Old thread seems to be permanently locked. It will be interesting if anything can come of this at last.
Threadbanned Posters:
You assert that the volume of circumstantial evidence suggests Bailey. There may be something in that but I would contend that the volume was driven, in the main, by the level of constant scrutiny on him compared to any other potential suspects compounded by the Gardai manipulation of "witnesses"
However, I would suggest that the quality of the circumstantial evidence points elsewhere.
Rows Grower7:51 pm
https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121755048#Comment_121755048
The one written by Mark Tighe, the legal affairs and specialist investigative reporter that was twice awarded The News Reporter of The Year Award?
What do you disagree with?
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Sorry Rosie I had missed your question above, until I saw Oscar had quoted you.
To answer your question; there's nothing in it for me to agree or disagree with, apart from maybe the click-bait "Final Swipe" headline. Typical Independent. Their relationship with Vincent O’Donoghue the bent solicitor was new to me though. Other than that it's just rehashed fodder.
This is your opinion.
The general consensus among journalists is that he killed her
That tells you a lot
Bridget Chappuis, a forensics liaison officer in the UK.
Further to her article last weekend in the Independent, this interview on spotify is along the same lines.
But there are a few omissions and some extra stuff.
In the article she said this, but doesn't mention it in the taped interview;
"When the gardaí attempted to access the house, they reported that both doors were locked. The front was locked with the keys on the inside. This meant that Sophie could only have left the house through the back door. This door was latched but not locked and there was a blood smear above the external handle as though someone had pulled it closed."
So were both doors locked or not? In the crime scene photos the front door- the one with the keys in the lock- is clearly on the latch, ie, latch is open, but the key could have been turned to lock it. But why would anyone lock the door from the inside with the key and leave the latch open.
And also this, not in the interview;
"And the pattern of blood staining on the block does not support the view that it was used as a weapon. Rather, blood pattern analysis tends to indicate that it was in situ when she was bleeding and that her body was leaning or lying against it, causing voids on the surface which are free of blood."
How does it explain the fact that the block was on top of her nightclothes?
She also says on the tape that the items tested for DNA were only tested for a match to Bailey, in spite of there being samples from other suspects at the time
Phoenix doesnt think so.
And the interview in the Independent with the retired forensics officer suggests otherwise.
@chooseusername what other samples had they to compare? I dont remember reading that.
She's of the view that the gardai fixated on Bailey and that the murder may have taken place in the morning
She also stated in the Indo podcast that she's working off limited info and the gardai have a lot more on file
The Phoenix seems to be an outlier afaik
About Irish journalism perhaps.
It was in their interests to both stay in lockstep and onside with the Gardai and pander to the prevailing sentiment of the public.
Sure they've a selfish interest in keeping in with gards
It was notable that any I read or heard after death seemed to believe he was guilty
Keys in the door but on the latch would maybe indicate the door was locked at night but she opened it to go out with the intention of coming back in soon after, possibly to walk down to the gate for example.
From memory, I believe Leo and Sally Bolger, Pecout, Wollney and maybe others, but interestingly not Alfie or Shirley. I forget where I read it now, but will have a look later.
edited to add;
Bear in mind she’s going on Bailey’s files, so may not be correct. Hard to imagine having got the samples not getting them checked.
Ehhh chooseusername, would this not fall under the label you gave the same newspaper (in this very thread) last night?
Just in case you forgot, this is what you said last night at 7.11pm regarding an article in the same paper by the accomplished, award winning journalist Mark Tighe...
"Usual Indo rubbish. 27 years and counting".
One would be forgiven for thinking that for the last 27 years you've been reading the Independent and consistently think it's rubbish.
Now all of a sudden.....
LOL.
It tells you a lot about the relationship between journalists and the Gardai.
It tells you nothing about Ian Bailey's guilt or innocence unless you think that the journalists had access to evidence against him that they never published. After decades of publicity and of legal hearings, that was an unlikely proposition. After his death, it is simply preposterous to think that journalists, who spilled so much ink over the past month on this case and taken full advantage of their sudden freedom from the risk of libel actions, are still withholding damning evidence from their readers.
I return to this thread occasionally to remind posters that this case will never be solved because of the almighty cock-up in the first 48 hours. Listening to this, it seems these failures were even worse than I imagined. As a retired forensic liaison officer, Bridget Chappuis is careful to say she doesn't want to "take a pop at anyone" but she puts the issues in a nutshell - "local officers who never had to deal with anything like this ... not understanding what was required and the Pathologist not arriving for 24 hours" .
The most extraordinary claim she makes is that blood and hair samples were taken from various potential suspects but only Bailey's samples were tested and, when they didn't match up, no further tests were undertaken. If that is true, it would be a major scandal.
