Did gardaí target Bailey to shield Sophie’s killer?

2 2

July-August 2018

HE SKIES were still dark over the West Cork countryside

when Martin O’Sullivan set off from his home in Goleen on

a crisp morning two days before Christmas. It was just af ter

7.30am as he made his way to work along the quiet road to

Durrus passing a winding boreen that leads to the white-

washed home of Sophie Toscan du Plantier.

As he drove north towards Bantry, leaving the French

ﬁlmmaker’s secluded farmhouse behind, a blue Ford shot up behind

him at high speed. O’Sullivan was forced to slam on the brakes as

the car overtook him on a dangerous bend and nearly ran him off

the road. He noticed its headlights were on and the rear number plate

was red. He believed it was a Fiesta.

Several hours later, shock and sadness replaced the festive mood

throughout Ireland as news ﬁltered through that the 39-year-old

mother of one had been found murdered on the laneway leading to

her holiday home overlooking the Atlantic in Toormore, Schull. It was

December 23, 1996.

Du Plantier was found in a blood-soaked T-shirt, white leggings

and a pair of laced-up boots. She had been bludgeoned to death with

a rock and a concrete block. She put up a considerable ﬁght but sus-

tained more than 50 injuries to her head, face and body in the attack

and was left almost unrecognisable. She had lacerations on her hands

and arms. The then State pathologist John Harbison also believed

she had been kicked or held down by the neck and wrist with a ‘Doc

Marten’ boot, whose prints were also found on the laneway near her

remains.

In the days that followed, Martin O’Sullivan gave a statement to

gardaí about the suspicious car he had seen, telling them he was

fairly certain it was not from the immediate locality. It was a critical

sighting that occurred close to the time and location of the murder

and could hold the key to unlocking the case.

O'Sullivan expected gardaí to carry out an appeal asking for the

public’s help in identif ying the driver but they never did; nor did they

perform door-to-door inquiries in the locality where the suspicious

car had been seen. Why was this? Did they have a motive in protect-

ing the identity of the driver?

It is just one of the countless unset tling incongruences in an inves-

tigation which many people in Cork and across Ireland now believe

was mangled not by accident but by design. There is a growing sense

that the persecution of English journalist Ian Bailey (61) by the gardaí,

which has endured for 22 years and continues to this day, may have

been motivated by something more sinister than the need to ﬁnd a

suspect to satisfy her family and the authorities in France. Specula-

tion is rife that gardaí targeted Bailey because they already knew

who the real killer was and were protecting him.

Allegations have emerged that a senior member of the force may

have been responsible for Sophie Toscan du Plantier’s death. The

ofﬁcer at the centre of these claims, who is now deceased, was a

notoriously violent person and a sexual predator inf amous for having

As the French courts prepare to

prosecute Ian Bailey in absentia,

there is growing speculation

that gardaí targeted him for the

murder of Sophie Toscan du

Plantier in order to protect the

real suspect

by Gemma O’Doherty

Did gardaí target

Bailey to shield

Sophie’s killer?

NEWS

Ian Bailey and his longterm partner Jules Thomas

The victim Sophie Toscan du Plantier

Allegations have emerged that a senior member

of the force may have been responsible for Sophie

Toscan du Plantier’s death

affairs with women, particularly foreigners. A married man who was

strikingly handsome, he was a rampant alcoholic who is described

as having abused his power whenever he could. One local portrayed

him as being “crooked as a ram’s horn".

He was known for rustling cattle and sheep from farmers who had

committed minor offences and he was in a position to blackmail. He

also drove a blue Ford car.

It is believed the ofﬁcer may have come into contact with du Plan-

tier because of her fears about drug-dealing in the countryside close

to her. Some in the area claim he had a sexual encounter with the

French woman, whose love-life was complicated and f raught, but that

he was subsequently rejected by her.

The violent nature of the killing has always been indicative of a

‘crime of passion’ carried out by a scorned lover. The garda at the

centre of these allegations was not involved in the investigation. On

his deathbed, he was said to be a profoundly disturbed man. The

shocking allegations against him however remain unproven.

From the very start of their investigation, gardaí were keen to

control the narrative of what might have happened to the French

woman. For some reason, they dismissed suggestions that she had

a guest in her home in the hours before the murder, rejecting rumours

that two rinsed wine glasses had been found beside her kitchen sink.

