A freelance journalist who is suing several newspapers over reports linking him with the murder of Sophie Toscan du Plantier told as many as seven people he killed her, counsel for the newspapers alleged in court yesterday.
Mr Ian Bailey rejected the allegations and said in all cases cited he either jokingly admitted to the murder or was talking about the circumstances in which he had become a suspect for the murder on December 23rd, 1996.
The allegations were made on the third day of the trial at Cork Circuit Court where he was cross-examined by Mr Paul Gallagher, SC, for the newspapers, before Judge Moran.
One of these people, Malachy Reid (14), was taking a lift home from Mr Bailey at the time of the murder, Mr Gallagher said.
"Did you tell Mr Reid that you went up there one night with a rock and bashed her brains in?" Mr Gallagher asked Mr Bailey. Mr Bailey denied this and said he had been discussing rumours which implicated him in the murder, as well as the boy's career interests.
Mr Gallagher also alleged that Mr Bailey admitted to the murder while talking to Ms Helen Callanan, news editor for the Sunday Tribune, a newspaper for which he had been filing articles following the murder. Mr Bailey rejected this. "It was said in a light-hearted way. I assumed she had taken it as that," Mr Bailey said.
Mr Gallagher also said a neighbour, Ms Yvonne Unger, said that Mr Bailey told her he had killed Ms Toscan du Plantier using a concrete block and washed blood off his boots in a local stream. Mr Bailey rejected this and said: "I said that it was being said that this was the case. I don't think she took that with any seriousness".
Another alleged admission of murder occurred on New Year's Eve in December 1998, two years after the murder, when Mr Bailey invited a local couple, Richard and Rosie Shelley, to his house for a small party after the pubs had closed, the court heard.
A quantity of drink was consumed and Mr Bailey spent much of the night speaking of his poetry and his news coverage of the murder, Mr Gallagher said. While he had asked if the couple wanted to stay the night, they decided to phone for a lift.
When they entered a bedroom where the phone was, an emotional Mr Bailey broke down into tears and confessed to the murder, Mr Gallagher said.
"This was 1998, two years after the murder, and you'd invited them to you house, discussing poetry and murder, telling them, I did it, I did it, I went too far, " Mr Gallagher said. Mr Bailey refuted this and said he did not remember this version of events.
"We'd been drinking, at Christmas time it all comes back, it keeps coming back . . . it's quite dreadful. Unless something is done, it keeps coming back," Mr Bailey said.
Mr Gallagher asserted that when he met the Shelleys the next day at a pub in Schull, they told him they were convinced he had committed the murder. The west Cork-based journalist said he did not remember this although at a later date, he did get this impression from them that they felt this way.
Mr Bailey also gave a graphic description of the murder to a local man, Mr Bill Murray, while talking about himself in the "second person", as Mr Bailey often did, Mr Gallagher alleged.
Mr Bailey allegedly told Mr Murray: "Yes, you did it, you saw her in Spar and she turned you on, walking up the aisle with her tight arse. So you went there to see what you could get, but she wasn't interested. You chased her and it stirred something at the back of your head. You went a lot further than you should have."
This was rejected by Mr Bailey who said the allegations were ridiculous and that he had not seen Ms Toscan du Plantier in Schull the day before the murder. He had been in Schull on the same afternoon as the woman, he accepted, but insisted he had not seen her.
The "admissions" of murder, Mr Gallagher said, showed that Mr Bailey wanted to "give fuel" to the rumours of his involvement in the murder and suggested it was done partly to heighten his profile as a journalist. Mr Bailey also rejected this charge.
Mr Gallagher also said accounts from several local people suggested that he knew about the murder hours before he originally claimed.
Mr Bailey told the court earlier that the first he heard of the allegation was at about lunchtime on the day of the murder, following a phone call from Eddie Cassidy of the Examiner. Mr Gallagher claimed that Mr Bailey told locals Mr Paul O'Colmáin and Richard and Christine Leftwick well before lunch that morning.
His partner, Ms Jules Thomas, also told Mr Richard and Christine Camier, from nearby Goleen village, that Mr Bailey was "out on a story" when she visited them before lunch on the same day, Mr Gallagher said. Mr Bailey rejected these accounts and said he had no knowledge of the murder at that time and did not remember discussing it with them.