Journalist says he was at home on night of murder

Ian Bailey yesterday insisted that he never left the home he shares with his partner, Jules Thomas, on the night that Sophie Toscan du Plantier was murdered, and only went to a neighbouring property as dawn was breaking.

Mr Bailey told his High Court libel appeal against five newspaper groups that he got up at some stage in the early hours of December 23rd to work on an article for the Sunday Tribune but that he never left the Prairie, Liscaha, Schull, until dawn.

"There was a story I had to produce for the Sunday Tribuneon how a number of bars were going on line - how the worldwide web was going into rural Ireland, how the clip-clop of the keyboard was replacing the tip-tap of step dancing," he said.

"I got up at around 4am to write the story in the kitchen of the Prairie cottage - I worked on the article for possibly an hour or an hour-and-a-half - I didn't have it completed when I went back to bed but I had the bulk of it completed," he said. "We don't have a clock and I don't wear a watch - I would reckon it was around five o'clock that I went back to bed - it didn't seem more than two hours . . . I got up again when it started to get lighter," he said.

It was then that Mr Bailey went to a nearby house some 250 yards away owned by Ms Thomas, the Studio, where he proceeded to write the story on his computer so he could print it and fax it to the newspaper.

"It was around nine o'clock that I went down there [the Studio] and I stayed there until the switchboard came on at the Tribune sometime after 10 o'clock . . . I returned to the Prairie cottage where Jules was still in bed, I made another cup of coffee and got back into bed."

Mr Bailey also rejected press reports that he had a suffered a series of scratches to his face and hands around the same time. He said he had suffered just one nick while killing a turkey and some grazing to his hands when cutting down a Christmas tree on December 22nd, 1996.

"I was putting the legs of one of the turkeys in this loop to take its head off - one of the legs came out and a talon of the turkey's claw caught the top of my hairline - it was on the scalp - I wouldn't describe it as a fullblooded cut, it was just a nick."

He also dismissed suggestions he had said in press interviews that he had suffered scratches to his hands. He had suffered some abrasions or grazes when cutting the top of a Sitka spruce to use as a Christmas tree but he didn't suffer scratches on his hands.

The case continues.