Old thread seems to be permanently locked. It will be interesting if anything can come of this at last.
Threadbanned Posters:
Does your scepticism not get reduced every time bjsc posts back-ups to her original assessments, or is it one-way street of increasing scepticism?
iirc from previous discussions of the video, he wasn't making any attempt to hide his hands, no gloves, no keeping them in pockets.
I wouldn't trust a word these Guards say for a traffic stop never mind a murder.
Wasn't there a video made of Mr Bailey at the Christmas morning charity swim in Schull?
I think it was taken by someone who was home for the holidays - the Christmas morning swim being an annual highlight of the season.
I even think I've seen it; but I've tried poking around on the Internet just now and can't find it. Has anyone got a link?
This was only a day or two after the murder: and Bailey said subsequently that the recent crime was the principal topic of conversation and red hot gossip was flying round the town. Naturally enough!
Apparently he was wearing a long dark overcoat. But could his hands be seen on the video clip?
Well, how would you know yourself for sure, if you did both things in the same day, and only noticed the scratches as the day went on?
From the DPP report:
The evidence of D/Gda. John Culligan and D/Gda. Denis Harrington demonstrate more discrepancies in the Garda evidence. On 31 December 1996 D/Gda. Denis Harrington noticed that Ian Bailey had a lot of scratches on the back of both hands. A few days before most of the scratches were meant to have been on the left hand. Bailey asserts that some of the marks on him were obtained as a result of killing the turkeys on Sunday 22 December 1996.
From the article linked;
"Cross-examined by Ronan Munro, for Mr Bailey, he (Mr Harrington) said he went to the murder scene on December 26th, 1996, and the body was still there and the scene was preserved."
FFS.
Just to be clear was there an original drawing done in a Garda station in the days after the murder ….of the cuts on his hands and arms ..wasn't there? Or is my imagination running away with me?
Either way. If the below is true, these cuts were still visible on 31st December- that means the cuts were deep.
So the question is did Bailey get them from slaughtering the turkeys or from cutting down Christmas trees? It’s one or the other.
“Mr Harrington also said he saw scratches on the backs of Mr Bailey’s hands and arms when he and a Det Garda Culligan called to Mr Bailey’s home near Schull on December 31st, 1996. Mr Bailey had said he got those cutting down a Christmas tree with Saffron Thomas, a daughter of his partner. Mr Harrington said he grew up in the country and the scratches appeared “like briar cuts”
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/ian-bailey-had-scratches-on-hands-court-told-1.2083177
If I'm not mistaken, it was @tomhammer.. who it seems took pride in not reading the DPP's analysis of the evidence submitted by AGS against Bailey so its a safe assumption that recommending other reading material will be a waste of your time (which some here do appreciate!)
If you care to go on line and type in "Murder Manual" you will be able to access the College of Policing guide to murder investigation This is the definitive handbook used by all UK police forces and will tell you all you need to know. Should save us both a lot of time.
No , but I have accumulated a degree of scepticism about some of your postings
I don't doubt your credentials
You seem to take issue with everything I say so I can only assume that you too have worked extensively in the field of forensic investigation and I will therefore bow to your superior knowledge.
Well they couldn't improve on this, could they?
Note, it's the right hand, Mr. Brooke's is of the left hand, so it may account for the scratches being different. ( or maybe Brookes did it in the mirror?)
You said taping at post mortem
Surely removing clothing at PM will preserve even more evidence if done with victim in a body bag
Not really. Th whole point of taping is to remove all loose debris before it sheds. Once you start removing the clothing and packaging it you are losing evidence. In a case like this where there has been a struggle and therefore close contact between the victim and assailant it should be standard practice.
Of course it's speculation, maybe I should preface everything with IMO, AFAIK.etc. You can comment away.
I'm well aware that there is probably a lot of forensic evidence from the scene that you and I are not privy to.
Wouldn't storing the clothing do the same job
Don't know if they did that
How does this even hold up as evidence. So we got a number of witnesses and employed a new artist 20 years later and from number of sketches based on witnesses confirming we have created final sketch as to what we think the marks looked like. Mind blowing stuff. I mean if you get another 2/3 artists they will all come up with different sketches as well to this one.
One thing which wasn't done at the time and undoubtedly should have been was fibre takings. It was best practice, at post mortem, to tape the clothing and body of the victim to capture alien hair, fibres and other debris.