An elementary step in any murder investigation is to establish the time of death but that was not established with any certainty in this case. The State Pathologist arrived too late to do anything more than guess that it might have been in the early hours of the morning, possibly 2 - 2.30 am. Bridget Chappuis questions the basis for his tentative conclusion and points to evidence that Sophie had breakfast that morning. Furthermore, the lights in the house were all off which would be inexplicable if she was awoken in the middle of the night, put on her boots and made her way via the back door to the gate where she was murdered. (Bridget Chappuis doesn't mention it but a local doctor arrived on the scene within an hour of the body being found but he could provide no evidence whatever regarding time of death because - and I can't believe I am writing this - he didn't check for temperature and he didn't even check visually for rigor mortis.)
And why was the gate wide open? It was shut the previous evening and Sophie was "fanatical" about closing it every time she went in or out. Why would anyone walking into the property go to the trouble of opening the gate to its maximum extent?
Bailey was put in the frame immediately because an officer on duty at the scene that day noted his "suspicious behaviour" but Bailey was simply snooping around like any real journalist would if the police are stupid enough to give them access.
There is a dishonourable place in the annals of forensic science for this epic failure. The one thing the Gardai did to "preserve" the crime scene was to leave the body in situ for 48 hours, covered only with a tarpaulin. This was utterly disrespectful of the victim and it was also in defiance of instructions from the State Pathologist's Office who knew it was futile.
That lady isn't a retired pathologist
She admits she was mostly working off the French trial info and was missing lots of Garda info
She puts forward the view that gardai were fixated on bailey and the murder likely occured in morning which is fair enough
In relation to your issue with only testing and comparing samples to Bailey, there may have been a good reason for this. I am a Molecular biologist, but have never worked in forensics, but nevertheless have some insight into analytical techniques. An older technique for comparison of samples which used to be widely used in forensics was RFLP (restriction fragment length polymorphism). You amplify up DNA and then digest with restriction enzymes. Due to benign/neutral variations within populations the pattern can differ between people and profiles can be compared. The resulting samples are ran on a gel and imaged. This uses up the material. Imprudent testing could result in no material left for future comparisons and would be used only when necessary. It's very likely this was the method employed at the time.
Nowadays testing is done using STR analysis with capillary electrophoresis. The files generated can be stored and compared across an entire database at any point in time. It's possible that the new investigation has requested this is done.
A lot of the investigation was a shambles but some of the issues are a reflection of the limitations available at the time and not necessarily incompetence as presumed.
As tomhammer correctly pointed out the lady is not a retired pathologist.
Also the officer on duty at the scene not only noticed Bailey's suspicous behaviour (eg. not asking any questions as a normal journalist would have done and shortly afterwards reporting details no other journalist had or could have had). He also was the officer on duty when Bailey had previously accompanied Jules to the Garda Station to instruct Gardai that she wanted to drop charges of him assaulting her.
Good post, although I don't think this lady was a pathologist.
Nevertheless she is experienced in the field.
For me, the time of death is an absolutely critical element of the investigation.
An early morning timeline makes the case against Bailey even less credible. And may suggest that Michael O'Sullivan's experience with the dangerously driven fiesta is significant.
A forensic scientist I believe she said
She mentioned the gate being wide open
Said a walker would likely have partially opened the gate
Dunno is that significant or correct
Regarding the gate being wide open, Sophie may have been having breakfast and saw/heard a car down at the gate. I think she went down to speak to them. In more ways than one I think that gate is important to finding out what happened.
No she is not experienced in pathology, she is a retired forensic scientist.
A forensic pathologist can be considered a forensic scientist but not vice versa.
I don't think she contributed much new except speculation
Mentioned the open gate and the digested food
She theorized that he murder took place morning and it may have been someone else except bailey
Said she was working off limited info .
I think what we’re all deserved at this stage, not least the victims family, is an accurate account of the faults and failings of this investigation and indeed a detailed account of what the current investigation did to try and overcome those failings.
I won’t be holding my breath though- the Gardai don’t have a good history of holding their hands up and admitting mistakes
A possible development is a proven link between Bailey and Sophie
His claim to have seen her once from a distance just doesn't ring true
There's at least 4 witnesses saying they met or 90% met
The witnesses either weren't sure, or only remembered \ relayed this information years later.
There's speculation about a festival a year before the murder, but it still seems a long way off 3am in the morning levels of familiarity.
I'd be assuming the 3am level of familiarity was one way
Weren't they both into poetry
I can well see him infatuated but doubt she would have any interest in him
Well yes and no - not familiar enough to be opening the door to him at 3am.
Well that's the Bailey theory
A confrontation at the door
Maloney alleged he grabbed the wine bottle and she struck out with the axe. May or may not be true.
If he was infatuated with Sophie then he never spoke about it to anyone and never indicated same in the voluminous diaries he kept.
He was a loquacious piss artist who documented a ton of his own sexual thoughts so you would expect this to be revealed somewhere if it were the case that he had an obsession with her.
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