A Dream of Death Read online

  A Dream of Death

  I dreamed that one had died in a strange place

  Near no accustomed hand,

  And they had nailed the boards above her face,

  The peasants of that land,

  Wondering to lay her in that solitude,

  And raised above her mound

  A cross they had made out of two bits of wood,

  And planted cypress round;

  And left her to the indifferent stars above

  Until I carved these words:

  She was more beautiful than thy first love,

  But now lies under boards.

  – WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

  Contents

  Cover

  Title page

  Introduction

  1. Murder

  2. Investigation

  3. Sophie Toscan du Plantier

  4. Ian Bailey

  5. Media

  6. Libel Hearing

  7. Marie Farrell

  8. French Investigation

  9. Extradition Bid

  10. Wrongful Arrest

  11. Build-up to Paris Trial

  12. GSOC

  13. Paris Trial

  14. Aftermath

  Timeline

  Bibliography

  Acknowledgements

  Copyright

  About the author

  About Gill Books

  Photo section

  INTRODUCTION

  The poetry book lay open in the cottage precisely as she had left it, on the short poem by William Butler Yeats.

  Shocked by the savage injuries inflicted on the murdered woman lying in the laneway nearby, the detectives realised that, in the minutes before the attack in which she was battered to death, Sophie Toscan du Plantier had been reading a poem that opened with the lines ‘I dreamed that one had died in a strange place / Near no accustomed hand’.

  It struck gardaí as an eerie coincidence that the woman could have been reading these words as her killer walked towards the beautiful isolated cottage on the hillside, illuminated against the dark December sky by the light from the hearth.

  ***

  The brutal killing of Sophie Toscan du Plantier, a beautiful French mother of one, at her holiday home in Toormore, west Cork, just days before Christmas in 1996 has proved to be Ireland’s highest-profile, most baffling and controversy-stalked murder mystery.

  Sophie was attacked at her holiday home just hours before she was due to fly back to France, chased as she tried to flee for her life across a dark mountainside and then viciously battered to death when her killer finally caught her less than 100 metres from her cottage. Her blood-soaked body was left by the roadside. It was a killing almost unique in its brutality, its apparent lack of motive and, crucially, its subsequent lack of eyewitnesses and forensic evidence to identify the killer.

  The investigation initially seemed to offer the hope of an early resolution, but it ultimately came to frustrate both the Garda Síochána and Irish prosecutors, not least because of failings and problems with the original probe. Detectives were hampered by the failure to secure any significant breakthrough in terms of key evidence – and were also plagued by what can politely be described as bad luck.

  Over time, the case threatened to put Ireland and France on a judicial and diplomatic collision course over the failure to prosecute anyone for the murder of the high-profile French film executive. Twenty-three years after her battered body was discovered lying by the Toormore roadside, the investigation into the murder of Sophie Toscan du Plantier remains open.

  The killing committed in west Cork resulted in a French investigation, a Paris trial, and ultimately a high-profile prosecution and conviction. Ireland and France again face the minefield of a looming extradition battle and major questions over judicial procedures and the rights of the innocent.

  The individual convicted by the non-jury Paris court in May 2019 was British poet and journalist Ian Bailey, who had been twice arrested by gardaí in connection with the du Plantier investigation despite his vehement protestations of innocence. On both occasions, the journalist was released without charge.

  Because of his Paris conviction and an outstanding European Arrest Warrant issued by the French authorities, Mr Bailey has been described by his solicitor as a ‘prisoner in a country called Ireland’.

  Sophie Toscan du Plantier was an intelligent, vivacious and independent woman who felt a deep attraction to the wild, rugged and windswept landscape of west Cork. It was a place she came to describe as her ‘dream home’, and she insisted on sharing the beauty of the Toormore, Schull and Goleen landscape and culture with her family, friends and teenage son.

  This is Sophie’s story.

  1

  MURDER

  Shortly after 10 a.m. on Monday, 23 December 1996, Shirley Foster was setting off from her home at Toormore in order do some last-minute Christmas shopping in Schull. It was a typical Irish winter morning – there was a hint of frost on the ground and, while the morning had been bright and clear, cloud cover threatened rain showers later in the day.

  Ms Foster lived on a hillside that boasted dramatic views, with Roaringwater Bay in the distance. Behind the property were spectacular views west towards Dunmanus Bay. All around the house, gorse-covered hills – interspersed with rock-studded fields carved over generations – tumbled down towards the coast. In summer, Toormore was beautiful and idyllic. In winter, it could be desolate and forbidding.

  West Cork communities are used to isolation, but even by local standards this tiny Toormore community was some distance removed from the hubbub of local habitation. At the base of the hill, at the side of the laneway leading from her home towards the main road, Ms Foster noticed what she thought was a bundle of clothes. It was unusual enough to catch her attention. As she slowed to take the left-hand turn, something made her look again – and she realised that the object wasn’t a bundle of clothes. Rather, it appeared to be a human form lying prone by the gate.

