partner just 7 months before Sophies murder he wrote...
"I severely damaged you and made you feel death was near."
"As I write I know there is something badly wrong with me."
"I feel a sense of sickness at seeing my account of that dreadful night. I actually tried to kill her."
"I am totally, totally obsessed by sex. I love my drugs and adore alcohol."
https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/i-am-an-animal-on-two-feet-ian-baileys-black-diary-shines-a-lurid-light-on-his-sexual-fantasies/a1968786615.html
Complete and utter balderdash
There isn't "overwhelming circumstantial evidence".
There's some weak evidence pointing at him. That's why the DPP didn't prosecute.
In fairness, you're claiming the journalists that claim he's guilty (which isn't all of them) as infallible but both DPPs had access to far more information than journalists. They equally aware of systemic issues in the investigation. If anything, they avoided situations like the Hutch case.
The pathology report says that Sophie was hit with something light like a stick or poker initially.
The slate and block were used to finish her off.
So, there is a missing weapon.
I say Hutch, you say McCabe, I say potaeto you say potaato, I say tomaeto and you say tomaato, let`s call the whole thing off.
The DPP has been your rock. But I have been critical about the Garda investigation. Faulty and even illegal investigation methods do not make Bailey innocent. Based on what is in the public domain, there is an overwhelming burden of circumstantial evidence that indicates that Bailey committed this murder. Anyone who protests his innocence has to believe that there was a widespread conspiracy that involves multiple Gardaí and probably upwards of 40 witnesses at this stage. That`s not what happened here.
OMG he was an Elvis Costello fan- he MUST be guilty so 😀
So there’s a whole bunch of information in the domain of Irish journalists implicating Bailey that the rest of the population know nothing about - right. We’ll go on then, provide us with your top 3 reasons why the murderer can’t be anyone other than Bailey