In his book about the case called ‘Death in December’, Michael Sheri-

dan said the wine glass story was a myth. He was assisted in his

research by the gardaí. But images from the crime scene disproved

this claim and two wine glasses were indeed found draining in the

kitchen. More suspicious still was the fact that no ﬁngerprints were

found on the glasses – at least according to gardaí.

Apart from their relentless targeting of Bailey, the destruction of

vital evidence from the crime scene supports the theory that the

investigation was deliberately botched. The bafﬂing ‘loss’ of a ﬁve-

bar blood-splashed iron gate from the entrance to du Plantier’s

property has never been explained nor has anyone been disciplined

for it. Did the gate disappear because there were blood and ﬁnger-

prints belonging to the suspect on it?

The gardaí have also never accounted for the ‘loss’ of witness state-

ments and suspect ﬁles as well as of a document outlining why Bailey

and his partner Jules Thomas were to be classiﬁed as suspects. A

bottle of wine found at the crime scene is also believed to have dis-

appeared as well as a small red hatchet kept inside the doorway of

du Plantier’s home which her housekeeper Josie Hellen noticed was

missing.

Fresh skid marks on the laneway where she was found suggest a

visitor had arrived and left in a hurry but they do not appear to have

been identiﬁed. Did they belong to the Ford seen speeding nearby

shortly before her remains were found?

The brutality of the murder is reﬂected in images of the victim’s

body which are horrifying. They also suggest the attack may have

been prolonged and that she was chased to her death. When train-

ing to become police ofﬁcers, young recruits, including gardaí, are

taught a fundamental principle of forensic science – a phrase formu-

lated, ironically, by a man known as the ‘Sherlock Holmes of France’

Dr Edmond Locard. It is that every contact leaves a trace.

Given the number of injuries inﬂicted on du Plantier and the fren-

zied nature of the attack, it is inconceivable that the killer did not

leave a single trace of hair, skin, blood, saliva or clothing at the scene

yet gardaí claimed no such materials were ever found. The victim had

a clump of hair in her tightly clenched hand, which they said was

hers, another dubious assertion.

The timeline of events presented by ofﬁcers is also questionable.

They said that du Plantier’s remains were found by her neighbours

Shirley Foster and Alﬁe Lyons (with whom she had a testy relation-

ship) at the bottom of their shared lane at 10.10am. Gardaí arrived

shor tly af terwards at 10.38am. Scandalously, it was another 24 hours

before pathologist John Harbison arrived to carry out the post

mor tem. Because the body was exposed to the elements for an entire

day and night, a time of death could not be determined. However,

Harbison’s autopsy noted that the remains of a recently ingested meal

of fruit and nuts were found in du Plantier’s stomach. This is more

indicative of breakfast than of an evening meal. An uncovered loaf

of bread in the process of being sliced was also found in the kitchen.

While it appeared the victim had company the night before, there

was nothing to suggest her guest stayed overnight. She had spoken

July-August 2018

2 3

‘Given the number of injuries, it is inconceivable

that the killer did not leave a single trace of hair,

skin, blood, saliva or clothing at the scene, as

gardaí claimed

The bloodstained gate at the entrance to the Du Plantier

laneway which Gardai said they ‘lost’

Skidmarks on the laneway where Du Plantier’s remains were found

Du Plantier’s kitchen showing the rinsed wineglasses that Gardai told reporters were not

found at the scene

2 4

July-August 2018

to her husband Daniel before she went to sleep and had agreed to

return to France for Christmas following some discussions on the

matter.

Questions linger as to why du Plantier chose to come to Ireland on

her own just ﬁve days before Christmas and was undecided as to

whether she would return. Her marriage was an unhappy one but the

idea that her husband ordered a hitman to kill her is unlikely as he

seems to have been more focused on his next acquisition rather than

worrying about his wife’s extramarital affairs. It was he who bought

the isolated farmhouse for her in 1993 but rarely came with her when

she visited.

Du Plantier was worried about drug-dealing going on in the nearby

countryside and could have made some dangerous enemies as a

result, individuals who may have been in the pockets of certain gardaí

who had ‘dirt’ on them.

