A Dream of Death Read online

  5

  MEDIA

  One of the great ironies of the du Plantier murder investigation is that Ian Bailey, an experienced and talented journalist, would later argue that some of the most anguished moments of his life were inflicted by the very industry in which he had worked for over 20 years.

  Mr Bailey’s first arrest by gardaí was on 10 February 1997. As he walked into Bandon Garda Station that lunchtime, a photographer waiting at the station, Mike Browne, managed to get a picture of him, flanked by two officers, before he vanished through the doorway. Within a couple of hours, Bandon Garda Station was surrounded by a large number of photographers, reporters and TV crews from the national media. The following day, 11 February, the Irish Sun splashed this development in the du Plantier investigation across its front page. Critically, it not only used the photograph taken at the station but also identified Mr Bailey by name.

  This was a significant decision. By tradition, newspapers – and particularly tabloid newspapers – usually only identify someone by name if they believe there is a likelihood of a court charge to follow. The Irish media is, as a rule, very wary of publicly identifying someone in an ongoing criminal investigation, for several reasons, the most powerful of which is the potential for them to be sued. There have been exceptions, but usually a person is only named if they have somehow already identified themselves or if the media has very good reason for doing so. The presumption of innocence is taken extremely seriously.

  In the case of Mr Bailey’s arrest and subsequent questioning at Bandon Garda Station, it was never apparent that any charge was likely. Hence, the decision to publicly identify Mr Bailey at such an early point was highly unusual. At the time, many of us wondered whether the decision was linked to the fact that he was a journalist who had been reporting on the murder investigation. While it was highly unusual to see a journalist who had been working on a criminal case suddenly get arrested for the crime, it hardly amounted to grounds for naming him – particularly at the time when social media didn’t exist and the Irish media were, by and large, far more conservative than they are today.

  I was amazed at the decision to identify Mr Bailey at such an early stage – and I wasn’t alone. The conversation in The Examiner newsroom at the time was whether the Irish Sun knew something about likely developments that no one else did.

  The stance of the Irish Sun sparked a lemming-like reaction from many other newspapers and radio stations. Once one newspaper had identified him, some others, but not all, felt compelled to do the same. Years later, Mr Bailey would describe what happened to him from 10 February as akin to being caught in a feeding frenzy. Despite there being no indication of any imminent court proceedings and his vehement protestations of innocence to gardaí, his name was now being publicly associated with the du Plantier investigation by the media.

  Part of the problem was that, having worked for some of the bestselling and most news-driven tabloids in the UK, Mr Bailey understood like few others the modus operandi of the so-called ‘red tops’. One of the oldest maxims in the industry was that a newspaper never refused ink. Now that he had been publicly identified, Mr Bailey could either fill the vacuum of newspaper and broadcast space with his protestations of innocence or stay silent, in the knowledge that stories about the du Plantier investigation would be written anyway. And the majority of those stories would now include his name, whether he liked it or not.

  Mr Bailey’s arrest had been significant for the media in many ways. First, he had not only written about the killing but had been to the fore in delivering some of the most high-profile and contentious storylines about the case, especially about Sophie’s private life in France. He had even submitted material to some of the very newspapers now considering whether to name him as the person who had been arrested by gardaí.

  Second, the English journalist cut a very striking figure – tall, raven-haired and handsome, he was nothing if not photogenic. There were now multiple images of Mr Bailey available for the newspapers to use if needed. For tabloid newspapers, a striking image added yet another layer to the story.

  Third, the fact that Mr Bailey is English added further to the international dimension of the case, particularly since most of the major tabloids were UK-owned. The murder of Sophie Toscan du Plantier was no longer just a Franco-Irish story. The arrest of an Englishman meant that the killing was suddenly attracting the attention of the UK press that, only a few weeks earlier, would have devoted just a few paragraphs to the story.

  The Irish journalists covering the case for UK-owned tabloids found themselves dealing not only with Dublin-based news editors eager for updates on the case but with London-based news editors determined to push the story as far as they legally could for their British editions.