  Horrified, she looked again to make sure and was appalled to see that it was a body with obvious bloodstains. She raced back to her home to raise the alarm and notify the gardaí. She also informed her partner, Alfie Lyons, of the grim discovery. Together, they began a quick check of their neighbours to ensure that everyone was safe and accounted for.

  Despite the fact that Clonakilty, Bantry and Skibbereen garda stations were closer, the alert was handled by Bandon Garda Station, the divisional headquarters for west Cork. The sergeant on duty dispatched two uniformed gardaí to the scene while also alerting detectives and the local superintendent to the serious nature of the call that had just been received.

  The first garda patrol car arrived at the isolated scene shortly before 10.40 a.m. The two officers in attendance, Sergeant Ger Prendeville and Garda Bill Byrne, were careful not to contaminate the scene, but they were able to confirm that the alert did involve a dead body. One look was enough to see what a post-mortem would later verify: the individual was female and had been subjected to a brutal and savage attack. This did not look like a tragic road traffic accident or even a livestock incident. Neither garda recognised the deceased on sight.

  A careful inspection of the scene indicated that the woman involved had likely died after a desperate struggle. So horrific were the wounds to the body and head that it was not immediately apparent what type of weapon had been used. But a concrete block was lying just two metres away. Both gardaí noticed, to their horror, what looked like bloodstains on its edges.

  The gardaí also came across apparent bloodstains on a nearby gate and a piece of clothing caught on a barbed-wire fence. They could see that the woman lying in front of them was wearing walking boots. However, she also appeared to be wearing a dressing gown,
as if she had been preparing for bed – something that many people who later attended the scene thought highly unusual given the distance the body was found from the house. Gardaí wondered whether the woman had been chased from her home by an intruder. She had probably been living locally because she could not have run or walked very far, dressed as she was on that cold December night.

  A local GP, Dr Larry O’Connor, attended Toormore shortly after 11 a.m. and pronounced the woman dead at the scene. It was clear to Dr O’Connor, from his preliminary examination, that the woman had been dead for a number of hours. However, he could not speculate as to the time of death.

  The Office of the State Pathologist had been contacted shortly before 11 a.m. that Monday. At the time, Ireland had just a single state pathologist, Professor John Harbison, who was based in Dublin. It was an almost five-hour drive from Dublin to Toormore, with the Dublin– Cork motorway a development still far in the future. But it was hoped he might be able to attend the scene that evening in order to conduct a preliminary examination that would then allow the body to be transferred to Cork Regional Hospital.

  A short time later, a local priest arrived and administered the last rites, with all gardaí present joining in the murmured prayers. Shocked neighbours gathered some distance from the gateway, warned to stay back by gardaí, who were determined to preserve the entire scene. Until Professor Harbison arrived and the forensic experts were able to complete their work, the scene would have to remain carefully cordoned off.

  Locals were baffled about who the person could be, although rumours were already circulating that a house on the hill, thought to have been empty for Christmas, may have had a single occupant over recent days. For a time, a rumour spread that the deceased may have come from a New Age encampment 15 kilometres away. Neighbours checking with each other had already made sure that everyone permanently resident in the area was accounted for. There was some local speculation that the death may have resulted from a road traffic incident, but gardaí already suspected a far darker cause.

  Gardaí making inquiries around Toormore became aware that Sophie Toscan du Plantier had arrived at her holiday home the previous Friday evening. This was confirmed by the presence outside the Toormore property of a 1996 Ford Fiesta bearing a sticker for the car-hire company, Avis. Gardaí were informed that Josephine Hellen acted as a caretaker for the property of her French friend. Contact was made with the Hellen family, and it was confirmed that the French woman had indeed arrived three days earlier for a pre-Christmas break and had been due to depart from Cork Airport that very day.

  Because of the gruesome nature of the discovery, it was agreed that Josephine’s husband, Finbarr, rather than his wife, would attend the scene. He knew Sophie by sight and would be able to identify her. Minutes after his arrival, he confirmed that the bloodstained body lying by the roadside was that of the French mother of one. Gardaí quickly realised that the international dimension of the case would make it particularly challenging.

  A forensics team from the Garda Technical Bureau in Dublin were dispatched to west Cork as soon as it was confirmed that the death was being treated as suspicious. But they wouldn’t arrive until late that Monday evening. Until then, uniformed gardaí were tasked with preserving the scene and any evidence that might be spotted.

  By lunchtime, word had spread across west Cork about the discovery of a body and a possible murder investigation being launched by gardaí. The Examiner’s west Cork correspondent, Eddie Cassidy, was the first journalist to be alerted to the grim news.

  I was working for The Examiner (later to become the Irish Examiner) that December. It would prove to be my last Christmas with the newspaper as I would leave the following year to take up the role of southern correspondent with the Irish Independent. The news from west Cork dominated the conversation in the newsroom that day. Newspapers, just like many other businesses, wind down for the Christmas period and The Examiner was no different. There would be reduced staff numbers on duty until early January and many older reporters timed holidays for the festive season. Everyone was horrified by the details emerging from west Cork. I remember there was sympathy for Eddie, as he would be spending his Christmas break reporting on this grim discovery.

