Ian Bailey RIP - threadbans in OP

It’s a wait and see - IF Bailey and Sophie are videoed together talking, it’s essentially a game changer for me given his absolute denial of having never met her- whilst some of the accusations can certainly be rebuffed, Bailey strongly denied this aspect of having met Sophie ever -a video of them conversing would completely swing me towards beyond reasonable doubt

**Truly the tapes could be last vital piece of evidence left

This seems to be it:

https://www.reddit.com/r/MurderAtTheCottage/comments/1aresxm/the_harrying_of_jules_the_full_story_how_the/

i guess Individual “perceptions” of Bailey is nearly the only thing people have to hang their hat on.

The total lack of concrete evidence - DNA, reliable eye witnesses on the night- it leaves a void that people feel they have to fill themselves.

And they fill that with any piece of “evidence” they can. I think it’s a natural thing to do- I guess people want closure so they try and rationalise what information they have and draw their own conclusions.

I don’t think it’s necessarily right or wrong- it’s probably just the human condition -none of us have the full list of evidence in front of us so all this discussion is a mere guessing game anyway

This is without a doubt how I am at moment. One of best posts ive read here. But it's so true. I wouldn't watch any more netflix or Jim Sheridan , I'd like be going through then tapes of that festival in cape clear...just to see if any truth in if they met or not.

What you say from a court of law or legal perspective is certainly true in my view.its definitely no smoking gun.

But if a video emerges with Bailey in conversation with Sophie, from a public opinion perspective, I think that will sway many people who may be currently expressing a lot of doubt around Baileys involvement - at the very least they may be less vocal in expressing any type of support for him .

It’s still just an opinion nothing more- but what’s left to have ? It’s not like Gardaí will uncover anything of significance that will move this case toward beyond reasonable doubt.

Bailey was adamant on never meeting Sophie - not even a brief introduction by a neighbour was admitted to.

In fairness if you did converse with a foreign woman for any degree of time at a festival beyond a short exchange of pleasantries , just a few years ago at a festival, you may not instantly recall it, but if the resultant circumstances such as these emerged, I think you would remember eventually -

The human brain and memory doesn’t work like that. It’s not some hard drive that you can just go into an old file and pull up something from years ago. If you were at a festival and chatting to multiple people, locals, tourists, vendors etc and something happened to one of them, would you be able to recall a brief chat with them??

Would you understand and be ok with being harassed and called a murderer because of your lack of recollection? Especially if you’d had a good few drinks taken at the festival? And were a heavy drinker in the meantime?

It’s desperate straw clutching by an organisation that’s spent the past few years conditioning people to believe that it was Bailey, because if it wasn’t there’ll be hell to pay. Like a gambler putting his rent money on the last race because he KNOWS this horse will win. And when it doesn’t it’s not his fault for not checking the form etc.

In fairness if you did converse with a foreign woman for any degree of time at a festival beyond a short exchange of pleasantries , just a few years ago at a festival, you may not instantly recall it, but if the resultant circumstances such as these emerged, I think you would remember eventually -

I don't think her been foreign would be an outlier given the make up of the area.

The circumstances could also create a false memory especially for a 3rd party.

And especially if the Muldoon guards got to that third party.

Well I mean..what do we have on it..tapes being reviewed so we will have a meeting at festivals with loads of people lots of nationalities and its nearly 30 years ago...what will it give us..no knowledge of what they are saying or even if we see brief encounters ...it could all be random people drinking etc..so not much to defend IB on. If he has known her and they have sufficient length of footage then it's certainly a decent piece of circumstantial evidence and can change elements of case up to now but what can be actually done with it...most of posts here are saying this earlier...I'm open to idea its massive evidence if they are seen be more than short conversation and maybe seen numerous times or if there was any embrace..then this is vital evidence ...but we are as before..unless we have evidence to convict IB then other suspects should be reviewed.

Fair enough in terms of the nationality- west cork was famous for its variety of nationalities- I still think though that if he had nothing to do with the murder, Bailey would have gone over in his mind whom he had met in the locality through the years.

In the early days before arrest, he may well have said that he knew her vaguely or met her once but he didn’t. He was adamant he never knew her- that’s a risky thing to say if you were seeing publicly with her- on the balance of probability I’d say he was telling the truth.

Leaving aside the disputed 90% certain supposed introduction, I honestly don’t believe he did meet her- be it a diary entry by Sophie, or a mention in a phone call to a friend (and I don’t mean that story that materialised nearly 20 years after the murder) there’s nothing really of note to say he knew her- it’s a small locality overall - some credible witness would have come forward at the time had they met publicly I believe.

You’re then faced with the prospect that Bailey went to a house he hadn’t been to before to meet a woman he never met before at an unearthly hour of the night, with the sole purpose of killing her ir at least forcing himself on her and killing her when she rebuked him, just like that serial murderer I posted about a few pages back.

It’s a big ask here, no less in a court of law, to believe that story.

I think the problem with IB was he loved the limelight, wouldn’t be surprised if he admitted this to someone when his spotlight was fading, it was his life’s work to milk the whole thing for all the exposure he could get from it.

He had little prospects other than to milk it in fairness - stuck on 2/3rds of this island for the rest of his life- absolutely no employment prospects - legal case after legal case- the only way he could get a few bob was to charge for selfies or interviews or whatever else he did - have to say if I was in similar position I’d probably do similar - you’ve lost all dignity in the public eye so what else do you have left to lose