Her remains were found at the bottom of the steep laneway run-

ning down from her property, her nightwear caught in brambles and

a nav y dressing gown by her side. This had either been torn of f during

the struggle or discarded by her

to ease her escape. The door of

her home was on the latch with

the keys on the inside. Her boots

were laced up indicating she will-

ingly went outdoors. There was

no sign of a disturbance in her

home, apart from a splash of

blood found on the outside of her

front door and believed to be

hers. Having been rejected the

night before, did her mystery

guest return the following morn-

ing in a drunken rage, lure her

outdoors and chase her to her death?

For more than two decades, An Garda Síochána have proactively

targeted Ian Bailey, spending millions in public money in the process

but failing to produce a single shred of evidence against him. He was

ﬁrst arrested on suspicion of murder on his bir thday in Februar y 1997,

and again in Januar y 1998. Two years later, the DPP (Director of Public

Prosecutions) issued a direction that Bailey should not be prosecuted

due to the lack of available evidence.

Bailey, who was a reporter for the

Sunday Tribune

and the

Daily

Star

at the time, was the ﬁrst journalist on the scene on the day of

the murder in December 1996. Being British and unlike the rest of

the Irish media pack, he was somebody the gardaí were unable to

control, and from the beginning, his stories took an independent look

at the case.

In his work, he asked awkward questions about du Plantier’s com-

plex love life and enquired why ofﬁcers seemed to be making no

progress in the case. This embarrassed and irked gardaí, who were

used to being able to manage the media and the message. It also

explains their animosity towards him and why they may have wanted

to shut him down.

From then on, they engaged in a frenzied scheme to paint him as

the chief suspect, spreading the word around West Cork that they

had their man and falsely claiming his DNA had been found at the

scene. After his ﬁrst arrest in February 1997, Bailey claims he was

told by a garda that even if they didn’t manage to pin it on him, he

would be found dead sooner or later with a bullet in the back of his

head.

Some of the more deplorable tactics deployed to implicate him in

the murder was the gardaí’s use of local drug-dealers to make false

statements against him.

In 2010, Leo Bolger came before Judge Patrick J Moran in Cork Cir-

cuit Court charged with running a massive drug production plant near

du Plantier’s home. During the hearing, a garda described his can-

nabis operation as the “most sophisticated” ever witnessed in West

Cork. Bolger (45) had built a large bunker in an overgrown part of

his land where he cultivated cannabis plants using advanced hydro-

ponics, heating, watering and lighting systems that revolved around

the plants to enhance cultivation. At the time, the street value of the

plants was at least 150,000.

Bolger pleaded guilty to the offence, which carried a mandatory

minimum sentence of 10 years and up to life imprisonment. However,

the prosecuting garda informed the judge that the defendant had

been assisting them with another case. To the consternation of the

cour t and the defence team, Bolger was given a suspended sentence

as the sympathetic judge stated he was “perhaps trying to survive

in the magniﬁcent peninsula of Dunmanus Bay”.

Bolger had in fact been ‘assisting’ gardaí in their case against

NEWS

Speculation is rife that

gardaí targeted Bailey

because they already

knew who the real

killer was and were

protecting him

Previously unseen picture of du

Plantier’s door and how it was

allegedly found after her murder

Marie Farrell who said Gardai coerced her into making a statement against Bailey

Bailey. Bolger, who had done odd jobs for du Plantier from time to

time, claimed he was present at the property one day in 1993 when

he saw her nearest neighbour Alﬁe Lyons introducing her to Bailey.

Remarkably, Bolger only revealed this some 14 years af ter the murder.

Alﬁe Lyons, also alleged to be a cannabis user, made a similar

claim to gardaí about Bailey in the weeks after the murder. Bailey

accepts he was present in Lyons’ garden about 18 months before the

murder and that du Plantier was pointed out to him in the distance

by Lyons, but he has consistently denied ever meeting or being intro-

duced to her.

The most explosive document produced about the du Plantier case

in the last two decades is a report written by the ofﬁce of the DPP

in November 2001. It was scathing in its assessment of the Garda

investigation and expressed grave reservations about the veracity

of statements taken from certain witnesses. It was withheld from

Bailey for almost a decade.

Among the litany of highly suspect witnesses referred to was Marie

Farrell, a Longford-born mother of ﬁve who said she was coerced by

gardaí into making a statement wrongly identif ying Bailey as the man

she claimed to have seen at Kealfadda Bridge in the early hours of

the morning of the killing. The DPP pointed out that this bridge,

which is on a main road about two kilometres from the du Plantier

home, was not on the way to or from it in the context of Bailey’s

property.