  ***

  A person unversed in media operations might have gone straight to a solicitor for help and advice. They might be counselled that a stern legal cease-and-desist warning fired across the bows of the media might deter future coverage. There is nothing like a solicitor’s warning letter to concentrate minds and ensure that all aspects of an article are legally tested before publication.

  But Mr Bailey, having carefully considered his position, eventually decided on a different course of action, with seismic implications for both him and his life in west Cork. Rather than threaten the media with punitive legal action if they persisted in identifying him, he would instead trust them to publish his side of the story. He would attempt to counter what he saw as unfounded reports about himself with firm denials of any involvement.

  Mr Bailey almost certainly took into account that he was in the process of rebuilding his freelance career in west Cork. Threatening news editors with legal action was hardly likely to further his freelance prospects with the very same media outlets going forward. As he was to repeatedly insist, he was, after all, an innocent man and this would be borne out in time, when the real killer would be identified.

  Two days after his release by gardaí, Mr Bailey gave brief interviews to two journalists who had effectively camped outside his home in west Cork for the previous 48 hours – John Kierans of the Irish Mirror and Senan Molony of the Irish Daily Star. Both were talented and highly experienced operators, who had devoted hours to encouraging Mr Bailey to speak with them about the dramatic events of the previous week. Mr Kierans would go on to become editor-in-chief of the Irish Mirror, while Mr Molony would later become political editor of the Irish Daily Mail.

  The interviews were painstakingly negotiated via a series of notes exchanged at The Prairie. Both journalists also had the advantage of it being their rival, the Irish Sun, that had first named Mr Bailey – and they could now offer him a chance to respond and get across his side of the story in their pages.

  The two tabloids devoted their front-page splash to the brief interviews with Mr Bailey. Both stories were described as ‘exclusives’, although Mr Bailey would later take issue with this description. The articles revolved around his protestations of innocence and his vehement denials to gardaí of any involvement in the terrible crime. But, as time would tell, the greatest impact of the articles was not their overall content or Mr Bailey’s protestations of innocence but the fact that Mr Bailey was again mentioned by name in association with the du Plantier investigation. He was now being consistently associated with the du Plantier investigation in the minds of the Irish public.

  ***

  On 14 February, after four days of having large elements of the Irish and British broadcast and print media camped outside his Liscaha home, Mr Bailey again decided to break his silence on the matter. He agreed to an interview on RTÉ’s flagship Radio 1 current affairs programme, Today with Pat Kenny. RTÉ researchers had been in continual contact with him and, given that he was being quoted in tabloid newspapers, felt the radio-listening public should hear Mr Bailey’s side of the story too. In terms of impact, only The Late Late Show on RTÉ television had greater reach than Today with Pat Kenny, which boasted a daily listenership of arou
nd 300,000.

  With over two decades of experience in print and broadcast journalism, Mr Bailey obviously felt he could get his side of the story across – and emphasise what a horrific mistake the gardaí had made in arresting him days earlier. He was, he maintained, an innocent man who had cooperated fully with gardaí in their bid to identify the real killer. It was also clearly hoped that, by speaking on RTÉ, he might be able to draw a line under the publicity following the events of 10 February. As it transpired, it was a forlorn hope.

  Mr Bailey’s telephone interview on Radio 1 that February morning would still be discussed more than 20 years later.

  Throughout the Radio 1 piece, Mr Bailey protested his innocence and stressed that he had at all times denied any involvement in the matter to gardaí. He had also fully cooperated with detectives. Some elements of the interview did prove favourable to Mr Bailey. The RTÉ presenter raised the issue of why the journalist was publicly identified immediately after his arrest by one tabloid newspaper. Mr Kenny said it was not only ‘highly unusual’ but also ‘irregular’ – the norm in such cases would be for the arrested person’s identity to be withheld unless there was some indication of further action about to be taken by gardaí.

