Cold Case Review of Sophie Tuscan du Plantier murder to proceed (Threadbans in OP)

OK good to know that you only believe witnesses when it suits you. Thanks.

It would suit me for Farrell to be identifying Bailey as the man she claimed to see at Kealfada.

"Bailey remembered but denied it"? Nope.
Shirley has a fuzzy recall herself that more sounds like she doesn't want to contradict Alfie's fuzziness.

You don't have to be asked such a thing. You bring it up regardless of whether Bailey was denying it.
But we're expected to believe later on he remembered it so well.
Nope. Not credible.

Did Leo Bolger go shopping on the day the body was found or not?
What time did Alfie call him and tell him not to come over?

maybe it was in Alfies and Bolgers interests to push the narrative around bailey meeting her. Who again was using her bath?

I thought it was alfie that used the bath

Yes absolutely the areas you are covering just further clarify how Bailey is supposed to have struck up any meetings or conversation and given her last trip was the only one she travelled alone. Would someone not have been following her then since airport.. Or else we are going on it was just random attack.. But killer not inspecting house afterwards gives us familiarity.. Familiarity with Terrane. Would that be what people think on here.

She clearly didn't want to be France. But travelling under uncertainty of no return flight.

The seriously deteriorating relationship with Daniel. These areas have been ignored but are they related.

The only people who knew she was definitely alone were the Helens, the Ungerers, Daniel and a few people in france.

The others that possibly knew she was alone was Alfie and the bar owner - but its not definite that they knew.

For Bailey to be the murderer he would have to have known she was alone be his motive sexual, violence or professional. Why would he assume she was alone at Christmas? He wouldn't take that chance.

In my opinion the murderer definitely knew she was alone and Bailey wouldn't have known this.

Its either someone who definitely knew she was alone or an incident where tempers flared ie. Over a gate or land issue.

Both the above theories rule out Bailey imo.

It's certainly a really core area but I also can't say, at times maybe it's immaterial but from the CCR team perspective you would think differently and it would have take central element

@tibruit

"Agnes Thomas"

Neither Agnes Thomas nor Liam Hogan are reliable and I don`t recall ever saying that they are. It`s gas that you are picking out examples of peripheral fluff and directing it at me as if it is the be all and end all.

No, I am merely illustrating my point that it's all held together with false memories and changing accounts. You said Hogan was a bad example so I gave another, there are dozens of these recovered memories and changing statements. Guy Girard, Leftwicks, Camiers, O'Colmain. I don't know which ones you personally put weight on. It's not at all directed at you. I am only explaining my position.

"Bolger gave multiple versions"

What multiple versions are they then? Based on what Bolger says, we can conclude that Bailey was introduced to Sophie in 1993. Alfie remembers it but is likely mistaken to associate it to the time that Bailey worked on his garden. Shirley remembers seeing them all together at an unspecified time.

Bolger specifically claimed to have been there when Bailey was working on Alfie's garden. That only happened in 1995. He claimed he was working on Sophie's roof, which in his statement only happened in 1993.

You want to say that this happened in 1993 - there is no evidence that Bailey worked for Alfie in 1993. Alfie was very specific that he hired Bailey in 1995 to prepare for Shirley's retirement and not before. You want to change the story to fit your argument. Maybe this detail is wrong or that detail. Maybe Bailey met Sophie in a different context and Alfie is wrong, or maybe Bolger forgot about some work he did for Sophie in 1995. But once you do that, your argument is void because we have to deal with the evidence we have. Bolger's memory is faulty, we have proof of that. Alfie has never said he was certain. Shirley changing her story after 29 years actually weakens her account. Her 1997 statement is crystal clear:

"Sophie was distant but friendly. She was not curious about us. We certainly weren’t soul mates. … Sophie never came to the house in my presence."

So we can have no confidence the introduction really happened.

But even if it did, we have absolutely no evidence that they ever communicated despite decades of searching by multiple investigators going through Bailey's and Sophie's diaries. Sophie kept absolutely everyone's phone number in her diary, even people she rarely, if ever spoke do. It was her career, keeping a network and it was the days before electronic devices. If Bailey gave her his number she would have recorded it. This would be also be true if Guy Girard's stories were real. And Bailey would absolutely have recorded her number.

"he (Bolger) hated Bailey"

In fairness to Bolger he was a good judge of character.

Whether he was or not is immaterial. The point is that his animosity towards Bailey affects his judgement and undermines the reliability of his account. The point stands.

"This is a clever piece of sophistry dreamt up by Paul Gallagher."

There`s nothing clever about it at all. In fact I was genuinely not even aware that Gallagher suggested this. It seems a weird way to make the confession and it is perfectly understandable why Fuller might have thought that Bailey was accusing him. But he wasn`t. He was confessing. Referring to himself in the second person, just as he did in his diary………"If YOU give me a list of all those who should desist, then I will stub them out like cigarette ends, one, two, three." The "you" in that sentence is himself…..and in the next passage….."Who would YOU place on this list (oneself included in the sacrificial blitz)

Paul Gallagher introduced this at the libel trial. It was clever because it nullfied potential redirect or cross examination. It was then picked up by Michael Sheridan, which is possibly where you encountered it. It IS sophistry because it's just argument. He is trying to say when Bailey looks at a person and points and says "You" we're supposed to understand it as "I". Whatever weird crap Bailey wrote when he was alone with his diary, it's safe to say when he pointed at a person he was talking to and said "You" he didn't mean himself. That really is absurd.