Farrell said she had been in a car that night with a man who was

not her husband. In 2005, she retracted her statement saying gardaí

had blackmailed her into making a statement against Bailey in return

for not telling her husband about the man she was with. She said

they had doggedly pursued her to make false allegations against

Bailey and provided her with a Garda mobile phone for discussing

the case. It is also alleged that in 2006, a senior ofﬁcer queried as

to whether Garda funds could be used to pay for ﬁnes, including

speeding ﬁnes, owed by Farrell.

Martin Graham, a destitute ex British soldier, convicted criminal

and drug user living in West Cork, was also recruited by gardaí to

implicate Bailey by befriending him and trying to ‘soften’ him up. In

return, Graham said he was given signiﬁcant quantities of cannabis

in a Garda evidence bag, poitín and cash. Ofﬁcers also offered to

buy him clothes and said du Plantier’s family would be very grateful

for a favourable statement that would link Bailey to the murder.

Senior gardaí put relentless pressure on Graham. He claimed on

one occasion Detective Jim Fitzgerald, who also ‘managed’ Marie Far-

rell, took him to the pub and out for dinner. He said gardaí offered

him cannabis to give to Bailey in an attempt to “loosen his tongue”.

The DPP concluded that Graham was on the balance of evidence tell-

ing the truth about his dealings with the Garda and that their

“investigative practices were clearly unsafe to say the least”.

Pressure was also put on the State Solicitor for West Cork, Mal-

achy Boohig. He was requested by senior gardaí to ask the then

Fianna Fáil Justice Minister John O’Donoghue, a former classmate at

UCC, to get the DPP to prosecute Bailey because there was “more

than sufﬁcient evidence to do so”.

Boohig declined, saying such a step would be entirely inappropri-

ate. He subsequently told the then DPP Eamonn Barnes of the

“improper approach” made to him by senior ofﬁcers.

The DPP’s comprehensive report vindicated Ian Bailey and con-

cluded the gardaí had no credible evidence to implicate him in the

crime, and that a prosecution was not warranted. It noted that when

the gardaí had ﬁrst started to target Bailey in the days after the

murder, he had willingly offered his ﬁngerprints and blood for analy-

sis even though he was under no legal obligation to do so at that

point. The DPP also stated that being a crime reporter and aware of

the nature of forensic evidence, Bailey would have known that the

assailant must have left traces of blood, skin, clothing ﬁbres or hair

at the scene so to of fer his own DNA at that point tended to indicate

his innocence.

The DPP’s report found that the arrest and detention of Bailey’s

long-term par tner Jules Thomas for the murder was unlawful and that

she was arrested in order to obtain information which could be used

against Bailey. During her inter views, she was wrongly told by gardaí

that Bailey had confessed to the murder.

In their panic to have Bailey prosecuted, gardaí spread fear about

him throughout the locality and urged the DPP that it was of the

“utmost importance” that he be charged immediately as “there is

every possibility he will kill again”. They also said witnesses living

close to him were in imminent danger and that the only way to pre-

vent a further attack or killing was to take Bailey into custody.

July-August 2018

2 5

Leo Bolger received a suspended sentence after being convicted of running the "most

sophisticated cannabis operation" ever seen in West Cork. Around the same time, more than a

decade after the murder, he told gardaí he had seen Bailey being introduced to du Plantier, a

claim Bailey says is utterly untrue

Drug addict Martin Graham who said he was given

hash and cash by gardaí to befriend Ian Bailey

A spectacular U-turn followed when the Attorney

General changed her story. It looked like payback

time last year when she was appointed to the

Court of Appeal

2 6

July-August 2018

NEWS

Local people were made to feel that if they showed any support

for him they would incur the disapproval of the Garda. The force also

used the media to spread lies about their ‘suspect’ and many report-

ers willingly obliged without asking any questions. Hundreds of

communications between journalists and gardaí were unearthed

during Bailey’s civil action against the State. The press and photog-

raphers were tipped off about his arrival at Bandon Garda station

after his ﬁrst arrest. The PR campaign against Bailey was a success

as many Irish people formed an impression in their mind that he must

have been responsible.