  However, Mr Kenny focused the interview on the reasons for Mr Bailey becoming a suspect in the first place – the scratches spotted on his arms by gardaí on 23 December 1996 at Toormore. The journalist ultimately said that it was probably reasonable for gardaí to view him as a suspect at the time.

  From that day on, many newspapers would refer to Mr Bailey as ‘the self-confessed suspect’ in the investigation. The interview generated a raft of articles in the Irish and UK media the next day, including extensive pieces in the broadsheet newspapers.

  The interviews also had the net effect of making Irish and UK publications less wary of identifying Mr Bailey than they might otherwise have been. While one tabloid had broken cover with its initial identification of him after the Bandon Garda Station questioning, it was only in the immediate aftermath of this interview that the remainder of the media appeared to become comfortable with regularly using Mr Bailey’s name. From now on, almost every article published about the status of the du Plantier investigation invariably included some reference to Mr Bailey.

  Some 18 years later, during his legal action for wrongful arrest, Mr Bailey acknowledged that a better course of action might have been to stay silent and not agree to the RTÉ interview. He conceded it was ‘unwise’ to go on radio four days after his release following the Bandon Garda Station questioning. He described Mr Kenny as a ‘clever interviewer’ who brought the conversation to areas that Mr Bailey had not anticipated or been prepared for. Mr Bailey had certainly not been ready for the query as to whether it was reasonable for gardaí to consider him a suspect in the matter.

  He explained his decision to give interviews by saying that he had been desperately trying to defend his good name and counter the tsunami of negative publicity swirling around him. He said that at that time, in early 1997, he felt he was ‘under siege’ by the media. He came to believe that his silence on the matter would achieve absolutely nothing: ‘[Rather I was] stating my innocence and just putting the record straight.’

  He forcefully rejected claims that he had actually enjoyed all the attention he was getting, particularly around west Cork, objecting to the claim that he was ‘thriving on the publicity’. He said he had never wanted to be ‘the centre of attention’. ‘I was working as a professional journalist at the time. I enjoyed that [career]. But I was not thriving.’ He pointed out that no element of what he endured after February 1997 could ever be described as enjoyable. ‘It was an absolute nightmare – a torture,’ he said.

  He said that at times he felt like he was dealing with ‘xenophobia’ as a consequence of the publicity that surrounded him. Mr Bailey explained that there was nothing enjoyable in having media outlets that once published his work now decline to do so. He also pointed out that he was not the one who had brought his identity into the public domain in the first place – that was done on 11 February, without either his knowledge or his consent.

  The net result of the interviews between 12 and 14 February was that, whenever an article was written about the du Plantier investigation, Mr Bailey’s name was invariably referenced in some fashion. The description of himself as a ‘self-confessed suspect’ was something that Mr Bailey was exasperated by and would complain about in the years to follow. In 2015, he was still annoyed at the phrase, pointing out – quite accurately – that he had never actually used the term ‘in the course of the entire RTÉ interview with Pat Kenny’. Yet that was the single consequence of the interview that impacted on future media coverage of the du Plantier investigation – not the vehement denials or protestations of innocence. As far as newspapers and radio stations were concerned, Mr Bailey had described himself as a suspect in the case.

  ***

  Mr Bailey was arrested by gardaí for a second time in January 1998 and there was little hesitation among Irish and UK newspapers in confirming the identity of the person detained.

  Unlike in 1997, Mr Bailey now decided to keep his own counsel, and there were no interviews when he was again released without charge. He did not speak to the media contingent gathered in Bandon that winter evening or in the days following his release. A statement issued by his solicitor asked for his privacy to be respected by the media.

  Over the next three years, Mr Bailey would eventually agree to a handful of fresh interviews, one of which was for a major Sunday newspaper special on the case. The interviews were given, as the journalist would explain in 2003, on the basis of assurances that the articles would try to depict matters from his point of view – as an innocent person wrongly associated with a terrible crime – and that they would be fair and favourable to him and his plight.