Fuller didn`t make up that confession. That is confirmed by the way Bailey referred to himself in the diary. Fuller had no awareness of that.

"confirmed" really? Is this supposed confession written up in a diary somewhere? "Confirmation" must mean something different in your dictionary.

Note Fuller was never able to give a date for this event. Just like Bolger, Billy Fuller hated Bailey, more so in fact. He went to the libel trial and was kicked out of the court for audibly telling Bailey "I have you now". It shows what was important to him, doing harm to Bailey's case. He has clear motive to lie, embellish or otherwise dissemble.

"the stream is below the road where she couldn`t have seen him.

The washing of the boots is a conclusion that Fitzgerald made rather than a fact that he knew. It is just an indication that he believed Farrell`s account and that he wasn`t involved in any invention of the story. You are obsessed with him.

Oh really? Who did the story come from then? Fitzgerald had all her statements, he had written one of them himself and that information wasn't there. She never mentioned anything about washing boots and he knew it. It's a perfect example of Fitzgerald inventing details for his own convenience. I include it because Jules accused the Gardai of adding details and languange into her statement that she didn't say. This is a perfect of example of Fitzgerald doing exactly that. I also included an example of Fitzgerald writing out a whole statement for a witness (Marie Farrell) from memory a week after meeting her.

"I guess you could argue that Bailey left the house and returned after walking to Airhill and back."

That`s exactly what happened. West Cork Podcast asked him a very specific question about it. They asked him if he left the house because he wanted to try to hitch a lift home. If he hadn`t left the house that morning, then the natural reply to that question would have been…"I never left the house!" That`s not what he said though. His reply was a vague "I don`t know"

It doesn't matter what Bailey remembered or didn't remember in 2015 when that interview was conducted. It is actually quite honest of him to say "I don't know", because nobody can remember details like that after such a length of time. What matters is the evidence of the people in the house at the time recorded in the statements in January 1997. They very clearly say Bailey didn't leave the house between 3am and 12. Read the DPP's report, he lays it all out blow by blow, and you can check the statements yourself.

As I mentioned the distance was a kilometer round trip, so if Bailey nipped out, an absence of that length of time would have been noticed. It wasn't 100yards from the house, as Michael Sheridan wrote.

Just like you, he wants to gloss over awkward details like that, because he wants to make Bailey's movements fit. But you can't make it fit unless you start changing the evidence, what if this bit is wrong etc. If you do that, your argument is worthless.

""Absurd" really"

Yes, absolutely absurd. I`m not going into this with you again. You are obsessed with Fitzgerald. You`ve worked out which of the interviewers had the dodgiest character and tried to pin it all on him. It is absurd. I`d actually have more respect for you if you just said that all the interviewers conspired to fabricate JT`s statement.

You admit the police are dodgy, we have them on tape planning corrupt things, suggesting witnesses do corrupt things and photographed doing corrupt things, and yet you say I am being "absurd" one suspecting the dodgy cop wrote a dodgy statement. As I have shown, no conspiracy or collusion was necessary, Fitz & Leahy didn't keep any notes of the final 5 hours of Jules' interviews, as the other Garda did prior to them. So we can't check what Jules said. Even so collusion is not unusual. How did five member of Joanne Hayes' family make false confessions with dovetailing details when they were all interviewed separately? You think these sorts of shenanigans stopped in the 1980s? Ever heard of Dean Lyons, the Morris Tribunal or Maurice McCabe? Are you even Irish, or perhaps very young not to know about these things?

I am not obsessed with Fitzgerald. He is just one example there are plenty of others, but few of them were unlucky enough to get recorded on tape (or in Fitz's case, stupid enough to record himself). If I am obsessed, it is with the detail of the case. It seems to me that you're convinced Bailey did it but your knowledge of the detail of this case is based on the documentaries and books and those are full of errors and bias. I suggest you read the actual statements, and read about the litany of Garda scandals before you start declaring what's absurd, what's confirmed etc.

Her being alone only really has an impact for a planned killing, and even with this she was asking various people to come with her, so this would only have become fact within a day or so of leaving France. Josie may not have been sure even until Sophie arrived.

Personally I think that the blood on the back door came about because the perpetrator wasn't sure if there was anyone else in there, and went up to check.

There's no evidence anyone broke in and used Sophie's bath. Bruno complained to Josie Hellen that the bathroom wasn't clean one time and Josie blamed Alfie, without any justification whatsoever. She also made sure to keep Sophie informed when Alfie was accused of growing drugs for supply. The Hellens and Alfie did not get on well. It seems Finbarr Hellen thought it was perfectly Ok to allow his cattle and sheep to graze Alfie's land. The local Garda was called and told Finbarr Hellen to stop driving his tractor over Alfie's fences.

In reading the statements there is clear animosity, and tbh borderline accusations back and forth between Finbar and Alfie. Alfie implies Finbar is using his and Sophie's land without permission. Finbar basically says Alfie didn't put up fences so he should expect his animals will wander around and Sophie has no issues. Finbar blames Alfie for flooding and damp on Sophie's land, Alfie blames Finbar. Finbar says that Shirley wouldn't normally go to the dump, Alfie/Shirley says they both go etc. There's much more, and Finbar essentially says they stop talking to each other after the murder.

It's clear the gardai are going from one to the other and presenting these points, which in itself is actually good police work really. Before Bailey was honed in on, there must have been fierce stress in the community to be fair, especially on those with a hint of accusation. Once they could all point to one person, it was probably a huge relief for everyone, whether that person was guilty or not.