Du Plantier’s family have also been subjected to a stream of prop-

aganda about Ian Bailey to the point that they too became convinced

he was the killer. The ofﬁcer in charge of liaising with France in the

early stages was disgraced former commissioner Martin Callinan,

whose career would eventually be brought to an end by the case in

2014.

The bizarre circumstances leading up to his resignation were fuelled

by the discovery in 2013 of tapes of phone conversations unlawfully

recorded at Bandon Garda Station, where the du Plantier investiga-

tion was headquartered. These included 36 conversations between

gardaí and Marie Farrell, and about 18 recordings of conversations

with Martin Graham. They only came to light as a result of a discov-

ery order by Ian Bailey’s legal team.

In March 2014, on the day the Government revealed the existence

of the secret recordings, Callinan resigned with immediate effect. It

subsequently emerged that he had sought permission to destroy the

tapes but the then Attorney General Máire Whelan ordered him not

to. On the day before Callinan’s resignation, she informed the Taoi-

seach Enda Kenny of her belief that gardaí had been involved in

widespread illegal activity.

This led to the establishment of the Fennelly Commission. It con-

cluded that gardaí were prepared to “contemplate altering, modif ying

or suppressing evidence” that undermined their claim that Bailey was

responsible.

Máire Whelan originally told the Commission that the

phone-tapping scandal involved “a complete violation of the law” by

gardaí and was a “total disregard” for the rights of citizens. But a

spectacular U-turn followed when she changed her story and said

she had exaggerated the facts and regretted her trenchant

language.

In the eyes of a scandal-weary public, what looked like payback

time materialised last year when Whelan was appointed as a judge

to the Court of Appeal. The development caused uproar in the Dáil.

Proper procedures had been ignored and it emerged that she had

not even applied for the position.

The Government was accused of rank cronyism by the opposition.

Fianna Fáil said the law had been “circumvented” and that there

would be consequences for their ‘conﬁdence and supply’ agreement

with Fine Gael. Their claim of outrage is just one of many that came

to nothing more than that.

Whelan’s promotion coincided with Leo Varadkar’s ﬁrst week in

ofﬁce as Taoiseach. The cabinet must have known that the contro-

versial appointment risked the stability of the Government yet they

went ahead with it. Was this because Whelan had done them a favour

by toning down her original claims about Garda criminality? Could

it have been because she became aware of the unlawful measures

gardaí had taken to implicate Bailey in a crime he did not commit?

Whelan is not the only member of the legal profession to have

beneﬁted from the Garda campaign to frame Bailey. Five judges who

ruled in favour of the State against him were also swiftly

promoted.

The Garda Ombudsman (GSOC) has spent an inexplicable six years

investigating Bailey’s complaint of corruption and misconduct to it.

GSOC head Judge Mar y Ellen Ring has yet to publish her report – one

of numerous reprehensible delays involving her ofﬁce.

The authorities in France are forging ahead with their prosecution

of Bailey, despite a ruling by the Irish Supreme Court that he should

not be extradited. Before the end of the year, a Parisian court will

try him

in absentia

relying on fake Garda ‘evidence’ which was demol-

ished by the DPP here years ago. In a case which makes a farce of

both the Irish and French justice systems, the decision of the court

is likely to go against Bailey.

It will be yet another sorr y chapter in this sordid tale of corruption

and cover-up which has denied Sophie du Plantier and her family

justice while destroying the life of an innocent man and his partner.

But it is unlikely to be the ﬁnal one.

It is now dawning on the people of West Cork that they have been

duped by the gardaí and the mainstream media about the case for

more than two decades.

They are starting to ask why the force were so desperate to set up

a man who clearly had nothing to do with the crime. Why did the

gardaí instil terror throughout Cork about him?

Why did they threaten so many gullible witnesses to make state-

ments against him? Why did they claim not to ﬁnd DNA belonging to

the real suspect when he must have left a trace? Why did they ‘lose’

so much evidence, including a large iron gate? Many people are reach-

ing the same conclusion: that it must have been done to shield the

real killer who was clearly somebody they needed to protect.