  Unlike Eddie, I would be off for Christmas and, like other reporters, would take up elements of the story in early 1997. I remember hearing the news of the Toormore death in the newsroom that day from Pat Brosnan, one of The Examiner’s most experienced operators and an accomplished columnist. We sat just metres apart in the newsroom in the paper’s historic premises, now demolished, on Academy Street in Cork city centre. Pat briefly commented that Eddie had a major breaking story on his hands – little did we suspect that, almost a quarter of a century later, the events of that December day would still be making headlines.

  Cork had witnessed its share of murders over the years – I had reported on a number of them – but there seemed an early realisation that there was something truly shocking about what had happened outside Schull.

  Not long afterwards, other members of the Cork media would begin trying to determine precisely what was involved in the grim Toormore discovery and whether, as feared, the death might prove suspicious. Among those making calls about the discovery, as well as Eddie, were Tom McSweeney, southern correspondent for RTÉ; Dick Cross, southern correspondent for the Irish Independent, whose retirement would shortly trigger my move; Dick Hogan, southern correspondent for the Irish Times; and a Cork-based freelance news agency called Newsline, operated by Ann Cahill and Barry Roche. Within hours, members of the Dublin media would also be en route to west Cork. Years later, Mr Roche would succeed Mr Hogan as southern correspondent for the Irish Times and become the journalist to cover the du Plantier case for the longest continuous period, also breaking many of the major developments in the case.

  Eddie Cassidy immediately began to make calls to local ‘stringers’, or news contacts, to determine if anyone had heard anything about developments in Toormore. At around 1.40 p.m., he made contact with a Schull-based freelance journalist named Ian Bailey. The exact details of that conversation would prove to be of enormous importance over the years to come.

  The net result of the conversation was that Mr Bailey – accompanied by his partner, the Welsh artist Jules Thomas – decided to drive to the nearby scene to see what they could discover. The couple lived in a house called The Prairie, at Liscaha, roughly on the other side of the mountain. Ms Thomas brought a 35mm camera in case there was an opportunity to take photographs. These would be useful for any articles her partner might submit.

  Mr Bailey later said he arrived at Toormore around 2.20 p.m. He approached the scene and was met by two gardaí, who immediately asked him who he was and what he was doing there. When informed that Mr Bailey was a journalist, one garda asked the couple to step back from the scene and to contact the Garda Press Office with any specific queries they might have.

  The journalist said he left the scene but returned sometime between 3.30 p.m. and 4 p.m., by which time other members of the media, most from Cork city, had started to appear. Later, television crews would arrive to broadcast the first images of the scene to a national audience, who were horrified that something so appalling could happen just 48 hours before Christmas.

  In churches across west Cork, from Schull to Goleen, Masses in preparation for the Christmas ceremonies now included a prayer for the unidentified individual whose body had been found at Toormore. As the afternoon began to grow dark, rumours swirled around the community that gardaí were dealing with a brutal murder and that the dead woman was a French national who had been on a pre-Christmas holiday.

  By mid-afternoon gardaí had learned that the earliest Professor Harbison could attend the Toormore scene was Tuesday morning – Christmas Eve. An officer would have to be on duty throughout the night to secure the scene pending the arrival of the state pathologist. Only then could the remains be transferred to Cork for a post-mortem examination. This delay meant that the
body, now covered with a protective plastic sheet, would remain outdoors for a second night. The tragedy was not lost on those present – the body of a brutally murdered French mother would leave her holiday home for the last time on Christmas Eve, en route to Cork Regional Hospital amid the twinkling Christmas lights decorating homes across west Cork.

  Having confirmed the identity of the deceased, west Cork gardaí notified their Dublin superiors who, in turn, used diplomatic and police channels to pass the information to their French counterparts so that family members could be notified. That took time and, inevitably, the media, particularly the broadcast journalists, moved faster. Bulletins about the discovery of a body in west Cork were on national radio by midday.

  By late afternoon, word was filtering out that the deceased was a French woman, information that was immediately picked up by the news wire services and media in Paris. The first broadcast in France was aired in the early evening of 23 December and, although it did not include the name of the victim or where in France she was from, it did include the location where the body was found and the gender of the victim. As in Ireland, news cycles in France had begun to slow in anticipation of the festive break. But this only served to ensure that this news story, which might not have made news bulletins in other circumstances, attained significant prominence in France at this early stage.

  In Ireland, the murder featured in every bulletin on RTÉ as well as receiving blanket coverage in Irish newspapers from 24 December onwards. Because the Irish courts and the Dáil were now shut for Christmas, the Toormore killing remained the major daily news story over Christmas and into the new year.

  ***

  Sophie Toscan du Plantier’s extended family in Paris heard a news bulletin that Monday evening about a French national having been the victim of a suspected murder in west Cork – before they had been alerted through official police channels. The news of the discovery of the body in west Cork prompted alarm within the family. Many relatives knew that Sophie was in Ireland, but they thought she had been due to leave west Cork and return to France for the Christmas festivities. If Sophie had already left Ireland, surely it could not be her?