  Mr Bailey said he was horrified when the articles involved were finally published. One had the headline ‘Investigating with the Prime Suspect’. To his shock, another headline read ‘Sophie Man’s Shame’. The articles were instrumental in his decision to signal defamation actions in 2001 against eight Irish and British newspapers. The action – which would ultimately be heard in December 2003 – did little to keep Mr Bailey out of newspaper headlines or TV and radio bulletins.

  He grew increasingly aghast at how he was being depicted in the media. Some agreed with him. Veteran journalist Colman Doyle, who had worked on the original Sophie Toscan du Plantier murder story in December 1996, said he was shocked by some of the coverage that Mr Bailey attracted, despite the Englishman being polite and helpful to anyone he came across in his work. ‘I thought he was being demonised … [I found him to be] an excellent journalist and a nice person.’

  ***

  During this period, I had regular telephone contact with Mr Bailey. I had changed jobs in 1997, leaving The Examiner and joining the Irish Independent as southern correspondent. It meant that the ongoing du Plantier murder investigation would be one of the major cases I would be monitoring for my new employers. Twenty-three years later, it is still one of the major crime stories I write about on a regular basis.

  My job regularly entailed ringing Mr Bailey for any updates or comments he might have – usually in response to the latest breaking story about developments in the garda investigation or a visit to west Cork by Sophie’s family. In all the years of contacting Mr Bailey I found him to be nothing but polite and as helpful as the circumstances allowed. At the outset, Mr Bailey made it clear that everything he said was off the record and he would not be making any comment or giving any interview. But he was always unfailingly considerate and well-spoken. If I missed him at his Liscaha home and left a message, he would invariably return the call. There were times I felt sympathy for him because I believed he still held out hope of resurrecting his career as a journalist despite all that had happened. I remember one phone call in late 1998 during which he steadfastly declined to make any comment on the latest development in the case but
then asked me about opportunities for photojournalists at Independent Newspapers.

  Over time, Mr Bailey got to know the Cork-based reporters dealing with the du Plantier case. There were also times when I felt he was eager to hear the latest news about the case and would ask the same questions about the latest information that I had intended to table to him. Some calls would last a matter of seconds – other calls could last half an hour or more. Once, to my embarrassment, he even accepted a call and explained that he couldn’t talk because he was in the Four Courts in Dublin awaiting a hearing on a European Arrest Warrant.

  ***

  On 18 August 2001, Mr Bailey assaulted his partner, Ms Thomas, at their Liscaha home. He had damaged his leg by tearing his Achilles tendon, an exceptionally painful injury. His leg was in a cast and he was on painkillers for the discomfort. Because of the ongoing publicity surrounding him over the du Plantier investigation, he was undoubtedly also under emotional strain. Ms Thomas was sorting through the contents of her handbag that afternoon when a minor dispute broke out between the couple. She had inadvertently woken her partner from a nap he was having on the sofa and, despite the trivial nature of the row, he lashed out at her.

  Mr Bailey struck the Welsh artist with his crutch, inflicting injuries to her face and left eye. The assault continued and he struck her several more times with his crutch before she was able to leave the room. She ultimately received a black eye, an inflamed cheekbone and cuts to her lip. She also suffered bruising to her arms and legs. A short time later, the journalist left the property.

  The incident was sufficiently serious that local gardaí soon became aware of it. Mr Bailey was arrested on 22 August at Cork Airport. He explained to gardaí that he thought it best for him to return to the UK to allow Ms Thomas a bit of time and space so that things could calm down. Gardaí brought him back to west Cork. He appeared before a special sitting of Listowel District Court the following day, charged with assault against Ms Thomas contrary to the Non-Fatal Offences Against the Persons Act. Superintendent Frank O’Brien applied for a remand in custody, as he said that gardaí had concerns over whether Mr Bailey would answer the charge and that, when arrested, he had been in possession of a one-way ticket to the UK.