Du Plantier’s isolated farmhouse in Toormore, Schull in the hours after her murder

One of Ian Bailey’s many articles about the case

The authorities in France are forging ahead with

their prosecution of Bailey, despite a ruling by

the Irish Supreme Court that he should not be

extradited. Before the end of the year, a Parisian

court will try him in absentia relying on fake Garda

‘evidence’ which was demolished by the DPP here

almost two decades ago

July-August 2018

2 7

NEWS

EVELOPER PADDY McKillen has begun building the “Florentine Centre”

in Bray, on land that Wicklow County Council sold to his Navybrook

company for 12.6m. Critics say the price was too low (See

Village

February 2018).

In a related controversy the Council has also begun laying 45 car spaces

nearby, at a cost of over 11m. They’re on the site of St Paul’s Lodge, an

Edwardian residence recently bought and ﬂattened by the council. Critics

regard the car spaces as a form of subsidy for McKillen’s development,

where they might otherwise have had to be included (Village March and

April/May 2018).

Meanwhile, Fianna Fáil’s only Councillor in Bray, old-timer Pat Vance, has

become the new chairman of both Bray Municipal District and Wicklow

County Council, thus reducing the chances of a clash between the two. He

was elected last in his ward but has strongly supported the destruction of

St Paul’s Lodge there despite opposition to it from An Taisce and some local

bodies. He became chairman with Fine Gael backing.

Now Bray residents

are demanding greater

transparency in Council

decisions. And they are

citing a recent decision

of the Of ﬁce of the Infor-

mation Commissioner.

Last October this

writer (a member of a

residents group against

the destruction of St

Paul’s) made a Freedom

of Information request

to Wicklow County

Council for all records

created in the last four

years relating to (a) cer-

tain plans for parking in

the town and (b) “all

documents referring to the actual or possible acquisition, rental, demolition

or other disposal of all or part of the property known as St. Paul's and

another named property adjacent to that car park”.

The Information Commissioner on appeal now reveals that, “When que-

ried as to why the records identiﬁed only begin in December 2016 despite

the applicant's request for records dating back four years, the Council indi-

cated that due to the small size of Bray Municipal District most business is

conducted by stand-up discussion”.

Residents say that staff size is no good reason for the planned and actual

expenditure of public money to be conducted “by stand-up discussion”

without a record of all relevant meetings and decisions made. Did outsid-

ers participate, for example?

Residents say that Council practice militates against accountability and

transparency and have called on Wicklow County Council to introduce new

procedures immediately. They want Bray Municipal District staffed up to

deal appropriately and openly with the complexities of urban development

in north Wicklow in the public interest and in an environmentally friendly

way.

Various controversies have raised serious questions about Wicklow Coun-

cil’s management processes in recent years, including rows about the death

of ﬁremen and a toxic dump left to fester in west Wicklow at a clean-up

cost to taxpayers that may reach tens of millions of Euro.

The Information Commissioner has also found that for Wicklow County

Council it is “not established practice to have a formal order to initiate such

purchases” as the attempted purchase for €2m in public money on both St

Paul’s Lodge and an adjacent property. Residents ask how many private

businesses would keep no clear formal record of initiating such a ﬁnancial

decision.

Residents express surprise that Wicklow county ofﬁcials do NO business

by text message, which seems unusual. The Council told the Commissioner

that, “as ofﬁcial business is not conducted via text message no records

falling within the scope of this request exist in text message format”.

It is not clear from the Information Commissioner’s decision if records

that earlier existed were subsequently destroyed. When residents this year

made a separate Freedom of Information request for the audio recording

of a Council meeting, doing so promptly af ter that meeting, the Council later

responded that the audio record no longer existed.

The Information Commissioner found that Wicklow County Council origi-

nally made no effor t to search email accounts of the former or current Chief

Executive Ofﬁcer for relevant records. The Council also initially failed to fur-

nish 31 relevant records, many on emails accounts said to have been earlier

searched. These records included information that residents believe would

have made a difference to their campaign’s chances if furnished sooner.

The emails were provided belatedly “following an exchange of correspond-

ence” between the Information Commissioner and the Council.

Wicklow Council keeps bad

records of planning decisions and

Bray does planning “by stand-up

discussion”

Is this a record?

by Colum Kenny

When queried as to why

the records only begin in

2016 despite the request

for records dating back four

years, the Council indicated

that due to the small size of

Bray Municipal District most

business is conducted by

stand-up discussion

St Paul's Lodge before

WHAT IT MEANS ON THE GROUND

and after