Nowadays, had those tapings been taken, there would be the potential to try and extract DNA from them. It has been done, very successfully, in cases older than Sophie's.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing but I'm just trying to point out things that should have been done and weren't and which could potentially have identified Sophie's killer either in 1996 or today.
Is there something preventing the Gardai providing their own updated sketch of the wounds they saw, am I missing something? They literally saw his hands a few hours after the murder occurred. Why would they need to go to anyone else at all, especially 20 years later I don’t know
The article was too long, I left out this bit;
"Mr Brooke made a statement to Bantry gardaí in 2021 and says he was told this year that an artist was being employed by gardaí to visit people who had “seen the wounds to Mr Bailey’s hands”. He then made and submitted his own sketch."
They employed an "artist"!!!! I kid you not.
The date of the article was Oct 2023. by Senan Moloney. (Baloney Maloney)
Just re-read the second part of your comment, a lot of speculation in there tbh which I won’t comment on, However I presume that you are aware that there is other forensic evidence at the scene also, beyond the boot and unknown DNA? @chooseusername
Returning in a blue Ford fiesta at 7.30am? The blood on the door though ? Did they return to the cottage to get something connected to them which they’d given to Sophie the previous day?
Even the Guards didn't describe the scratches like that!!!!!
Yes, more nonsense
So nearly 20 years after the event.
It's not a Garda sketch.
Sorry link won't work, but this is the jist;
Quote;
"The sketch of the injured hand was submitted this year by a new witness named Roger Brooke, who lives in Italy.
He has provided a statement to gardaí, saying: “On the evening of the 23 December 1996, I entered the Courtyard bar in Schull, West Cork.
“I spotted Ian Bailey at the other side of the room. I went over to wish him a Merry Christmas. I approached him from his left side, and after wishing him well, I looked down and was shocked to see that the back of his left hand was criss-crossed with deep and obviously recently-incurred cuts and scratches.
“This of course prompted me to ask him what on earth he had done to his hand. His answer was, ‘I was killing turkeys’. I remember thinking that it was strange to be killing turkeys just before Christmas Day. That is usually done a week earlier.”
Mr Brooke now tells the Irish Independent: “I had known Bailey to a small degree when I was living between Ballydehob and Schull. He always struck me as a fairly strange individual who seemed to have a very high opinion of himself for no particularly good reason.
“I did not make a statement to gardaí regarding the wounds to Bailey’s hand/s in 1996 or 1997 due to personal reasons.”
Mr Brooke eventually left West Cork for elsewhere in Ireland.
In 2014 Mr Brooke walked into a police station in Stroud, Gloucestershire, and made his first statement.
He also contacted gardaí and left his details around 2015.
“The reason was I read a report that Ian Bailey had told gardaí that cutting a Christmas tree was responsible (for his scratches), which was not what he told me."
When contacted for comment, Mr Bailey told the Irish Independent: “The name Roger Brooke sort of rings a bell. But I am going to make life easy for you. I’ve got no comment.”
Are these Garda still alive? Given they now would have almost 30 years more experience, seen countless further examples of blood in crimes and accidents, and assuming they have also seen evidence in further murders. I would think they would have Sophie's murder burned in their memory given their youth and inexperience at that time. It would be great if someone asked them to revisit their recollections of the freshness of the blood at the scene, and what they now think about its recency vs the gate and elsewhere and to get that on record and in the public domain.
Sorry I know I promised a few days ago to look at these statements I've been up to my eyeballs. I will get back to you.
Absolutely
If you have access to statements by Gardas Prendeville and Byrne and Dr.O'Connor, I'm sure they all stated that some blood on the victim appeared 'fresher' or 'wetter' than other blood around the scene. Now the blood they say was fresher was likely pooled around the head and face, whereas other blood, like that on the gate would have been thinner and dried quicker and be darker in colour. But if you could give an indication of how long pooled blood under the conditions would remain fresh and red as opposed to dry and brown.
"There is no evidence of more than one attacker", but I've long held a thought that the first encounter was with a person that Sophie recognised and was comfortable enough to confront outside her house, maybe a woman or a young male. The confrontation turned into a scuffle and then a full on prolonged fight along the gate. Probably not a 6'3 ex rugby player in his prime, as it would be over very quick. A blow to the head with the first weapon felled Sophie and her attecker fled. A family member returned, a partner or a parent, and finished the job with the rock and block?
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