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July-August 2018
T
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
D
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
