‘I believe to this day there is a French connection’

Witness

Ian Bailey spent the day in the witness box under cross-examination from senior counsel Luán Ó Braonáin for the State

Snapshots

– The court viewed a number of articles which Mr Bailey wrote or contributed to in the days and weeks after the murder of Sophie Toscan du Plantier in December 1996, among them articles for the Sunday Tribune, the Irish Daily Star and the Evening Echo. – He agreed that material he wrote in an article about the private life of Ms Toscan du Plantier, published about two weeks after her murder, was removed by a news editor. When Mr Ó Braonáin suggested the Sunday Tribune had removed "lascivious" details about Ms Toscan du Plantier's private life from articles supplied by him to the newspaper in January 1997, he said he was not sure what was removed. Mr Ó Braonáin said the material in question referred to Ms Toscan du Plantier's "love life" and to her having "male companions" and "multiple partners". He said he did recall then Sunday Tribune news editor Helen Callanan telling him she had taken material about Ms Toscan du Plantier's personal life from an article.

– Mr Bailey agreed another article written by him referred to Ms Toscan du Plantier saying, during a visit to a west Cork beauty spot, that she was experiencing a feeling of unexplained terror. Mr Bailey said he was given that information by a local woman.

– In early January 1997, Mr Bailey said, he assisted reporter Senan Molony from the Irish Daily Star when he came to west Cork to work on the story. He said he would have briefed Mr Molony on aspects of the case and Mr Molony would have integrated that into articles. He had not provided information that the clothes on the bed in the victim's home were rumpled, he said. Part of an article stating the "best guess" is the victim was roused from her slumber by hammering on the back door was not provided by him, he said. That was speculative, he said.

– A suggestion in an article that the killing may have been motivated by passion, jealously or hate rather than sexual assault or robbery also did not come from him.

– While Mr Bailey had a “growing apprehension” that gardaí saw him as a suspect, he did not disclose this to the newspapers for whom he was writing. Ms Callanan told him on the phone one day that it was being said he murdered the French film-maker. Mr Ó Braonáin said Ms Callanan would say that during a conversation with Mr Bailey on February 1st, 1997, he said words to the effect: “Of course, yes I did, I killed her to resurrect my career as a journalist.” In court, Mr Bailey said that was “a regrettable black joke”, “very foolish of me” and “very unwise”.

– Mr Bailey has told the court he was “absolutely certain” that on the day he was first arrested, gardaí did not caution him. However, when Mr Ó Braonáin later showed him an extract from his own diary, he accepted that he wrote in it that gardaí had read him his rights. “I have to accept that. It’s my error.”

– Mr Bailey said he was very interested in “the French connection” and had invited gardaí to his home to discuss that. He believed there was an “overfocus” on himself by gardaí, and matters in France should have been looked into more seriously. “I believe to this day there is a French connection,” he said.

– Mr Bailey said he regarded as “quite shocking” and “very strange” that Ms Toscan du Plantier’s husband Daniel had not come to west Cork to assist gardaí in the aftermath of her murder and identify her body because he was too busy with business commitments.When Mr Ó Braonáin asked was he suggesting Mr Toscan du Plantier was in any way involved with the death, Mr Bailey said he was not using those words. He told counsel he could “draw your own conclusions”.

– The State's barrister asked about a statement made by a local boy, Malachy Reid, on February 6th, 1997, in which the boy said Mr Bailey told him "out of the blue" while giving him a lift: "I went up there with a rock one night and bashed her f***ing brains in." He said what he told the boy was "they are saying" that he (Mr Bailey) had done that.