Cold Case Review of Sophie Tuscan du Plantier murder to proceed

Quote the original statement and show the lie then. In the 2003 court case Kennedy and Brian Jackson both testified under oath that there was a fire.

Unfortunately for Jules, in 2017 she went on tv and retracted some of her retractions, specifically those dealing with the scratch on Bailey`s forehead the morning after the murder and the events on Hunt`s Hill. This all casts serious doubts about the rest of her retractions of her original statement. Keep in mind also that the DPP gave weight to the fact that she had made these retractions in the first place, which was a sort of ridiculous thing to do. Half the prisons in the country would be empty if the DPP threw out every case based on the retraction of a statement.

Not every case has documented evidence of Garda malpractice, including 'lost' and tampered evidence. The Guards should not get the benefit of the doubt in this case given such conduct, and then there's dodgy conduct with witnesses such as Marie Farrell.

Looks like you`ve backed yourself into a corner there. Not good to accuse someone of lying without the documentary evidence to support it either.

An utterly disingenuous post.

Your posts cannot be relied upon to give a good faith account either of the posts on this thread, or the common meaning of words used.

Evidence in this case was tampered with. There is a suspicious amount of evidence 'lost'.

You seem to think no single hand could have altered the statement, that is your claim. It is different again from another claim you just made on the thread which is that it required all 6 officers.

And there's a massive difference between what is called a 'conspiracy theory' and a mere 'conspiracy'. Unless you think every instance of 1 or more police officers engaged in tampering with evidence, miscarriages of justice around the world is proof of conspiracy theories?

Do you? Because you are the one who seems to think that is what is known as a "conspiracy theory". So, by the standard you set in your previous post, what does that make you?

"The French trial does not trump Irish law"

It doesn`t have to. He died a convicted murderer.

"I`m not biased to the point that I`d assume that there is any evidence against him!"

You are biased to the point where you believe that there is no evidence against him. A mantra you have repeated multiple times.

"And yes, it`s clear that you were trying to get a dig in against those who disagree with you and would rather see a proper fact-based investigation."

I learned a few years ago now on the threads about this case that many people who hold the opposite view to me get upset whenever they get presented with facts. You shouldn`t be so thin skinned as to interpret it as having a dig. If there is a "Bailey is guilty" brigade, I have no problem being put in there. Weren`t you labelling me this morning in your post 8714? Did I take offence?

Can you read, did you read what I just wrote? You didn't respond to anything I said. I called you a liar.

You are a liar

warned and 1 day forum ban applied

Ok you brought up a whole pile of different stuff. I do want to get onto the bonfire and the assault in 2001 (not 2000) but I am trying to summarize here and not get sidetracked.

1. You are saying that Jules believed Bailey before and was wrong on multiple occasions. So I guess you are saying that she is gullible or something, and is less likely to know if Bailey is telling the truth than you, a person who never met him. Ok, let's assume that's true.
2. You say that Jules was "oblivious to the Christmas bonfire" and has flawed logic because of her understanding of Bailey's nature. (This is incorrect, Jules lit the bonfire - we'll come back to that).

In essence what you are saying is that Jules Thomas's opinion on whether Bailey did it doesn't carry much weight. You're saying she doesn't believe Bailey did it, because she has been duped.

That's an interesting opinion, and I haven't heard it before. Personally I think it is the only logical conclusion if you do believe Bailey did it, because otherwise she is complicit and its a conspiracy, she would have been allowing a savage murderer to live with her and her daughter. But if you take that approach, you have to throw a lot of the testimony evidence that you want to keep. The bonfire evidence also.

The third thing you brought up is not related to the question, it's more of an argument that Bailey must have done it based on Jules Thomas's statement she made on the 10th February.

But if you are maintaining Jules Thomas is honest but duped, it completely undermines your argument to believe her statement - that they saw a light on the hill - that Bailey was going over to a party at Alfie's - because she repudiated it. She insisted it was signed under duress. I believe her. I believe this statement is clearly verballed. It is 5 pages, 1800 words of handwritten text with no corrections. The original has been conveniently lost. There are no memos of Jules Thomas last 6 hours of interrogation. This is highly suspicious. This statement just appeared and was signed in the final minutes before they had to let her go.

