A verdict may be delivered on Monday in the long-running action for damages taken by Ian Bailey over the conduct of the Garda investigation into the murder of Sophie Toscan du Plantier in west Cork in 1996.
Mr Bailey’s case is about showing “once and for all” he had nothing to do with the murder and is the victim of a conspiracy lasting more than 18 years, his lawyer Tom Creed SC said in his closing address to the jury.
Although the Director of Public Prosecutions had said there was no intention to prosecute Mr Bailey, gardaí “are still trying to say: ‘It’s him, it’s him’,” Mr Creed said. “That is why we are here. This is him saying to the world: ‘Will someone please say stop? What you are doing is wrong’.”
This case is about Mr Bailey’s “David and Goliath” battle with “the forces of law and order”, Mr Creed said. The lives of Mr Bailey and local woman Marie Farrell had been “stripped to the bone” and, because Ms Farrell had “turned on” the State, perhaps in an effort to do right by Mr Bailey, she was “squashed like a fly” and gardaí had told “bare-faced lies”.
Closing the case for the Garda Commissioner and State, Paul O’Higgins SC said Ms Farrell was the “linchpin” of Mr Bailey’s case but evidence suggested she was “more than a conventional witness”, including evidence she had told a woman she expected to get money from the action.
Ms Farrell had given dramatically different accounts over the years and the jury should prefer the more consistent evidence of the gardaí, counsel said.
Ms Farrell had in court denied Mr Bailey came into her shop showing her details of her problems with social welfare in England and when the jury saw a recorded interview where she discussed those very matters with the Garda Siocha Ombudsman Commission, she had said sometimes it was hard to distinguish “fact from fiction”.
If the matters alleged by Mr Bailey happened, which his side denied, the jury must consider whether he suffered any damage while never being charged with the murder. There was reasonable suspicion grounding his two arrests and Mr Bailey himself told people various things, including that he was a suspect.
Mr Bailey said “a lot of things in a small community”, was a man guilty of very serious violence to his partner and, even before his arrests, was “not particularly loved”.
The jury heard closing speeches from both sides after a 63-day hearing and will be charged by Mr Justice John Hedigan on Monday before retiring to consider their verdict.
The judge has told the jury they have to decide two key issues on the balance of probabilities.
The first is whether three gardaí – Det Garda Jim Fitzgerald, Det Garda Jim Slattery and Garda Kevin Kelleher, or any combination of them – conspired together to implicate Mr Bailey in the murder of Ms du Plantier by obtaining statements from Ms Farrell by threats, inducement or intimidation which purportedly identified him as the man she saw near the scene of the murder at Kealfada Bridge in the early hours of December 23rd 1996 when they knew they were false.
The second question was did Det Garda Jim Fitzgerald and Det Sgt Maurice Walsh conspire by threats, inducements or intimidation to get statements from Ms Farrell that Mr Bailey had intimidated her when they knew they were false.
If the jury answer yes to either question, they must decide if Mr Bailey suffered damage and, if so, how much compensatory damages he should get and if is entitled to exemplary damages.
In his closing arguments, Mr O’Higgins said a “sensational” allegation by Ms Farrell that Sgt Maurice Walsh exposed himself to her in the ladies’ toilets of Schull golf club was made to discredit Sgt Walsh.
The jury should disbelieve that claim and another claim by Ms Farrell that Det Garda Fitzgerald stripped naked in a holiday home and asked her for sex, he said.
Ms Farrell did not seem to have a “conventional attitude” to life and there were many things concerning her that did not suggest “complete straightforwardness”. Her accounts of events had changed dramatically over the years and she had an “unconvincing mantra” when confronted with any difficulty concerning her statements that she was told what to say by Det Garda Fitzgerald.
Det Fitzgerald’s conversations were “not of the choirboy tenor” but their substance indicated someone “trying to humour a witness” and that Ms Farrell was generally “the one in control”, he said.
“If every detective was Fr Dougal, you might not solve many crimes but one might prefer a little less of the language of Fr Jack,” he said.
Ms Farrell had “never once” in recorded conversations alleged Det Fitzgerald had put her up to make statements, he said.
In his address, Mr Creed said the case was about Mr Bailey and the credibility of gardaí, not the credibility of Ms Farrell, who gardaí knew “was prepared to say pretty much what they wanted her to say”.
This case was defended with “a total sense of denial” by gardaí but, thanks to tapes and transcripts, the jury had an “insight into what has been going on during this investigation”.
Ms Farrell had said Det Garda Fitzgerald became “her new best friend” and tapes showed they had “an extraordinary relationship”. Det Fitzgerald insisted it was a professional relationship but the jury could easily judge this was “a lie”. One “extraordinary” recorded conversation between the two was almost like between a husband and wife who had fallen out but was also “sinister” because Det Fitzgerald was annoyed Ms Farrell had given a statement to Sgt Walsh.
This call was evidence of a conspiracy that statements were concocted by Det Fitzgerald with Ms Farrell for the purpose of getting Mr Bailey arrested a second time, he said. These were conversations by gardaí going about official business who are required to be scrupulous and objective and not “biased” or “corrupt”.
Mr Bailey remains a “person of interest” in the murder investigation and will do so for the rest of his life, counsel said. “That is his life, he cannot leave the country . . . he is now a prisoner in our green and pleasant land”.
Mr Bailey “will always be a pariah”.
