Gardaí are investigating an alleged case of intimidation by a witness against Mr Ian Bailey during a break in proceedings at Cork Circuit Court yesterday.
Mr Bailey told the court that a witness, Mr Bill Fuller, came up to him and said: "I've got you now", and smiled.
After being told of the incident by Mr Bailey, Judge Patrick J. Moran described the incident as "a form of intimidation" and said it should not happen.
Counsel for Mr Bailey, Mr James Duggan, said gardaí had been informed about the incident, and an investigation was under way.
The court had heard claims earlier this week that Mr Bailey had told Mr Fuller, a landscape gardener who worked locally, that he killed Ms Toscan du Plantier. Mr Bailey rejected these allegations as "pure fiction".
In a separate development yesterday, following lengthy cross-examination of Mr Bailey, Judge Moran warned counsel for the newspapers that the case was a libel case and not a murder trial.
"You are taking on the mantle of a prosecution case and cross-examining the plaintiff as if he were the accused," Judge Moran told Mr Paul Gallagher SC.
He continued: "He is not an accused, he is entitled to bring a claim for defamation. We have to be careful that this court does not become an inquiry into the murder of Ms Toscan du Plantier."
Judge Moran said everyone should bear this in mind. The Garda was the only authority to investigate the murder, and the outcome of their inquiries was known.
Meanwhile, it appeared yesterday that a diary containing Mr Bailey's writings had disappeared from the courtroom.
Mr Gallagher asked Mr Bailey if he had left the diary on the desk, where he was being cross-examined the day before.
Mr Bailey said he had and rejected any suggestion that he had anything to do with the disappearance of the hardback journal.
His counsel, Mr Duggan, also protested at Mr Gallagher's line of questioning.
The diaries, extracts from which have been read out in court this week, contain details of Mr Bailey's thoughts, writings and sexual fantasies.
Later in proceedings yesterday, Mr Gallagher said Mr Bailey had removed his diaries from his house in west Cork and given them to a neighbour, Mr Paul Ó Colmáin.
They were subsequently obtained by gardaí who searched the house a second time when he was arrested in January 1998, two years after the murder.
Mr Gallagher said: "And was the reason you had taken them away so that the guards could not see them?"
Mr Bailey accepted this and said: "Of course, I didn't want them to be revealed . . . On the first occasion they took bagloads of stuff, soft toys, the girl's books and most of my best clothes."
Mr Bailey also said he had been severely hampered in his preparation for the case by being unable to obtain the diaries which had been taken away from him by gardaí.
Mr Gallagher said the diaries had only been made available to his legal team on Monday, after Judge Moran had ruled that evidence possessed by gardaí could be used during the hearing.