The phraseology of the statement is pure garda-speak e.g. "I don't recall his absence during my further sleep" "certain person or persons in the area" "I was privy to the conversation"- normal people do not talk like this. Jim Fitzgerald clearly wrote it, and she was told to sign it, or else. Note this the same Jim Fitzgerald, who was recorded on tape discussing whether another inconvenient statement should be "chopped up" and whether to "pre-date" another statement. The same Jim Fitzgerald who managed Marie Farrell and Martin Graham as witnesses. Here is a bit of her radio interview on 14/02/1997 with Pat Kenny

PK So you are completely convinced of his innocence? You would find it difficult to continue living with someone if there was any hint in your mind that he might be capable of something....

JT Absolutely. Absolutely, I wouldn't, you know, as I said at the end of my um interview, I was, I was pretty well forced to make a statement or they were going to take me down and charge me, so I was thinking of the consequences I have three daughters, two at college and one at home and I was thinking of the consequences and I knew I had to make a statement and at the end of the day I did say that if he had done it, I would never want to see him again. The whole idea of being close to a murderer would, you know like any woman, feel absolutely appalling.

If you believe Jules Thomas, you have to discard her statement on 10/02/1997.

Now there are a some issues here you are factually incorrect on. I'm not sure it's worth going into all of them.

The bonfire in particular is important. You said Jules Thomas was "oblivious to the Christmas fire." Untrue, she lit it. There were only 2 witnesses. Firstly Brian Jackson on 7/2/1997. He only heard crackling and smelt fire "on or about Christmas Time", and heard Ian Bailey calling "Saffi", a detail included no doubt to make it seem more likely it was Christmas. He said it smelt like garden rubbish, wood & twigs. His statement is rather vague. During her interrogation in February Jules was asked about this fire, she said it was an old mattress and other stuff from the studio and she lit fire herself. Note when Jules said this, it had not been established by Gardai it was a mattress - so she must have known about the fire, not "oblivious". Gardai only found out later when they pulled bedsprings out of it. Bailey was asked about it and he just mentioned Jules lit it in early December. Therefore assuming Jules Thomas to be truthful, then it must have been in early December because St Stephen's Day wouldn't make sense. No doubt the Gardai would claim Bailey restarted the fire, but that doesn't work because of Louise Kennedy's statement.

Louise Kennedy made her statement on 17/04/1997 and she said it was on St Stephen's Day. She actually saw the bonfire and said it was a horsehair mattress backing up what Jules Thomas said on 10/02/1997. Since it was four months after the events, she could easily have gotten the date wrong and the Gardai had an uncanny knack for returning to witnesses over and over to get the dates and times they wanted. In any case you can't claim that the fire was on St Stephen's Day unless you also claim a mattress was burned, and if a mattress was burned then Jules Thomas lit the fire. If Louise Kennedy witnessed a fire then she saw the fire that Jules Thomas lit.

Maybe you will say two mattresses were burned?

Do you see where I am going with this? You can't take the line that Jules Thomas is honest but duped about Bailey's guilt unless you also throw away the best evidence that he did it. You also have to assume that she noticed nothing or heard nothing to change her mind.

The context of this is as follows: Hogan wanted Leahys observations suppressed, because he wanted a pretext to arrest Jules Thomas under Section 10. To do this he would need to show a judge she was lying, and he couldn't very well do that with Leahy's comments that she was being truthful. You say "He kinda had a point" but that is irrelevant here. It is actually extremely damning when you unpick what he is trying to do. He wanted to re-arrest her "we need to break Jules Thomas" because he thought that was his best chance of getting a conviction, to get Jules to rat out Ian. In order to do this he is talking about suppressing the statement of a fellow garda.

The parts about "pre-dating" statements occur in another tape. Chris Farrell had just beaten up Niall Flynn because Flynn was stalking Marie Farrell. Flynn wanted to press charges and Jim Fitzgerald suggested that Farrell should get a statement in first, that way if it came before a judge his would be the first account. The other Garda (William Byrne) said "But sure we can always pre-date it if it comes to it, like, you know." meaning that if Niall Flynn made a statement they would get Chris Farrell to make a counter statement and date it before Flynns one.

On another note Mods, this thread is gone to the dogs.

The fact that you take the time argue ad naseum on this issue, and exaggerate claims, about a fire which had no tangible artefacts in its ashes, and includes farcical witness statements, and use that to infer something nefarious, instead of being able to point to any reasonable shred of evidence is self-evidence that the case against Bailey, and Jules is nothing but (no) smoke and mirrors.

So let's say there was fire on 26th. Ian was drinking .totally forgot himself and had lit another fire.. burned all clothes he used at scene...totally not realising anyone would spot him. Few people might have seen fire.

Anything more on it from there. Maybe we might be able get garda sketches of fire to go with ones of his hands. This is vital evidence to be submitted to DPP