A Schull woman told the Ian Bailey libel trial yesterday that she was terrorised by Mr Bailey after she told gardaí she had seen him early on the morning of the murder of Sophie Toscan du Plantier, about a mile from the French woman's home.
Ms Marie Farrell, who owned an ice-cream parlour in Schull, told Cork Circuit Court that Mr Bailey had made cut-throat gestures at her on numerous occasions and shouted at her: "You didn't see me washing any blood."
The claims were heard on the eighth day of a libel case in which Mr Bailey is taking seven actions against eight newspapers over articles linking him to the murder of Ms Toscan du Plantier.
Ms Farrell said she saw a man in a black coat at Kealfadda Bridge between 2.30 a.m. and 3 a.m. on the morning of the murder, December 23rd, 1996, and that he appeared to be trying to cover his face with his hands.
She later identified the man as Mr Bailey when she spotted him at the Spar supermarket in Schull, shortly after the murder.
Ms Farrell said that after telling the gardaí, Mr Bailey arrived at her shop on several occasions to get her to retract or change her statement. "He was terrorising me. My life was a living nightmare. We had a small ice-cream parlour and in the end I ended up in debt because I was so afraid to stay there because of Ian Bailey. I'm afraid to let my children out because of Ian Bailey," she said.
Ms Farrell also told the court that as she was decorating the Christmas tree with her children last Sunday, an anonymous woman telephoned the house and said: "You just keep your bloody mouth shut."
Mr Bailey told the court last week that he never left the house on the night of the murder.
In an earlier incident, Ms Farrell told gardaí that she saw a man matching Mr Bailey's description on December 21st, two days before the murder, opposite her shop.
Ms Farrell said Ms Toscan du Plantier was on her premises at the same time and that she saw Mr Bailey across the road, wearing a long black coat. He stayed there for about 10 minutes, he said.
In the days following the murder, Ms Farrell said Mr Bailey cashed a £25 cheque in her shop from the Examiner newspaper for an article he had written, and remarked: "There's no money in bumping people off." As Mr Bailey continued to "harass" her, she said gardaí placed bugging equipment in her shop to record any conversations with him.
After this, Mr Bailey came into the shop to ask her to retract or change her statement, Ms Farrell said. "He came in on a Saturday morning, he opened up his coat and said, 'I'm all wired up' and that he had a tape recorder on him."
She said he produced some paper with Ms Farrell's husband's business address in England, their family home address in London and her old address in Longford. "He said he knew things about me and if I scratched his back, he'd scratch mine," Ms Farrell said. The conversation was not recorded, she added.
Supt Vincent Duggan told the court that he had visited Mr Bailey and told him of Ms Farrell's complaints, which Mr Bailey described as "ridiculous."
Mr James Duggan, counsel for Mr Bailey, said Ms Farrell was mistaken and that she had told Mr Bailey that she was under pressure from gardaí to make a statement about seeing him at the bridge. Ms Farrell rejected this.
Mr Duggan also said that due to the distance from Ms Farrell's shop to the other side of the road, she could not possibly have identified a man she claimed was Mr Bailey standing outside her shop.
Mr Duggan pointed to differences in Ms Farrell's evidence in court and statements to gardaí over information such as Mr Bailey's complexion and what he was doing with his arms when he was spotted a second time. Ms Farrell, however, said it had been seven years since the incidents and she could not remember every detail.
"If I made the remark in statement, it's right. I'd wouldn't have gone and made a statement about something that wasn't right," she said.
